Here’s an op-ed by Richard Whitmire in the Dallas Morning News. The piece opens by citing the standard numbers on gender gaps in college — nearly 58 percent of bachelor’s degrees go to women and 62 percent of associate’s degrees go to women. But note, too, these strange and striking numbers that come later in the piece in response to the dismay of college admissions officers over the disparity in admissions:
“One possibility is that admissions officers are looking in all the wrong places. The boys are findable; it’s just that they don’t necessarily attend 11th- and 12th-grade college nights in the gym.
“My suggestion: Skip back a few grades to ninth grade, where you’ll find schools awash with boys. Ninth grade is the “bulge” year, in which nationally there were 113 boys for every 100 girls in 2007, according to the Southern Regional Education Board, which tracks such statistics. Depending on race, ethnicity and location, the ninth-grade bulge for boys gets even bigger: Among black Americans, there are 123 boys for every 100 girls; among Hispanics, 122. Geographically the bulge is larger in the 16 states covered by the board, with Florida registering 117 boys for every 100 girls.
“As an example, let’s take Baltimore’s Patterson High School, located in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. If you showed up to recruit the Class of 2009 on graduation day, you would have found 164 female and 107 male students. A quirk of birthrates? Not exactly. Had you checked on the ninth-grade class there in September 2008, you would have found 278 girls and 400 boys.”
Whitmire follows with a lengthy analysis well worth reading. As a complement to it, take a look at this report from the Center on Education Policy that just came out. It reviews state test data on reading and math for boys and girls at three grade levels. “In math,” it concludes, “there was no consistent gender gap in 2008.” Nationally, boys and girls reached proficiency levels at the same rate, and no state showed a gap of more than ten points.
In reading, though, “girls outperformed boys in 2008 at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.” In some states, on the “proficiency” scale, the gap exceeded 10 points.
In light of employers and higher-ed folks claiming that reading skills are essential to achievement across a wide range of jobs and disciplines, the connection between reading gaps and general achievement gaps between men and women is clear. The researchers at CEP have a recommendation at the end, however, that I think will have limited impact if followed. They say that “Researchers and state officials might investigate ways in which the school environment may be changed to better address the needs of boys.”
Yes, schools have to respond to the reading gap, but other studies such as the NAEP Trends reports indicate that reading scores are closely correlated to leisure out-of-school reading, perhaps more than they are to homework reading. That is, reading skills are built more through general reading habits at home and on vacation than through in-class instruction. And schools can do only so much to affect those hours.
36 Responses to One Strange Boy Stat
suomynona - March 18, 2010 at 9:50 am
A theory, as I understand it: men and women occupy different parts of the bell curve disproportionately when it comes to academic achievement, in large part for evolutionary purposes. To put it crudely, there tend to be more male ‘super-geniuses’ than female ‘super-geniuses,’ and more males who are, to euphemize, particularly intellectually un-gifted than females who are particularly intellectually un-gifted. There are likewise more average-to-particularly good women (in the middle sections of the bell curve) than average-to-particularly good men. Men disproportionately occupy the extremes of the bell curve because we have or have had an evolutionary incentive to take greater (and stupider) risks to compete for reproduction.If there’s anything to this theory (I’m skeptical, but I’m trying it on), it could explain some of these statistics. Education to a certain point (high school) is compulsory, so gender gaps and ‘bulges’ must be at least in part factors of attendance, local demographics, etc. Once students enter a stage in which education is no longer compulsory, but competitive for entry, it makes sense that women, who represent a bulge in the middle sections of the bell curve, are outcompeting men and filling more seats in colleges. Perhaps it’s not that colleges aren’t ‘finding’ male students in high school, but that female students always were slightly more fit to compete for college spots, given the opportunity to compete on an even playing field?
charliemarlow - March 18, 2010 at 10:36 am
If we accept the evolutionist reading of the situation, then, we can just wait a bit and males will either evolve or become extinct. In either case, things will get better. At least I think that’s the way it works.
