Sunday, September 18, 2011

Graduation Rates


I heard a story on NPR this weekend that reported the medium income for men adjusted for inflation is lower than it was in the 70's. The reasons offered for this decline is that manufacturing jobs are exported overseas leaving us a surplus of blue collar workers. Therefore factories do not have to raise wages to attract workers. The other reason given is that the medium wage earners have the same education that people did forty years ago, a high school degree. Women's median wages have been rising, and they are graduating college at much higher rates than men. I wonder about the reason behind the discrepancy between the education of men and women. Why are women graduating from college more than men? I think it has something to do with different ways that males and females learn. From my experience, it is easier to get female children to sit down and focus while male children are more likely to be rowdy and rambunctious. I think this tendency has a major ripple effect in our education system. Male children do not focus as well as female children in first grade, so they fall behind in reading, which leads them to fall behind in middle school, which leads them to fall behind in high school and leaves them unprepared for college. Maybe there is a more effective way to teach male children in grade school that could lead to higher college graduation rates.

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