Is MCPS systemically Biased against Boys?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve often looked at the gender breakdown of students with disabilities in our school. It’s about 3/4 boys. That number seems pretty lopsided given that disabilities typically affect both genders in equal numbers. The main difference is that girls often are not early identified because their behavior is often less disruptive than boys. One could argue that the lack of addressing the needs of girls with disabilities is discrimination due to disability and gender.

Definitely something MCPS should look into more and address. The numbers indicate a serious problem in schools.

As a woman who had undiagnosed adhd +, and a parent of 2 children with adhd +, it's not the schools job to find students with disabilities. The shocking disparity is the fault of the psychology industry, not the schools.

umm it's literally the LAW for schools to find students with disabilities!

How? What screening do they use they use? When is this screening performed? I don't know a single person who has had their child identified as learning disabled through the school yet I know many parents of learning disabled children.

DP. The fact that it's the law is very clear, that's the "Child Find" obligation under IDEA (https://sites.ed.gov/idea/regs/b/b/300.111). The screening varies based on the suspected disability, but generally for a learning disability you're looking at cognitive and achievement testing plus other measures like behavioral assessment if necessary. The screening should be conducted when it becomes apparent that the student might have a disability, although often it happens after a parent referral even if the school should have acted sooner.

I know lots of parents who's kids disabilities were identified by the school based on parent request and a few where the schools initiated testing without parental request.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve often looked at the gender breakdown of students with disabilities in our school. It’s about 3/4 boys. That number seems pretty lopsided given that disabilities typically affect both genders in equal numbers. The main difference is that girls often are not early identified because their behavior is often less disruptive than boys. One could argue that the lack of addressing the needs of girls with disabilities is discrimination due to disability and gender.

Definitely something MCPS should look into more and address. The numbers indicate a serious problem in schools.

As a woman who had undiagnosed adhd +, and a parent of 2 children with adhd +, it's not the schools job to find students with disabilities. The shocking disparity is the fault of the psychology industry, not the schools.

umm it's literally the LAW for schools to find students with disabilities!

How? What screening do they use they use? When is this screening performed? I don't know a single person who has had their child identified as learning disabled through the school yet I know many parents of learning disabled children.

DP. The fact that it's the law is very clear, that's the "Child Find" obligation under IDEA (https://sites.ed.gov/idea/regs/b/b/300.111). The screening varies based on the suspected disability, but generally for a learning disability you're looking at cognitive and achievement testing plus other measures like behavioral assessment if necessary. The screening should be conducted when it becomes apparent that the student might have a disability, although often it happens after a parent referral even if the school should have acted sooner.

I know lots of parents who's kids disabilities were identified by the school based on parent request and a few where the schools initiated testing without parental request.

That's not screening. ALL children in elementary school are screened for vision and hearing disabilities. Children are ONLY screened for learning disabilities based on "suspected" learning disability which means a teacher or parent has to first recognize the possible disability first.
So what training do teachers receive in recognizing learning disabilities? How does mcps determine if they are doing a good job of finding these students before their achievement is impacted?

[Anonymous]

I have two teenage boys in MCPS and this is such BS.

Teach your boys not to get into fights and stop blaming their getting into trouble on well behaved girls.

Society, parents, teachers hold girl to higher standards of behavior. They let boys get away with more. Then surprise surprise the boys aren’t as well behaved .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have two teenage boys in MCPS and this is such BS.

Teach your boys not to get into fights and stop blaming their getting into trouble on well behaved girls.

Society, parents, teachers hold girl to higher standards of behavior. They let boys get away with more. Then surprise surprise the boys aren’t as well behaved .

I also have two passive teen boys who have never gotten into fights. But the favoritism shown towards girls is undeniable. Very sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are your kids so aggressive? Work on that

And no. Studies show schools are more lenient on boys

“Studies show”? You can find a study to claim anything, but boys are suspended more, get lower grades, are more likely to drop out, less likely to go to college, more likely to go to prison…is that all just due to their natural inferiority?

[Anonymous]

This thread could use some real data. So much "studies say" and "I've heard", but I'm yet to see actual studies posted.

I also wish people would talk more about what programs that want to see introduced for boys. The ones aimed at girls are intended to address known disparities and lack of opportunities - hence emphasis on coding and STEM. For boys, the gaps are in the fields of social work, nursing, psychology, early childhood education. But is the argument that there is lack of opportunity in these fields for them? Even in women-dominated fields, the wage gap doesn't skew towards women, so I personally don't think so. Link -
https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/careers-finance/sns-stacker-majors-gender-disparities-20210803-3rhi7s4vgvdhln4tjngcokmh2a-photogallery.html
But I also don't see a downside to introducing programs that would enhance the interest of boys in these fields.

