What happens when feminists control government: once females gain advantage 
they will not share in equality.

Quote #1: The department said the book was never released because "it was 
felt that it no longer fitted the policy of promoting the interests of boys 
and girls equally".

Quote #2: Last year stickers were even produced with a 2004 publication 
date to cover the 2002 date on 10,000 copies of Making a Difference for 
Boys, which urges a "boys can do anything" approach to learning. But still 
it gathers dust in the department's city office. After commissioning the 
book, the department decided that boys can't do anything if it means 
disadvantaging girls, who 20 years ago lagged behind boys academically. Now 
girls outperform boys in most subjects.

Tom

<http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Censored-the-boys-own-manual/2005/05/02/1114886318639.html>

Sydney Morning Herald
3 May 2005

Censored: the boys' own manual
By Linda Doherty Education Editor

Thousands of copies of a boys' education book have been sealed in boxes for 
three years and their distribution to schools banned by the NSW Education 
Department, which spent $10,000 printing them.

Last year stickers were even produced with a 2004 publication date to cover 
the 2002 date on 10,000 copies of Making a Difference for Boys, which urges 
a "boys can do anything" approach to learning. But still it gathers dust in 
the department's city office.

After commissioning the book, the department decided that boys can't do 
anything if it means disadvantaging girls, who 20 years ago lagged behind 
boys academically. Now girls outperform boys in most subjects.

Denis Fitzgerald, the department's director of Aboriginal Education and 
Equity programs until his resignation last October, said boys' education 
had been "perhaps the liveliest and often the most misguided public debate" 
in schools in recent years. Yet the department had "no policy" on an issue 
that affects about 380,000 public schoolboys.

"For the largest education provider in the world to have no position or 
support mechanism on the question of boys' education is just negligent," he 
said. "It [the book] has been deliberately quashed. Submissions have gone 
forward [for its release] but they have all been quashed."

Peter West, an adviser to the federally funded Boys Education Lighthouse 
Schools program, said the only thing coming out of the NSW education 
department on boys' education were "feeble words". By contrast, the Federal 
Government had held a parliamentary inquiry into why boys were trailing 
girls, why they were leaving school earlier and why they were more likely 
to be disciplined.

"And private schools have got the jump on the [NSW] department, because 
they were having conferences about this as far back as '97," Dr West said.

Making a Difference for Boys says the special educational focus on girls 
two decades ago had achieved "significant results for many girls". But now 
there were valid concerns about "those boys who leave school unable to read 
or write at the most basic level".

"There is still much to do for girls, but there is no reason to believe 
that similar results cannot be achieved for boys from promoting a 'boys can 
do anything' approach."

The department said the book was never released because "it was felt that 
it no longer fitted the policy of promoting the interests of boys and girls 
equally".

Trevor Fletcher, the deputy director-general (schools), said he had "ramped 
up the attention on boys' education" when he started in the department five 
months ago, with a conference planned for October.

But he added: "What we don't want to do is to swing the pendulum from one 
to another."



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