<p>Mathmom, there are many things that could be improved at the school, no doubt, but I’m not sure that it is tremendously different than most American schools - it is private, but has more in common with a middle class predominantly white public school than with Andover. If you look at the upper 10%, the kids who could excel anywhere, girls predominate. Last year they had a male valedictorian, and I think there might be one this spring - those would be the first 2 guys in over 5 years.
What bothers me though, is the upper one-half is mostly girls. I know exactly where the principal is coming from who was quoted as saying “Every adult male is a miracle” - I really worry that we are losing whole generations of young men because it will require more and more education to compete in the future, and they will be left further behind - look at the women to men ratios in colleges, isn’t it more than 60:40? There aren’t enough good paying, non-college requiring jobs to absorb all those boys.</p>