“Can we take a look at your backpack?” Ana Homayoun repeats that question countless times a day. No, she does not screen airline passengers or work security at a basketball arena. Homayoun is a tutor. She helps teenagers with subjects like math and science, but she particularly specializes in teaching boys how to become more organized.

One afternoon in her cozy office suite in this affluent suburb south of San Francisco, she asked John Ferrari, 14, to go through a 2-inch stack of papers he pulled from his backpack. He sorted through the papers, placing them in separate piles — writing, spelling, vocabulary, tests — to bring order to his loose-leaf binder.

“Oh, here’s my class schedule, what a relief,” said John, an eighth grader. A moment later, he stumbled across something even more valuable. “I have to turn this in tomorrow,” John said. “It’s the name I want on my diploma.”

With girls outperforming boys these days in high school and college, educators have been sparring over whether there is a crisis in the education of boys. Some suggest the need for more single-sex schools, more male role models or new teaching techniques. Others are experimenting with physical changes in classrooms that encourage boys to move around, rather than trying to anchor them to their seats.

But as they debate, high-priced tutors and college counselors have jumped in the fray by charging as much as $100 an hour and up to bring boys to heel. The tutors say their main focus is organizational skills because boys seem generally to have more difficulty getting organized and multitasking than girls do.

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