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07/28/1998 16:49
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PAGE 08
- -7-
&E/Le/L
Bruce / / Ten -
FYI. A possible amendment
from Hutchisan to Ladw-H
Nothing in Public Law 93-318, as amended, shall be construed to prohibit the
use of funds made available under this title for education reform projects that
provide same gender schools or classrooms, as long as comparable educational
(and same materials an
her single - 81X amendment
to dever dell)
opportunities are offered for students of both sexes.
Elena
Proposed L445 Amendment
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PAGE 02
KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON
COMMITTEES:
TEXAS
APPROPRIATIONS
COMMERCE, SCIENCE.
AND TRANSPORTATION
United States Senate
RULES AND ADMINISTRATION
WASHINGTON. DC 20510-4304
April 20, 1998
Dear Colleague:
This week I will offer an amendment to the Coverdell A+ Accounts bill that will make certain
federal education funds available to public schools for same-gender schools and classrooms, as long
as comparable educational opportunities are offered for students of both sexes.
My amendment will make available to states and local schools funds under Title VI of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Arguably, this flexible education reform block grant ($350
million in FY '98) could now be used for same-gender programs. However, due largely to concern that
the Department of Education may view public, same-gender education as a violation of Title IX (of the
1972 Education Amendments), many schools have been reluctant to pursue this proven education option
for fear of losing federal funding. This amendment will restore the intended purpose of Title IX: to
prevent sex-based discrimination in education, not to prevent same-gender education.
The benefits of same-gender education are well documented. Studies have demonstrated that
girls enrolled in same-gender programs tend to have more confidence to express themselves in the
classroom; they pursue more courses and careers in math and science; and they are generally more able
to focus on academics than they are in coed classrooms. Many boys find that they also thrive in an
atmosphere in which learning, not socializing, is the central goal. Moreover, these positive attitudes
translate into tangible academic benefits. One recent study found that girls in same-gender schools
outscored girls in coed schools by a full grade level on science tests and by a half-grade on four other
scholastic ability tests. Other studies demonstrate that boys enrolled in same-gender programs,
particularly African-American and Hispanic boys, also outperform their coed peers in scholastic and
extracurricular activities, and are more likely to attend and graduate from college.
While same-gender education is certainly not for everyone, I believe it should be available as
an option for parents and their children, and not just those parents who can afford to send their children
to private, same-gender schools. Public, same-gender education that addresses the needs of both boys
and girls does not violate Title IX, nor does it violate the Constitution. It can, however, make the
difference between success and failure for tens of thousands of our young people. I believe the federal
government should no longer stand in the way of our public schools as they strive to give all students
an equal chance at success.
Enclosed for your review are materials further explaining my amendment and the issue. If you
have any questions, please call Quin Dodd of my staff, at 4-1894. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Day Beiley Jutchism
Web-http://www.senate.gov/-hutchison/
[email protected]
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PAGE 03
Same-Gender Education Amendment to S. 1133, "A+ Accounts Bill"
Offered by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
Questions & Answers
Q:
What does the Hutchison amendment seek to do?
A:
The amendment would explicitly allow the use of federal Title VI education funds for
"same gender schools and classrooms, as long as comparable educational opportunities
are offered for students of both sexes." (Title VI of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act is a very flexible K-12 block grant program that can be used for a wide
variety of education reform efforts, arguably including same-gender programs).
≈
What does the law now say about same-gender education?
A:
Title IX (of the Education Amendments of 1972) prohibits sex-based discrimination by
any school receiving federal funds. However, by explicit omission, Title IX does not
apply to admissions at same-gender public schools¹. This is confirmed by Department of
Education regulations that allow public, same-gender schools, as long as comparable
courses and facilities are offered to both sexes.² Thus, the Hutchison amendment would
not change federal law allowing same-gender public schools, but would authorize the use
of existing federal funds for this purpose.
With regard to same-gender classrooms within co-ed public schools, the Department of
Education requires that there be a sufficient showing that a single-sex class is necessary to
overcome past discrimination against one sex.³ But this DoEd requirement is contrary to
the language and intent of Title IX. Congress did not intend to allow same-gender
schools but prohibit same-gender classrooms absent some burdensome and ambiguous
showing of past discrimination.
Neither does the 14th Amendment equal protection clause prohibit same-gender
education. The most recent and prominent Supreme Court case this area, U.S. V.
Virginia, held against the Virginia Military Institute because the state did not offer a
comparable educational opportunity for women. The Hutchison amendment requires that
there be comparable opportunities available for both sexes.
'20 U.S.C §1681(a)(1).
²34 C.F.R. §106.35(b).
³34 C.F.R. $106.3
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PAGE 04
Ö:
If same-gender education is legal, why is the Hutchison amendment necessary?
A:
Presently, there are less than a dozen same-gender public schools in the US (including
California which is in the process of establishing up to 10 same-gender schools). Of the
few that do exist, many have had lawsuits and DoEd complaints filed against them, and
DoEd has taken enforcement action against several of these schools under Title IX.
Clearly, schools are reluctant to initiate such efforts. This amendment is necessary to
make clear that Congress did not intend Title IX to be a bar to the use of federal funds for
same-gender schools or classrooms, and to allow states and local school districts to go
forward and offer these beneficial programs to parents and their children as one available
education option.
A:
Does same-gender education really benefit girls and boys in K-12 education?
A:
Yes. Numerous studies have clearly demonstrated that students enrolled in same-gender
programs have better attitudes about school, are more likely to participate in class, take
more math and science classes, have higher attendance rates, and generally have a greater
likelihood of educational success, including higher standardized test scores. Because
there are so few same-gender public schools, there is somewhat less evidence about the
academic results from these improved attitudes in the public school arena. However, a
recent report by the American Association of University Women did not SQ much call
into question the benefits of same-gender education as it argued that these benefits should
be replicated in coed schools. This is not an argument against same-gender education.
Q:
Would any state, school district, parent, or child be required to participate in a same-
gender school or classroom under this amendment?
A:
No. This amendment would simply allow states and school districts to use existing
federal funds to offer these programs on a voluntary basis, much like voluntary charter
and magnate schools are now offered. Presently, the vast majority of parents who want
same-gender education for their children must have the means to pay for private or
parochial school. This option should be available for all parents.
&
Has the Senate ever voted on this issue before?
A:
Yes. On August 1, 1994, the Senate voted 66 to 33 to approve an amendment to the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, offered by Senator Danforth of Missouri, to
authorize the establishment of several same-gender public schools. (The Danforth
amendment, which failed in conference, is attached, along with the Hutchison
amendment and the relevant statute it amends.)
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PAGE 05
4
HUTCHISON AMENDMENT NO. 2021 (Senate - March 18, 1998)
(Ordered to lie on the table.)
Mrs. HUTCHISON submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by her to the bill, H.R.
2646, supra; as follows:
At the end, add the following:
TITLE _-EQUAL EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY
SEC. _01. EQUAL EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY.
(a) Short Title: This section may be cited as the 'Equal Educational Opportunity Act'.
(b) Amendments to ESEA: Subsection (b) of section 6301 of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 7351) is amended--
(1) in paragraph (7), by striking `and' after the semicolon;
(2) in paragraph (8), by striking the period and inserting ; and'; and
(3) by adding at the end the following:
(9) education reform projects that provide same gender schools and classrooms, as long as
comparable educational opportunities are offered for students of both sexes.'.
/
THE WHITE HOUSE
July 28, 1998
Prof. Rosemary C. Salomone
St. John's University School of Law
8000 Utopia Parkway
Jamaica, New York 11439
Dear Professor Salomone:
Thank you for your letter concerning single-sex education,
and for the paper you presented to the Brookings Institution. I
have forwarded your paper to Michael Cohen, who works on
education issues on the Domestic Policy Council. As an alumna of
Wellesley I am always optimistic about the potential of single-sex
institutions to improve educational opportunities for women. I
hope to visit the Young Women's Leadership School in East
Harlem in the near future.
With best wishes, I am
Sincerely yours,
Hillary Rodham Clinton Christon
All
NUS
ST. JOHN'S UNIVERSITY
EDUCATIO
DEPARTMENT
ANIMAL
FOUNDED 1870
SCHOOL OF LAW
June 17, 1998
Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton
White House
Washington, D.C. 20502
Dear Mrs. Clinton:
Diane Ravitch has asked me to send to you a copy of the
enclosed paper on "Single-Sex Schooling" that I recently prepared
for the Brookings Institution. I understand that you are
primarily interested in the legal issues so I call your attention
to pages fifteen through thirty-five of the paper. I am firmly
convinced that neither Title IX, nor the VMI decision, nor the
"separate but unequal" principle of Brown V. Board of Education
present legal impediments to the establishment of voluntary
public single-sex schools or classes particularly for girls and
minority students.
I appreciate your interest in helping to resolve the legal
uncertainties now surrounding the issue. Those of us who attended
single-sex institutions understand first-hand the unique
qualities of these schools that cannot be transferred to a
coeducational setting. If your schedule should permit, you may
want to visit the Young Women's Leadership School in East Harlem.
The staff, students, and educational program are truly inspiring.
Thank you for taking the time to read this paper.
Sincerely,
Rosemary C Salomone
Professor of Law
8000 UTOPIA PARKWAY
JAMAICA, NY 11439
(718) 990-6600
FAX: (718) 591-1855
CAMPUSES: QUEENS, NY
STATEN ISLAND, NY
ROME, ITALY
DRAFT
SINGLE-SEX SCHOOLING:
LAW, POLICY, AND RESEARCH
Conference on the State of Urban Education in America
Brookings Institution
Washington, D.C.
Rosemary C. Salomone
Professor of Law
St. John's University School of Law
8000 Utopia Parkway
Jamaica, N.Y.
Tel: (718) 990-6622
Fax: (718) 591-1855
e-mail: [email protected]
May 1998
1
INTRODUCTION
A heated debate is now raging within educational circles concerning the merits of
single-sex schools and classes. From New York to California, school systems are defying the
canon of coeducation in the name of gender equality for girls and equal opportunity for
minority students both male and female. From the Young Women's Leadership School in
East Harlem to dual academies in San Francisco, single-sex education has become as hotly
contested as bilingual education in legal and academic circles.
Fueling the fires of the debate is a 1998 report from the American Association of
University Women that dismisses as non-conclusive the research findings supporting single
sex education and calls for more focused attention to eradicating gender inequities that persist
throughout the coeducational system. Lurking in the background are civil rights groups,
emboldened by the Supreme Court's 1996 decision declaring unconstitutional the all-male
admissions policies of the Virginia Military Institute. For the American Civil Liberties Union
and the National Organization for Women, single-sex public schools are not only
unconstitutional, but they run counter to the letter and spirit of Title IX, the 1972 federal
statute that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs. Hovering
over the controversy engendered by recent single-sex initiatives is the Office for Civil Rights
of the U.S. Department of Education which is empowered by law to withdraw federal funds
from school districts found in violation of the Title IX statute or its implementing regulations.
The single-sex education issue evokes visceral responses from educators, policy-
2
makers, and scholars on both sides of the controversy. Supporters call for establishing
experimental programs to remedy a wide range of educational and social problems. Among
those problems they emphasize low self-esteem and comparatively low interest levels in math
and science among adolescent girls; peer sexual harassment in the schools; gender inequities
in the classroom; high rates of teenage pregnancy among minority girls; school violence; and
high dropout, drug abuse and crime rates among young black men in urban areas. They
suggest that within coeducation lies a "hidden curriculum" of male dominance and differential
teacher expectations and attitudes that merely serve to prepare students for gender-specific
roles in society while the adolescent subculture of coeducational schools may prove
detrimental to academic development. They further argue that single-sex schooling on a
limited basis provides educational options to parents and children who lack the economic
means to purchase them in the private school market.
Opponents, on the other hand, maintain that such programs smack of benevolent
sexism; deny young women and men the interpersonal skills to relate to each other in the real
world; and fail to promote tolerance, multiculturalism, or sex equity. They fear the return to
a pre-Title IX world where gender-segregated public schools and classes shortchanged girls
on educational resources and tracked them into a finite set of low-paying careers. Opponents
view single-sex education, at best, as a short-term political fix to more pervasive gender
inequities in the schools and, at worst, as a dangerous mechanism for reinforcing persistent
gender and racial stereotypes. On a broader scale, they see the programmatic diversity
inherent in the concept as a wedge in the door of school choice on a grander scale and a
potential threat to public schooling as it now exists.
3
For the American public, the media has reduced the debate to sound bites and
attention-grabbing headlines which dramatically oversimplify the matter. The issues
surrounding single-sex versus coeducation are complex and multi-layered, raising questions
within questions. The discussion that follows attempts to cut through that complexity,
drawing a significant but often overlooked distinction between first and second generation
single-sex schools, between pre-Title IX separate education as a tool of oppression and recent
initiatives for girls and minorities as tools of emancipation. Intent and ultimate goals are at
the heart of that distinction.
The purpose here is to sort through the following underlying questions, systematically
examining the debate from the inside out, from the core of legality to the outer margins of
resource allocation and the various empirical and causal layers in between.
Do single-sex public schools comply with constitutional norms and federal statutory
law?
Are there measurable effects that flow from single-sex schools and classes?
Is there empirical evidence to support the proposition that single-sex as compared
with coeducation benefits girls and/or boys whether white, black or Hispanic or, in the
alternative, is there evidence that it harms members of any of these groups?
What are the desired outcomes of the approach -- higher achievement scores in math
and science, more positive attitudes toward these subjects, increased self-esteem, more
positive identity?
Is either increased parent and student satisfaction with the single-sex learning
environment or educational diversity in itself a sufficiently persuasive justification to support
4
single-sex schools and classes as a matter of law and/or policy?
If comparable benefits between single-sex and coeducational approaches are found,
are they sufficiently strong to justify broadscale experimentation with single-sex schooling for
certain populations? Or should school systems merely offer the approach on a limited basis as
an option to parents and children?
If the reported effects are mixed or only mildly positive, do these inconclusive
findings alone justify dismissing single-sex schooling outright without countervailing evidence
supporting coeducation on any of these indices?
These are key questions that must be addressed in order to move the discussion toward
more informed policy choices for school officials, parents, and students.
