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By Nancy Steinbach

Broadcast: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 16:00:00 UTC

I'm Steve Ember with the VOA Special English Education Report.

Boys receive by far the most failing grades.

There is a lot of discussion in the United States about differences between boys and girls in school. Lately that discussion has centered on concerns that boys are not doing as well as girls. Boys, for example, receive seventy percent of all failing grades.

In April, the Manhattan Institute released its yearly study of graduation rates. The research group used information from two thousand three. The researchers found that seventy-two percent of girls successfully completed their high school education. That compared to sixty-five percent of boys.

The newspaper Education Week noted earlier this year that, in some ways, what people are worried about now is really not new. Boys have scored lower than girls on tests in the National Assessment of Educational Progress since at least nineteen seventy-one.

And the differences are not limited to the United States. Education Week noted the results of an international reading test in two thousand three. Fifteen-year-olds took the test in forty-one countries. Girls scored higher than boys in almost every country.

Differences between males and females are a continuing issue of fierce debate. Cultural and economic influences play an important part. But recent findings suggest that another part of the answer lies in differences between the male and female brain.

These include differences in learning rates. As a result, some researchers say, boys may not be able to develop language and reading skills as well as girls do.

The last time there was a lot of concern about differences in school, it was about girls, especially in math and science classes. Efforts to improve the situation for girls included hiring more female teachers.

Yet some people think the opposite situation exists now. They say not enough male teachers is one reason why boys may not learn as well in class.

Another explanation being heard involves the increased testing in American schools. Some people say schools are preparing for these important tests by forcing boys to sit quietly at their desks. They say this is unfair.

Still others say that society is failing boys, by giving them the message that studying is not manly. And others say boys are failing in school because they become too interested in the girls in their classes.

One attempt to solve problems like these is the use of same-sex classrooms. That will be our report next week.

This VOA Special English Education Report was written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Steve Ember.

By David Jarmul

Broadcast: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 16:00:00 UTC

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English on the Voice of America.

(MUSIC)

Americans experimented with many new customs and social traditions during the nineteen twenties. It was a time filled with new dances, new kinds of clothes and some of the most imaginative art and writing ever produced in the United States.

But in most ways, the nineteen twenties were a conservative time in American life. Voters elected three conservative Republican presidents: Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. And they supported many conservative social and political policies.

VOICE TWO:

One such policy concerned immigration. Most Americans in the nineteen twenties had at least some ties through blood or marriage to the first Americans who came from Britain. Many people with these kinds of historic ties considered themselves to be real Americans, true Americans.

Americans traditionally had welcomed newcomers from such western European countries as Britain, France, or Germany. But most of the people arriving in New York City and other harbors in the nineteen twenties were from the central, eastern and southern areas of Europe.

Some Americans became afraid of these millions of people arriving at their shores. They worried that the immigrant newcomers might steal their jobs. Or they feared the political beliefs of the immigrants.

VOICE ONE:

Pressure to control immigration increased following the world war. Congress passed a bill that set a limit on how many people would be allowed to enter from each foreign country. And, the Congress and President Calvin Coolidge agreed to an even stronger immigration law in nineteen twenty-four.

Under the new law, limits on the number of immigrants from each foreign country depended on the number of Americans who had families in that country. For example, the law allowed many immigrants to enter from Britain or France, because many American citizens had families in those countries. But fewer people could come from Italy or Russia, because fewer Americans had family members in those countries.

The laws were very difficult to enforce. But they did succeed in limiting the number of immigrants from certain countries.

VOICE TWO:

A second sign of the conservative feelings in the nineteen twenties was the nation's effort to ban the sale of alcoholic drinks, or liquor. This policy was known as Prohibition, because it prohibited -- or banned -- alcoholic drinks.

Many of the strongest supporters of Prohibition were conservative Americans living in rural areas. Many of them believed that liquor was evil, the product of the devil.

Whiskey is poured into the street

A number of towns and states passed laws banning alcohol sales during the first years of the twentieth century. And in nineteen nineteen, the nation passed the eighteenth amendment to the federal constitution. This amendment, and the Volstead Act, made it unlawful to make, sell, or transport liquor.

