Success and Failure

The Daughter graduated 8th grade today. It's amazing how she's grown. And terrifying. Her progress is a great success.

She goes to a government school, and as far as government schools go I think it's pretty good. There was one obvious failure that even the people in charge don't seem to think is a problem - of all the awards for academic achievement, the winners were at least 2/3 girls. Of all the kids that got honors (90% or better average throughout the whole year, I think) out of the 25 or 30 winners I only counted 5 boys.

The two boys that stood out most each got a special honor: the first won an award for the "most improved" in the school's remedial education track; the second won an award for being the most withdrawn and distant student who also improved.

There were a few notable exceptions, two kids won an award for having an A average from first grade all the way through the end of eighth - one a boy and one a girl. And when it came to the best attendance record, boys and girls were split roughly equally.

There is likely a relationship between academic success at the middle school level and college admissions being heavily skewed towards females. Things are so bad in some colleges that some schools are now discriminating against women to favor men in admissions.

Perhaps this one-size-fits-all government educational system we've built doesn't really fit enough sizes. And perhaps one of the sizes the government is not worried about fitting is anything male.