DEFINING THE POLICY DEBATE
Judging from the controversy now swirling around single-sex schools, one would think
the concept to be a recent phenomenon. In fact, single-sex education has a long history and
tradition in this country. All-boy and all-girl private academies dominated the education of
the upper classes from the early days of the republic until recent decades. Admittedly, single-
sex schooling was not a matter of choice. Separate institutions for female students grew out
of the exclusionary admissions policies of all-male institutions. On the other hand,
coeducation has been the method of choice in the public sector since the beginning of mass
schooling more than a century ago. But coeducation has not always translated into equal
5
education for women. The uncertain and somewhat deceptive connection between these two
concepts has contributed to the reluctance among some gender equity advocates to embrace
single-sex education.
Coeducation Becomes the Norm
During the first half of the nineteenth century, Emma Willard, Catharine Beecher, and
Mary Lyon created female seminaries as models of women's education, stressing intellectual
achievement and moral character. Their writings and speeches significantly influenced the
subsequent expansion of public and private schooling for girls¹ and their seminaries pioneered
the training of teachers long before the establishment of the early public normal schools. 2
Despite the zeal of these early proponents of women's education, however, the education they
offered prepared women for a limited destiny.
A letter written by Lyon to Beecher exemplifies the narrow bounds of their
perspective. Here Lyon professed her hope that the redemption of America through female
common-school teachers lay, "in young ladies scarcely out of their teens, whose souls are
burning for some channel into which they can pour out their benevolence, and who will teach
two, three, or four years and then marry and become firm pillars to hold up their
successors."3 In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Catholic religious orders
adopted this model primarily on the secondary level to educate a massive infusion of
immigrants in the inner cities.
Yet while single-sex schools were until recent decades the norm in the private sector,
coeducation typified public schooling even prior to the common school movement of the mid-
6
1800s. Coeducation was initially a pragmatic cost-effective means of educating children in
sparsely populated rural areas in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Large
cities such as New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia, in contrast, resisted coeducation
for some time. School officials feared losing to the private academies the children of the
upper classes who vehemently opposed the intermingling of their children, and their daughters
in particular, with lower class boys.⁴ Despite this slow start, coeducation gradually became
the norm in densely populated urban centers. By the turn of the century, 98 percent of the
public high schools across the country were coeducational with only 12 cities out of 628
reporting that they operated any single sex high schools.
These figures would show a slight increase in the early decades of this century in the
name of vocational education. Progressive reformers, believing that the children of recent
immigrants were not academically inclined or fit, established vocational classes on an elective
basis within the coeducational high school. These programs were highly sex-segregated.
School officials tracked males into classes such as drafting, wood-working and auto-
mechanics, preparing them for higher paying jobs than those opened to young women who
were offered separate classes in home-economics, dressmaking, and secretarial skills. Some
of these classes were separated by school policy while others were a matter of choice
constrained, of course, by socialization. Large urban school districts, in particular, adopted a
similar sex-segregated stratification at the school level. Vocational or technical schools, along
with schools for pregnant girls formed two notable exceptions to coeducation. A third
exception were a small number of select college preparatory schools such as the Boston Latin
School for Boys, Philadelphia's Central High School for Boys, and Hunter College High
7
School for Girls in New York. One by one each of these schools became coeducational
through the 1970s and 1980s in the wake of Title IX.
Outside these few exceptions, public coeducation has remained the rule throughout the
past century. Yet, despite this orientation, prior to recent decades public coeducation was not
intended to equalize opportunities between males and females. Similar to the early female
academies, public schooling was to prepare women for marriage and motherhood with
perhaps a brief detour into a limited set of gender-appropriate occupations, such as teaching,
before their real life's work would begin.
With few digressions, the question of single-sex versus coeducation within the
common school model was of marginal concern to early school reformers who were more
interested in assimilating masses of immigrants into American society. It was not until the
women's movement of the 1960s and '70s that the distinction between the two approaches
became of critical moment. Women's advocates of this period focused on the institutional
sexism and hidden curriculum of coeducational schools and the flagrant gender inequities
perpetuated by the vocational curriculum. At the same time, they fought to tear down the
admissions barriers to women in the limited number of academically selective public
secondary schools and more numerous elite private schools and colleges. Proponents of
women's equality believed that single-sex schooling reinforced stereotypical notions of
women's abilities and interests, that women could and should develop the same aspirations
and career goals as men, that they should be mainstreamed into the social and economic life
of the country, and that coeducation was the most effective approach for achieving these
goals.
8
Civil rights groups, primarily the American Civil Liberties Union and the NOW Legal
Defense and Education Fund, initially tried to build on the separate but equal doctrine
rejected in Brown V. Board of Education⁶ to challenge all-maie exclusionary policies in
academically elite state-supported institutions, including the University of Virginia⁷ and
Central High School in Philadelphia. At the same time, women's rights advocates also
pressed for statutory reform in the adoption of Title IX and its implementing regulations. The
statute was enacted in 1972 to promote equal educational opportunity for women. Regulations
adopted in 1975 by what was then the Department of Health, Education and Welfare covered
admissions, counseling, employment and curriculum.⁸ While Title IX does not expressly
prohibit all single-sex public schools, school systems around the country gradually
transformed most of the existing single-sex schools, both vocational and academically
selective, into co-educational institutions for fear of violating the law. Regardless of
congressional intent, Title IX became the major impetus for promoting equality for women
through coeducation.⁹
By the early 1980s, it appeared that single-sex education in this country was dying a
slow but certain death. By 1981, among 6,000 school districts included in a nationwide study
conducted by the Office for Civil Rights, there were only 86 all-male and 106 all-female
schools. The majority of the boys' schools were vocational-technical while many of the girls'
schools were for pregnant students. 10 Through the 1970s, many single-sex private schools and
particularly boys' schools, although exempt from the admissions provisions of Title IX, had
also converted to coeducation in unprecedented numbers largely in response to waning
interest in single-sex education and a declining school-age population. Between the mid-1960s
9
and mid-1970s, the independent school balance shifted from 62 percent single-sex to 66
percent coeducational with more gradual change in the following decades. 11
Some of this activity was in the form of mergers between formerly all-male and all-
female institutions. The chief exceptions to the pattern of coeducation were a small number of
independent schools and colleges and secondary schools run by Catholic religious orders, all
resolutely clinging to their mission of educating women. At about the same time, a
confluence of intellectual and social forces drew national attention to the education of girls in
coeducational schools. This set the stage for a 1990s re-examination of single-sex schooling
and a resurgence of interest among young women to opt out of coeducation.
Girls, Adolescence, and Schooling
In the early 1980s, Carol Gilligan's book, In a Different Voice, challenged classic
psychological theory attaching a positive value to certain characteristics that are culturally
defined as "masculine" such as separation, detachment, subordination of relationships, and
abstract thinking while negating other characteristics that are culturally defined as "feminine"
such as attachment, caring, and interdependence. Gilligan made clear that the distinctions she
found between the two modes of thought were not based on inherent differences between the
sexes but on factors of social status and power combined with reproductive biology to shape
the different life experiences of men and women. 12
In her subsequent research on students at the Emma Willard School, Gilligan
underscored adolescence as a critical period in the lives of women, calling it a "watershed in
female development, a time when girls are in danger of drowning or disappearing. "13 She
10
found that, between the ages of twelve and fifteen (the age she noted where dropping out of
school becomes more common in the inner city) girls' knowledge seems to become buried. 14
She saw young women caught in a struggle to balance their own values of caring and
relationships against values of autonomy and self-sufficiency in the larger culture. She
observed how girls are more likely to manifest psychological problems during this period,
how they respond more negatively to stressful challenges in early adolescence, and how they
reveal more disturbances in self-image.¹⁵
Gilligan's purpose was to chart the course of female psychological and moral
development and to refute prior assumptions based in a mistaken belief in male development
as the norm. She did not intend for her research to promote the educational separation of the
sexes, a clarification she made a decade and a half later in a friend-of-the-court brief
submitted to the Supreme Court in the Virginia Military Institute case. 16 Nevertheless, her
work supported the general proposition that men and women are not necessarily the same,
whether innately or through social conditioning, and that their distinct ways of perceiving
reality should be afforded equal value. Her findings and conclusions on difference would lend
theoretical credence to the empirical findings of educational researchers examining gender
equity over the next decade. Her research on the unique issues faced by young adolescent
women struggling to develop a strong sense of self would lend theoretical force to the debate
over the education of girls particularly in the middle school years.
During the 1980s, a number of scholars both here and abroad generated findings on
single-sex education primarily in private independent and Catholic schools. The discussion of
this body of research was confined largely to the academic community. It was the
11
observational studies conducted by Myra and David Sadker over the course of two decades,
culminating in their 1994 book Failing at Fairness, that sparked the debate over the education
of girls in coeducational schools. 17 Through observations of more than one hundred
classrooms, they found that boys dominated discussion and were more likely to be praised,
corrected, helped, and criticized by teachers -- all reactions that foster student achievement
according to the Sadkers.
Following on the heels of the Sadkers' research were a series of reports published by
the American Association of University Women. These reports gave new currency to the
debate over single-sex education. The first, released in 1991, presented the results of a survey
of 3,000 girls and boys ages 9 to 15 of varied ethnic and racial backgrounds. The study
documented a disproportionate loss of self-esteem and interest in math and science among
girls as they approach adolescence. 18 Only 29 percent of girls and 46 percent of boys retained
the high self-esteem in high school that they had exhibited in elementary school. The loss was
most pronounced among Hispanic girls. The percent of girls indicating that they "like math"
dropped from 81 percent to 61 percent during those years as compared with a drop from 84
percent to 72 percent among boys. Interest in science showed a similar drop from 75 percent
to 63 percent among girls and 82 percent to 75 percent among boys of the same age range.
The following year, a second report prepared for the AAUW by the Center for
Research on Women at Wellesley College drew on data from a compilation of 1,331 studies
to confirm the earlier findings of the Sadkers: that women were underrepresented in the
school curriculum, that teacher behavior and tests tended to favor boys, and that girls lagged
seriously behind boys in math and science. 19 A third AAUW report, published in 1993, found
12
that 85 percent of girls and 76 percent of boys had reported being sexually harassed in
school. 20
At the same time, the Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College conducted
a sexual harassment survey through a questionnaire published in the September 1992 issue of
Seventeen magazine. Forty-two hundred of the magazine's 1.9 million subscribers returned
the questionnaire, a 0.2 percent response. According to the report, which was published with
the co-sponsorship of the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, 39 percent of the girls
responding reported being sexually harassed at school on a daily basis during the previous
year, with most harassers being male. 21 A later AAUW report published in 1996 drew on
qualitative research including participant observation, interviews, and document analysis to
examine the social and institutional challenges facing young adolescent girls as they form
identities and negotiate the middle school environment. 22
The first three AAUW reports, in particular, touched off a heated debate in the
popular press and academic journals. The merits of the sexual harassment report were debated
on national television. The second report alone generated more than fourteen hundred stories
by journalists and newscasters. The San Francisco Chronicle reported the "Dreadful Waste of
Female Talent" while the New York Times warned that "Bias Against Girls is Found Rife in
Schools, With Lasting Damage. "24
Critics challenged all three reports, the first for its methodology which relied on self-
reporting, the second for its overstatement of the "gender gap" and its reliance on a small
body of research, and the third for its overbroad definition of sexual harassment. 25
Nevertheless, the AAUW had grabbed the attention of the educational establishment and
13
unintentionally planted the seeds for a renewed interest in single-sex schools for girls as a
safe-haven from the reported "harms" of coeducation. The unintended use of these reports
would come to haunt the AAUW in years to come as the Association's 1998 report would
reject single-sex education outright.
Gilligan, the Sadkers, the AAUW, and the Wellesely Center for Research on Women
together had painted a painful portrait of growing up female in America. The combination of
Gilligan's theoretical perspective on adolescent development, the Sadkers' classroom
observations, and the compelling data presented in the reports regardless of arguable flaws in
the underlying methodology, touched off a national discussion among educators,
psychologists, and feminists concerning gender equity, gender differences, and the lack of
self-esteem and self-confidence among adolescent girls. 26 The impact of this discussion soon
began to reach the admissions offices of all-girls schools. According to the National Coalition
of Girls Schools, applications to member schools have increased by 21 percent since the
Coalition's founding in 1991. 27 The National Association of Independent Schools reports
similar enrollment increases in member schools. For the first time in a number of years,
enrollment in girls' schools increased significantly by almost 2,000 from 33,826 to 35,662
students between the 1995 and 1996 school years, down from 40,178 in 1986-87.
Enrollments in coeducational schools increased more steadily during that same period from
274,955 in 1986-87 to 376,568 in 1996-97. 28 The data also generated a flurry of activity in
school districts around the country with single-sex math and science classes suddenly gaining
favor.
14
Minority Boys and the Afro-Centric Academy Controversy
While educators and researchers were battling over the validity of the "gender gap"
findings, inner city school districts were experiencing a simultaneous movement that would
propel the single-sex debate into another dimension. Urban school districts were exploring the
concept of gender separation as a mechanism for broadening the educational opportunities of
minority students, particularly black and Hispanic males, caught in the maelstrom of poverty.
Proponents of all-male Afro-centric academies pointed to the failure of the civil rights agenda
to improve the lives of poor inner city residents. Neither compensatory programs nor court-
ordered racial integration had proven successful in raising the achievement of low-income
minority students. Low-income black men in particular were becoming reduced to a glaring
statistic. As black men became increasingly swallowed up in substance abuse and crime,
black boys suffered from the absence of positive male role models in their personal lives. The
rationale underlying Afro-centric school programs borrowed many of the gender-based
principles advanced by proponents of single-sex schooling for girls, including same sex (and
race) role models and mentors, enhanced self-esteem, greater leadership opportunities, and
higher academic standards and expectations. Added on to these principles was an African-
centered curriculum to enhance self-esteem and develop a positive identity.
Proposals for all-male immersion programs raised concerns within and outside the
black community for the compelling needs of black females for whom teenage pregnancy,
single motherhood and academic failure have led to a lifetime of government dependency.
Critics of the all-male immersion concept argued that while black men have been described as
an "endangered species," black and Hispanic low-income women bear the triple burden of
15
being poor, female and minority. The data on both males and females, taken together,
presented a vivid and troubling picture of a social and economic underclass wracked by
institutional failure and family disintegration.
According to the Children's Defense Fund, drop-out rates among 16 to 24 year olds
from low-income families in 1994 reached 39.5 percent for Hispanics and 23 percent for
blacks as compared with 14.3 percent for whites. Only 43 percent of blacks and 35 percent of
Hispanics were enrolled in a college prepatory course sequence during that year as compared
with 50 percent of whites. 29 While birth rates for teenagers in all racial/ethnic groups has
declined in recent years with the sharpest drop among blacks, the numbers are still troubling.
