I spent the majority of my formative years in an all-girls school, so when people say single-sex classes are sexist, promote gender stereotypes and don't give kids equal educational opportunities, I laugh. I absolutely loved going to an all-girls school where there were no "boy" distractions and nobody was really trying to impress anybody–unlike the mixed middle school I had to attend when I moved to this country as a teenager. I only wished single-sex classes had been as popular back then as they've become today.
According to the advocacy group National Association for Single Sex Public Education, there were only about a dozen schools separating the sexes back in 2002. Today, about 500 schools nationwide offer single-sex classrooms.
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But those numbers will drop if it's up to the American Civil Liberties Union which is targeting all-girls and all-boys schools across the country because it claims the classes conflict with the federal law banning sex discrimination in education. While I tend to agree and support many of the battles of the ACLU, this is one I can't support–and I speak from personal experience.
If the claims made by the ACLU regarding single-sex education were correct, I'd be a mess after attending an all-girls school for so many years. The reality is that the education I got at that school was not only better than any I received anywhere else, but it also gave me the self-confidence and concentration skills I used later when I ended up in a mixed school.
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In an era when so many of our young people–especially minorities–are failing miserably in school, we should promote any kind of program that has proven to better their learning experience and stop looking for discrimination issues where there are none.
Would you send your child to a single-sex school? Why? Why not? Share your opinion with us by leaving us a comment below.
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