So it’s official. Barack Obama announced yesterday that public schools must improve, and the status quo is no longer acceptable. (See previous blog post for details ) He also said that under his administration, innovative ideas that work will be rewarded with increased funding. I am all about looking for new ways to improve public education, doing things differently, shaking things up. Sometimes, the results are phenomenal (see previous blog posts here and here). Other times, not so much. (see here and here). So I read with interest an article in yesterday’s New York Times about an idea that’s already being tried in over 445 public school classrooms nationwide. Boys and girls are being taught separately in different classrooms.

According to the article, at the Eagle School in the Bronx where separation is being tried with fifth graders, the goal is to increase participation in class, decrease discipline issues, and improve test scores. So far, the experiment has not yielded the desired results, as least as far as test scores are concerned. It sounds like one of the reasons the boys enjoy their single-sex classroom is because their teacher, Mr. Napolitano, has turned the experience into summer-camp-like male bonding time. He engages them with material which, by his own admission, he would not use in a co-ed class (like reading Marvel Comics and a book called Patrol Boy), disciplines them by getting in their faces (something that he says would make girls cry), and teaches them about controlling body odor with soap and deodorant. As one little boy said: “I am learning how to be a man.”

This may just be one example, and I’m sure there are more thoughtful ways to approach single-sex schooling, as well as more thoughtful justifications for doing so (like addressing the growing achievement gap between the sexes, and differences in the ways that boys and girls supposedly learn and develop), and yet I still don’t like it. I can’t help thinking about racially segregated schools from our not so distant past which were supposedly separate but equal yet ended up being not so equal after all. What happened to the whole idea of democratic public education, learning not only the three R’s but about empathy and respect for others who are different? And how different are boys and girls anyway? Isn’t separating boys and girls reinforcing gender differences? (Better not ask Lawrence Summers about gender differences. He was forced to resign from his presidency at Harvard University when he commented about women being naturally less able to excel at math and science.)

It just feels to me like separating boys and girls is taking the easy way out, and avoiding dealing with certain complex issues head on. If a little girl is too intimidated to participate in math class when boys are in the room, and no teacher, counselor, or parent helps her overcome that fear, she will take that fear with her to college and beyond. (Trust me, I was that little girl and wish I would have had more help in getting over my fear). Similarly, if boys feel the need to posture and act out in front of girls, and no one ever addresses that behavior problem but instead throws them in a separate classroom hoping it will disappear, how are they ever going to learn discipline, self control, and how to respect women as equals?

What do you think? Are single-sex classrooms a good idea?

takepart and read about an organization that does. Learn more about both sides of the issue from “Same, Different, Equal: Rethinking Single-Sex Schooling.”

(Photo: cliff1066’s flickr photostream/Creative Commons)