In 1996 more that 10 percent of Hispanic and 9 percent of black females between the ages of
15 and 19 gave birth. 30 Nearly one in four black American men in their 20s is in jail, on
probation, or on parole while only one in five in the same age group attends college. Among
black males 18 to 34 years of age, homicide is the leading cause of death.³¹
Local politicians, school board members, and educators began to draw on these
compelling figures to press for gender and racial separation as a desperate measure to address
desperate circumstances, all the while pushing the legal envelope on racial segregation and
gender discrimination. From all-boys Afro-centric academies for at-risk students in Detroit
and Milwaukee, to an all-boys kindergarten class in Dade County, to an all-girls academically
rigorous program in New York City, single-sex education for black and Hispanic inner city
students became a lightening rod for a growing backlash against single-sex education. The
mounting legal opposition would split the civil rights community apart and force school
districts across the country to either re-think their plans or risk the political and financial
16
costs of litigation.
THE MANY FACES OF THE LAW
The most basic question concerning single-sex education is whether the concept, in its
various forms, violates the law. Obviously an affirmative answer renders the educational
policy arguments moot. But ironically, according to constitutional and administrative
standards, the legal question ultimately turns on the strength of the policy arguments. Over
the past decade, as school districts have experimented with single-sex schools or classes, civil
rights groups have used the federal Constitution and statutory law in an attempt to stop the
movement dead in its tracks. Leading the charge are the American Civil Liberties Union and
the National Organization for Women who maintain with unshakable resolve that single-sex
programs violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title IX of
the Education Amendments of 1972. The equal protection clause states that, "No state shall
deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" while Title IX
of the Education Amendments of 1972³² and its implementing regulations³³ prohibit
educational programs receiving federal funds from treating students unequally on the basis of
sex. In the past decade, court orders and agency rulings have set school districts around the
country on a roller-coaster ride of legality with still no clear end in sight.
The Philadelphia Case: Who Wins? Who Loses?
17
Two decades ago, civil rights groups used similar arguments to open the doors of
prestigious all-male public institutions to women. The Philadelphia case is particularly
interesting from both a legal and policy perspective. Central High School for boys was a
selective all-boys magnet school founded in 1837 by an act of the Pennsylvania legislature.
The city based the exclusion of women on a separate school for girls which, ironically, is one
of the few remaining all-girls public schools in the country today, in practice if not in theory.
The case went through two rounds of litigation, first in federal and then in state court.
In 1977, in Vorchhemier V. School District of Philadelphia, 34 an equally divided
Supreme Court (thereby having no precedential value beyond the Third Circuit) affirmed
without opinion an appeals court ruling upholding the constitutionality of Central High
School. The appeals court had concluded that Central and Girls High Schools were of equal
quality. The court expressed concern that parents and students should be allowed to exercise
their freedom of choice in the absence of convincing evidence as to the psychological or
academic harms of single-sex education, The court's rationale, placing the burden on the
challengers to prove the harms of the approach, stands in stark contrast to the current debate
which places the burden on supporters to prove its benefits. Nevertheless, the court implicitly
recognized the value of educational choice.
After Vorchheimer it appeared that the separate but equal doctrine rejected two
decades previously as to race was constitutionally permissible as to gender. Several years
later, however, female students again sought and were denied admission to Central High
School and brought suit in state court, this time claiming violations not only of the federal
Constitution but of the Pennsylvania State Constitution. The court found that Vorchheimer did
18
not bar the federal claim even though the facts and the law were identical. In the court's
view, the plaintiffs' counsel in Vorchheimer had failed to provide the court with relevant
evidence comparing the quality of the education provided at the two schools.
In Newburg V. Board of Education,3 the state court compared the two schools on a
number of indices of educational quality, including the size of the campus as compared to the
size of the student body, the number of books in the school library, the number of faculty
members holding Ph.D. degrees, the course offerings in mathematics, the extracurricular
programs offered, student scores on achievement tests, and average acceptance rates to
colleges. Having found the girls' high school deficient, the court concluded that the two
schools were not "equal" in the legal sense and therefore violated both the Fourteenth
Amendment and the Equal Rights Amendment to the Pennsylvania State Constitution. The
court ordered Central High School to admit boys while permitting Girls High to remain
single-sex.
The school district did not appeal the ruling which was met understandably with
strong opposition at Central High. But it was also met with less than enthusiasm by the
students and staff of Girls' High who feared the impact of the decision on their school's
already dwindling enrollments. Several students and graduates of the school made an
unsuccessful attempt to intervene but the court held it was too late; they had not been parties
to the trial court proceeding. 36 The students, alumnae, and staff of Girls' High remained
unimpressed with Central's stately library, thought to be the largest public school library in
the country, or the school's one million dollar private endowment and scholarship fund, or its
impressive alumni roster.
19
Despite the well-intentioned efforts of the ACLU, NOW, and the Women's Law
Project in Philadelphia, in the course of the litigation the Principal of Girls' High expressed a
sentiment that would continue to resonate throughout the single-sex schooling debate. "What
[the three girls] are doing is not helping women," she stated. "They're just destroying another
opportunity for women."37 In the end, although Girls' High was forced to technically admit
boys, none have enrolled in the fifteen years since the court's decision. On the other hand,
Central High proved far more attractive to women, moving quickly to a gender-balanced
population. The result is that while girls within the Philadelphia public school system now
can choose between an academically prestigious education that is either single-sex or
coeducational, that option is closed to boys.
Central High School was a prototype of a first generation single-sex school, an
academically prestigious institution that operated for the sole benefit of males. It was
established at a time when the prevailing belief among educators was that women were not
intellectually fit for this level of intellectual endeavor nor was it appropriate for them to
pursue the careers for which the school prepared its graduates. A decade beyond the
dismantling of single-sex education at Central and similar all-male public secondary schools,
civil liberties groups would use the same arguments to challenge single-sex programs even
where the objective was to include previously excluded groups including women and minority
males.
Detroit: A Civil Rights Dilemma
From the early to mid 1990s, opponents of single-sex education brandished the sword
20
of the 1991 district court opinion in Garrett V. Board of Education³⁸ enjoining the Detroit
School District from opening three all-male Afro-centric Academies for at-risk students. The
academies would emphasize male responsibility; would provide mentors, Saturday classes,
individualized counseling, and extended classroom hours; and would require students to wear
uniforms.
The District presented statistics demonstrating that black males were 39 percent of the
graduates from Detroit public schools as compared with 61 percent black females, that the
male short-term suspension rate was twice that of females, that 54 percent of black males
dropped out of school as compared with 45 percent of black females, and that homicide was
the leading cause of death among black males over age 9.³⁹ The court found that these
statistics, while compelling, fell short of demonstrating that the exclusion of girls was
substantially related to the Board's stated objective to combat high homicide, unemployment,
and dropout rates among black males. The court found no evidence that the system was
failing males because of the presence of females. In fact, the court concluded that the system
also was failing females.
The court further relied on two prior rulings by the Office for Civil Rights, one
requested by the Dade County Public Schools⁴⁰ and the other by the Wisconsin Department of
Public Instruction,⁴¹ declaring that segregation of students in all male classes or schools
violated Title IX. The court followed OCR's lead in reading Title IX's exception for the
admissions policies of elementary and secondary schools as applying "primarily" to those
schools that had existed as single-sex prior to the enactment of Title IX and not as an
authorization to establish new single-sex schools.
21
The case never went to trial, having concluded in a preliminary injunction with the
judge finding that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits. The Board agreed to
admit girls rather than risk the cost of further litigation that it believed it could not win. The
schools have continued to offer an African-centered curriculum to an approximately equal
number of girls and boys chosen by lottery with priority given to siblings.⁴² While the Detroit
decision had no precedential value outside the eastern district of Michigan, it subsequently
served as a powerful deterrent to other school systems that were considering similar programs
for black males.
The legal arguments challenging the Detroit and similar all-male Afro-centric
programs focused on sex discrimination against females. The political controversy, on the
other hand, centered on the race issue which found local and national black leaders on
opposite sides of the divide. Despite the fact that the population in these communities was
predominantly if not totally black, the racial segregation suggested in the approach made
Afro-centric schools difficult to justify politically. The NAACP Legal Defense and
Educational Fund voiced strong opposition to the concept, arguing that these schools posed a
real danger of resegregation and undermined efforts to eliminate segregation of black males in
special education classes and separate schools for students with disciplinary problems.⁴³
Just prior to the district court ruling in the Detroit case, the NAACP at its annual
convention in Houston had adopted a policy proclaiming its "historical opposition to school
segregation of any kind." In lieu of single-sex schools, the organization urged creation of
"workable alternatives to the proposed segregated education for African-American males."
Detroit delegates opposed the resolution during floor debate and local black leaders shared
22
their concerns. The president of the Detroit Urban League captured the critical nature of the
problem for the black community. "Unfortunately," he noted, "prisons are the male
academies that we already have. n44 Nevertheless, scathing criticism of the academies came
from the psychologist Dr. Kenneth Clark whose research had provided controversial social
science evidence to support the Supreme Court's decision in Brown V. Board of Education⁴
striking down segregated schools as inherently unequal. For Dr. Clark, these schools
constituted "academic child abuse. "46 He characterized them as a "damaging psychological
procedure" and a "shameless" "flagrant" "violation of Brown. "47
Despite the political and legal flap generated by the Detroit initiative, urban school
systems across the country continued to pursue single-sex education in alternative forms.
Some even went underground to avoid legal challenge. A 1996 report published by the
General Accounting Office cited numerous examples of single-sex programs throughout the
country but refused to identify some of the districts. 48 Each new program invited threatening
noises from civil rights groups with an occasional administrative warning from OCR. Both
tactics forced school officials either to admit members of the other sex or terminate the
project. In Presque Isle, Maine and Ventura, California, for example, separate math classes
for girls were nominally opened to boys when faced with a Title IX challenge. In Irvington,
New Jersey, separate boys and girls classrooms in the middle school were shut down by a
new superintendent citing guidance from state officials that the classes violated Title IX. In
Des Moines, Iowa state officials closed the door on single-sex classrooms operating on a
voluntary basis in two public schools for part of the day. 49 Milwaukee continued its African-
American Immersion School but opened admissions to all races and both sexes pursuant to an
23
agreement with the Office for Civil Rights. 50 In Dade County, Florida, a kindergarten and
first grade program for African American boys was forced to close down by OCR after its
first year even though attendance rates had risen by 6 percent, test scores increased by 6 to 9
percent, and there was a noticeable decrease in hostility 51 New York City revised its original
proposal to establish an all-male school, the Ujaama Institute (Ujamaa being the Swahili word
for "family), in response to opposition from civil rights groups who called the plan sexist and
racist. 52 The school district subsequently extended its admissions policy to include any student
interested in an African-centered learning experience.⁵³
The legal uncertainty of single-sex education, the continuing achievement gap between
low-income and other students, and the lack of adequate data to determine whether public,
and not just private, single-sex schools produce academic benefits moved Senator Danforth of
Missouri in 1994 to introduce legislation that would have permitted the experimental
establishment of single-sex schools on a limited basis. The Danforth Amendment addressed
OCR's interpretation and the decision of the district court in the Detroit case. The proposal
would have granted the Department of Education permission to waive what appeared to be a
Title IX prohibition on single-sex schools and grant school districts permission to establish
such programs on a voluntary basis for low-income educationally disadvantaged students. The
Department would have been authorized to award ten five-year grants to school districts for
the design and operation of educational opportunity single-sex schools for both males and
females with a comparable coeducational option.
The proposal was roundly defeated despite support from prominent educators,
researchers, lawyers, and government officials. Opponents of the Amendment, including
24
Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, rejected the very concept of segregating the sexes
for fear that even a limited experimental program might lead to further racial segregation in
society and the ultimate shortchanging of women. Joining in the opposition to the Danforth
Amendment were the American Association of University Women, the National Coalition of
La Raza, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, and
the National Organization for Women. 54
New York City: Constitutional Claims in the Wake of VMI
After the Detroit compromise in 1991, another round of litigation did not approach
reality until Community School District 4 in New York City announced in the summer of
1996 the establishment of a Young Women's Leadership School. With the ink barely dry on
the Supreme Court's June 1996 opinion striking down the Virginia Military Institute's all-
male admissions policy, the New York Civil Liberties Union, the New York chapter of the
National Organization for Women, and the New York Civil Rights Coalition challenged the
legality of the all-girls public school that was scheduled to open that Fall in East Harlem. At
that time, there remained only two single-sex public secondary schools in the entire country,
Western High School in Baltimore and the Philadelphia High School for Girls, both selective
college preparatory magnet schools with long histories of scholastic achievement and
accomplished alumnae. Neither school technically excludes qualified male applicants although
both have remained de facto all-female while the curriculum of both schools is replicated at a
nearby co-ed school. OCR investigations in 1992 concluded that neither school was denying
admission to boys or girls.
25
Unlike other city school districts before it, with the exception of ill-fated Detroit, New
York was publicly forging ahead into uncertain legal waters without a ruling from the Office
for Civil Rights and weighted down with the baggage of the VMI decision and the threat of
imminent litigation. The VMI case and its implications for single-sex education nationwide
immediately attracted national attention while the East Harlem school provided a focal point
around which the broader discussion could center.
The school would offer a strong academic curriculum focusing on math, science, and
technology initially to two seventh grade classes, with a grade added in each succeeding year.
As soon as the plans became public, the New York Civil Liberties Union fired off a letter to
the New York City Chancellor of Schools charging that the all-girls school violated the
federal Constitution and federal statutes including Title IX. With the National Organization
for Women again joining the opposition as they had in Detroit, along with the New York
Civil Rights Coalition, the school quickly became a "hot" topic for the media and the subject
of educational discussion nationwide. The three groups subsequently filed a complaint under
Title IX with the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education.
School districts across the country have watched carefully to see how the New York
case would be resolved. New York City officials have stood resolute, refusing to back down
as they had in the early '90s when they abandoned their plans for an all-male Afro-centric
school. The school opened in September 1996 with fifty seventh grade girls selected from
among one hundred applicants. In September 1997, the school added approximately fifty new
seventh graders and fifty ninth graders to the student body. School officials plan gradually to
expand into a college preparatory school through grade twelve. The matter remains under
26
OCR investigation.
The federal claims raised by the civil liberties groups are similar to those advanced
five years previously in Detroit. However, to strenghten their case they now rely on the VMI
decision and several interim Title IX warnings issued by the Office for Civil Rights to other
school districts. They speak with certitude, dismissing the core holding of VMI and
misreading the language and legislative history of Title IX. But their position has been
rejected even by those skeptical of the educational and social merits of single-sex programs.
