Last month Melissa Roderick, a University of Chicago professor and leading authority on school reform, had come to a conclusion based on education performance between male and female students in Chicago high schools: Females are performing better than males within their own ethnic background.

Girls coming from the same race, families, incomes, neighborhoods and schools are turning out very differently than their male counterparts. This contradicts years of researchers’ beliefs that the educational gender gap is strictly a function of race and class.

So why is that poor girls do well, while poor boys don’t? Is it that boys in high school are not willing to read and learn what is important that will help them transition from high school to college? Perhaps.

Is it that women are smarter than men with regard to wanting knowledge, something that has helped women break the cycle of gender discrimination? Yes! As for the ethnic background, have you as students thought about that?

Being a former high school student and one who has been in college, it should be noted that I have seen that there is a group of people who have been serious about an education and there are others who have not.

But more than anything, it goes both ways and should not be based on gender and background because everyone that has been through the education system should take into consideration the importance of an education.

One thing that I think is important in this country is to have the basic skills of reading, writing and math.

It’s no wonder that only eight percent of African American males have a 3.0 GPA to those 18 percent of African American females that have a 3.0, while 41 percent of females are proficient in reading compared to only 29 percent of men.

Throughout high school parents were watching their children, as they had to make sure that the kids did their homework and had an understanding of what they learned in class.

However, as soon as those kids turned into teenagers and they went to high school, reading, writing and math became non-existent.

Don’t tell me it’s a lie because I have seen it happen and unfortunately it has continued.

Both men and women continue to ignore the fact that they need to learn the basic skills.

Men are just too lazy to open a book and read, according to the study, because without a doubt, women are becoming the leaders.

Could you imagine if former first lady Hilary Clinton was actually our nation’s president?

There would be great debate about her as the U.S. president no matter if she were white, black, Latino or Asian because it would be a matter of her being a woman.

Time to wake up because making education a priority is key and start taking the classes you are enrolled in right now with motivation and determination.