On Top of the News
Old Tactic Gets New Use: Public Schools Separate Girls and Boys
12/1/14 | New York Times

Behind the Headline
Learning Separately
Winter 2008 | Education Next

The Obama administration will be issuing guidance for school districts this week on the use of single-sex classrooms, writes Motoko Rich in this morning’s New York Times. According to Rich the guidance says that

schools may set up such classes if they can provide evidence that the structure will improve academics or discipline in a way that coeducational measures cannot. Students must have a coeducational alternative, and families must volunteer to place their children in all-boys or all-girls classes.

The guidance comes in response to recent complaints filed by the ACLU against four Florida school districts that have used separate classes for boys and girls and against Austin, Texas for creating two new single-sex middle schools.

Peter Meyer looked into the case for single sex schools in “Learning Separately,” in the Winter 2008 issue of Education Next.

-Education Next