Separate by Sex

Well it looks like Michigan will soon be set to try out single-sex public education. There are some important caveats, that entrance to classes be voluntary and that a school that offers single-sex classes must provide "substantially equal" co-ed classes.

In its best light, it seems that parents and students will have choices. Who's against choice? If you think your kid will do better in an all-boy environment, you ought to have that as a publicly-funded choice. And if you think your kid will do better in an all white environment, well you ought to have that as a choice too….Well, wait a minute. Starting to get uncomfortable now.

My problem with publicly funded single-sex schools is two-fold. First, there's no real evidence that it's better and second, we are racing forward with no attention to the past.

Regarding evidence, I thought we were focused on rigor and empiricism. The U.S. Department of Education research on single-sex education calls its own results "equivocal" and concludes that:

"There is some support for the premise that single-sex schooling can be helpful, especially for certain outcomes related to academic achievement and more positive academic aspirations. For many outcomes, there is no evidence of either benefit or harm. There is limited support for the view that single-sex schooling may be harmful or that coeducational schooling is more beneficial for students."

Translated, we don't know much, and taken with a grain of salt, we do not expect that any children will be harmed by single-sex education and we think that maybe they might like it. But then again maybe not. Hard to say.

A recent study in the UK revealed similar findings- no discernable educational benefit from single-sex schooling. Important to note that the UK is experiencing a reverse trend in single-sex schooling (30 years ago the UK had 2,500 single-sex schools and now has only about 400 remaining).

In sum, there are no major rigorous research studies that find single-sex works better. Still, we're plowing ahead and a lot of people are pushing hard for this, including parents who understandably are desperate for better education for their children. My concern about our attention to history is quite simple: "separate but equal" means something in this country for a reason. If single-sex public schools feel uncomfortably familiar maybe it's because we're recalling that we used to segregate by sex and race and decided against that path for very good reasons. I'm not against alternatives to traditional public schools. I'm against quick fixes that ignore what we do know and rely on what we don't.