charliemarlow - March 18, 2010 at 10:41 am
But taking ot more seriously, what happens in middle school/ junior high? Many students, successful in elementary school, seem to fall off the cliff then. I am not a researcher in this area, but I have seen enough school records to accept that as true. Is there too much acceptance that it’s all about raging hormones? Isn’t that simplistic? But what is going on?
goxewu - March 18, 2010 at 11:45 am
Nobody worried about the dearth of women in higher education for, oh, a couple of centuries. Why the sudden concern about men when they merely dip below a mjaority? The first industrial revolution started it and the second (digital) seals the deal: Physiological strength doesn’t count for much anymore. There goes the inherent male advantage, out the window. And women, who’ve been living by their wits all along, have–once the political and legal restrictions on them have been removed–adapted to a society based on brain power rather than muscle power faster than men.
markbauerlein - March 18, 2010 at 1:43 pm
I suggest questions as to why the growing gender gap is a worry be addressed to college admissions and academic counseling personnel, who are, indeed, puzzled and concerned. We’ve had discussion about reasons to worry often enough in previous posts.Good question about middle school, charliemarlow. If you read some people on the subject, one thing they’ll say is that in middle school is where a few things happen to slow academic achievement. For one thing, more reading assignments are non-narrative (because of the increase in science and social studies material) which kids with poor reading habits have a harder time with than with narrative. Another issue is that in middle school is when peer pressure, cliquishness, and other tribalisms rise precipitously, distracting kids from their studies.
marktropolis - March 18, 2010 at 3:00 pm
#5 hang on a sec there Mark: you put up a post discussing the verities of the gender gap, someone says, “so what’s the big deal” and your response is “I’m not going to answer that question.Sorry professor, you don’t get to raise on issue and then punt on the follow-up questions. You clearly had a point to make in posting in the first place. goxewu seems to be simply saying, “what gives?” And I’d agree with him. I read this post earlier today and sat here for a minute wondering what point you were trying to make. Now, I guess you’ve made the point: That it’s not Mark Bauerlein’s problem.As for the middle school issue, educators have been struggling with those years for, well, years. It’s hormones, but probably more importantly, it’s developmental (brain and emotional). And standardized (for lack of a better word) hasn’t figured out how to teach that set of kids. Although there have been some successful initiatives in recent years, the notion of having middle grades schools was an attempt that so far hasn’t panned out. But the attending bureaucracy that goes along with setting up middle schools is hard to switch back. All that said, whatever the reasons, the research is pretty clear that the middle grades are a big problem. As for goxewu’s point: we’re worried about men now because they dipped below the magic 50% number. As long as it’s women that are below 50% that’s OK. Same rule applies to issues of race. Which means things are going to get interesting in about 18 years. The Census estimates that this year babies of color will outnumber white babies. And they’ll all be voting in 18 years. So I estimate in about 20 years (or sooner) we will be hearing about affirmative action programs for white men. Since we have to get that balance right…
goxewu - March 18, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Thank you, marktropolis. And now, moving on…to middle school.Never taught in it. Eons since I was a student in one. Watched my children go through it. Went to open houses, parents’ nights. Have known a few people who taught middle school. That’s about it. Based on this vast store of knowledge:It seems to me that one of the big problems of middle school is physical development. Kids aged 11 to 14 vary wildly. Some of the boys are over 6 feet, shave, and are well past puberty. Others look like they’re barely out of kindergarten: short, squeaky-voiced and well short of puberty. The girls range from Pam Anderson lookalikes to minature stick figures. Hormones are raging through some middle-schoolers, and quiescent in others. The former middle school teachers I know say that it’s almost impossible to get such a diverse population to pay any attention at all in class, let alone read the same book and discuss it coherently.Things are a easier on teachers in grade school, when the kids are more physically alike, an even a little easier in high school where the students have at least crossed the puberty barrier. Intellectual self-selection aside, college is easier still because the student population is relatively developmentally homogenous. I’ve always thought there was a place on the K through college path for single-sex education. It seems to be all but done for in college (OK, there seems to be a bedrock niche market for it, at least for women), and it seems slightly weird with little kids. But perhaps at the middle-school juncture, it might not be a bad idea to separate the sexes (just for the school day, mind you) for three years before bringing them back together as high-school freshman. Yes, there’d be problems with that. But there are problems with the way things stand now. Is the devil that we do know really better than the one we don’t?
