Reading, Writing, and Heteronormativity

I'm as convinced of a "War Against Boys" as I am of a War on Christmas, but any society that encourages a high school student to sue on these grounds should be applauded:

Girls are outperforming boys because the school system favors them, said [high school senior Doug] Anglin' who has filed a federal civil rights complaint contending that his school discriminates against boys.

Anglin's complaint has set off a buzz among the 1,000 students at the school….Of the 22 students in her honors Spanish class, only one is a boy, said Little, a senior. She also said that teachers rarely ask her for a hall pass if she is not in class, while they routinely question boys walking behind her.

As for assignments, she said, one teacher expects students to type up class notes and decorate their notebooks with glitter and feathers.

"You can't expect a boy to buy pink paper and frills to decorate their notebooks," Little said.

I think we can take the integration of glitter into any academic endeavor as evidence that public schools suck equally for men, women, and anyone in between. Over at Slate, Ann Hulbert chimes in:

Viewing school issues primarily through a gender lens has a way of encouraging a search for one-size-fits-all prescriptions for each sex. But what the array of motley evidence about males suggests is the wisdom of being wary about just that.

Whole thing here.