Being a normal boy is a serious liability in today's classroom.

Boys tend to be disorganized and restless.

Some have even been known to be noisy and hard to manage.

Sound like any boy you know.

But increasingly, our schools have little patience.

For about only a couple of decades ago,

it would have been described as boyishness.

A psychologist Michael Thompson has aptly observed.

Girls' behavior is the gold standard in schools.

Boys are treated like defective girls.

As a result, these defective girls are not fairing well academically.

Compared with girls, boys are in lower grades.

They win fewer honors. They're far less likely to go to college.

Boys are languishing academically while girls are prospering.

In an ever more knowledge-based economy,

this is not a recipe for a successful society.

We need to start thinking about how we can make our grade school classrooms more boy friendly.

We'll hear of four reforms that would make a very good start.

One, turn boys into readers.

In all age groups across all ethnic lines,

boys score lower than girls on national reading tests.

Good reading skills need, I say, are critical to academic and workplace success.

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