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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=SAM2]Note that many do not consider Ms. Sommers an honest broker on these issues.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Hoff_Sommers[/quote]

I can understand why certain women would despise her, but the mother of boys should put the best interests of her sons above politics.   [/quote]

Different poster here -- SAM2 phrased it well.  Sommers has cashed in on fairly alarmist rhetoric ("the war against boys").  That sort of rhetoric has hurt her credibility on the issue, although I thought the Atlantic argument was fairly restrained and she did a good job of focusing on more verifiable trends (such as falling college and grad school attendance by men).  I did not read the Atlantic article as specifically pushing all-boys' education, by the way -- that was the original poster's take.  Sommers did highlight some successful vocational/technical programs, for example, and (in an echo of her more polemical writings) argue against them being shunted to the side in a fear that they favor boys over girls.  She also argued for a style of education that recognizes that boys may need/crave more activity and competition in the classroom than the old 19th century "line up your desks in a row and be quiet and take notes model."

With that said, I've seen the style of teaching at all-boys schools like St. Albans and Landon and Prep and Roxbury Latin (Boston), and co-ed independents like Maret, Sidwell, and GDS.  Guess what?  They look pretty similar by Upper School.  Discussion-based classes, debates, lab-based sciences that are hands on, clubs (like robotics) that play to the tinkerer in the boy (or girl).  Independent school education (at the high school level, which is my focus and area in which I'm more knowledgeable) does not oppress boys.  So . . . nothing earthshaking here . . . it comes down to fit.  Some parents like the "feel" of a school full of brothers for their sons, others want them to have an atmosphere more like what they'll experience at college and in the workplace.

When it comes to all-girls education, I do think there is a difference.  For social reasons, girls often defer to the boys by high school, and academically and socially girls will take the lead more (on average) in all-girls situations.  (The research seems to support that the best age for all-girls is high school, for all-boys is middle school when they are wigglier!)  But, there are social costs to that as well, and perhaps also educational (girls putting more pressure on themselves than they might in a co-ed setting).

Lots of different options and ways to look at this.  And to wrap up where I started, questioning whether one particular expert, in this case Ms. Sommers, has the right prescription or perhaps has biases that shape her judgment does not make someone a mother who puts her own politics or interests ahead of her children's welfare.[/quote]

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