The National Women's Law Center which has represented girls and women in many of the
major gender discrimination cases over the past two decades has clearly stated that, "[N]either
the Constitution nor Title IX prohibits all public single-sex education, let alone all single-sex
education The law recognizes that there are circumstances in which properly designed
and implemented single-sex education can play an important role in combatting discrimination
and dissipating traditional gender classifications. n55 Even the Assistant Secretary for Civil
Rights in the Department of Education has publicly taken a moderate stand both on Title IX
and on the impact of the VMI case. The statute, she has stated, does not prohibit separate
schools by gender so long as the facilities and offerings are "comparable" while the majority
of the Supreme Court in VMI "was very clearly speaking to the VMI case. It was silent on
any other program around the country. "56
In the late 1980s, VMI had received inquiries from 347 women but responded to none
of them. One of these women, a high-school student, subsequently filed a complaint with the
Attorney General of the United States. Based on that complaint, the United States sued the
Commonwealth of Virginia and VMI, alleging that the institution's all-male admissions policy
27
violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court's
1996 decision in United States V. Virginia⁵⁷ upheld that claim.
VMI is a prestigious military academy, and at the time of the Court's decision, the
only remaining single-sex public college in Virginia. VMI has a longstanding tradition of
preparing men not just for the military but primarily for leadership roles in the corporate
world and in government with only 15 percent of its graduates pursuing military careers. In
the course of the litigation. the State of Virginia proposed a separate all-women program, the
Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership. The Institute would be supported with state funds
at Mary Baldwin College, a private liberal arts college for women. Both the district and
appeals courts found the two programs to be "substantially comparable" and upheld the plan.
The Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case.
Civil liberties groups maintain that the VMI decision renders all publicly supported
single-sex schools unconstitutional. In VMI, however, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing
for the majority of the Court, stressed the narrowness of the decision and the unique facts of
the case. In an artfully yet forcefully crafted majority opinion, Justice Ginsburg, citing
several cases that she herself had argued before the Court on gender equality, restated and
applied with a "bite" the standard used in gender discrimination cases for the past two
decades, that classifications by sex must be "substantially related" to an "important
governmental interest." Adding more "teeth" to that standard, the majority noted that courts
must apply "skeptical scrutiny," taking a "hard look" at "generalizations or tendencies" based
on gender and that categorical exclusions from a state-supported institution such as VMI must
be supported by an "exceedingly persuasive justification."⁵⁸ Drawing on the rationale of
28
Sweatt V. Painter, 59 a seminal case in the racial desegregation of higher education, the Court
held that equality must be measured by both tangibles and intangibles. The Court concluded
that the state had failed to show "substantial equality; the separate leadership program for
women proposed by the State was but "a pale shadow of VMI" in terms of curricular and
extracurricular choices, faculty stature, funding, prestige, library resources, and alumni
support and influence. 61
The state of Virginia offered two justifications for the exclusion of women from VMI:
to preserve VMI's unique "adversative" approach and to provide diversity to an otherwise
coeducational state system of higher education. The Court roundly dismissed the first,
rejecting in particular lower court findings on gender-based developmental differences that
pointed to typically male and female "tendencies." On the state's second justification, the
Justices reaffirmed the "state's prerogative evenhandedly to support diverse educational
opportunities." In drawing the diversity line at "evenhandedness," they drew attention to the
circumstances surrounding VMI where Virginia had denied to women a unique educational
opportunity available solely at the state's "premier military institute. "62 The Court noted the
history of pervasive exclusionary policies within higher education until recent decades and
suggested that the all-male college is very likely to be a device for "preserving tacit
assumptions of male superiority. "63 The majority warned that even "benign" justifications
offered in defense of categorical exclusions would not be accepted automatically but must be
grounded in a genuine purpose and not a post-hoc rationalization. 64
The Justices stopped short of renouncing all gender-based classifications, leaving open
the constitutional door to single-sex schools under certain conditions. They tried to chart a
29
middle course between competing visions of gender equality, between the quest for absolute
equality between males and females and the recognition that women should be compensated
for socially imposed disabilities. The Justices recognized the "inherent differences" between
men and women as "cause for celebration." Gender classifications are permissible where they
"advance the full development of the talent and capacities of our nation's people," but not
where they are used "to create or perpetuate the legal, social, and economic inferiority of
women. "65 The Court more directly responded to arguments advanced by 26 private women's
colleges and recognized "the mission of some single-sex schools to 'dissipate, rather than
perpetuate, traditional gender classifications. "66
The VMI case clearly is more akin factually to the first generation of single-sex
schools that generated litigation dating from the '70s and '80s than to the new second
generation models as exemplified by the New York and Detroit initiatives. VMI excluded
women from a prestigious program based on stereotypical notions of women's capabilities
and, as the Court concluded, perpetuated the "inferiority of women" and the superiority of
men. Second generation single-sex programs have just the opposite intent and projected
effect. The new crop of single-sex schools, for both males and females, focus not on the
"inherent" deficiencies of the categorically excluded sex as was the case with VMI, but rather
on socially and environmentally created deficiencies of the included sex in order to "advance
full development of [their] talents and capacities."
The recent wave of single-sex initiatives compensate for past discrimination and aim at
eliminating arbitrary barriers that historically have impeded the advancement of certain
groups in society, particularly women and racial minorities. Unlike the single-sex schools of
30
the pre-Title IX past, most of which prepared women for a clearly defined narrow role in
society, the present-day model is designed to expand students' options, developing in them
the knowledge and skills to compete in mainstream society. According to the Court in the
VMI case, this type of compensatory program complies with the equality standard of the
Fourteenth Amendment. Nevertheless, critics fail to draw these subtle but significant
distinctions, their vision clouded by the memory of hard-fought battles to open the doors of
academically prestigious institutions that historically had excluded women.
In fact, there is a confusing inconsistency in oppositionist arguments that single-sex
education merely resurrects the "separate but unequal" doctrine struck down by the Court
more than four decades ago in Brown V. Board of Education. First of all, students attend
single-sex programs on a voluntary basis and not under legal mandate as was the case with
racially segregated schools. Secondly, these schools do not impose a badge of inferiority on
students but rather enhance their self-esteem and their educational and economic
opportunities. Choice within the context of single-sex schooling is markedly different from
southern "freedom-of-choice" plans initiated in the 1960s to circumvent school desegregation
mandates. There the intent was pernicious, to disempower black children, circumscribe their
options, and permanently exclude them from the mainstream. In theory, the child's choice
was free. In practice, it depended on black initiative, stamina, and fortitude to circumvent the
numerous bureaucratic obstacles set in their path and to withstand the violence that often
erupted when blacks tried to attend white schools.67 In the case of single-sex education,
choice is freely exercised and the intent is to empower students to develop their own life plan
within mainstream society.
31
Title IX: Caught in a Web of Ambiguities
This concept of compensatory justice is also key to the discussion of Title IX. Enacted
as part of the Education Amendments of 1972, the statute provides as follows:
"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from
participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any
education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. "68
Title IX is enforced by the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education as
an agency authorized to award funds for educational purposes. The statute directs OCR to
promulgate regulations based on legislative intent, and to enforce the law by terminating
federal funds from non-complying institutions and by "any other means authorized by law,
including complaint investigations and resolution and compliance reviews. 69 As Senator Birch
Bayh of Indiana, co-sponsor of the original legislation noted, Title IX was designed to be "a
strong and comprehensive measure [that would] provide women with solid legal protection
from the persistent, pernicious discrimination which is serving to perpetuate second-class
citizenship for American women. "70
With regard to admissions policies, the statute expressly applies "only to institutions of
vocational education, professional education, and graduate higher education, and to public
institutions of undergraduate higher education (emphasis added). 71 It explicitly excludes the
admissions policies of religious educational institutions whose tenets are inconsistent with the
law,72 military training schools,⁷³ and undergraduate public institutions of higher education
that traditionally and continually from their establishment had a policy of admitting only
32
students of one sex at the time the statute was enacted. 74 The statute is silent as to admissions
in private undergraduate colleges and elementary and secondary schools, other that vocational
schools.
Opponents of public single-sex schools cite to the district court opinion in the Detroit
case interpreting the explicit and implicit exemptions for admissions policies as "applicable
primarily to historically pre-existing single sex-schools and not as an authorization to establish
new single-sex schools. 75 However, there is no evidence in the language of the law or its
legislative history to support this interpretation. A more reasonable reading is that Title IX
implicitly excludes the admissions policies of all institutions not expressly covered.
Remarks by Senator Bayh confirm this interpretation. Bayh believed that it would be
"fairer to require all schools to adopt sex-neutral admissions policies." Understanding that
such a blanket requirement would only come from further study, he proposed that the
Commissioner of Education hold specific hearings to respond to issues raised by the types of
institutions exempted, including the question of requiring single-sex high schools to admit
students of both sexes. He expressed amazement that the Office of Education had not
maintained statistics on "how many elementary and secondary schools -- even public schools -
- are restricted in admission to one sex. "76 Senator Bayh's reference here to both public and
private schools is noteworthy. It appears that the Senate sponsor of the legislation himself
believed that the admissions policies of single-sex elementary and secondary schools, both
public and private, were at least temporarily exempt from Title IX pending further
congressional action.
Whether Title IX covers a particular educational practice, however, turns not only on
33
the statute itself but on regulations adopted in 1975 by what was then the Department of
Health, Education and Welfare and now enforced by the Department of Education. The
regulations distinguish between sex discrimination in admissions and in access to course
offerings. As to the first, the regulations repeat the language of the statute and expressly limit
the provisions covering admissions "only to institutions of vocational education, professional
education, graduate higher education, and public institutions of undergraduate higher
education. 1177 As to course offerings, they seemingly present a broad prohibition, banning
institutions from "provid[ing] any course or otherwise carry[ing] out any of its education
program or activity separately on the basis of sex, or requir[ing] or refus[ing] participation
therein by any of its students on such basis.
The regulations, however, recognize gender differences and the importance of
maintaining privacy and safety interests. Separate teams for contact sports, grouping students
in physical education activities by ability assessed by individual assessment of performance,
providing separate portions of classes that extensively address human sexuality, and
permitting separate musical choral groups based on a particular vocal range or quality all fall
within exceptions to the general ban on single-sex programs or activities. 79 The regulations
also permit separate programs for pregnant students as long as participation is completely
voluntary and the program is comparable to the program offered non-pregnant students.⁸⁰
In recent years, the general prohibition against separation of the sexes in educational
programs or activities has formed the basis for arguments challenging single-sex classes
within coeducational schools. The exceptions do not cover any of the core academic subjects
such as math, science, and computers which currently are the focus of many of these
34
initiatives. A compelling counter-argument draws from another key provision within the Title
IX regulations that permits schools to take "affirmative action" to "overcome the effects of
conditions which resulted in limited participation therein by persons of a particular sex" even
where there are no formal findings of discrimination.81 A compelling argument can be made
that single-sex classes, and single-sex schools for that matter, are designed to overcome
socially and environmentally imposed conditions that have impeded academic advancement
among certain student groups. Those conditions have limited academic interest and
participation in subjects such as math, science and computers among young women and
limited academic achievement among low-income minority students.
An alternative argument raised by opponents of single-sex schools is based in the
"comparability" clause of the regulations. Here school districts are prohibited from
discriminating on the basis of sex in "any school or educational unit" unless "comparable"
courses, services, and facilities are offered to those who are excluded. 82 Civil rights groups
give the "comparability" requirement a strained reading. They go so far as to reject the
concept of even a separate school for the excluded group and require that comparable means
"identical" and only in a coeducational setting. However, the comparability requirement does
not mandate expressly that courses, services, and facilities be provided to the excluded group
in another single-sex setting. In other words, a public single-sex school for girls need not
trigger a legal obligation to establish a comparable single-sex school for boys (although it is
legally questionable whether the opposite holds under the affirmative action rationale) as long
as educational opportunities of equal quality are offered even in a coed setting. In the case of
the Young Women's Leadership School in New York, for example, the school district
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maintains that it already provides numerous "comparable" opportunities for boys within
several coeducation schools throughout the district.
School districts that have established single-sex schools and classes, therefore, have
available three defenses to OCR findings of non-compliance with Title IX. They can argue
that OCR is acting ultra vires, that is, that the agency is acting beyond the scope of its power
and misinterpreting congressional intent in applying Title IX to the admissions policies of
public elementary and secondary schools. In the alternative, school systems can maintain that
the comparability requirement is flexible and not limited to providing an identical single-sex
program for members of the opposite sex but can include a similar educational program
provided in the context of coeducation. Finally, in view of research findings on low
achievement particularly in math and science and diminished self-esteem among girls,
combined with the social and academic problems that flow from poverty among minority
students, single-sex schools and classes can be justified as affirmative action measures for
certain populations within the meaning of the Title IX regulations. But it should not be
forgotten that even if single-sex programs can survive a statutory challenge under Title IX,
they are still subject to constitutional norms which need to be tested further in the wake of
the VMI decision.
Whether framed in the language of "affirmative action" under Title IX or as an
"exceedingly persuasive justification" under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment, the legal standard under federal law places school officials under careful judicial
and administrative scrutiny to prove single-sex schools and classes exist within the bounds of
the law. In presenting the case for single-sex education, school districts must overcome a
36
strong political and legal presumption against the categorical separation of students and the
exclusion of members of one sex based upon an immutable characteristic. They also must
overcome the fears of civil rights advocates that the approach may, in the long run, harm
both its intended beneficiaries and undermine almost three decades of struggle to promote
gender equity throughout education and society. The evidence lies in documented research
findings supported by anecdotal reports of the academic, social, and developmental benefits
that at least some students derive from single-sex education.
THE RESEARCH EVIDENCE
Research findings on single-sex education lend themselves to varied and conflicting
interpretations. The conclusions drawn depend on a number of factors, including the
underlying question, who is posing it, the tested impact or effect, programmatic objectives,
pedagogical practices, and the needs of the particular student population. Despite the
indeterminacy, lawyers, policymakers, educators and parents are looking for definitive
answers based in empirical evidence that point the way towards single-sex or coeducation.
Lawyers ask whether the findings are sufficiently persuasive to meet the federal legal
standards. As a statutory matter under Title IX, are single-sex classes and schools justifiable
as "affirmative" steps toward overcoming the effects of conditions that have resulted in
limited educational participation by girls in general, by black boys, or by minority girls and
boys? Even if permissible under Title IX, single-sex programs must comply with
37
constitutional norms under the Fourteenth Amendment. Is there an adequately tight "fit"
between the means used (separation of the sexes) and the governmental interest to be served
(improving academic achievement, enhancing self-esteem, compensating for prior
discrimination, providing diverse educational opportunities).
