Here’s an interesting Boston Globe article about the decline of male teachers in Massachusetts (Photo courtesy of the Globe):

  In Massachusetts, only 24 percent of teachers last year were men compared with 32 percent 15 years ago, according to the most recent state data. Nationally, a quarter of teachers are men, a 40-year low.

Even school administration offices - an arena where men once dominated - are more likely to be in the hands of women in the Bay State, with the exception of school superintendents. But that, too, could change, with the number of women expected to climb as silver-haired male superintendents retire.

At a time of increased emphasis on improving student achievement, especially in inner-city schools, education specialists are raising serious concerns that male flight from classrooms could be hindering boys’ ability to learn.

A study by an associate professor of economics at Swarthmore College, which has been gaining national attention in the debate over single-gender classes, found that boys learned better in reading - a subject in which they typically struggle - when teamed with a male teacher. Similarly, girls did better in math and science with a female teacher.

Even more eyebrow-raising, the research questioned whether a predominantly female teaching force is causing more boys to be labeled as behavior problems because women may struggle in handling the sometimes rambunctious nature of boys. It also questioned whether boys may respond better to a coachlike sternness found in some male teachers.

But in an interview, the study’s author, Thomas S. Dee, cautioned against a knee-jerk reaction of simply recruiting more male teachers.

“The more appropriate avenue to explore is how do we make teachers more productive for all students,” Dee said. “I’d rather have my son with a great teacher who is female than a mediocre teacher who is male. Teacher quality often gets lost in this debate.”

The growing imbalance between male and female educators highlights some of the challenges the state faces as it attempts to form a teaching force that better reflects the children they teach. Education specialists say that low pay and a lack of respect for teachers are primary reasons men stay away, and those issues emerge as well in efforts to recruit more minorities.

Yet the shrinking number of men can be chalked up to another reason: Some men worry that overly protective parents might falsely accuse them of being pedophiles because teaching, especially in the lower grades, is still largely perceived as a woman’s job, requiring a nurturing personality that supposedly is not common among men. In other words, something must be wrong with the guy who likes working with children.

“If a woman can drive a tank in Baghdad, why can’t a guy change a diaper at an early childhood education center?” said Kitt Cox, coordinator at the Birth to Three Family Center in Ipswich and one of the few men in the early education field. “We should be showing kids there are different things they can be when they grow up, and it shouldn’t be defined by gender.”

That’s what this Independent article appears to offer up. For those new to this issue, countries such as England and Australia have been working on the boy troubles for years. in this country, we’re still quarreling over whether the “boy troubles” are a conspiracy to peel back the gains made by feminists.

 Here’s the entire article:

By Richard Garner, Education editor
Tuesday, 30 September 2008

Boys will perform better in education if they have a male teacher in their primary school, according to research published today.

A study of more than 1,000 men reveals almost half of them (48 per cent) cited male primary school teachers as having had the most impact on them during their school life.

In addition, 35 per cent said having a male teacher challenged them to work harder at school while 22 per cent said males had boosted their confidence in their own ability.

The research, for the Training and Development Agency - the body responsible for teacher training - comes as the number of males qualifying to teach is at its lowest for five years - 23.8 per cent. Only 13 per cent of all primary school teachers are men.

The research, carried out by ICM, is backed up by psychologists who point out that - with the growing number of one-parent families where children are brought up by their mother - a teacher may be a child’s only male role model. Dr Tanya Byron, the clinical psychologist and government adviser, said: “Male primary school teachers can often be stable and reliable figures in the lives of the children they teach.”

The number of males qualifying to teach was 1.5 per cent down in 2006-07 compared with the previous year. However, with primary school registrations, the figure has been rising by 1 per cent a year to 16 per cent.

The TDA is launching a campaign to encourage men to teach. It wants recruits to follow in the footsteps of Simon Horrocks, who quit his job as a supermarket manager to start teaching aged 39. Mr Horrocks, who teaches at Christ Church school in Folkestone, Kent, sold his home to study to be a teacher. He said: “It was when my two sons started school I thought about a switch. I used to spend one day a week in their school. It was a ‘road to Damascus experience’ and now I come skipping to work in the morning.”

 Maybe. I’m still skeptical. In elementary schools, where boys falter in reading, women have always dominated the teacher workforce. Nothing has changed over the years. Therefore, any attempt to explain the graphic you see at the top of my blog has to deal with something beyond the loss of male teachers in middle schools and high schools.

Randi Weingarten, the NYC-street smart, newly elected president of the American Federation of Teachers, is a welcome addition to teachers union leadership here in Washington. I may not always agree with her, but you always know you’re dealing with a force and a straight shooter. For now, what’s most interesting is the all-female leadership team taking over the AFT.

As written about by my colleague Greg Toppo here and by the Chicago Tribune here, this marks the first time a teachers union will be run by women: Weingarten, Loretta Johnson as executive vice president and Antonia Cortese as secretary-treasurer.

My reaction: What took the unions so long? Here’s an NEA press release from 2004 with the headline, Are Male Teachers on the Road to Extinction?

An NEA survey shows that the number of male public school teachers now stands at a 40-year low. After two decades of decline, just 21 percent of the nation’s 3 million teachers are men. Male elementary school teachers are even more scarce. According to NEA’s research report, Status of the American Public School Teacher, the percentage of male elementary teachers has fallen from an all-time high of 18 percent in 1981 to an all-time low of 9 percent today. And while men represented half of secondary teachers in 1986, today they make up 35 percent.

For minority males, the statistics are as troubling. Teachers of color make up 16 percent of the teaching population, and some 42 percent of public schools have no minority teacher at all.

In short, the answer is yes, male teachers are on the road to extinction, and this is not just a U.S. issue. Consider this recent story out of Vietnam.

The important question, however, is whether that can explain the boy troubles. The easy answer is yes, but I’m not so sure. I’ve visited classrooms where male reading teachers at 6th grade are having a huge impact, especially if they double as coaches. Still, I’m hesitant to place major weight on the disappearance of males from the classroom as the cause.

 As described in this post, TFA founder Wendy Kopp is not so sure teacher gender is a major player. As an observer of KIPP charter schools, which draw heavily on TFA alums and appear to be doing well by boys (and employ mostly women as teachers) I’ll have to concede she has a point. What works with boys is the determination to not let them slip behind in verbal skills, and there seem to be a lot more female teachers out there willing to undertake that challenge than male teachers.  Forget the movie nonsense about Joe Clark roaming the hallways with a club to knock some discipline sense into boys. What’s needed are some teachers of either gender willing to knock some literacy sense into boys.