Single-Sex Public Education

Schoolhouse Talk links to a New York Times article on single-sex public schools and notes that the Columbia Public Schools have been considering the idea for a year now.

It’s important to keep in mind that many of the successful schools mentioned in the New York Times piece are charter schools. So, in addition to maintaining a single-sex environment, they have more flexibility when they hire teachers and choose curricula. It’s hard to tell whether their good academic results are caused by the single-sex environment or by one of those other factors. But determining whether the average boy or girl learns best in a single-sex environment is less important than choosing the best schools for individual kids. Even if most girls prefer girls-only classes, for example, some individual girls might do better in a coed school.

No matter what the research shows about general patterns of achievement, parents should be able to choose the best educational environments for their kids — whether that means choosing between single-sex and coed classrooms in a traditional public school, or choosing a single-sex charter school.