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Boys Are Falling Behind: Overschooling Is the Reason

David Labaree

September 8, 2025

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The boy problem

Males are increasingly falling behind in our educational system
Compared to females, males:

Get worse grades and lower test scores
Graduate high school at lower rates
Are less likely to attend and graduate from college
Have higher rates of mental illness
Are much more likely to suffer deaths of despair
Experience more social isolation

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The most common HS grade for girls is A; for boys it’s B
88% of girls graduated from high school on time (i.e., 4 years after enrolling), compared to 82% of boys
The male graduation rate is only a little higher than the 80% among poor students
Boys make up 65% of students in special education
They are 4 times as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD
70% of high school valedictorians are girls.

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High school grades

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Even the male math advantage is fading

Historically, boys have outperformed girls in math throughout K-12
But over the past 30 years girls were catching up to boys in math
Math learning loss during the pandemic hit girls harder than boys
Boys continue to outscore girls on standardized math assessments like SAT tests
But girls in high school tend to have higher math GPAs than their male classmates

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College degrees

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Women account for:

60% of college undergraduates
60% of graduate students
80% of vet school students
The majority of students in dental, medical, and law school

College admissions officers routinely admit boys with lower academic records than girls in order to keep a roughly even sex ratio

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Young men today are

three times more likely to overdose
four times more likely to commit suicide
14 times more likely to be incarcerated than their female peers

98% of all mass shooters are male

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The implications here are profound.
The lifetime income of a college graduate is twice that of a non-degree holder.
College grads are half as likely to be unemployed as those who only have a high school diploma

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Even kindergarten!

For every 100 girls who repeat kindergarten, 145 boys repeat
Under pressure for academic achievement, kindergarten is becoming more academic and boys are falling behind before 1^st grade
Girls in 3rd grade outperform boys in reading and writing by half a grade level
By the end of 8th grade, girls are almost a full grade ahead
Students who are retained often

exhibit behavioral problems
perform below their peers in literacy skills
continue to lag behind their peers by the end of 1st grade

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Why are males lagging behind in school?

One answer is that male brains develop more slowly than female brains
As a result, boys tend to fall behind early – very early

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Start boys in school later?

Richard Reeves and others argue that because males lag in brain development, boys and girls should not start school at the same age

He says we start boys a year later than girls

Not sure that parents or kids would be willing to do this
Not my area of expertise, so I leave this question to others
My own interpretation of the problem is to lay the blame on another factor

The nature of schooling itself

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Maybe this is a school problem

Schools are all about control
The biggest fear teachers have, especially newbies, is losing control
Other professionals work with voluntary clients
Teachers work with conscripts, compelled to be in the classroom

By law, by parents, and by the job market

They work alone
They’re vastly outnumbered

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And, oh yes, students don’t like all this control

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Testosterone is anathema to classroom control

Boys are inherently more prone to aggression and physical activity
Schools have no tolerance for either
Teacher wants you to

Sit still at your desk
Keep quiet until you’re called on
Ask permission for anything you want to do – and expect no for the answer

This is not natural for any young person, and especially boys

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We’re overschooling our young people

No one would ever say that Americans are overeducated, but perhaps we are overschooled
School devours a huge portion of our lives, when we’re constantly preparing for a future that is continually being deferred
It sharply constrains personal development during our long years in the little seats
It’s teaching kids to keep out of trouble and avoid taking risks

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Consider the time issue

How many years did you spend in school?
I spent 27 years – more than a third of my life
I tried the real world for five years and then went back to school

School taught me how to do school
I’ve been doing it ever since

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We’re investing school with too much control over the development of the young
Modern societies have granted education vast responsibility for preparing youths for their future lives as workers and citizens
It’s hard to think of any major or minor social problem for which An
And if some schooling is good, then more is better,
There seems to be no upper limit to our need for structured instruction

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During young people’s years in school, we seem to be trying in every way possible to constrain their behavior and hyper-manage their lives
How much truly free time do kids have these days?
They often don’t even walk to school by themselves anymore

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Kids don’t seem to have time any more to just goof around with friends, play pickup games, take on a part-time job, or hang out somewhere other than with a cell phone or computer
It’s a life that is paradoxically both lonely and overregulated
Your choices made by the adults in your life (parents, teachers, coaches, etc.) rather than on your own or with your peers.
If you’re not in school, you’re in an organized sport, dance class, church group, or summer camp.

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You miss out on a lot of autonomous learning this way
You forego many impromptu opportunities to grow up by learning from personal experience.
Perpetually protected from harm and buffered against failure

You never have a chance to get hurt and find you can recover on your own
Fall down and find you can get back up
Make mistakes and learn how to rectify them
Negotiate relationships with peers on your own

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School makes us risk averse

In suppressing the natural aggression and exuberance of students, schools are also teaching boys and girls that risk-taking is dangerous
But risk-taking is an essential life of life, for