(Name-mce) ListServ Single-gender schools on the rise

Wed Sep 20 15:58:05 EDT 2006

Single-gender schools on the rise

By Pauline Vu, Stateline.org Staff Writer 

September 19, 2006   Pew Research Center

http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=142575

The number of public schools experimenting with single-sex education is
still small but has shot up in recent years - from five to at least 241
in the last decade - as districts in more than half the states take the
chance that separating boys and girls will help students learn better. 

New guidelines expected soon from the U.S. Department of Education
<http://www.ed.gov/index.jhtml>  could help ease legal snags that have
kept even more schools from trying single-gender programs.   

The department's final guidelines are expected to clear up a conflict
between the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, which condones single-sex
education, and the rules enforcing the 1972 Title IX law that banned sex
discrimination in federally funded programs, including public schools
and college sports programs.

"The current regulations say in no uncertain terms that co-ed schools
cannot institute single-sex classes except in very narrow
circumstances," said Emily Martin, the deputy director of the Women's
Rights Project <http://www.aclu.org/womensrights/index.html>  of the
American Civil Liberties Union <http://www.aclu.org/>  (ACLU). "It's
true the Bush administration has proposed changes, but those changes
haven't been finalized. They're not the law."

The threat of a lawsuit shut down a plan by Louisiana's Livingston
Parish school system to pilot gender-separated classes at two middle
schools this fall. The plans were shelved in August when the ACLU sued
on behalf of 13-year-old Michelle Selden. "I don't agree that all girls
learn one way and all boys learn another way," she said in a statement.

But potential lawsuits haven't deterred other schools. At least 33
states have public schools or classes that are gender-exclusive,
according to the National Association for Single Sex Public Education
<http://www.singlesexschools.org/>  (NASSPE), which maintains a list of
programs. Ohio and New York lead with 10 single-gender public schools
each. Indiana has at least seven schools, which all have opened in the
last 14 months, while Pennsylvania follows with five and has another
planned for August 2007. 

South Carolina, Texas and Kentucky each have at least one single-sex
public school, as well as at least 15 co-ed schools with classes split
by gender. Private schools have always been allowed to offer schools and
classes exclusively to boys or girls. 

Title IX sharply limited gender-exclusive classroom programs,
prohibiting separating the sexes at co-ed schools, except in choir,
sex-education courses and physical-education classes where students had
close contact, such as wrestling. 

But then the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which aims to have
all children reading and doing math at grade level by 2014, allowed
federal money to be used for innovative programs such as all-boys' and
all-girls' schools and classes. 

Because the two laws contradicted, the NCLB act directed the Department
of Education to amend Title IX regulations and give school districts
guidelines so they could set up sex-segregated programs without fear of
being sued. 

The education department proposed guidelines in 2004 that would allow
gender-separated classes in co-ed schools if they are voluntary and have
a comparable co-ed class. The proposals also made clear that districts
could offer a school for one sex without offering a school for the
other. 

These moves coincided with the release of "brain-based" research,
sometimes based on animal behavior, that showed boys and girls have
inherent differences that also make their learning styles different. For
example, said physician and NASSPE director Leonard Sax, girls learn
best while sitting and boys while moving. Girls' brains also respond
better to detail and color, while boys are better at processing motion
and direction. 

If teaching methods are geared toward each gender's differences, classes
split by gender could help break down stereotypes, Sax said, adding,
"You can have girls who love to take apart computers and who love
physics and engineering, and you can have boys who enjoy reciting
poetry." 

The studies and promise of flexibility touched off a surge of new
single-gender schools.  Of the 51 single-sex schools listed by NASSPE,
42 have opened or become single-gender since NCLB's passage. Sixteen of
the schools enroll both sexes but separate them in all classes, 19 are
all-girls schools and 16 are all-boys schools. Others schools
experimenting with single-sex education apply it in some -- but not all
-- courses or classes.

This year two states - which both already had co-ed schools with
gender-divided classes - passed bills to pave the way for more.

Wisconsin's law will allow its districts to set up such schools or
classes as long as there is a comparable program for the other gender.

Michigan had to amend state law, which prohibited public schools from
dividing students on the basis of race or sex. Its law also requires
that programs be set up for both genders.

All-boys and all-girls schools also have become popular because they're
seen as a possible solution to the "boy crisis" - the declining
performance of boys in public schools as compared to girls.

Three years ago, Woodward Avenue Elementary School
<http://schools.volusia.k12.fl.us/woodward/>  in Deland, Fla., set up
gender-divided classes for both boys and girls after school officials
noticed a growing gap between the two, with boys falling behind. Since
then, the program has expanded from three grades to six grade levels -
K-6 - and test scores for all grades have increased. "Our gender classes
are doing as well or better than the mixed classes," said Jo Anne
Rodkey, the principal.

She said, though, that the experiment was combined with teacher training
and an extra teaching hour, and that those programs also could have
accounted for the improved scores. 

Education Sector <http://edsector.com/> , a nonpartisan Washington,
D.C.-based think tank, recently released a report
<http://www.educationsector.org/usr_doc/ESO_BoysAndGirls.pdf>  that
analyzed 30 years of national test results. It found that "with a few
exceptions, American boys are scoring higher and achieving more than
they ever have before. But girls have just improved their performance on
some measures even faster." 

Martin of the ACLU called the studies showing gender differences "pop
science" based on anecdotes and animal studies that make "overboard
generalizations." 

Even if the studies are correct and there are basic differences between
boys and girls, she said, "It's still the case that not all boys are
average boys and not all girls are average girls. ... And therefore
creating education environments that require boys and girls to conform
to a stereotype of how the average boys or girl acts ... is really
unfair to students." 

But to Sax of the NASSPE, single-sex schooling is on the rise - and will
increase even more once the Department of Education finalizes
guidelines. 

"The great majority of schools that have expressed interest, when they
find out the legal situation, they back off," Sax said. "For every
principal or superintendent who says, 'I will do this even though it is
prohibited,' there are 10 who say, 'Call us when the new regulations are
out, and then we'll talk.'" 

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Contact Pauline Vu at pvu at stateline.org. 