And why might there be disparities in college graduation rates? At least in part, lack of motivation. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/11/08/whats-behind-the-growing-gap-between-men-and-women-in-college-completion/
Sure, that calls for further examination, but not seeing why an intervention would be needed at the school level.

[Anonymous]

I have a boy and 2 girls that have gone through MCPS with one just graduating. The system 1000% is bias against boys. Both academically and socially. I have witnessed it over and over. But you know what, sometimes life isn’t fair. Move on.

[Anonymous]

Over the course of twenty years, I somehow missed all of the trainings on how to favor girls and repress boys. Moreover, every secondary school I’ve taught in and my own children have attended had no programming exclusively for girls, but at least one program exclusively for boys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was dumbfounded when I volunteered in my kids' MCPS classroom that teachers reward students who can sit still on the classroom rug as early as K. All the boys fidgeted, all the girls got the rewards. As they got older, there were various extracurricular enrichment geared toward girls - not just Girls on the Run but also arts programs where boys were not permitted to join. It blew my mind that public schools could discriminate against one gender. I asked the art teacher at our MCPS elementary school, who held afterschool art classes that were only open to girls, why - she said boys rarely signed up because they were too busy with sports.

I have 2 boys, one of whom loves sports and the other who is totally indifferent. An afterschool art class or casual running club would have been a godsend especially as they got ready for the social pressures around middle school. It should be illegal to offer preferential activities that discriminate by gender.

Like any other program in community, including religious and ethnic groups, Girls on the Run can rent use of MCPS facilities. Do you complain when Korean Sunday Schools are held in our middle schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep we've seen it too. Also in our Bethesda ES, there are no male teachers and no male adminstrators. The only males working in the building are the building services and janitorial staff.

I've seen little attempts by MCPS to address the massive gender imbalance in hiring.

It's not an MCPS imbalance in hiring. It's a gender imbalance in the number of education majors who are women vs. men. Teaching has always traditionally been seen as a woman's career (I bet teachers would be paid much better if it was a male-dominated field!). The way to address the gender imbalance in schools is to encourage more boys to go into teaching, which won't happen until we change societal expectations of men as providers and women as nurturers.

We heard the same thing in tech -- not enough "pipeline" of women so that's why STEM fields had a huge gender imbalance. So, we focused on ensuring gender balance at the college level, which is why the STEM fields at many universities are now evenly balanced in terms of students studying. The result is more women in STEM fields, since more women are being educated in those fields. We made STEM "cool" even at the grade school level, which is great.

But... no such efforts when the gender imbalance is the other way. Again, we're failing our boys.

The problem with your comparison with STEM is that girls/women have traditionally been seen as not being good enough for these professions, while teaching was seen as not good enough for boys/men - because it doesn't pay enough, it's "easy," etc. (in both cases, boys/men are seen as superior).

Excuses, excuses. We heard a million reasons why women couldn't enter field X and they proved them wrong. Why don't we apply the same to boys?

You realize that women still drop out of STEM careers at shockingly high rates? The problem of women in STEM is far from over. Do not be so smug. You have nothing to be smug about.

Some of us acknowledge brain differences between biological sexes, rather than blame some bogeyman for our preference toward the verbal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve often looked at the gender breakdown of students with disabilities in our school. It’s about 3/4 boys. That number seems pretty lopsided given that disabilities typically affect both genders in equal numbers. The main difference is that girls often are not early identified because their behavior is often less disruptive than boys. One could argue that the lack of addressing the needs of girls with disabilities is discrimination due to disability and gender.

Definitely something MCPS should look into more and address. The numbers indicate a serious problem in schools.

Why do you think this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve often looked at the gender breakdown of students with disabilities in our school. It’s about 3/4 boys. That number seems pretty lopsided given that disabilities typically affect both genders in equal numbers. The main difference is that girls often are not early identified because their behavior is often less disruptive than boys. One could argue that the lack of addressing the needs of girls with disabilities is discrimination due to disability and gender.

Definitely something MCPS should look into more and address. The numbers indicate a serious problem in schools.

As a woman who had undiagnosed adhd +, and a parent of 2 children with adhd +, it's not the schools job to find students with disabilities. The shocking disparity is the fault of the psychology industry, not the schools.

Federal laws include Section 504 and the IDEA puts the responsibility to identify students with disabilities and their needs on public schools that accept federal funding. There’s a wide discrepancy based on financial resources for parents to pay for private assessments.

As is, MCPS data shows boys are identified more than girls. That shows a probability of bias that impacts the child find process.

Schools are not allowed to diagnose learning problems or disabilities.

The words used above is identifying. They have staff to do the necessary assessments to identify students with disabilities and their needs. Identifying is written in the law.

