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Legislators Push to Allow All-Boy, All-Girl Schools: But Rights Groups Attack Legislation

Posted on: Thursday, 15 June 2006, 06:01 CDT

By Lori Higgins, Detroit Free Press

Jun. 15--Gabrielle Buffington says she and her classmates were skeptics when they learned their school would separate seventh-grade boys and girls.

"I was like, "What is the use?' " said Gabrielle, 12, a seventh-grader at Sherrard Elementary School in Detroit. But now, she said, the changed environment has improved school life.

"We have our attention on learning. Our grades have gotten better."

There's growing momentum in Michigan -- and nationwide -- to allow public schools to go further and create gender-specific schools. But the state now prohibits the practice, and federal rules permit it on a limited basis only, the result of years of efforts to ensure that boys and girls receive an equal education.

On Wednesday, the state House Education Committee heard testimony on legislation that would change that, letting Detroit Public Schools create single-sex schools. It now goes before the full House and could be considered in the next few weeks, said Phil Browne, spokesman for Rep. Brian Palmer, R-Romeo.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, a separate bill would allow single-sex schools in districts across the state.

Some advocates suggest that girls in a coed environment have a tendency to defer to boys and shirk leadership roles. They say girls can be inspired to become leaders once boys are removed as a distraction.

For boys, single-sex schools also offer fewer distractions and provide positive male role models.

That's what appeals to Ida Byrd-Hill, a Detroit parent of two middle school students.

"It removes sexuality from the classroom," Byrd-Hill said.

But the House committee heard a chorus of opposition Wednesday from the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, the Michigan Conference of the National Organization for Women and the Michigan chapter of the American Association of University Women.

Not only would the proposed bills stretch the limits of federal laws, they said, they also would amount to segregation, opening the possibility that schools could treat the sexes differently once more. Some said it even harkens back to the days when black students were forced to attend separate schools.

"We shouldn't go backwards to a time of segregation," said Mary Pollock, legislative vice president of the Michigan NOW group.

Research is limited

Nationwide, there already are 44 single-sex public schools and 179 that have classes or programs for specific sexes, according to the Maryland-based National Association for Single Sex Public Education.

If the Michigan bills pass, the Detroit Public Schools would be able to "provide choice and innovation for our students," said Superintendent William F. Coleman III. "We need the flexibility to provide parents and students with the educational options they desire and deserve."

State Rep. LaMar Lemmons III, the Detroit Democrat who sponsored the House bill, said the law could help the city draw students back into the public school system, which has lost about 20,000 students in the last two years to charter, private and suburban schools.

The district had planned to create two single-sex schools -- one for boys and one for girls -- for the 2005-06 school year but squashed those plans when a lawsuit was threatened. Those schools could open in the next school year if the bills are signed into law, Coleman said.

Coleman cited several studies that show students in single-sex classrooms do better academically and behaviorally.

"We believe Detroit Public Schools can replicate these successes," he told committee members Wednesday.

But, said Barbara Bonsignore of the Michigan chapter of the university women's group, "there's no evidence single-sex education is better than coeducation."

The U.S. Department of Education, which in recent years has proposed relaxing federal rules that largely prohibit single-sex schools, issued a report in September that said research on the success of single-sex schools in the United States is limited.

The federal review found that "for many outcomes, there is no evidence of either benefit or harm."

Some say separation important

Although there's little research on the issue, advocates for single-sex schools say separate environments are important, especially when children are going through the early teenage years.

"Girls and boys have intellectual and developmental differences that are best flourished and nurtured in this gender-specific educational setting," said Arlyce Seibert, director of the prekindergarten to 12th grade schools at the Cranbrook Educational Community. There, girls and boys are separated for middle school and the first two years of high school.

Jeanette Sui, a parent of three children attending Cranbrook schools, said she "loves what it does for girls' self-esteem."

Sui said single-sex education "really allows them to be themselves and to grow up"

And there is at least anecdotal evidence that single-sex schools work.

At the Young Women's Leadership Charter School in Chicago, far more students at the all-girls school make it to their senior year, more graduate and more go on to college than their peers in the Chicago Public Schools, said director Margaret Small.

While test scores are low and the school doesn't meet federal academic requirements, "we're definitely being more successful," Small said.

Gabrielle has become a believer, even though her grandmother isn't convinced.

"Separating them I don't think is the answer," said LaNell Buffington, who raises Gabrielle. "They're going to have to work together sometime in life. ... Why separate them at this time?"

Contact LORI HIGGINS at 248-351-3694 or higgins@freepress.com.

How to be heard

If they're approved, House Bill 4264 and Senate Bill 1296 would allow for single-sex schools in Michigan. They can be read online at www.legislature.mi.gov.

To be heard on the issue, contact your state representative or senator by calling the state operator at 517-373-1837 from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. Or contact legislators online at www.house.mi.gov or www.senate.mi.gov.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Detroit Free Press

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Detroit Free Press

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