markbauerlein - March 18, 2010 at 5:33 pm
C’mon, marktropolis, I’ve raised the “boy problem” several times in the past couple of years, and I’ve given specific reasons why administrators are worried (the “operational sex ratio,” diversity goals) and why I’m worried (the slipping achievement of boys in relation to girls is an indication of leisure habits formed in earlier years).If we saw the inverse happening, that is, girls slipping down to under 40% of the undergrad population, I would address posts to it equally so. Don’t assume that I believe, “As long as it’s women that are below 50% that’s OK.” I came to the problem five years ago when doing population research and found enormous disparities in the leisure reading habits of young men and young women.Also, affirmative action is being practiced for males, and I don’t support it.
mbelvadi - March 19, 2010 at 7:08 am
I find it fascinating that people are so quickly reaching for biological explanations when the data presented to us is for just one country, one with a very complex set of social forces and pressures at the range of ages at issue (most commenters seem to agree that’s middle school).What’s happening in other countries who have removed the formal gender-based barriers?Presumably their boys experience the same hormonal development as US boys.I have a suggestion for another possible factor – middle school is also the age range at which marketers start seriously targeting their ads full of social imagery as to what you should be most concerned about (and somehow school work is never in there). Combine this enormous pressure with the hormones, and you might create the kinds of problems that are showing up in the ed stats. Other countries have more restrictive rules about advertising aimed at children.Can someone address the international comparison issue?
22078549 - March 19, 2010 at 8:25 am
Obviously percentages and ratios involve two variables. I would contend that the current ratio is the result of some very hard work by a lot of people to make academic achievement by significant number of females a reality. At some point, the education enterprise might profit by seeing what things can be done to bring about the same kind of academic progress amongst males.I’m not necessarily calling for “declare victory and go home” concerning maximizing the potential of many female students (there are many areas where female students often remain a scarcity) but we should not ignore what the situation tells us.
ichrysso - March 19, 2010 at 8:57 am
Re #4:You wrote “Nobody worried about the dearth of women in higher education for, oh, a couple of centuries. Why the sudden concern about men when they merely dip below a mjaority?”My reply is that the current thinking is one to promote EQUAL opportunity among sexes (and races and religions), NOT to replace one dominating sex with another.
goxewu - March 19, 2010 at 9:34 am
Re #4:ichrysso confuses opportunity with results. The increasing majority of women undergraduates has little or nothing to do with unequal opportunity for men. Male applicants for college admission suffer no quotas, no more-stringent requirements, or prejudice. (If anything, there’s residual prejudice in favor of men, hence this alacrity about a non 50/50 situation that never presented itself when women were the minority.) Males still have a better-than-equal opportunity to get into college than females do: equal access + a few affirmative action efforts, the ones with which Prof. Bauerlein disagrees. What college-potential males are doing on the way to being 18, they are largely doing to themselves. Girls tend to tend to schoolwork better than boys. Simply put, girls/women were KEPT OUT of higher education by males, while today boys/men are KEEPING THEMSELVES out of higher education.Sex imbalance in college undergraduates may constitute an eventual social problem, but it won’t be the result of unequal opportunity for men. It’ll be the result, essentially, of “boys being boys.” While secondary-school educators’ intervention with special programs for boys may be necessary to nudge the college undergraduate population back toward 50/50, that doesn’t constitute a redress of unequal opportunity.
