Same-sex schools see resurgence
Section: Community
Sarah Carr
Deion Dedeaux sensed that sixth grade at Martin Behrman Elementary in New Orleans would be full of possibilities. A new school. A chance to improve his grades. A teacher who seemed like a father.
And no girls.
"You know girls," Deion said. "They like to talk.
"I just knew it was going to be better this way."
The teachers and staff at Behrman started the school year with the trepidation change often brings, but they also saw promise: a chance to experiment with single-gender classes -- a trend spreading rapidly across the country -- and hopefully boost student morale and academic performance.
Co-ed classes remain the norm in America's public schools. But the number of single-sex classes, and entire schools, has jumped in recent years. In New Orleans, two schools in the Algiers Charter Schools Association are trying single-sex classes this year, Behrman and O. Perry Walker Senior High. Earlier this month, the state board of education approved plans for two all-boys charter schools to open in New Orleans next fall.
Behrman is testing the structure with one class of sixth-grade girls and one of boys. The children meet with students of the opposite sex only at lunch and in gym class.
"It's like there's a closeness in the classroom," said sixth-grade teacher Elaine Ruffin, as she surveyed the all-girls class working in groups on worksheets designed to teach them about cause and effect. "We really would like to have all classes this way."
Five years ago, only about a dozen public schools nationwide offered any single-gender programs or classes, according to the National Association for Single Sex Public Education. This year, more than 360 schools do. Some of the 360 schools are entirely single gender, while others, like Behrman and O. Perry Walker, are co-ed but offer some gender-specific classes.
Some Baton Rouge schools have added single-sex programs during the past few years. Most of the schools adding single-sex classrooms are existing schools, while the entirely gender-specific schools are a mixture of start-ups and conversions. Despite the growth, the number of public education single-sex programs still represents less than 1 percent of the total number of public schools nationally.
STAFF PHOTOS BY SUSAN POAG ABOVE, Damica Jackson edits the work of classmate Rose Chacha during teacher Elaine Ruffins language arts class, and TOP, Antoine Barbarin raises his hand to answer a question posed during teacher Philip Paulins math class in gender-specific sixth-grade classrooms at Martin Behrman Elementary School in Algiers. The trend of single-gender programs has been fueled by its popularity among some edu´cators and parents and a handful of high-profile advocates, and by the loosening of federal regulations.
No law against it
The trend has been fueled by its popularity among some educators and parents, a handful of high-profile advocates and the loosening of federal regulations. In 2001, the Senate passed an amendment legalizing single-sex education despite Title IX, the federal law requiring equal educational opportunities and programs for both genders.
While the revival of interest in the public sphere has been recent and trendy, commitment to the single-sex model has stayed firm for generations in the local Catholic school system. The New Orleans area has 10 Catholic high schools for girls, for instance, and nine for boys.
Brother Ray Bulliard, the president and principal of Saint Paul's School in Covington, said enrollment has steadily risen during the past several years.
"Right now, we are not able to meet the demand that single-sex education seems to be calling for," he said.
Saint Paul's has been all male since it opened in 1911.
Bulliard said parents often choose an all-male environment because their sons don't face the social pressures of performing in front of girls and are forced to "step up to the plate and get things done."
The boys are more reluctant at the start, he said, but happy by the time they are through.
"Very few of our boys say, 'I wish Saint Paul had been co-ed,' when they graduate," he said. "But if you survey the entering eighth-graders, I bet most would say, 'Yes, let the girls in.' "
Frustration turns to action
The scheduled opening next fall of Miller-McCoy Academy for Mathematics and Business and American Scholars Academy in New Orleans, two schools approved by the state board of education last week, will mark Louisiana's first single-sex public charter schools.
For Natasha Baker, the founder of American Scholars Academy, the interest grew out of frustration as an inner-city high school teacher. Low-income boys were over-represented in special education classes and on lists of suspended students, but under-represented in gifted and talented or advanced placement classes. Baker found that she sometimes had more flexibility to create helpful programs for boys outside, rather than inside, the classroom.
She knew what it was like for young men to grow up without a father. When Baker was young, her older brother was murdered, leaving behind a 5-year-old son.
After teaching in various cities, Baker, 30, began to ponder a school targeted at urban males, one that would offer a double dose of reading, mentoring from professional males and activities aimed at building camaraderie among the boys.
