Boy Problems

By Liana Heitin

Peg Tyre is a staff writer for Newsweek and the mother of two school-age boys. In 2006, she wrote a cover story for Newsweek with the headline “The Boy Crisis,” which profiled a group of boys—all struggling readers—at an elementary school in Colorado. She found that while most people were still focused on the challenges of girls, as she had been for many years, boys were falling far behind in literacy, classroom achievement, and college enrollment, among others areas. The story became a topic of heated debate, met with accolades from concerned mothers of sons and criticism from feminist academics.

Tyre has since expanded her look at the issue in a recently published book, The Trouble With Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents and Educators Must Do. The book, based on interviews with hundreds of boys and their families, as well as gender-gap experts, details the problems boys are facing in school and argues for a new, boy-focused “gender revolution.”

We recently talked to Tyre, by e-mail, about her book and what her research might mean for schools and teachers.