Administration OKs Single-Sex Classes, Schools
Administration OKs single-sex classes, schools
Action likely to accelerate public systems' efforts to experiment
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4285387.html
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is giving public school districts broad new latitude to expand the number of single-sex classes, and even schools, in what is widely considered the most significant policy change toward coeducational education since a landmark federal law barring sex discrimination in education more than 30 years ago.
Two years in the making, the new rules, announced Tuesday by the Education Department, will allow school districts to create single-sex schools and classes as long as enrollment is voluntary. Schools that go that route must also make coeducational schools and classes of "substantially equal" quality available for members of the excluded sex.
The federal action is likely to accelerate efforts by public school systems to experiment with single-sex education, particularly among charter schools. Across the nation, the number of public schools exclusively for boys or girls has gone from three in 1995 to 241 today, said Leonard Sax, executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Schools. That is a tiny fraction of the approximately 93,000 public schools across the country.
While the move was welcomed by some conservatives and urban educators, a number of civil rights and women's rights groups condemned the change.
"It really is a serious green light from the Department of Education to re-instituting official discrimination in schools around the country," said Marcia Greenberger, National Women's Law Center co-president.
Currently under Title IX, the 1972 law that banned sex discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal funds, single-sex classes and extracurricular activities are largely limited to physical education classes that include contact sports and sex education.
But a new attitude began to take hold with the passage of the No Child Left Behind law in 2002 when women senators from both parties came out in support of same-sex education and asked the Education Department to draft guidelines to permit their growth.
Although the research is mixed, some studies suggest low-income children in urban schools learn better when separated from the opposite sex. Same-sex education has also been looked at because of concerns about the performance of boys in secondary education.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings described the changes as part of a greater effort to expand educational options in the public sector.