Policymakers undoubtedly raise legal concerns, but they also weigh the benefits and
the costs of establishing single-sex classes and programs on a limited or on a more extensive
basis. On one side of the balance are the potential gains in academic achievement and even
the value of providing students and families with educational options. On the other side are
the potential dangers of racial and gender stereotypes, unequal services, racial resegregation,
and diversion of public resources from addressing broader systemic and societal problems
dealing with gender and race.
Early Research: From Youth Culture to Women's Colleges
Contemporary challenges to the canon of coeducation find their sociological roots in
the publication of James Coleman's 1961 book, The Adolescent Society. 83 Here Coleman
examined the value systems of adolescents in ten schools and communities leading him to
conclude that the youth culture in secondary schools exerts a negative effect on intellectual
activities. In what he referred to as "the competition for adolescent energies," adolescent
values emphasizing popularity rather that academic achievement resulted at least partially
from the coeducational organization of the schools. The "cruel jungle of rating and dating,"
he maintained, proved particularly harmful for girls whose primary emphasis was on making
themselves into "desirable objects for boys." He concluded that "coeducation in some high
38
schools may be inimical to both academic and social adjustment. "84 Coleman understood that
his findings were not applicable to the universe but only to "some" high schools.
Despite the intuitive appeal of Coleman's findings, his conclusions did not stem the
tide of coeducation in the following two decades. Nevertheless, his research has resurfaced in
recent years to support single-sex education for girls and minority males, two populations that
seem especially vulnerable to the non-academic values and social pressures that arguably
serve as academic distractions in the typical coeducational school.
While Coleman's work was set aside for several decades, some of the earliest policy
arguments supporting single-sex education relied on data gathered from students and
graduates of women's colleges in the 1960s and 1970s. Compared with women attending
coeducational institutions, students at single-sex colleges were found to be more satisfied with
their overall college experience, 85 and more likely to major in nontraditional disciplines⁸⁶ and
to demonstrate higher levels of self-esteem and leadership skills.⁸⁷ Graduates of all-women's
colleges were found to have achieved greater success in their chosen occupations and greater
marital happiness. 88 A survey of nearly 5,000 women's college graduates from the classes of
1967 and 1977 found that nearly half had earned advanced degrees and almost half were
working in traditionally male-dominated jobs such as lawyer, physician, or manager, while
ninety percent stated that their colleges were successful in fostering and developing self-
confidence in women students.⁸⁹
The population examined in these early studies formed a highly selective group of
women, many of them attending elite private colleges at a time when access to prestigious
all-male institutions was closed to them. Research conducted after coeducational options for
39
women had been broadly expanded has yielded less consistent findings. Similar results on
measures of student satisfaction with the women's college experience except on the issue of
social life have been reported. Single-sex students also have demonstrated a greater likelihood
of obtaining a degree.⁹⁰ Contrary to earlier studies, however, more controlled research has
yielded less positive results. Controlling for SAT scores and socio-economic status, a
broader-based sampling of students, only ten percent of which attended "Seven Sister"
schools and twenty percent high-quality four year schools, found that graduates of women's
colleges were less likely to obtain a graduate degree than graduates of coeducational
institutions. On the other hand, they were more likely to hold a high-prestige job than their
counterparts from coeducational institutions. This difference between educational level
completed and job prestige may be a function of the comparative quality of the undergraduate
experience, that is, the particular single-sex college degree may have had greater purchasing
power on the job market.⁹¹
Despite the appeal of the early research findings on women's colleges, the obvious
differences between the college and secondary school setting and the populations served
render this data of limited direct relevance to the current debate over single-sex education.
This observation, however, does not suggest that these studies should be dismissed outright.
In fact, research on women's colleges, while now outdated, has helped shape contemporary
discourse on single-sex schools and has provided insights into the factors that may contribute
to the academic advancement of women, including role models, high expectations of students,
more collaborative teaching and learning techniques, opportunities for student leadership, peer
support, and faculty who are committed to women's development and who believe that
40
women are capable learners. 92 These institutional factors also could prove significant to the
education of other groups who have been foreclosed historically from full equal opportunity,
particularly low-income minority students.
Examining the Evidence: Is the Glass Half-Empty or Half-Full?
Prior to the mid-1980s, single-sex education was held in such disfavor particularly in
the public sector that there was little interest or opportunity for researchers to pursue
comparative studies. The modern-day retreat from single-sex public schooling in the wake of
Title IX effectively eliminated the field and subjects for meaningful research in this country.
Since the 1980s, however, renewed interest in the concept has generated repeated analysis
and discussion of a limited body of social science research in a seemingly fruitless search for
conclusive findings. These studies draw largely from three research contexts: studies from
abroad examining private and government operated schools, studies from the United States
examining private independent schools, and studies of Catholic schools. Obviously, each of
these settings presents institutional and cultural distinctions that prove problematic when
applying the findings to the American public school context. That in itself presents a
compelling argument for further experimentation with a broad range of single-sex
programmatic models. Nevertheless, in view of the absence of more directly relevant data,
the existing research studies have now become critical to the current debate over single-sex
schooling.
The bulk of research on single-sex schooling has compared student performance and
behavior by gender and school type. More recent studies have expanded the analysis and
41
focused on the relative cognitive and affective benefits to be gained by black and Hispanic
minority students, and particularly males, educated in single-sex settings. The discussion that
follows addresses the key issues raised and findings made in each of these contexts.
A number of reported studies include at least a partial review of the research. Two
comprehensive and politically significant overviews, however, demand particular discussion
for their distinct perspectives, their differing conclusions, and their potential impact on
educational practice. The differences stem, in part, from the particular studies and outcomes
selected for examination and from the particular position supported by the sponsoring
organization. With that caveat in mind, these both establish a framework for examining the
field of research questions asked and the conclusions drawn before moving on to several
major studies that have helped shape the research agenda and the policy debate over the past
decade. The first overview was commissioned by the Office of Educational Research and
Improvement (OERI) of the U.S. Department of Education during the Bush Administration.
The second is the report, Separated by Sex, recently released by the American Association of
University Women,
In 1992, OERI convened a group of scholars and practitioners to examine the effects
of single-sex education on students from the academic and social/affective dimensions. The
meeting resulted in the publication of a two volume report. The second volume consists of
nine papers prepared and presented by researchers and practitioners, including several heads
of all-boys and all-girls schools both independent and Catholic, all supporting the concept of
single-sex education. The first volume presents an overview of twenty studies on single-sex
schooling.⁹⁴ Many of the studies conducted abroad did not control for student and family
42
background characteristics including socioeconomic status, parents' education, prior
achievement scores, and curriculum track.
Among the reported findings from the United States were that girls in single-sex
schools experienced significantly greater improvement in science and reading achievement
between the second and third years of high school than their coeducational counterparts;⁹⁵ that
female graduates of all-girls schools subsequently attended more selective colleges, had higher
educational aspirations, and were more satisfied with the college environment,⁹⁶ and that both
white girls and minority students of both sexes outperformed their counterparts in
coeducational programs on a variety of academic measures.⁹⁷
Several studies indicated that while girls may benefit from single-sex schooling,
coeducation may be more conducive to academic achievement for boys. 98 Research conducted
in Nigeria⁹⁹ and Thailand¹⁰ found that boys in coeducational schools demonstrated higher
achievement levels and held less stereotypical views of math than did boys attending single-
sex schools. The same findings were made for girls in single-sex schools. On the other hand,
several studies examined in the OERI report found little or no differences in outcome
measures between the two approaches for either boys or girls. 101
The report concludes that, despite the inconclusive research findings, there is
sufficient empirical evidence to support the proposition that single-sex schools may produce
positive outcomes particularly for young women, and that the countervailing evidence to
reject that proposition is not sufficiently convincing. The report recommends future directions
for research comparing the effects of single-sex and coeducation, including drawing data from
larger samples, examining the effects of single-sex classes, and exploring the differential
43
effects of specific educational practices within single-sex and coeducational schools. The
report recommends that researchers agree on the use of specific and more appropriate
statistical techniques and control for individual differences. It further suggests that future
research efforts both expand the set of outcomes examined to include such measures as
dropping out of school and teen parenthood and compare the effects of different models and
practices on different racial-ethnic groups. The report sounds a warning that unless current
findings are extended and refined, there will be little opportunity to learn from single-sex
schools because few of them will survive. 102
Here was a government report challenging the conventional wisdom of coeducation
and supporting single-sex schooling, a position that should have ignited a storm of debate and
further research on the topic. Yet it received scarce attention in the educational community or
in the press. By the time the report was published in 1993, the Bush Administration
appointees who had commissioned the study had left the Department of Education and the
report became buried beneath a pile of government documents only to resurface as an
occasional bibliographic entry.
Five years later, a similar report examining much of the same research and including
papers presented by several of the same researchers participating in the OERI project, would
create a firestorm of controversy in the popular press and send shock waves throughout the
educational community. 103 This time it was the American Association of University of
Women, the same group whose series of reports in the early 1990s had sparked a similar
debate over coeducation for girls, that was voicing its opinion and the opinion was that
"separating by sex is not the solution to gender inequity in school. "104 With only a select
44
group of educators and researchers reading the full report, the group's press release became
virtually the sole piece of evidence in the court of popular opinion. The release listed among
the report's findings that "[t]here is no evidence in general that single-sex education works or
is better for girls than coeducation;" that "[s]ome kinds of single-sex programs produce
positive results for some students including a preference for math and science among girls;"
and that "there is no significant improvement in girls' achievement in single-sex classes."
The media ran with the first and third of these findings and totally ignored the second
which obviously qualifies the other two. In the days following the report's release, newspaper
headlines read: "All-Girl Schools Questioned as a Way to Attain Equity; n105 "Report Casts
Doubt on the Value of Single-Sex Schooling; "106 and "Separate and Unequal? A study finds
no evidence that all-female classes are better, but some girls are happy on their own. "107 As
one news commentator speculated, the AAUW issued the press release and report with an
embargo against premature release which suggested significance. "Reporters naturally think it
their duty to find that significance and not get lost in inconsistencies. But in this case, the
inconsistencies may be the heart of the story. 108
The National Coalition of Girls' Schools immediately published a counter-press release
and called the AAUW to task for its blanket assertion that "separating by sex is not the
solution" while the experts the group had convened had concluded that "there is insufficient
data to make a definitive judgement." The NCGS statement continued with a list of
quantifiable areas in which all-girl education does in fact work: NCGS students score almost
100 points above the national mean for the SAT, receiving a 594 verbal and 575 math as
compared with scores of 503 and 494 among girls nationwide taking the test in 1997; 77
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percent of NCGS students taking Advanced Placement Examinations score a three or higher;
7.8 percent of NCGS students were National Merit semi-finalists in 1997 while another 13
percent received letters of commendation. 109
The AAUW report is divided into two main parts. The first is an extensive literature
review divided into two sections: attitudinal and environment variables and achievement
variables which covers both single-sex classes and single-sex schools. The second part of the
report presents four papers presented in a roundtable discussion among sixteen researchers. A
careful reading of the report belies the negative conclusions highlighted in the Association's
press release and in subsequent reporting by the press. In fact, of the four roundtable
presenters, only one flatly rejects single-sex education. The other three suggest either that it
works for certain populations or that the educational and research communities define more
clearly the pedagogical practices that fall within the concept and proceed with caution before
investing additional public resources in a concept that begs for further empirical support. In a
nutshell, the report speculates that perhaps it is not the single-sex setting itself that yields
benefits at least to some students, but certain organizational elements that typically
characterize single-sex schools, including smaller classes, a strong academic curriculum,
parental involvement, orderly classrooms, and non-sexist teaching practices. Yet the report
fails to offer sufficient empirical support for that speculation. The thrust of the report is that
the remedy for gender inequity is not to separate girls from boys but to reproduce these
elements in the coeducational public school.
Among the reports findings from the existing research are the following.
There is consistent evidence from a variety of settings that girls in single-sex schools
46
perceive subjects such as math and science as less "masculine," suggesting this to be a factor
intrinsic to the single-sex environment.
Contrary to popular belief, there appears to be no consistent relationship between
sex stereotyping and type of school; the mere separation of girls and boys does not decrease
the reinforcement of gender roles.
The relatively few studies on single-sex classrooms yield inconsistent results. While
girls more highly estimate single-sex math and science classes, there is no evidence that this
preference is accompanied by achievement gains.
Research findings on the effects of single-sex schools on student achievement are
inconsistent. Some studies have found no differences in achievement attributable to school
type but more significant differences due to socio-economic status. Others have in fact shown
positive effects.
Single-Sex Classes: Hard VS. Soft Evidence
The AAUW report accurately notes that there are few research studies on single-sex
classes, an approach that is gaining increased interest in school districts across the country.
Those studies that exist, most of them from abroad, generally report no differences in
achievement between students in single-sex and mixed classes although some indicate that
students in single-sex math classes develop more positive attitudes toward the subject, 110
higher confidence levels that are associated statistically with achievement and greater
persistence in advanced mathematics classes for girls, 111 and an overall preference among
females for the single-sex classroom environment. 112
47
Several underlying questions demand attention before drawing any conclusions from
these findings. What are the goals of the program -- academic, social and behavioral,
cultural, or a combination of some or all of these? What outcomes are educators attempting to
achieve and are these the same outcomes that researchers are examining? What does it mean
to say that a particular pedagogical approach is "better"? Does it mean that it produces higher
achievement in the short-term as measured by some objective standard or could it mean that it
produces enhanced interest, more positive attitudes or certain behavioral changes that lead to
more long-term success and academic pursuit?
Single-sex classes cover a wide range of goals and implementation strategies making it
difficult to draw valid conclusions as to the effectiveness of the single-sex class concept. In
recent years, school districts have used the approach primarily in three contexts. The first
model separates students by sex in specific elective subjects, particularly advanced math and
science and more recently computers, to address diminished achievement and interest reported
among girls as they progress from elementary through middle and high school. The second
model separates them for all or the major part of the school day which is the model adopted
in some of the Afro-centric programs such as those operating in Milwaukee and Baltimore. A
third approach is to provide, within a coeducational school, single-sex classes that are an
integral part of the regular curriculum beyond math and science.
