|
"Poor test scores, soaring dropout rates and high numbers of teenage
pregnancies are some reasons they say."
GREENSBORO (GEORGIA): Nearly four decades after
this rural Georgia county stopped segregating its schools by race, it wants to
divide students again—this time by
sex.
Greene County is set to
become the first school district in the nation to go entirely single-sex, with
boys and girls in separate classrooms—a move born of desperation over
years of poor test scores, soaring dropout rates and high numbers of teenage
pregnancies.
"At the rate
we’re moving, we’re never going to catch up," Superintendent Shawn
McCollough told parents in an impassioned speech last week. "If we’re
going to take some steps, let’s take some big
steps."
The majority of
longtime residents —and most of the 2,000 students in the county’s
schools— of this county of about 14,400 people between Atlanta and
Augusta, are black and working
class.
McCollough pointed to research
showing that boys and girls learn differently, and said separating them will
allow teachers to tailor their lessons. Also, boys won’t misbehave as much
because they will no longer be trying to impress the girls, and the girls will
be more likely to speak up in class because they won’t be afraid to look
smart in front of the boys, he
said.
The school board’s
move to radically overhaul the system next fall has angered parents, students
and teachers, who say they weren’t consulted. And one of the
nation’s foremost proponents of single-sex education warned that the board
has gone too far.
The measure,
approved two weeks ago, applies to the high school, the middle school and both
elementary schools. It exempts only the preschool and a charter school, which is
public but operates independently.
Leonard Sax, head of the
National Association for Single Sex Public Education, said that while single-sex
schools and classrooms are on the increase, he knows of no other community that
has converted its entire school system.
He called the move illegal.
Districts across the US have been switching to single-sex education since
federal officials issued rules to ease the process in 2006. Nationally, at least
366 public schools are either entirely single-sex or have single-sex classrooms,
Sax said.
In Greene County,
boys and girls will be in separate classrooms in the elementary schools. Boys
and girls in grades seven through 12 will attend separate schools. Some
electives and extracurricular activities such as ROTC and band will probably be
coed.
Source: Times of India |
