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Overall, elite boys are doing well academically. More males than females attend Ivy League schools. And while we have been hearing that boys are virtually disappearing from college classrooms, among whites, the gender composition of colleges is pretty balanced; 51 percent female and 49 percent male, according to the National Education Association.

"On most measures boys--at least the middle-class white boys everyone seems concerned about--are doing just fine, taking their places in an unequal society to which they have always felt entitled," says Michael Kimmel, a sociologist at the State University of New York-Stony Brook and author of the 1996 book, "Manhood in America: A Cultural History."

The real issue is that some boys, and girls as well, are doing very poorly, especially if they are poor, black, Latino or working-class white. For example, in Florida--one of the states with the lowest rates of high-school graduation--81 percent of Asians and 60 percent of white students graduate while only 48 percent of Hispanics and 46 percent of African Americans do.

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In 1998, California set up 12 single-sex public middle and high schools, the largest U.S. public-school experiment with such schools. The schools did not succeed in boosting academic achievement, and the academic success of both girls and boys was influenced more by small classes, strong curricula and qualified teachers than by single-sex settings, according to a study by the New York-based Ford Foundation.

The 17-year-old student in Massachusetts who filed the discrimination suit said of schools: "From the elementary level, they establish a philosophy that if you sit down, follow orders and listen to what they say, you'll do well and get good grades. Men naturally rebel against this."

This might sound right, but after extensive field work in schools, University of California-Berkeley sociologist Barrie Thorne noted a bias even on the part of researchers, finding that they pay most attention to one type of boy. He's into sports, not verbal, restless, aggressive and seeks dominance. But, notes Thorne, only a minority of boys actually fit that description.

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