The model that has gained the most interest in school districts across the country is the
all-girl math, science and computer class. Some researchers in recent years have challenged
the basic assumption that school achievement among females is consistently lower than among
males. 113 National Assessment of Educational Progress data from 1996 reveal that females
48
now outstrip males in math by 8th grade, 114 showing average scores of 271 and 270
respectively although females continue to lag behind in science with average 8th grade scores
of 149 as compared with 151 for males. 115 Nevertheless, these gains for females in math are
not sustained in Scholastic Aptitude Test scores where the average math score for females in
1997 was 494 and for males 530. 116 The relative differences between 8th grade math and
senior year SAT scores could be a function of more males than females taking more advanced
level mathematics courses in high school.
Advanced Placement exam data confirm a widening gender gap in math/science
interest as students progress through the grades. In 1997 girls comprised only 12 percent of
students nationwide taking the AB-level and 20 percent taking the A-level computer science
exams, and only 36 percent of students taking the BC-level math calculus exam. 117 Even girls
who enroll in advanced placement classes may experience self-doubts. In a study of 160 high
school girls taking advanced placement in mathematics and physics, 40 percent reportedly
"played down good grades in mathematics in front of classmates and peers, especially male
classmates and peers. "118 Taken together, the data reveal noticeable gender-related differences
among adolescents in competence, attitudes, and participation levels in math, science, and
computer technology. These differences carry over into college and career planning.
According to recently released data, only 2.6 percent of female as compared with 15.2
percent of male college freshman plan to major in engineering with 1.4 percent of females as
compared with 3.7 percent of males planning a technology major. 119
It is not that females lack a "math-science gene" but rather something operating in the
social/school/home environment and any combination of the three that prevents the gene from
49
activitating. Research on occupational choices suggests that women retreat from math and
science because gender socialization inhibits their confidence in their abilities and expectations
of success while causing them to place less subjective task value on these fields than on other
possible options. 120 This resonates with the notion of "academic disidentification" which has
been advanced with regard to minority students and academic failure. 121
While the gender gap has been clearly documented, the question remains on how best
to narrow it. Empirical research on single-sex classes to date has been far too limited to
prove useful in assessing policy options. However, single-sex classes in math, science and
computers have produced a substantial body of anecdotal assessments. These reports, while
subjective, non-scientific, and not the sole basis upon which to carve policy and practice into
stone, provide useful insights into the learning process and suggest directions for future
program design and research. Many of these classes technically are open to both boys and
girls in order to insulate them from legal attack. However, they actively recruit from among
the female population sending the clear message that, "Boys need not enroll."
The all-girls algebra class operating in the Presque Isle (Maine) High School since the
late 1980s is an example of this approach. Now called "College Algebra with Emphasis on
Women's Contributions in Mathematics," the course is offered as an elective for both male
and female students yet no male has chosen to take the course. School officials report that
girls who have taken the class have tended to take more math and science courses in high
school, are more likely to consider a career involving math, demonstrate enhanced self-
confidence, and are more likely to demonstrate an increase in scores on the statewide math
test from eighth to eleventh grade. 122 Another example is the Walker School, a private
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coeducational school in Marietta, Georgia, which started separating boys and girls in 8th
grade algebra five years ago. Many of its middle-level math and science classes are now
offered only in single-sex classes. While school officials acknowledge that girls' achievement
has not changed noticeably, the number of girls enrolling in upper-level math and science
classes has increased from one-third to from 45 to 55 percent. As the head of a coeducational
middle school in Bedford. New York that has used single-gender math classes for the past
four years has noted, "What you can't measure in a quantitative way is how these kids feel
about themselves. It's enough to know that I have more girls saying, "I love math. , " 123
Aside from math and science, educators have become concerned with the relatively
low numbers of girls taking elective computer classes which could foreclose them later from
career opportunities. Washington Middle School in Olympia, Washington offers an all-girls
class combining technology skills with issues that are particularly interesting to adolescent
girls, such as nutrition, eating disorders, career exploration, and women's self-defense.
Before the class was instituted, twice as many 8th and 9th grade boys as girls enrolled in
technology electives. The ratio between boys and girls is now more evenly balanced. As one
eighth grade girl observed, "A lot of girls that are shyer around boys will feel more
comfortable in a class like this and will not be afraid to ask questions."
Manchester High School in Connecticut offers both single-sex and mixed-gender
sections of a course in Technology in the World using the same curriculum for both. Officials
report that the program has enhanced the students' self-confidence and their interest in
technology careers. It also has increased the enrollment of girls in technology electives from
15 percent to 24 percent of total enrollment. Both the Washington and Connecticut schools
51
technically open all their technology classes to girls and boys, again to meet the comparability
requirements of Title IX. However, in Connecticut the course description for the all-girls
sections reads, "for female students but open to boys by request," while the Washington
school holds a promotional meeting only for girls when recruiting students for the special
class. 124
The obvious question that remains unanswered in these reports is whether separating
by gender is the only way or even the most effective way to achieve the same ends or
whether alternative approaches could prove as effective. Schools might initiate after-school
math and science clubs for girls or invite women engaged in math and science to discuss their
careers or serve as mentors. The issue of single-sex classes in all its permutations demands
more carefully controlled longitudinal studies. Nevertheless, the reported outcomes from the
existing programs expand the discussion of single-sex education from focusing on short-term
achievement gains to examining the effects of short-term attitudinal and behavioral changes
on long-term career opportunities.
Single-Sex Schools: Gender, Race, and Socio-economic Class
In addition to the lack of empirical data supporting single-sex classes, the recent
AAUW report concludes that research on single-sex schools has produced highly inconsistent
findings. Several of these studies, in fact, have played a critical role in shaping the current
debate on single-sex schools for girls. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Valerie Lee in
collaboration with several researchers and Cornelius Riordan separately reported on a series
of research studies examining the effects of single-sex and coeducation on girls' and boys'
52
achievement. Their field of research primarily was Catholic schools, although Lee
subsequently extended her research into the private independent sector. Both researchers
participated in the 1992 OERI and 1997 AAUW roundtable discussions.
In two widely-cited studies of secondary school students and graduates in the 1980s,
the first with Anthony Bryk and the second with Helen Marks, Lee found positive effects of
single-sex schooling for girls but few differences attributable to school type for boys. Both
studies used data from High School and Beyond (HS&B), a national survey sponsored by the
National Center for Education Statistics in 1980. They drew data from sophomores in 1980
with a follow-up two years later in senior year. In comparing girls and boys attending single-
sex and coeducational Catholic schools, they found that girls in all-girls' schools expressed a
more positive attitude toward academics and demonstrated higher achievement gains in
reading, writing and science than their coeducational counterparts. Single-sex school boys did
not show statistically significant gains between sophomore and senior years but were more
likely to enroll in math and science classes and less likely to enroll in vocational classes than
their coeducational counterparts. 125
Lee subsequently found that these positive effects were sustained in college. Both
females and males were more likely to attend selective four-year colleges and were more
likely to have considered attending graduate school than their coeducational counterparts. The
effect on girls from single-sex schools extended to attitudinal and behavioral outcomes, with
members of this group holding significantly less stereotypical attitudes about women in the
workplace and demonstrating a greater likelihood of being actively involved in politics by the
end of college. 126 Lee subsequently examined students attending independent schools for
53
similar differences in achievement and attitudes, collecting similar data in 1989 and 1990.
Finding no consistent pattern of effects for either boys or girls, she expanded the scope of the
study and reported findings on why students and families choose a single-sex over a
coeducational school. 127 Unable to explain the inconsistencies between Catholic and
independent secondary schools by differences in dates of data collection, motives of parents
in selecting single-sex education, or historical differences in the status of single-sex versus
coeducational schools between the two sectors, Lee has shifted the focus of her research to
examine school organization effects on student outcomes.
It is significant that one of the leading researchers on single-sex education now has
withdrawn her support for the concept. In 1992 she noted in her closing remarks to the OERI
roundtable that "there is something important going on in some single-sex schools for young
women" and therefore we should "not allow this option to disappear from the American
educational landscape." Five years later, she did a complete turnaround in her AAUW
roundtable presentation, unequivocally stating that "separating adolescents by gender for
secondary schooling is not an appropriate solution to the problem of gender inequity in
educational outcomes, either in the short or in the long run. "128
Riordan has remained more steadfast in his support for single-sex schooling, although
he has refined his position over the years. His research has received wide attention primarily
for his examination of the effects of single-sex schooling on black and Hispanic male and
female students. 129 Similar to Lee, Riordan used the High School and Beyond survey data to
compare the performance in sophomore and senior years on cognitive and affective measures
of white, black, and Hispanic students attending single-sex and coeducational Catholic
54
schools. His findings revealed that white girls and black and Hispanic students of both sexes
fare better in single-sex schools while coeducation might prove more beneficial to white boys.
When scores were adjusted for initial ability, school variables and home background, girls
and minority boys attending single-sex schools demonstrated higher cognitive achievement,
higher self-esteem, higher internal control, and more liberal attitudes toward working women
than their counterparts in coeducational institutions. The opposite effect held for white boys
in single-sex schools with their coeducational counterparts surpassing them on all cognitive
and affective measures used in the study. While the affective differences were not large, it
appeared from the data that white males attain healthier attitudinal outcomes in coeducational
schools. Single-sex schools, on the other hand, provide minority males in particular with an
environment and set of school policies that foster the growth of internal control mechanisms
through which they believe that they control their own destinies.
How can the marked differential effect of single-sex and coeducation between white
and minority males in particular be explained? Riordan suggests that white males in
coeducational schools may gain an advantage by comparing themselves as a group to females
who may serve as a "negative reference group." In the competitive environment of
predominantly white all-male schools, some low performing males end up serving that
function thereby driving overall achievement scores down. Offsetting these forces for
minority and white female students in single-sex schools, he maintains, is the "greater
receptivity" for school effects among low-status students together with the benefits of role
models and what he calls the "adolescent subculture" of athletics, social life, and dating
which he found strongest among boys in single-sex schools. Riordan notes that for both black
55
and Hispanic boys and girls, about 70 percent of the test score difference between minorities
in single-sex and coeducational schools can be explained by adjusting for school variables
including curriculum, course work, homework, and the adolescent subculture. These formal
and informal school structures apparently have a more significant effect on minorities than on
white males. Riordan's findings confirm those of previous studies, that the overall effects of
school quality are greater among minorities¹³ and among the poor. 131
In his remarks to the AAUW roundtable participants in 1997, Riordan acknowledged
findings that appear to contradict the results obtained in his own studies and that of Lee and
Bryk dating from the 1980s. Recent research on Catholic schools in the 1990s indicates that
students in single-sex schools do not outperform their coeducation counterparts on various
measures of achievement. 132 He maintains that Catholic school students have become more
affluent over the past decade and therefore recent findings are completely considtent with
those of Lee with regard to private independent schools where no differences in academic
achievement were observed between students in single-sex and coeducational programs. He
concludes that the effects of single-sex education fall within a hierarchy of low-status
characteristics (female, racial minority, low SES). The greatest effects are found among black
and Hispanic females from low socio-economc homes, slightly diminished effects among
black and Hispanic males from low socio-economic homes, smaller effects still for white
middle-class females, and virtually no differential effects among affluent students regardless
of race or gender. While he agrees with Lee that certain organizational features including
small school size and a strong academic curriculum explain the greater academic effectiveness
of single-sex schools, he argues that they do not totally explain the difference. For him,
56
features that flow out of school type, including role models, leadership opportunities,
diminished youth-culture values and an affirmative pro-academic parent/student choice are
key to the success of single-sex schools for historically disadvantaged student populations.
Based on a cross-national study of four countries (Belgium, New Zealand, Japan and
Thailand), Riordan suggests that as single-sex schools become more common, the
achievement differential between them and coeducational institutions may diminish. 133 This
may explain the more frequently reported achievement differences found in the United States
than abroad. In many of the countries where similar studies have found no differences, there
is a more even balance between single-sex and coeducational schools both private and
government operated. In the United States, in contrast, single-sex schools form a small sector
of the country's educational system and seemingly attract different students than those
educated in the larger coeducational sector. In view of the strong resistance in this country to
the single-sex model, however, it is improbable that single-sex schools will approach the
numbers of coeducational institutions, particularly in the public sector, to realize this
phenomenon of diminishing differential effects.
In the meantime, the results of studies on minority students indicate that single-sex
schooling may hold promise for transforming the lives of inner city girls and boys caught in
the downward spiral of poverty and the destructive forces that flow from it. In cities across
the nation, the number of black and Hispanic children living in impoverished neighborhoods
has risen to staggering levels. reaching 97 percent for blacks in Washington, D.C. and 86
percent in Detroit. 134
According to the sociologist Claude Steele, at the root of academic failure for black
57
students in particular is the failure of public schools to develop and constantly reaffirm what
he calls "academic identification," that is, the belief that school achievement is a promising
basis for self-esteem. 135 Achievement levels among minority students in urban school districts
lend credibility to this observation. Only 42 percent of urban students nationwide scored at
basic level or higher on the 1994 National Assessment of Educational Progress fourth grade
reading test as compared with 63 percent of students attending non-urban schools. The
equivalent levels for eighth grade math were equally low, with 42 percent in urban school
districts and 66 percent in non-urban districts scoring at basic level or higher. 136
Despite rising test scores nationally, the achievement gap between students in urban
and non-urban school districts remains wide as does the gap between minority and non-
minority students in urban areas. Data drawn from several urban areas confirm this
observation. While nearly three-fourths of Illinois third graders in 1996 were rated
"proficient" on the state reading test, fewer than half the students in Chicago met that
standard. In 1996, the average Connecticut fourth grader was ten times as likely as the
average fourth grader in Hartford to achieve proficiency on all three of the state's mastery
tests. 137 Add these compelling statistics to the figures on crime, dropout rates, drug abuse,
teenage pregnancy and homicide for minority youth and the educational needs of minorities in
the inner city reach crisis proportions. If research evidence suggests that single-sex education
is most effective within low-income minority student populations, both females and males,
then it is worth consideration at least on an experimental basis.
58
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Single-sex education is a complex web of unanswered questions and promising leads
all searching for a definitive resolution in the law, in policy alternatives, and in research
findings. All three strands join together in an interactive relationship, each sensitive to
developments in the other. As is often the case in education, the policy initiatives on single-
sex schooling initially took off despite uncertainty in the law and limited evidence in the
research.
The legality of single-sex education -- from schools, to classes, to dual academies --
has been placed on hold at this time, with OCR apparently taking a wait-and-see approach to
the various single-sex models now operating throughout the country. OCR's foot-dragging in
resolving the Title IX complaint brought by civil liberties groups against the Young Women's
Leadership School in New York is clear evidence of this cautionary approach. The agency
apparently has waited for the issue to play itself out more fully in the policy and research
arenas. Agency officials are struggling to accommodate the law to an educational concept that
at least in theory is gaining popularity among parents and legitimacy among educators and
politicians.
