- “One in four white boys with college-educated parents today cannot read at a basic level of proficiency, compared with only one in sixteen white girls.47 To repeat: • Fourth-grade boys are doing slightly better in reading and writing than they were twenty years ago. • Twelfth-grade boys are doing worse in reading and writing than they were twenty years ago.” Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men (Leonard Sax) Page 37
- “Boys who play lots of video games are no less likely to read for fun than boys who don’t play lots of video games.” Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men (Leonard Sax) Page 38
- “Video games have displaced a major activity in the lives of teenage boys, but that activity isn’t reading; it’s playing outdoors. In 1980, many boys spent lots of time playing outdoors. Today, those boys are more likely to spend that time indoors with the GameCube or the PlayStation or the Xbox. That may be one reason why boys today are four times more likely to be obese compared with boys a generation ago.” Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men (Leonard Sax) Page 38
- “Boys are less likely to read today simply because they don’t want to. And that change in motivation is, at least in part, a consequence of the gender-blind changes in education over the past thirty years.” Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men (Leonard Sax) Page 39
- “You know that one in four white boys with college-educated parents can’t read proficiently. That means one in four white boys in high school won’t be able to read your article saying how well white boys are doing.” Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men (Leonard Sax) Page 39.