The book is strongest on presenting the history of educating women, and defining specifically how girls are still getting shortchanged. The authors clearly lay out their analysis of what is wrong with girl's education. The weakness of the book is in the last chapter "The Edge of Change". The solution to any problem requires change, and this change requires a rethink of how we treat half the population. It challenges our habits, our culture, our intellect and our pocketbook. And , unfortunately, the Sadkers are a little light and fuzzy when suggesting solutions. This is forgivable given the scope of the problem.
If you are a parent of a girl, or if you are or want to be a good teacher, I encourage you to read Failing at Fairness.
The Sadkers studied the numbers ---counting everything from female faces and names in textbooks and among teachers/professors, to school budgets for athletics, to questions and kudos offered to girls by teachers in the classroom. These numbers show that girls attend schools where the bulk of a teacher's attention in the classroom is focused on boys, their studies are centered on men and their achievements, they are taught by men (secondary education and beyond) and the bulk of their schools' budgets (including special ed and athletics) are spent on the boys. It is no wonder that the hopes and dreams of young girls are diminished as they enter adolescence, with doctors settling for nursing degrees, and chemists turning to cooking!
Fortunately, the Sadkers also point to the advances made under Title IX, the refocusing on gender equity by educators, parents, students and politicians in the 1990's after the backlash years under Reagan and Bush, and the media attention garnered by the AAUW's report in 1992 How Schools Shortchange Girls. Sexism is so endemic in our culture, however, that it will take generations of strong women and men to realize true change.
Chapter Nine, Different Voices, Different Schools particularly intrigued me. In it, the Sadkers identified the advantages and disadvantages of single-sex education for boys and girls. As the product of a parochial girls' high school, I was not surprised by the results of the research by Valerie Lee and her colleagues Helen Marks and Tina Byrd of the University of Michigan. They found that in intellectually rigorous girls' schools, few incidents of sexism were uncovered. These schools focused on the intellectual growth, academic curiosity, independence and self-esteem of their female students. With such positive research and new experiments in single-sex public education like the new Young Women's Leadership Charter School in Chicago, we may soon see this option available to girls across the United States.
Girls' learning problems are not identified as often as boys' are
Boys receive more of their teachers' attention
Girls start school testing higher in every academic subject, yet graduate from high school scoring 50 points lower than boys on the SAT
Hard-hitting and eye-opening, Failing at Fairness should be read by every parent, especially those with daughters.