I just read Christina Hoff Sommers' fascinating book The War Against Boys. As a male with a keen interest in education policy and pedagogy in general, I found her book to be an honest and compassionate analysis of a boy's plight in the American classroom. The book is by no means perfect, as I feel she is far too critical of second-wave feminism and far too sympathetic to the "culture of violence" that dominates the social and imaginary lives of boys. But the majority of her book is excellent, and includes statistical insights into the disciplinary, academic, and cognitive problems that are becoming a staple of "boyhood," as well as some conservative solutions (rote pedagogy, strict discipline, and single-sex classrooms) that made a lot of sense to this liberal.

Anyone interested in the health of America's young men or of education in general should read this book. I also recommend Antonio Gramsci's (the famed Itallian Marxist and father of the concept of "Cultural Hegemony") prison notebooks on education, in which he claims that to be politically liberal is to be pedagogically conservative. I believe there is much truth to that statement; the problem with traditional education was not in its form, but in its restriction to the wealthy elite. The more I read on the state of American education, the more I'm inclined to believe that mainstream progressivism is not in line with the most effecient approaches to education. The answer is not education for all, but quality education for all. Anyone agree? Disagree? Bueler? Bueler? Anybody?