How do schools track how well theybdonat *identifying * students with disabilities? Is there standard screening, like there is with hearing and vision? Why not?

MCPS has data that they internally review. I saw Phil Lynch review the data at a SEAC meeting before. When broken down by disabilities as compared to general population distribution, some disabilities were over identified in MCPS where others were underrepresented. One of the largest over identified was Autism. They have the ability to also analyze by gender.

This was probably presented by people without a scientific research background. There could be many reasons why ASD is seen at a higher rate in a certain location (like the average age of parents) beyond "over-identification."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep we've seen it too. Also in our Bethesda ES, there are no male teachers and no male adminstrators. The only males working in the building are the building services and janitorial staff.

I've seen little attempts by MCPS to address the massive gender imbalance in hiring.

It's not an MCPS imbalance in hiring. It's a gender imbalance in the number of education majors who are women vs. men. Teaching has always traditionally been seen as a woman's career (I bet teachers would be paid much better if it was a male-dominated field!). The way to address the gender imbalance in schools is to encourage more boys to go into teaching, which won't happen until we change societal expectations of men as providers and women as nurturers.

We heard the same thing in tech -- not enough "pipeline" of women so that's why STEM fields had a huge gender imbalance. So, we focused on ensuring gender balance at the college level, which is why the STEM fields at many universities are now evenly balanced in terms of students studying. The result is more women in STEM fields, since more women are being educated in those fields. We made STEM "cool" even at the grade school level, which is great.

But... no such efforts when the gender imbalance is the other way. Again, we're failing our boys.

The problem with your comparison with STEM is that girls/women have traditionally been seen as not being good enough for these professions, while teaching was seen as not good enough for boys/men - because it doesn't pay enough, it's "easy," etc. (in both cases, boys/men are seen as superior).

Excuses, excuses. We heard a million reasons why women couldn't enter field X and they proved them wrong. Why don't we apply the same to boys?

You realize that women still drop out of STEM careers at shockingly high rates? The problem of women in STEM is far from over. Do not be so smug. You have nothing to be smug about.

Some of us acknowledge brain differences between biological sexes, rather than blame some bogeyman for our preference toward the verbal.

And some of us acknowledge the spectrum of differences within a biological sex are greater than the difference between the biological sexes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yea, the entire U.S. education system is now biased against boys. Starting in the 1970s, we rightly started to focus on girls because up to that point, things were horribly tilted against them. However, what started as pro-girl policies quickly turned to anti-boy policies. Schools rewarded what girls do well (quiet listening, non-violent playing, etc.) but punished boys for “aggression”, “fidgeting”, etc. Boys have been left behind. If you need evidence look at the boy / girl split at any top university (usually something like 45 / 55). Without the baggage of feminism and “white male privilege”, we would be embarking on a national program to help our young boys *succeed as they are* not as some idealized pacifist class of post-gender people. But we won’t, because even mentioning that boys might be discriminated against will get you immediately canceled by the Brahmins.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep we've seen it too. Also in our Bethesda ES, there are no male teachers and no male adminstrators. The only males working in the building are the building services and janitorial staff.

I've seen little attempts by MCPS to address the massive gender imbalance in hiring.

It's not an MCPS imbalance in hiring. It's a gender imbalance in the number of education majors who are women vs. men. Teaching has always traditionally been seen as a woman's career (I bet teachers would be paid much better if it was a male-dominated field!). The way to address the gender imbalance in schools is to encourage more boys to go into teaching, which won't happen until we change societal expectations of men as providers and women as nurturers.

We heard the same thing in tech -- not enough "pipeline" of women so that's why STEM fields had a huge gender imbalance. So, we focused on ensuring gender balance at the college level, which is why the STEM fields at many universities are now evenly balanced in terms of students studying. The result is more women in STEM fields, since more women are being educated in those fields. We made STEM "cool" even at the grade school level, which is great.

But... no such efforts when the gender imbalance is the other way. Again, we're failing our boys.

The problem with your comparison with STEM is that girls/women have traditionally been seen as not being good enough for these professions, while teaching was seen as not good enough for boys/men - because it doesn't pay enough, it's "easy," etc. (in both cases, boys/men are seen as superior).

Excuses, excuses. We heard a million reasons why women couldn't enter field X and they proved them wrong. Why don't we apply the same to boys?

You realize that women still drop out of STEM careers at shockingly high rates? The problem of women in STEM is far from over. Do not be so smug. You have nothing to be smug about.

Some of us acknowledge brain differences between biological sexes, rather than blame some bogeyman for our preference toward the verbal.

And some of us acknowledge the spectrum of differences within a biological sex are greater than the difference between the biological sexes.

That is clearly false.

Signed,

Scientist