It remains to be seen if the American Association of University Women's recent
report has a significantly negative impact on the single-sex movement in this country. The
report casts a dark cloud over supportive arguments based in research findings on the
cognitive and affective gains that arguably flow from separating girls and boys at least during
the early adolescent years. Yet such findings may be critical to OCR's ultimate position under
59
Title IX. Empirical support may also play a key role in the judiciary's application of the
equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, although the Supreme Court in the
VMI case suggested that diversity itself may be a sufficiently persuasive justification for
single-sex schooling provided the intent and effect are not to promote gender stereotypes.
While reasonable minds may disagree over the comparative benefits of single-sex and
coeducational schooling and some may even argue that it is purely a matter of personal taste,
advocates of single-sex schools and classes bear the legal burden of coming forward with
sound social science evidence to support departing from the presumed norm of coeducation.
Research findings also influence the thinking of policymakers and educators
particularly those who are searching for scientific evidence to support their particular
preferences. The AAUW reports of the early 1990s, coming on the heels of the Sadkers'
research on how coeducation shortchanges girls, demonstrate how a limited body of
controversial research can ignite a national debate, turn the conventional thinking on
educational practice around by at least 90 degrees, and quickly generate programmatic
experimentation at the local level. Time will tell whether a narrow set of reportedly
inconclusive findings, capitalized upon by the media, will now send those same forces into
retreat.
There is no doubt that single-sex education fails to hold up when put to the test of
rigorous empirical research. But for that matter, does coeducation or many other pedagogical
approaches fare any better? The continued debate over whole language vs. phonics and the
ongoing controversy over bilingual education VS. English immersion, even after more than
two decades of inconclusive research findings, are two examples of how educational practices
60
often take root with insufficient theoretical grounding. Part of the problem is the flawed
nature of educational research itself, where it is impossible to control the many differential
factors that operate across classrooms and schools and to isolate the particular element
producing the observed effect. The other part of the problem is that in the vast world of
diverse student needs, practice often outstrips theory in the rush to remedy every newly
diagnosed problem in response to popular or political pressure.
Perhaps researchers on single-sex education have been asking the wrong questions. As
the anecdotal evidence on single-sex classes demonstrates, the focus on objectively
measurable short-term outcomes in achievement score gains, for example, may simply divert
attention from the real question of short-term behavioral and attitudinal changes that
ultimately produce long-term effects in career choices and greater control over one's life
plan. It could be that empowerment and not higher test scores per se is at the heart of single-
sex education. Unfortunately, the personal benefits that flow from empowerment are not
clearly apparent or measurable in the short-term.
Stripping away all the rhetoric of "benevolent sexism" and "silver bullets" and
focusing on the educational issues reveals a perplexing inconsistency in the equality
arguments advanced by the opponents of single-sex schooling. Their position, in fact, turns
the equality ideal on its head. Over the past three decades, that ideal has come to mean not
just "same is equal" but sometimes "different is equal" and even "more is equal" when
applied to various student populations. Clear examples of students receiving differential
treatment, some of it mandated by law, are the economically disadvantaged in compensatory
programs, linguistic minorities in bilingual education programs, and the disabled assigned to
61
special education services. Why should gender differences not be afforded similar
recognition? Single-sex education, particularly for women and minorities, is merely an
extension of the very concept of equality that these same civil rights groups have pressed
before courts, legislatures, and administrative agencies.
This is not to suggest that school districts mandate separate schooling or that it is
appropriate for all students or even for all members of certain groups. While the research on
achievement gains in girls is inconclusive, there exists evidence that at least some girls
experience a certain comfort level and develop greater self-confidence, interest, and academic
identification in single-sex settings. The research also suggests that single-sex programs can
prove especially beneficial for low-income black and Hispanic students. More significantly,
there are no research findings that single-sex schools harm students in any palpable way,
other than speculations on gender stereotyping and some suggestions as to the negative effects
on non-minority boys. Given the general lack of harm to students, the inconclusive empirical
findings on cognitive benefits to girls, the supportive findings as to the benefits to minorities,
and the observational reports on affective gains, it is seriously questionable whether
government should mandate, as some opponents argue, that all public school students attend a
coed school.
Viewed in the context of the larger debate over school reform, single-sex education is
another issue where the principles of individual liberty (in the form of choice) and equality
(in the form of equal educational opportunity) are clearly reconcilable and mutually
reinforcing despite assertions to the contrary, assertions grounded more in ideology and
misplaced fears than in sound pedagogy. This argument is particularly salient in the case of
62
minority students for whom inner city public schools and three decades of compensatory
programs have proven such a dismal failure. If equality is truly a fundamental goal of public
education particularly in the inner city, then public schools should afford to the
disadvantaged, with potentially greater personal and social returns, the same choice and
opportunity that historically have been enjoyed by those attending private schools.
The concerns raised by women's groups who challenge single-sex education, however,
must not be summarily dismissed but addressed directly. Their expressed fears of gender
stereotyping as a potential danger are understandable given the battles fought to break down
the doors of exclusionary institutions. In view of that all too recent history, school districts
must watch vigilantly to assure that single-sex programs do not in fact slide back into pre-
Title stereotypes that limit rather than expand the horizons of young women and certain
young men. The mere possibility of backsliding, however, does not negate the potential
benefits of the approach at least for some students. Without carefully planned
experimentation, school districts will never have the chance to test the strength of that
potential.
There is also validity to the concern expressed by both the AAUW and civil rights
groups that gender inequities continue to permeate education nationwide and that school
districts should focus more attention on remedying these inequities. But the need for systemic
change does not preclude testing more focused incremental reform at the same time. Single-
sex education is no more costly than coeducation and therefore should not divert resources
from systemwide remedial action. Ironically, the legal challenges themselves have brought
undue attention to these programs, dissuaded school officials from testing and implementing
63
creative models, and made single-sex schools and classes largely symbolic while at the same
time diverting public concern for broadscale change to promote gender equity throughout the
system. As a result, both programmatic and system-wide efforts to address gender inequities
have suffered. It may in fact be true that separating by sex is not the solution to gender
inequity in school, but it may be one of several solutions along with certain organizational
supports and teacher training.
There is no doubt that more carefully controlled longitudinal studies that examine a
broader range of effects are needed before school districts make sizeable investments in any
particular single-sex models. But that rule should hold for any pedagogical approach and
particularly for one that is so controversial. In the meantime, however, school districts
around the country should continue to serve as laboratories of experimentation, opportunity,
and diversity from which can emerge the most effective approaches to educating future
generations of girls and boys, whether separately or together.
64
1. David Tyack and Elizabeth Hansot, Learning Together: A History
of Coeducation in American Schools (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1990), pp. 37-38.
2. Ibid., p. 43.
3. Thomas Woody, A History of Women's Education in the United
States (New York: Octagon Books, 1974; orig. ed. 1929), p. 321,
(quoted in Tyack and Hansot, Learning Together, p. 43).
4. Tyack and Hansot, Learning Together, p. 95.
5. U.S. Com. Ed. Rep. for 1900-1901, p. 1221 (cited in Tyack and
Hansot, Learning Together, p. 114).
6. 347 U.S. 484 (1954).
7. Kirstein V. University of Virginia, 309 F.Supp. 184 (E.D. Va.
1970).
8. For a discussion of the enactment of the Title IX statute and
regulations, see Andrew Fischel and Janice Pottker, National
Politics and Sex Discrimination in Education (Lexington, MA:
Lexington Books, 1977); Anne N. Costain, "Eliminating Sex
Discrimination in Education: Lobbying for Implementation of Title
IX," in Race, Sex and Policy Problems," eds. Marian Lief Palley
and Michael B. Preston (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1979).
9. Elisabeth Hansot, "Historical and Contemporary Views of Gender
and Education," in Gender and Education, eds. Sari Knopp Biklen
and Diane Pollard (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993),
p. 13.
10. Vernon Loeb, "A Mandate for Equal Access in Conflict with
Central's All-Male Tradition," Education Week, February 2, 1983,
p. 12.
11. Backgrounder: Single-Sex Independent Schools (Washington,
D.C.: National Association of Independent Schools, 1998).
12. Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1982, 1993), p.2.
13. Carol Gilligan, "Preface: Teaching Shakespeare's Sister:
Notes from the Underground of Female Adolescence," in Making
65
Connections, eds. Carol Gilligan, Nona P. Lyons, and Trudy J.
Hammer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), p. 10.
14. Ibid., p. 14.
15. Ibid., p. 10.
16. "Opposing All-Male Admission Policy at Virginia Military
Institute: Amicus Curiae Brief of Professor Carol Gilligan and
the Program on Gender, Science, and the Law," Women's Law
Reporter 16 (Fall 1994), pp. 1-16.
17. Myra Sadker and David Sadker, Failing at Fairness (New York:
Touchstone, 1994).
18. American Association of University Women, Shortchanging
Girls, Shortchanging America (Washington, D.C., January 1991).
19. American Association of University Women, How Schools
Shortchange Girls (Washington, D.C., February 1992).
20. American Association of University Women, Hostile Hallways:
The AAUW Survey on Sexual Harassment in America's Schools
(Washington, D.C., June 1993).
21. Nan Stein, Nancy L. Marshall, and Linda R. Tropp, Sexual
Harassment in Our Schools (Wellesley, MA: Center for Research on
Women, Wellesley College, March 1993), p. 4.
22. American Association of University Women Educational
Foundation, Girls in the Middle: Working to Succeed in School
(Washington, D.C., 1996).
23. Editorial, "Dreadful Waste of Female Talent," San Francisco
Chronicle, 13 February 1992, p. A22.
24. Susan Chira, "Bias Against Girls is Found Rife in Schools,
With Lasting Damage, New York Times, 12 February 1992, p. A22.
25. Peter Schmidt, "Idea of 'Gender Gap' in Schools Under
Attack," Education Week, 18 September 1994, pp. 1, 16 (quoting
Diane Ravitch, Senator Nancy Landon Kassenbaum, Albert Shanker,
and the President of the American Psychiatric Association, Jerry
M. Wiener). For a detailed criticism of the AAUW findings, the
Sadkers' research, and the Wellesley report on sexual harassment,
see Christina Hoff Sommers, Who Stole Feminism? (New York:
Touchstone, 1994), pp. 157-87.
26. See Peggy Orenstein, School Girls: Young Women, Self Esteem,
and the Confidence Gap (New York: Doubleday, 1994) Mary Pipher,
Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls (New
66
York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1994).
27. Press Release, The National Coalition of Girls Schools,
"Girls' Schools Offer Valuable Lessons for Education Reform,"
March 22, 1998.
28. Table 3, National Association of Independent Schools
Statistics 1997, Enrollment in Member Schools, 5 Years
(Washington, D.C., 1997), p. 7.
29. U.S. Department of Education, A Profile of the American High
School Senior 1992, cited in Children's Defense Fund, The State
of America's Children: Yearbook 1997 (Washington, 1997), p. 73.
30. Table 1, Rate of births for females aged ≤20 years, by age
group and race/ethnicity -- United States, 1990-1996, in "State-
Specific Birth Rates for Teenagers -- United States -- 1990-
1996," Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 46 (36) (September
12, 1997, p. 838.
31. Dirk Johnson, "Milwaukee Creating 2 Schools for Black Boys,"
New York Times, 30 September, 1990, p. A1. For a comprehensive
discussion of the problems facing black males, see Young, Black,
and Male in America: An Endangered Species, eds. Jewell Taylor
Gibbs, et al. (Dover, MA: Auburn House Publishing Company, 1988).
32. 20 U.S.C. §1681 et seq. (Supp. 1997).
33. 34 C.F.R. Part 106 (Supp. 1997).
34. Vorchheimer V. School District of Philadelphia, 532 F.2d 880
(3rd Cir. 1976), aff'd by an equally divided court, 430 U.S. 703
(1977).
35. Newburg V. Board of Public Education, School District of
Philadelphia, 9 Phil.Cty.Rep. 556 (1983).
36. 478 A.2d 1352 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1984).
37. Vernon Loeb, "A Mandate for Equal Access In Conflict with
Central's All-Male Tradition," Education Week, 2 February 1983,
p. 12.
38. 775 F.Supp. 1004 (E.D. Mich. S.D. 1991).
39. Male Academy Task Force, Detroit Public Schools, Male Academy
Grades K-8: A Demonstration Program for At-Risk Males, March 26,
1991 (unpublished report).
40. Letter from Jesse L. High, Regional Director, Office for
Civil Rights, to Dr. Joseph Fernandez, Superintendent of Schools,
Dade County, Florida, August 31, 1988 (noting that the "proposal
67
to assign students on the basis of sex, even though voluntary on
the part of the boys who would participate, is not an exception
allowed for by [Title IX].")
41. Letter from Cathy Lewis, Office for Civil Rights, to the
Cultural and Equity Section, Wisconsin Department of Public
Instruction, May 18, 1990 (stating that under Title IX "it would
not be acceptable to separate the students on the basis of sex. ")
42. Telephone interview with Dr. Elysa Robinson, Assistant
Director of Community and Business Partnerships, Detroit Public
Schools, April 3, 1998.
43. NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Statement of
Proposals for Separate Schools for African-American Pupils, 1990.
44. Ron Russell, "NAACP Fund Might Join in Opposing All-Male
Schools,' The Detroit News, 21 August 1991, p. 1.
45. 347 U.S. 484 (1954).
46. Tom Dunkel, "Self-Segregated Schools Seek to Build Self-
Esteem," Washington Times, 11 March 1991, p. E1.
47. Janet Wilson, "Expert Dislikes All-Male Schools, Consultant
Says They Harm Black Students,' Detroit Free Press, 24 February
1992, p. 1B.
48. U.S. General Accounting Office, Public Education: Issues
Involving Single-Gender Schools and Programs, No. B-27125
(Washington, D.C., May 1996).
49. Mark Walsh, "Ruling's Effect on Single-Sex Classes Mulled,"
Education Week, 10 July 1996, p. 1, 31.
50. For a discussion of the Milwaukee African-American Immersion
Program see Marcia L. Narine, Single-Sex, Single Race Public
Schools: A Solution to the Problems Plaguing the Black
Community," U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational
Research and Improvement, April 1992 (ERIC Document 348 423). For
a general discussion of programs for African American male
students, see Carol Ascher, "School Programs for African American
Male Students, Trends and Issues No. 15," Office of Educational
Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education,
Washington, D.C., May 1991 (ED 334 338).
