Teaching Boys and Girls Separately

Although separating girls from boys has been a practice for private and parochial schools for a long period of time, this same type of education is now being applied to the public school systems. Single-sex public education has grown increasingly popular among schools and classrooms in recent years. In 1995, there were two single-sex public schools in operation in the United States. Today, there are forty-nine. Arguments made by both of the sexes have come into the public eye over the effectiveness of coed public education. Studies show the drop in girls' self esteem during puberty and how today girls are subtly discouraged from careers in math and science. Boys crisis arguments include the fact that boys are significantly behind their female classmates and in 2006 a 17-year-old from Milton, MA even filed a civil rights complaint because his high school had twice as many girls on the honor roll as boys. In that same year, the Department of Education passed new rules and regulations making it easier for counties and districts to create single-sex classrooms in their schools. Boys- and girls-only classrooms have no been established in Cleveland, Detroit, Albany, Philadelphia, Dallas, and Nashville. It seems to be a more popular movement in the South here attitudes toward gender roles tend to be more conservative.
Compared to the late 1800s and early 1900s, education in general has come a long way. Women during this time had to fight for their roles in society and place in schools. When women's schools and universities were first established, they were not only separated from the boys, but given a different curriculum as well. Women were expected to learn the basics of math, geography, etc, but were also trained to become better future wives and mothers. Today this same kind of separation is being suggested for the U.S.'s public school society. In recent single-sex classrooms, boys are being surrounded by significantly different walls then girls. Boys and girls are learning in classrooms painted different wall colors, lighted differently, and even have their thermostats set differently all in the hopes that these subtle differences produce great results in the education system.