Single Gender Schools in the News
The Green County, Georgia schools have mandated that the schools throughout the district will go to a single gender format starting next Fall. This has caused many pro and con opinions to be expressed on the subject of single gender instruction. The first two links concern the Green County schools and the last link addresses single gender schooling here in South Carolina.
I applaud Green County for trying a new, to their schools, approach for education as their current school performance has been deemed by the school's superintendent asless than adequate. He states that teachers will be trained on maximizing the teaching and learning benefits of single gender education. Reseach has shown that single gender school format they are moving to benefits the students, and the top levels of school administration support the change as well as teacher education and development. These factors will help support the success of the move to single gender education. As a mother of a middle school age child, I support the separation of children by gender, especially for the middle grades. Note that the children will not be isolated from each other as bussing and extracurricular activities will still be inclusive of boys and girls. My concern for this change in Green County is about the public opposition, in light of Tyack and Cuban's grammar of schooling principle. It will be exciting to watch how this change is implemented in Georgia, the success or failure of the change, and the length of time the program is continued. It will be interesting to note if any unintended consequences of this change are experienced by the school district and how those events are dealt with.
I was surprised to learn how many schools in SC offer single gender education - about 70 just now. I'll be looking them up to see if any are in our Rock Hill vicinity.
Green County Schools: Atlanta Journal article 14 Feb
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/02/14/gaschools_0215.html
Green County Schools: ABC News coverage 18 Feb
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Story?id=4306768&page=1
ABC News coverage of SC public single gender schools
2 comments:
I am interested in this change as well. They key will be, as you note, convincing parents that this is a good thing.
Excellent post.
I wonder how they would work out exploratory classes. They would have to offer all the courses to both genders, so how would they fill classes that are generally enrolled with a sex minority?
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