educationfrontlines - March 19, 2010 at 10:14 am
When I lecture in China’s universities, except for the specialized agricultural or mechanical schools, I am looking out at a sea of women students. The disparity related to the dropout of boys is worldwide (except in Japan and Turkey), and the gap is widening. The gap appeared over the last decade, corresponding to the rise of video-games and allowing for an earlier decade for the effect to accumulate. This international problem spanning other cultures and educational systems points to a factor far more pervasive than slight changes in the U.S. classroom and school system.Last year, Douglas Gentile released a study showing video-game addiction with related academic problems was 3% among girls and over 12% among boys age 8-18 in U.S. That was at the level of 6 out of 11 symptoms; the rates would be even higher if we included under six symptoms. It showed clear correlation, not causation. Now, in the last issue of Psychological Science, Robert Weis and Brittany Cerankosky of Denison University used a different strategy to detect causation, breaking boys into equivalent groups and giving half videogames and tracking their academics. They found that video-game ownership impaired academic achievement for boys “…in a manner that has real-world significance.”For some reason, we are reluctant to direct blame to computer use and more specifically video-game use. (Put kids on electronics for nearly 9 hours a day [Generation M3 report] and then blame the vending machine in the school hall for their obesity!) Next time you pass a video-arcade, step in and count the boys. Except for Dance Revolution, it will be nearly all boys. If they spend all their time there, they will not be succeeding in school. John Richard Schrock
csoehl - March 19, 2010 at 10:32 am
Few adults want to engage with boys from the age of 12-18. Try looking in your own community for any programs or activities targeting this age group. They are few and far between. The fewer opportunities young men have to interact positively with adults, the less likely it is that they will accomplish important developmental goals during this time. We know that many disadvantaged males lack positive role models, but few communities are willing to spend the money or time to engage with them to counteract the impact of this deficit. Everyone talks about how much these children need mentoring, but the reality is that when they enter adolescence they are left to their own devices and the tutelage of their peers. Is it any wonder they don’t make it through high school, much less into college?
crunchycon - March 19, 2010 at 11:15 am
goxewu – I don’t know about the junior high and high schools where you are but around here, there are programs and programs and programs to help girls in academics – pushing them toward the sciences, especially, but no counterparts of these programs for boys. There IS an inequality in the preparation of girls and boys for going beyond high school in education.
tgroleau - March 19, 2010 at 12:03 pm
goxewu – Yes, for centuries women were forcibly kept out of higher education but it’s been many years since that was the case. Because of my age, I have no direct experience with higher ed in the 60′s but from the late 70′s through today, I’ve seen few higher ed barriers for women. The few that I’ve seen were largely from foreign faculty in some math/science fields and even those were exceptions within their departments. This no doubt unfairly prevented some women from pursuing specific specialties in math but I never saw it prevent women from studying other specialties at the undergraduate or graduate levels.Today’s under-enrollment of males might be “boys being boys” but would you also label under-enrollment of African-American students “blacks being blacks”? If you aren’t personally concerned about male enrollments there’s nothing wrong with that – we can’t all be champions of every “cause”. However, don’t criticize those who are concerned about it. Just because it’s not your issue doesn’t mean that it’s not an issue.
tgroleau - March 19, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Note – I should have been clearer in my second paragraph. By “other specialties” I mean “other specialties within math” rather than non-math areas. The sentence could be read either way so I thought clarification was needed.