VOICE ONE:

Prohibition laws failed terribly from the start. There was only a small force of police to enforce the new laws. And millions of Americans still wanted to drink liquor. It was not possible for the police to watch every American who wanted to buy a drink secretly or make liquor in his own home.

Not surprisingly, thousands of Americans soon saw a chance to make profits from the new laws. They began to import liquor illegally to sell for high prices.

Criminals began to bring liquor across the long, unprotected border with Canada or on fast boats from the Caribbean islands. At the same time, private manufacturers in both cities and rural areas began to produce liquor. And shop owners in cities across the country sold liquor with little interference from local police.

By the middle of the nineteen twenties, it was clear to most Americans that Prohibition laws were a failure. But the laws were not changed until the election of President Franklin Roosevelt in nineteen thirty-two.

VOICE TWO:

A third sign of conservatism in the nineteen twenties was the effort by some Americans to ban schoolbooks on modern science. Most of the Americans who supported these efforts were conservative rural Americans who believed in the traditional ideas of the Protestant Christian church. Many of them were fearful of the many changes that had taken place in American society.

Science became an enemy to many of these traditional, religious Americans. Science seemed to challenge the most basic ideas taught in the Bible. The conflict burst into a major public debate in nineteen twenty-five in a trial over Charles Darwin's idea of evolution.

VOICE ONE:

British scientist Charles Darwin published his books "The Origin of the Species" and "The Descent of Man" in the nineteenth century. The books explained Darwin's idea that humans developed over millions of years from apes and other animals.

Most Europeans and educated people accepted Darwin's theory by the end of the nineteenth century. But the book had little effect in rural parts of the United States until the nineteen twenties.

William Jennings Bryan led the attack on Darwin's ideas. Bryan was a rural Democrat who ran twice for president. He lost both times. But Bryan remained popular among many traditional Americans.

Bryan told his followers that the theory of evolution was evil, because it challenged the traditional idea that God created the world in six days. He accused scientists of violating God's words in the Bible. Bryan and his supporters called on local school officials to ban the teaching of evolution. Some state legislatures in the more conservative southeastern part of the country passed laws making it a crime to teach evolution theory.

VOICE TWO:

In nineteen twenty-five, a young science teacher in the southern state of Tennessee challenged the state's new teaching law. The teacher -- John Scopes -- taught Darwin's evolution ideas. Officials arrested scopes and put him on trial.

Some of the nation's greatest lawyers rushed to Tennessee to defend the young teacher. They believed the state had violated his right to free speech. And they thought Tennessee's law againt teaching evolution was foolish in a modern, scientific society. America's most famous lawyer, Clarence Darrow, became the leader of Scopes' defense team.

Bryan and other religious conservatives also rushed to the trial. They supported the right of the state of Tennessee to ban the teaching of evolution.

The trial was held in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee. Hundreds of people came to watch: religious conservatives, free speech supporters, newsmen and others.

The high point of the trial came when Bryan himself sat before the court. Lawyer Clarence Darrow asked Bryan question after question about the bible and about science. How did Bryan know the Bible is true. Did God really create the earth in a single day. Is a day in the Bible twenty-four hours. Or can it mean a million years.

VOICE ONE:

Bryan answered the questions. But he showed a great lack of knowledge about modern science.

The judge found Scopes guilty of breaking the law. But in the battle of ideas, science defeated conservatism. And a higher court later ruled that Scopes was not guilty.

The Scopes evolution trial captured the imagination of Americans. The issue was not really whether one young teacher was innocent or guilty of breaking a law. The real question was the struggle for America's spirit between the forces of modern ideas and those of traditional rural conservatism. The trial represented this larger conflict.

VOICE TWO:

American society was changing in many important ways during the early part of the twentieth century. It was not yet the world superpower that it would become after World War Two. But neither was it a traditional rural society of conservative farmers and clergy. The nineteen twenties were a period of growth, of change and of struggle between the old and new values.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

You have been listening to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- a program in Special English on the Voice of America. Your narrators were Harry Monroe and Kay Gallant. Our program was written by David Jarmul. The Voice of America invites you to listen again next week to THE MAKING OF A NATION.

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