51. Belle S. Whelan, "Making Public Education Work for Black
Males," paper prepared for the National Conference on Preventing
and Treating Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse, HIV Infection, and
AIDS in the Black Community (1991), p. 16 (ED 347 260).
68
52. Stephanie Gutmann, "Class Conflict," New Republic, 7 October
1996, p. 12, 13.
53. Audrey T. McCluskey, "The Historical Context of the Single-
Sex Schooling Debate Among African Americans,' The Western
Journal of Black Studies 17 (4) (1993), pp. 193-201.
54. 103rd Cong., 2d Sess., Congressional Record, Vol. 140 (August
1, 1994), S10163-10174.
55. National Women's Law Center, Single-Sex Education After the
VMI Decision (Washington, D.C., October 1996).
56. Mark Walsh, "Ruling's Effect on Single-Sex Classes Mulled,"
Education Week, 10 July 1996, p. 1, 31 (statement of Norma Cantu,
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of
Education).
57. 116 S.Ct. 2264 (1996).
58. Ibid., p. 2280.
59. 339 U.S. 629 (1950) (declaring unconstitutional separate law
school established by state of Texas for black students based on
inequalities in both tangible and intangible features as compared
with state's flagship University of Texas School of Law).
60. Ibid., p. 2268.
61. Ibid., pp. 2264, 2285.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid., p. 2277 n. 8.
64. Ibid., p. 2275.
65. Ibid., p. 2276.
66. United States V. Virginia, 116 S.ct. 2264, 2276 n. 7, citing
Brief for Twenty-Six Private Women's Colleges as Amicus Curiae,
p. 5.
67. Rosemary C. Salomone, Equal Education Under Law (New York:
St. Martin's Press, 1986), p. 46.
68. 20 U.S.C. §1681 (a) (Supp. 1997).
69. 20 U.S.C. §1682 (Supp. 1997).
70. 92nd Cong., 2d Sess., Congressional Record, Vol. 118, Pt. 4
(February 15, 1972), S5803.
69
71. 20 U.S.C. §1681 (a) (1) (Supp. 1997).
72. 20 U.S.C. §1681 (a) (3) (Supp. 1997).
73. 20 U.S.C. §1681 (a) (4) (Supp. 1997).
74. 20 U.S.C. §1681 (a) (5) (Supp. 1997).
75. Garrett V. Board of Education, p. 1009.
76. 92nd Cong., 2d Sess., Congressional Record, Vol. 118, Pt. 4
(February 15, 1972), S3935-3997 (statement of Senator Bayh).
77. 34 C.F.R. $106.15 (d) (Supp. 1997).
78. 34 C.F.R. $106.34 (Supp. 1997).
79. 106 C.F.R. §106.34(b)-(f) $106.34 (Supp. 1997).
80. 34 C.F.R. $106.40 (a) (3) (Supp. 1997).
81. 34 C.F.R. $106.3 (b) (Supp. 1997).
82. 34 C.F.R. $106.35 (Supp. 1997).
83. James S. Coleman, The Adolescent Society: The Social Life of
the Teenager and its Impact on Education (New York: The Free
Press of Glencoe, 1961).
84. Ibid., p. 51.
85. Alexander W. Astin, Four Critical Years (San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 1977) ; Alexander W. Astin, What Matters in College?
Four Critical Years Revisited (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992).
86. M. Elizabeth Tidball, "Baccalaureate Origins of Natural
Science Doctorates, " Journal of Higher Education, 57
(November/December 1986), pp. 606-20; M. Elizabeth Tidball,
Women's Colleges and Women Achievers Revisited, Signs: Journal
of Women in Culture and Society, 5 (1980), pp. 504-17.
87. Alexander W. Astin, op. cit.; Tidball, op. cit.; Cornelius
Riordan, "Single- and Mixed-Gender Colleges for Women:
Educational, Attitudinal, and Occupational Outcomes,' Review of
Higher Education, 15 (1992), pp. 327-46.
88. Ibid., Riordan, "Single- and Mixed-Gender Colleges for
Women."
89. Women's College Coalition, '67/'77: A Profile of Recent
Women's College Graduates (Washington, D.C., February 1985).
70
90. Daryl K. Smith, "Women's Colleges and Coed Colleges: Is There
a Difference for Women?, II Journal of Higher Education 61 (2)
(March/April 1990), pp. 181-197.
91. Cornelius Riordan, Girls and Boys in School: Together or
Separate (New York: Teachers College Press, 1990), pp. 124-26.
92. Daryl G. Smith, Lisa E. Wolf and Diane E. Morrison, "Paths to
Success: Factors Related to the Impact of Women's Colleges,"
Journal of Higher Education, 66 (3) (May/June 1995), pp. 247-48.
93. Single-Sex Schooling: Proponents Speak, A Special Report from
the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S.
Department of Education, vol. II (Washington, D.C., December
1993).
94. Single-Sex Schooling: Perspectives from Research and
Practice, A Special Report from the Office of Educational
Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, vol. I
(Washington, D.C., December 1993).
95. Valerie Lee and Anthony S. Bryk, "Effects of Single-Sex
Secondary Schools on Student Achievement and Attitudes," Journal
of Educational Psychology 78 (5) (1986) : 381-95.
96. Valerie E. Lee and Helen M. Marks, "Sustained Effect of the
Single-Sex School Experience on Attitudes, Behaviors, and Values
in College, Journal of Educational Psychology 82 (3) (1990)
578-92.
97. Cornelius Riordan, Girls and Boys in School: Together or
Separate (New York: Teachers College Press, 1990).
98. Ibid.
99. Valerie E. Lee and Marlaine E. Lockheed, "The Effects of
Single-Sex Schooling on Achievement and Attitudes in Nigeria,"
Comparative Education Review 34 (2) (May 1990) 209-31.
100. Emmanuel Jimenez and Marlaine E. Lockheed, "Enhancing Girls'
Learning Through Single-Sex Education: Evidence and Policy
Conundrum," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 11 (2)
(Summer 1989), pp. 117-42.
101. Herbert W. Marsh, "Effects of Attending Single-Sex and
Coeducational High Schools on Achievement, Attitudes, Behaviors
and Sex Differences," Journal of Educational Psychology 81 (1)
(1989) : 70-85.
102. Single-Sex Schooling: Perspectives from Practice and
Research, pp. 35-37.
71
103. American Association of University Women Educational
Foundation, Separated by Sex: A Critical Look at Single-Sex
Education for Girls (Washington, D.C., March 1998).
104. Press Release, American Association of University Women
Education Foundation, "Report Finds Separating by Sex Not the
Solution to Gender Inequity in School," March 12, 1998.
105. Tamar Lewin, "All-Girl Schools Questioned as a Way to Attain
Equity," New York Times, 12 March 1998, p. A12.
106. Beth Reinhard, "Report Casts Doubt on the Value of Single-
Sex Schooling," Education Week, 18 March 1998, p. 8.
107. Connie Leslie, "Separate and Unequal," Newsweek, 23 March
1998, p. 55.
108. William Raspberry, Op-Ed, "Same-Sex Schools Work --
Sometimes,' The Washington Post, 16 March 1998, p. A21.
109. Press Release, The National Coalition of Girls' Schools,
"Girls' Schools Offer Valuable Lessons for Education Reform,"
March 11, 1998.
110. James Macfarlane and Pat Grawford, "The Effect of Sex-
Segregated Mathematics Classes on Student Attitudes, Achievement,
and Enrollment in Mathematics," evaluation for the North York
Board of Education, Willowdale, Ontario, September 1985.
111. Kenneth J. Rowe, "Single Sex and Mixed Sex Classes: The
Effects of Class Type on Student Achievement, Confidence and
Participation in Mathematics," Australian Journal of Educaiton 32
(2) (1988), pp. 189-202.
112. Gilah Leder and Helen Forgasz, "Single-Sex Mathematics
Classes in a Co-educational Setting: A Case Study," paper
presented at the American Educational Research Association annual
meeting (New Orleans, 1994) (ED 372 946).
113. Roslyn Arlin Mickelson, "Why Does Jane Read and Write So
Well? The Anomaly of Women's Achievement," Sociology of Education
62 (1989), pp. 47-63; Jacquelynne Eccles, "Sex Differences in
Achievement Patterns," in Psychology and Gender: Nebraska
Symposium on Motivation 1984, vol. 32, ed. Theo B. Sonderegger
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), pp. 97-132. For a
general discussion of academic achievement and gender, see Diane
S. Pollard, "Gender and Achievement," in Gender and Education,
Ninety-second Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of
Education, Part I, eds. Sari Knopp Biklen and Diane Pollard
72
(Chicago; University of Chicago Press, 1993),
114. NAEP 1996 Mathematics: Report Card for the Nation and the
States (Washington, D.C.: National Center for Education
Statistics, 1997).
115. NAEP 1996 Science: Report Card for the Nation and the States
(Washington, D.C.: National Center for Education Statistics,
1997).
116. Table A, Mean SAT I Scores for College-Bound Seniors
(Princeton, N.J.: Educational Testing Service, 1997).
117. The Advanced Placement National Summary Report (New York:
The College Board, 1997).
118. Patricia Lynn Casserly, "Helping Able Young Women Take Math
and Science Seriously in School, in New Voices in Counseling the
Gifted, ed. Nicholas Colangelo and Ronald T. Zaffrann (Dubuque,
IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1979). See also, Marlaine E. Lockheed, "Women,
Girls, and Computers: A First Look at the Evidence,' Sex Roles 13
(3/4) (1985), pp. 115-122; Pamela E. Kramer and Sheila Lehman,
"Mismeasuring Women: A Critique of Research on Computer Ability
and Avoidance, " Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 16
(1) (Autumn 1990); Joan N. Burstyn, "Who Benefits and Who
Suffers': Gender and Education at the Dawn of the Age of
Information Technology," in Gender and Education, op. cit., pp.
107-25.
119. 31st Annual Survey of College First-Year Students (Los
Angeles: UCLA Higher Education Research Institute, 1998).
120. Jacquelunne A. Eccles, "Understanding Women's Educational
and Occupational Choices,' Psychology of Women Quarterly, 18
(1994), pp. 585-607.
121. Claude M. Steele, "Race and the Schooling of Black
Americans," The Atlantic Monthly (April 1992), pp. 68-78.
122. Richard A. Durost, "Single Sex Math Classes: What and for
Whom? One School's Experiences," Bulletin (February 1996) 27-31.
123. Jeff Archer, "Private Coed Schools Find Benefits in Single-
Sex Classes,' Education Week 8 April 1998, p. 6 (statement of
Eileen Lambert, head of Middle School, Rippowam Cisqua School,
Bedford, New York).
124. Mary Ann Zehr, "Computer Classes Aren't Just for Boys
Anymore,' Education Week, 21 January 1998, pp. 1, 17.
125. Valerie E. Lee and Anthony S. Bryk, "Effects of Single-Sex
Secondary Schools on Student Achievement," Journal of Educational
73
Psychology 78 (5) (1986), pp. 381-93.
126. Valerie E. Lee and Helen M. Marks, "Sustained Effects of the
Single-Sex Secondary School Experience on Attitudes, Behaviors,
and Values in College," Journal of Educational Psychology 82 (3)
(1990), pp. 578-92.
127. Valerie E. Lee and Helen M. Marks, "Who Goes Where? Choice
of Single-Sex and Coeducational Independent Secondary Schools,' "
Sociology of Education 65 (July 1992), pp. 226-53.
128. Valerie E. Lee, "Is Single-Sex Secondary Schooling a
Solution to the Problem of Gender Inequity? in Separation by Sex,
p. 45.
129. Riordan, Girls & Boys in School: Together or Separate?, op.
cit.
130. James S. Coleman, Ernest Q. Campbell, Carol J. Hobsom, James
McPartland, Alexander M. Mood, Frederic S. Weinfeld and Robert L.
York, Equality of Educational Opportunity (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1966).
131. Barbara Heynes, Summer Learning and the Effects of Schooling
(New York: Academic Press, 1978) Andrew M. Greeley, Catholic
High Schools and Minority Students (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Transaction Books, 1982) ; Thomas Hoffer, Andrew M. Greeley, and
James Coleman, "Achievement Grewth in Public and Catholic
Schools," Sociology of Education, 58 (April 1985), pp. 74-97.
132. Paul C. LePore and John Robert Warren, "A Comparison of
Single-Sex and Coeducational Catholic Secondary Schooling:
Evidence From the National Educational Longitudinal Study of
1988," American Educational Research Journal 34 (1997), pp. 485-
511.
133. David P. Baker, Cornelius Riordan, and Maryellen Schaub,
"The Effects of Sex-Grouped Schooling on Achievement: The Role of
National Context," Comparative Education Review 29 (4) (1995), pp.
468-82.
134. "Quality Counts: The Urban Challenge," Education Week, 8
January 1998, pp. 62-63.
135. Steele, "Race and the Schooling of Black Americans," op.
cit.
136. Ibid., pp. 56-57.
137. Ibid., pp. 10-12.
Rosemary C. Salomone is Professor of Law at St. John's University School of Law
where she has served as Founding Director of the Center for Law and Public Policy (1994-97)
and Associate Academic Dean (1992-94) and currently teaches constitutional, administrative, and
local government law. From 1980 to 1985, she was a faculty member at the Harvard Graduate
School of Education where she taught courses in education law and finance in the
Administration, Planning and Social Policy Program. From 1981 to 1990, she served on the
faculty of Harvard's Institute for Educational Management in which she annually presented a
series of lectures on higher education and the law. From 1985 to 1995, she was a Trustee of the
State University of New York and served as chair of the Academic Planning Committee. She
also has served as Chair of the Education and the Law Committee of the Association of the Bar
of the City of New York (1993-96) as well as Chair of the Section on Education Law of the
Association of American Law Schools (1995). She has published and lectured extensively on
educational policy and the law and is the author of Equal Education Under Law (St. Martin's
Press, 1986). Her articles have appeared in the Yale Law and Policy Review, the Harvard
Educational Review, the Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law, the Georgia Law Review,
the New Mexico Law Review, the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, the Journal of Law and
Education, the Annals of the Academy of Political Science, and the Journal of Urban Education.
Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the
Spencer Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Milton and Mark DeWolfe
Howe Funds of Harvard University. She holds a Ph.D. and LL.M. from Columbia University
where she was the Bretzfelder Fellow in Constitutional Law during the 1983-84 academic year.
She is currently completing a book, to be published by Yale University Press, on parental rights
and schooling in America.