By starting with sixth grade, Baker feels, the school will catch the boys well before the peak drop-out years -- and before academic frustrations tempt them to quit for a bottom-rung job or the lure of quick money through crime.
One of Baker's saddest teaching memories dates to her rookie year teaching in Compton, Calif. A boy in her freshman class was murdered. Baker said the student never gave her trouble, but other students said he had started hanging out with gang members the summer before.
Baker was the only teacher who showed up at the funeral.
A sense of mission
While educators drawn to single-gender schools come with their own sense of mission, experts continue to squabble about the shift.
Leonard Sax, the founder of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, said he believes single-gender programs have a firm basis in science showing the different brain development and learning styles of boys and girls. It also offers parents choices.
"The idea is that parents should have a choice," he said. "I'm not insisting that every child should go to a single-sex school."
Others, however, say the trend stems from the "pop" psychology of advocates like Sax. Rosalind Barnett, a senior scientist at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., said the advocates' arguments are based on little more than stereotypes: that girls are better with language, and boys excel at math, for instance.
"Without anyone batting an eye, we are resegregating schools based on gender," she said. "If for a minute people talked about resegregating on race, people would be up in arms."
The two sides disagree about studies and anecdotal evidence suggesting children perform better academically in a single-sex environment. While Sax cites such studies as proof for his advocacy, Barnett said they do not factor in the quality of the teachers, the resources available to the schools, or the fact that parents who choose a single-sex environment might be more actively involved in their children's' education.
Styles different
At O. Perry Walker this fall, not all of the students and parents chose single-sex classes. The school is trying out the model with the ninth-graders this year and will consider expanding it to the 10th grade next year.
"The first day was a shock," said Nycole Sterling, 15.
One recent morning at the school, Sterling and other ninth-graders reviewed quietly for their final exam in math.
The boys sat grouped in pairs in one room, punching numbers into calculators, working through problems at their own pace and talking quietly as a radio played in the background.
Anthony Johnson, 14, said not having girls around for freshman year "takes the pressure off."
"We don't have to what I call 'stunt' in front of the girls," he said. "The only thing the girls did was to bring more attention to us personally. It didn't help us academically."
One door down, the girls' review session seemed more structured.
Teacher Trayvonia Duhe was explicit in her instructions.
"Right now, you should be on numbers four and five," she said. "Your book says to round to the nearest 100, but I want you to go to the nearest 10."
Duhe said the boys seem to work better if they have more freedom, but she tries to keep the girls "on the same page."
Sterling and her friend Dalisha Hebert, 15, said it took about two weeks to get over the initial surprise.
"I'm getting used to it," Hebert said. "I have a lot more friends now, people who can help me with stuff I don't understand."
"Instead of laughing," Sterling said.
Not just about hormones
Mary Laurie, the principal at O. Perry Walker, said she first tried single-sex classes at Carter G. Woodson Middle School. But Hurricane Katrina interrupted the experiment. Laurie said she believes the approach is just "for show" unless the teachers examine closely what works with each group and adjust their approach and support services accordingly.
Deanalyn Hypolite, a Walker teacher who works with a ninth-grade boys section this semester, said she discovered the boys will become more engrossed when any lesson is turned into a competition.
"The boys that didn't think it was OK to be smart want to compete to be smartest," she said.
When the young men learned about measuring speed, for example, their teachers took them outside and had them run a certain distance in teams to cement the concept.
Hypolite said the boys understood the concepts in more detail than usual during recent review sessions, prompting intense pride for their teacher.
"Yesterday, I had to stop," she said. "I had a moment. I had not had that feeling in two years."
Sax said many of the public schools turning to single-sex education are embracing it for new reasons. He explained that in the past educators thought teens should be separated by gender because of raging hormones. But the current trend, at least in his view, is "based not on myth or stereotypes, but science."
For the O. Perry Walker High School students, though, the appeal of the change is somewhat related to hormones.
"If I'm in class with my boyfriend, I'm going to be focused on him, not my work," Sterling said.
Anthony Johnson and his classmate Chris Covington, 15, said they were happy with the arrangement this year, but want to return to co-ed classes for 10th grade.
"We've got to a comfort level now and are ready to be mixed again," Johnson said.
But Sterling said she is happy keeping the status quo for the rest of high school.
"In my opinion, the guys just play clown around," she said. "Honestly, I'd rather leave it like this."
