Same gender boarding schools and colleges are losing popularity but Philadelphia thinks same gender classrooms will help boys succeed.
Why Take Such A Bold Move?
In general, boys lag behind girls in school. Philadelphia's administration calls the female to male achievement gap a crises. The majority of college campuses have more females attending than males. Drop outs tend to be males. The resource rooms are predominantly male and so are students on ADHD medication. And, research shows that it does matter if students have male or female teachers.
Philadelphia
Martha Woodall, writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, states that Philadelphia will have the first boys' charter school in Pennsylvania. The 9-12 school is being modeled after the successful Boston Latin School. Philadelphia is not alone. New York and Chicago have schools with similar structure including a girls' school in Chicago.
Having the school be approved for 2007 was delayed by the ACLU and Women's Law Project claiming the school was illegal. The educational commission did not think this was the case.
Enrollment
The school plans on enrolling 125 ninth graders in 2007 and add a grade every year as students advance. The high school of 500 students will be a college prep school addressing lower achievement of boys.
Research
Opponents argue that recent research does not show that gender-based structure improves the quality of education. However, most educators would probably agree that the absence from distractions of the opposite sex in classrooms would allow both genders to focus better on academics. All female colleges have found that girls choose male-dominated fields more often than females attending co-ed institutions. They spend less time on their appearance and more time on studying.
Girls' School
Philadelphia plans on opening a girls' charter high school the following year. These high schools will not be the only single-sex schools in Philadelphia but the other schools are private and unaffordable to most parents. These charter schools will give more choice to parents. New York City and Canada are also offering innovative choices.
Rationale
The federal government is going to make it easier to experiment with same gender education. Presently, there are 223 public schools offering single-sex classrooms. There were four eight years ago.
Boys and girls learn and process information differently. Boys respond to direction and motion. Girls respond to detail and color. Girls are more likely to learn sitting still and boys do better if they can move around and work with their hands.
Deland, Florida experimented with same-sex classrooms vs. co-ed. The state writing test was administered to both groups. 37% of the boys passed in the co-ed class and 86% passed in the same-sex environment. 57% of girls passed the writing test in a co-ed enronment and 75% passed in the same-sex class. Judging from just this one statistic, same-sex classes are more helpful to boys than girls although it helps both.
Winds of Change
Until recently, education has not changed with society and has been a monopoly far too long. It is refreshing to see innovative ideas being tried and choices offered to parents.
Read previous articles on Educational Issues.
Copyright article 2006. Barbara Pytel. All Rights Reserved.
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