In recent years, single-sex schooling in the public sector has gained momentum. There has been renewed interest in many cities across the country for two main reasons: Parents are looking for more educational choice and the academic crisis that girls and boys have been reported to experience.

The girls’ crisis was given much attention in the 1990s. Some educators responded by offering all-girl public schools to focus on their studies, work with peers and develop confidence on their way to college and employment.

In 2001, the Schott Foundation for Public Education commissioned research on the education gender gap to update data on the progress of girls. They discovered that K-12 female students were making significant progress and that males were performing less well. Nationwide, boys are nearly twice as likely as girls to be suspended, and more likely to drop out of high school. Boys comprise two-thirds of special-education students, are 1.5 times as likely to be held back a grade and 2.5 times more likely to be given diagnoses of ADHD.

The most shocking data revealed black male students showed underachievement on every school-related factor.

A complex array of gender equity concerns has led some educators to consider single-sex public education as one way to address the disparate experiences and outcomes of girls and boys. Urban educators in particular began exploring single-sex education for boys left behind.

The majority of these boys are African-American and Hispanic, a compelling rationale for innovation given the preponderance of literature that these boys are in academic and socio-economic crisis.

The 2006 Delaware State Testing Program 10th-grade reading proficiency scores are 47 percent for black boys, 52 percent for Hispanic boys, and 85 percent for white boys — a gap of almost 40 percent.

Black girls score at 69 percent, Hispanic girls at 52 percent, and white girls at 91 percent.

The 10th-grade writing proficiency scores put black boys at 52 percent, Hispanic boys at 60 percent, and white boys at 81 percent.

Black girls score at 73 percent, Hispanic girls at 61 percent, and white girls at 91 percent proficiency in writing.

The 10th-grade math proficiency scores put black boys at 28 percent, Hispanic boys at 48 percent, and white boys at 80 percent — a gap of more than 50 percent.

Black girls score at 50 percent, Hispanic girls at 42 percent, and white girls at 78 percent in math.

Several studies found that students in single-sex schools devoted more time to homework, had higher aspirations for academic and educational achievement, and wanted to be remembered for their scholastic abilities rather than leadership in activities or popularity.

Studies that find positive effects in single-sex schools emphasize that characteristics of students’ peer groups, including their academic orientation and peer influence may affect outcomes and be indirectly related to the school’s composition.

Other research suggests that some boys, particularly the disadvantaged, benefit from single-sex education. For example, Cornelius Riordan’s research indicates that “single-sex schools do not greatly influence the academic achievement of affluent or advantaged students, but they do for poor disadvantaged students … White middle-class (or affluent) boys and girls do not suffer any loss by attending a single-sex school … At worse, they realize a neutral outcome.”

One researcher has contended that disparate research outcomes for girls and boys in single-sex schools result from the overwhelming focus on girls.

Today there are nearly 360 public schools offering some kind of single-sex option in 37 states. Boys and girls’ charter and traditional public schools are doing well in high-need areas including New York, Houston and Chicago. Washington, D.C., opened its first all-boys charter school in 2006 and will open an all-girls in 2008. Philadelphia opened its first all-boys charter in 2007. Single- gender charter schools are planned for New Orleans and Atlanta.

A school for boys has now been proposed for Delaware.

Prestige Academy intends to counteract the negative social forces operating in poor communities and to address the apparent failure of conventional schooling to get many disadvantaged minority boys to identify with academic success. The scholarly and popular literature is replete with studies demonstrating the epidemic of academic failure and social dysfunction especially among minority boys living in poverty.

Prestige Academy will seek to improve choice for boys by offering a highly structured, achievement-oriented school from fifth to eighth grades. Prestige Academy’s goal is to eliminate the achievement gap and prepare students for success in demanding college-preparatory high schools.

The choice of a single-sex school is one that financially able families in Delaware have been able to make for decades. Delaware charter schools should be allowed to provide this option to the many other mothers, fathers, sons and daughters — and challenge them to dream, compete and succeed.

Source: The News Journal, DE
http://tinyurl.com/ysy8qf