chemteach - March 19, 2010 at 12:21 pm
crunchycon-as a female physical scientist in higher ed who benefitted from those women-in-science programs you mentioned and as a chemistry instructor I understand what you are saying. The problem is that in the physical sciences and in engineering, there is still a need to attract women. Men still dominate these disciplines. Women often do not stay in the physical sciences once they receive their diplomas for reasons which have not been successfully addressed yet. As an instructor, I just want to attract students to science; I don’t care if they are male or female, white, brown, or black. We need all students to be educated.The other comments which mentioned reading as an issue are onto what I believe is the key. My male students who are good at math often loath reading the simplest material even laboratory instructions. I have a student in my introductory chemistry class taking calculus, but he refuses to read assigned materials and cannot write coherent sentences. He wants to be an engineer, but does not seem to understand that all professions require reading and writing skills. Based on his work to date, he will not be an engineer unless he becomes serious about reading and writing.
marka - March 19, 2010 at 12:51 pm
‘The disparity related to the dropout of boys is worldwide (except in Japan and Turkey), and the gap is widening.’ So what are the differences for Japan & Turkey?! I too would like more comparative info — the commentary suggests there is a current pattern here & elsewhere, but not everywhere, and lots of potential explanations — but I’m not convinced it is any one of those. Perhaps a combination, but unless we have better comparative data, not much can be said with any objective confidence. Despite Title X, we still have many more boys drawn to pro sports with the image of multi-millionaire stars dangled before us. Despite Equal Opportunity, we still have many more men losing their jobs in this Recession than women, and we have many more black men permanently out of the workforce than black women, for example. More is going on than biology, hormones, sports, and ability — I’d guess at least a combination of these, and other cultural factors. Again, what about Japan, Turkey, and other cultures/countries?
drblankenship - March 19, 2010 at 1:17 pm
A few days ago AOL.COM ran a science article that stated: there was a chemical that was secreted in the pubescent male which made learning difficult. There was a hope of a chemical fix. No kidding!
goxewu - March 19, 2010 at 1:51 pm
Re #15:The programs crunchycon mentions have to do with getting females into certain academic disciplines, not into academe per se. There’s a difference.Re #16: African-Americans have been out from under slavery for less than 150 years, and out from under Jim Crow for about fifty years. The under-enrollment of African-Americans in college probably has largely to do with the legacy of those circumstances. American males, taken as a whole, have suffered no such discrimination. Women have had the right to vote for only 90 years and the right to contraception–which is to say the right not to have their lives be subject to the roulette of getting pregnant–for only fifty years. American males, taken as a whole, have suffered no such obstacles.Re #18:chemteach’s example is anecdotal, but telling: Nobody is depriving that male chemistry/calculus student of reading and writing skills; he’s refusing to acquire them. And, way back up there, re #9:Why should it be so “fascinating that people are so quickly reaching for biological explanations”? What we have in this country is–perhaps greater than anywhere else–a society in which males and females are free to choose what they want to do. Females are increasingly choosing to be good in school and males are increasingly choosing not to be good in school. The argument societal phenomena–including advertising, video games, and sports–are mostly to blame for the currently increasing disparity in the number of men and women undergraduates founders on the shoals of the question, “Well, doesn’t that just mean that these things effect males and females differently on account of their biology?” We’re talking, after all, a major biological difference here, which is much greater than racial difference. All things being equal, men of all races can do practically anything as well as one another. But men can’t give birth to babies or nurse them; women can’t impregnate women. No program can overcome that.Finally, I don’t think the disparity is not a problem. It is, and it’s more threatening than just an affirmative action issue. If we have a society with a surplus of blue-collar young men in an age when blue-collar jobs are done either by robots or in Malaysia, leaving them with severely diminished prospects, we will have social disorder of the first rank.
markbauerlein - March 19, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Many good comments here, and just to add to the discussion: Some people point to the “role model” argument, specifically, that with the teacher ranks in elementary and middle school populated so much by women, boys have a hard time identifying themselves as academically-inclined. For the most part, I don’t accept that argument, but people forwarding it in other contexts need to consider it in this context as well.And on the legacy point about African American males not enrolling in college: to attribute it to slavery and Jim Crow is to ignore specific familial conditions that, in fact, have grown much worse for African Americans since 1965.
