The Buffalo News' centerpiece story on Thursday discusses how two Buffalo public schools have created single-sex classrooms, focusing on Houghton Academy School 69, which instituted the gender separation policy in 2004.
The school's principal, Elaine Vandi, says that the increase in "sexual awareness" at the middle school age causes an increase in distractions in the classroom.
"They just don't know how to handle it," Vandi told the News.
Perhaps Houghton should instead work on improving their sexual education programs, teaching students how to "handle it," rather than segregating their kids by gender.
Studies on co-ed versus separate schooling produce mixed results.
One study of a school in California found that there was little to no progression in the empowerment of students, the breaking down of stereotypes or academic improvement.
In the article, Vandi credits much of recent test-score improvements to single-sex classrooms, and that the policy "feels safer... especially for the females."
However, if students do not feel safe in a classroom, separating them by gender is no solution. How will these students ever learn to properly interact with the opposite sex?
Keith Wiley, a math teacher at Houghton, says in the article that he is creating a unit based on NFL quarterback ratings for his male students.
"You can do that with the guys... you can't do that with the girls," he told the News.
Wiley's comment highlights the serious issue facing public schools separating by gender: issues of misogyny, sexism and socialization.
What about the boys in his class who do not like sports? Or the girls who are NFL fans? Surely, the girls get to engage in a different specialized unit that is completely not sexist at all, such as cooking or sewing.
While classroom conduct and efficiency may increase at first, non-textbook education, like understanding the perspective of your gender opposite, will be crippled. This is fine when parents show a demand for this system with private school tuition payments, but that's not the case here.
Public education may need to be better tailored to students, but not by including gender-separatist curriculum. The issue stands that gender segregation is a short-term solution for classroom discipline.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
