THE ARTICLE REPRODUCED BELOW IS UTTER RUBBISH

The lack of boys on campus just means that boys are wising up faster than girls to the uselessness of many degrees. And none too soon. Ivar Berg demonstrated the uselessness of most tertiary education 30 years ago -- and educational standards have certainly not risen since then. Unsurprisingly, the article also fails to mention race differences. It notes the large male population in jails as if it were a problem for all males when in fact it is mainly a problem for black males. The article is basically a sanctimonious attempt to scare young males back into college by way of gross misrepresentations of what a lack of college education generally leads to. Read Berg's book (now out in a 2003 edition) for the real facts of the matter

"Currently, 135 women receive bachelor's degrees for every 100 men. That gender imbalance will widen in the coming years, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Education. This is ominous for every parent with a male child. The decline in college attendance means many will needlessly miss out on success in life. The loss of educated workers also means the country will be less able to compete economically. The social implications - women having a hard time finding equally educated mates - are already beginning to play out.

But the inequity has yet to provoke the kind of response that finally opened opportunities for women a generation ago. In fact, virtually no one is exploring the obvious questions: What has gone wrong? And what happens to all the boys who aren't in college? Some join the armed forces, but the size of the military has remained steady, at about 1.4 million, for the past decade. For the rest, the prospects appear dark:

The workforce. Thousands of young men find work as drywallers, painters and general laborers, but many have troubling landing jobs. The unemployment rate for young men ages 20-24 is 10.1%, twice the national rate. As for earnings, those who don't graduate from college are at a severe, lifelong financial disadvantage: Last year, men 25 and older with a college degree made an average of $47,000 a year, while those with a high school degree earned $30,000.

Prisons and jails. Nearly as many men are behind bars or on probation and parole (5 million) as are in college (7.3 million).

"Lost." Young people who aren't in school or the workforce are dubbed "non-engaged" by the annual Kids Count report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. But "lost" sounds just as accurate. About 3.8 million youth ages 18-24 belong to this group, roughly 15% of all people of that age. Though there are no gender breakdowns for this group, the pathways leading to this dead end - dropping out from high school, emerging from the juvenile justice system - are dominated by boys.

While demographers and economists have a pretty good idea where the boys end up, educators are largely clueless about the causes. Some say female teachers in elementary and middle schools, where male teachers are scarce, naturally enforce a girl-friendly environment that rewards students who can sit quietly - not a strong point for many boys, who earn poor grades and fall behind. Others argue that a smart-isn't-cool bias has seeped into boys of all racial and ethnic groups.

Solutions are just as uncertain. Hiring more male teachers would likely help, as would countering the anti-intellectual male code. But it's not that simple. Many boys leave middle school with pronounced shortcomings in verbal skills. Those lapses contribute to the low grade and high dropout rates. Surely, a problem that creates crime, increases unemployment and leads to hopelessness deserves attention. Where are the boys? Too often, going nowhere".

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SOCIALIST EDUCATION IDEAS NOT WORKING

Tony Blair's crusade to raise education standards was dealt a triple blow yesterday with figures showing soaring school truancy levels, a student drop-out rate of nearly 25 per cent and a surprise fall in state school entries to top universities. Truancy jumped by almost 10 per cent last year to its highest level, despite almost £1 billion in government spending since 1997 to tackle the problem. At the same time, figures from the Higher Education Funding Council indicated that more than 71,000 first-year students would fail to graduate, wasting around £500 million a year.

The proportion of candidates from state schools rejected by top universities also rose, as admissions tutors increased recruitment from fee-paying schools. The decline in state school entry to 16 of the 19 universities in the Russell Group reversed the trend in admissions for the first time since Gordon Brown, in 2000, attacked the “old school tie” at Oxford over its rejection of Laura Spence, a Tyneside comprehensive student with five A-grade A levels.

Universities are spending more than £300 million of government funding this year on “widening participation” initiatives to encourage applications from state schools. The setbacks for two of the Government’s key objectives raise troubling questions for ministers about the massive levels of public spending on programmes to cut truancy and attract more state school students into higher education.

David Cameron, the Shadow Education Secretary, said: “These figures are dreadful. The Government has spent nearly £1 billion on tackling truancy and it is getting worse.” Jacqui Smith, the School Standards Minister, announced a crackdown on the “stubborn minority” of 8,000 students at 146 schools who were responsible for a fifth of all truancy. Teachers will be required to identify the most persistent offenders and their parents will be threatened with jail if attendance does not improve. [Note the Leftist reliance on coercion. Coercion is about the only idea Leftists have]

Professor Michael Sterling, chairman of the Russell Group, said that there was no evidence of a “systematic approach to decrease state students” among admissions tutors. “It may be just one of those things. The best students happened to fall in a different area this time,” he said. Professor Sterling, the Vice-Chancellor of Birmingham University, suggested that a reluctance to admit extra students above the number for which the institutions received government funding may have contributed to the decline in state entrants.The rise in entrants from private schools was evidence that universities were choosing the most able, regardless of government pressure. “We must not deviate from taking the best. It would be indefensible to take students who were not as good simply to make that ratio ever increasing,” he said

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BIG INCREASE IN BRITISH SCHOOL TRUANCY

Most of the truants are probably only marginably educable anyway so truancy probably makes little difference to anything. For many truants, staying away is probably a rational decision. They can make more money by drug-dealing etc. that way

The number of children playing truant has risen by more than a third to 1.4 million since Labour took office, according to official figures published yesterday. The Department for Education and Skills revealed that more than 55,000 pupils skipped class every day in the past school year; a rise of 4,500 since 2003-04 and the biggest jump since the figures were first recorded in 1994.

In spite of the Government spending 1 billion pounds on initiatives tackling absenteeism since 1997, the annual number of pupils playing truant from school has soared by 43 per cent. Jacqui Smith, the Schools Minister, said that school attendance was higher than ever, with fewer children going sick or taking term-time holidays, but said that she was disappointed that a "stubborn minority" of teenagers were skipping school. "Schools are treating absenteeism more rigorously, challenging questionable reasons for absence and cracking down on unnecessary time out of school," she said.

But she added: "It is disappointing that a stubborn minority of pupils, estimated at 8,000 in just 4 per cent of secondary schools, remain determined to jeopardise their education and their futures." Officials at the Department for Education and Skills claim that these serial truants, who miss up to five weeks of class at a time, account for a fifth of all truancy figures. Ms Smith declared that 146 schools would now be forced to identify their most persistent truants and place the parents on a "fast track to attendance" scheme.

The parents would be assigned a truancy officer and receive support from social and youth services to help to tackle issues such as drugs, parenting skills or mental health problems. If there were no serious improvements within three months, the parents would face a court appearance, which normally results in a 2,500 pound fine or three months in prison. Since September last year, more than 18,000 parents have been placed on such schemes. The Government's new target comes after an initiative with the travel industry to allow parents discounts for making early holiday bookings, to cut term-time holidays.

Of the 1,381,458 truants, almost two thirds, or 793,628, are teenagers. As in previous years, the highest number of truants are in the North East and West, Yorkshire and Humberside, followed by London. While the percentage of truants from private schools was just 0.13 per cent, in city academies [charter schools] the average pupil absence was estimated to be 2.84 per cent, more than double that of state secondary schools, at 1.25 per cent. At the City Academy Bristol, Ray Priest, the principal, has presided over an 11 percentage point drop in truants from 15 to 4 per cent in two years.

He credits a liberal interpretation of the curriculum, a positive school atmosphere and an "attendance team" of three, which works with both the families and his 1,300 pupils. "They are the real key," he said, "because people need to be in the school and building relations with families and children

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

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