thenomad - March 19, 2010 at 3:27 pm
I think a lot of this discussion may be missing a crucial piece of the mystery. I believe the stats are similar in the US as they are for the case here in Canada where we also have an overrepresentation of females as compared to males in higher education. What concerns me more than that unequal balance is the fact that despite the number of women in higher education and achieving advanced degrees, their incomes are still lower than men with the same qualifications. Some stats were recently released in Canada showing this to be the case. So rather than just trying to explain the gender gap in higher education, I think we should also be concerned about the consequent income gap upon graduation.
goxewu - March 19, 2010 at 3:28 pm
I’m sorry, I forgot. The effects of slavery and Jim Crow had disappeared, and the playing field was completely level for African-Americans, by 1965.
ddonner641 - March 19, 2010 at 4:14 pm
goxewu – surely that pot must be done dripping by now.
22097984 - March 19, 2010 at 4:25 pm
The numbers cited in this article are either wrong or odd examples. At birth, males out number females about 102-100. Due to higher mortality, this corrects in early adulthood. Finding specific schools with high numbers of males, does not fix the problem of too few males working towards graduation.
goxewu - March 19, 2010 at 5:10 pm
I don’t get #25. Am I a pot supposedly calling kettles black? As there a metaphor about an argument being a dripping pot that I should know? Is that comment about slavery and Jim Crow too much? Is #24 dripping with sarcasm?Please advise. Thanks.
ddonner641 - March 19, 2010 at 6:14 pm
Re 27:It is a reference to a comment made in one of your previous posts from another day, relative to another matter.
minnesotan - March 19, 2010 at 7:26 pm
“The increasing majority of women undergraduates has little or nothing to do with unequal opportunity for men.”This depends entirely on what you mean by opportunity. If hurdles are higher and more plentiful for one gender, it makes sense that fewer will finish the race. Maybe men have evolved different bhavior traits than women, ones that do not serve them well in school. Maybe we have become so focused on social programs to help young women that we’ve begun neglecting our young men. By saying it’s not about opportunity, you presume to dictate what the causes are and are not. Do share your research results, if you’re so knowledgable, Goxewu. Otherwise, stop dismissing legitimate concerns out of hand because your stubborn political worldview can’t make room for men to have equal opportunities, too.
tech2doc - March 20, 2010 at 8:35 am
I’d suggest that the age-old behavior of men leaving school to provide for the family before women is still in place. Additionally, lower wage jobs which require manual labor are more easily gained by a teenage boy than a teenage girl.Seems pretty straight forward to me.Perhaps there is little for them to gain in the last few years of school if a higher education is not in their future?Is the GED to JuCo to 4-year tract quicker, cheaper & easier when you’ve had 4+ teen years to be a wage earner?Perhaps they can’t afford to be sitting idle in high school when they need to start earning an income to afford college?
goxewu - March 20, 2010 at 10:51 am
Re #29:minnesotan says, “This depends entirely on what you mean by opportunity.” Exactly.Women’s opportunities to get into American colleges and universities were historically limited by laws, quotas, pre Griswold v. Connecticut access to contraception, and a pervading prejudice about women in college (“just there to get their MRS degrees,” etc.)Men’s current declining percentage of the undergraduate population isn’t due to a lack of opportunities. It’s due to an increasing male disinclination to do well in school, starting with middle school. This is not something that’s imposed from the outside. Yes, there are societal factors involved (advertising, the availability of video games, being good in school being “sissy,” etc.), but these are also largely, if not almost exclusively, male-generated. As minnesotan himself puts it, “Maybe men have evolved different behavior traits than women, ones that do not serve them well in school.” In short, men are shooting themsselves in the foot.As far as I know there aren’t substantially more programs aimed at getting more women into college per se, than there are for men. The women’s programs you hear about are aimed at getting women into science and engineering, i.e., steering those qualified away from humanities and education majors and into science and engineering majors. We probably do need programs to get more boys back on the academic track, but those programs are programs to counter self-destructive behaviors (the ones minnesotan says men have evolved), along the lines of programs to combat alcoholism, gambling, etc. In short, those programs for men are not, and shouldn’t be seen as, a kind of civil rights movement against “discriminitation” against men.tech2doc, in #30, has it, I think pretty much right. Except that there aren’t many jobs left anymore for guys with only a high-school education. The U.S. manufacturing base is disappearing fast (in retrospect, Ross Perot’s “giant sucking sound” of NAFTA doesn’t seem so mistaken) and our new service economy (everyone a lawyer, manager or consultant!) is not kind to those without postsecondary education. Girls, blessedly less burdened than boys with pointless playground machismo, seem to be adapting, as women, better to this state of affairs than men. I’m not a sociologist and I don’t have “research” (i.e., stats) for my points of view. My opinions are based on experience, imagination and reason.
