Sunday, October 14, 2007

With a female president, what will the election bring for single sex schools?

I find myself wondering what this new Presidential election will bring for single-sex public schools. With a strong female candidate with the party lead, the debate over single sex schools is becoming heated.
On the state level, individual states are getting involved. There are pockets of single-sex schools across the country. Most are in the highly populated northeast and west coast. As well as large midwest cities and several in the south. Check out last week's blog for more details about individual state legislation. Nationally, the new regulations added to No Child Left Behind in 2006 have made it easier for schools to transiton into single-sex programs. Almost all solely single-sex public schools are girls schools at the middle school and high school level. There are a few all-boys public schools in Philadelphia, a city with a long tradition of single-sex education.
Interestingly, studies have consistently shown that girls do significantly better in single-sex classes while boys do somewhat better. No matter the grade level, girls excell in these classrooms. Check out the National Association for Single Sex Public Education website for some statistics (http://www.singlesexschools.org/home.php). Many women in power have gotten behind this education revolution. The very liberal Hillary Clinton is behind this new movement. She along with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas and Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland have been called the three advocates for the movement in Congress. So why are some women not getting on the single-sex bandwagon?
On the other side of the coin, the biggest oponents of the debate are women's interest groups such as the American Association of University Women and the National Women's Law Center. Both groups are shouting the 'segregation card' trying to get others behind their cause. They feel that the gender seperation is just another form of discrimination. They are of a generation of women that grew up with the changes of Title IX. They fought long and hard to have the same opportunities as boys. And they don't want to fight another segregation battle.
So it seems that women are the heroes and villians of this cause.

1 comment:

Robin @ NWLC said...

We wanted to get back to you about this post and clarify the National Women's Law Center's position on single-sex education. Fatima Goss Graves has the details in her post.