markbauerlein - March 20, 2010 at 7:57 pm
The sarcasm of commment 24 misses the point of how families have changed in African American households in one respect. In 1965, about 25 percent of black children had no father around. Today, it’s close to 70 percent.
rambo - March 20, 2010 at 10:14 pm
women make up more than half of each law, medical, education, business (MBA) schools now but men make up more in engineering schools. and in “College Gender Gap Appears to be Stabilizing with One Notable Exception, American Council on Education Analysis Finds” African Americans still have the largest gender gap in enrollment; 63 percent of all African American undergraduates are women. that is bad news for the black marriage rates…
goxewu - March 21, 2010 at 8:41 am
Re #32:And has the percentage of white and Latino children having “no father around” also increaded since 1965? (Answer: Yes, but not as much.)So, is it not the case that, while most of American society has experienced an increase since 1965 in the percentage of children with “no father around,” some racial groups are affected by the trend more than others? (Answer: Yes, particularly blacks.)And this conspicuously high percentage of black children with “no father around” is due to: a) the residual effects of slavery, Jim Crow and ongoing pervasive discrimination in housing, jobs, and schools? b) something inherent in the nature of black people? c) consequences of the welfare policies of LBJ’s “Great Society” and its successors?My answers to that last question would be about 85 percent (a) and fifteen percent (c).What my sarcasm “misses” is no real point, but only Prof. Bauerlein’s old hobby horse of Big Government being responsible for domestic (as in within the United States) problems.
tech2doc - March 22, 2010 at 5:39 am
Goxewu, The rising unemployment may be only the beginning. However, if trends continue with anti-alien legislation and self-evacuation of immigrant population (both legal and illegal) we might see a leveling off of this trend. Ultimately, unless we begin to make something the world wants (or finally find a way to ensure copyright and other protections for Hollywood, musicians, and software copyright), we will find ourselves “serviced” to death. The rich in this country can only subjugate the middle class for so long before Walmart sells nothing but foreign goods and almost no one can afford to invest in the stock market.But I think that even the Chinese and India industrial powerhouse must eventually catch up. It took us nearly 3 generations to raise our standard of living, and I think that China may do so in 1 generation. The free (or stolen) flow of information via the internet significantly shortens development times and costs, making it harder and harder for them to keep wages low. We might even have something worthwhile to sell them besides the military technology which is rapidly becoming our only superior product.Can I still suggest to the American popultion 1 thing? Stop having babies…for the love of !#$^@%. At least stop at 2. There’s going to be less and less for them to do and anything else is not only stupid but selfish.Plus, its about time that the real estate prices in actual nice places like San Diego come down.
pm9531 - March 22, 2010 at 11:54 am
Speaking of the pot calling the kettle black, most pot use in both college and high school is controlled by males. At parties and gatherings the person with the stash is invariably a male. This may be just another risky behavior males seem to gravitate toward. Since schools are losing so many males it seems clear they are failing to reach their clientele. If a car company fails to sell cars the customers are not blamed but the company is. Why is it different for schools?