Boston Superintendent of Schools Delays Decision to Set up Single-Sex Academies

Carol Johnson, Superintendent of Boston Schools, announced her decision late last week to reevaluate her earlier decision to establish public single-sex academies in Boston city schools. Johnson stated she wanted more time that she wanted to evaluate the data about single-sex education.

Recent studies have debunked the myth that single-sex education will solve public education problems. Rather these studies, such as Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine, a PhD in neuroscience, and Brainstorm by Rebecca Jordan-Young, a sociomedical scientist, show that the evidence of different learning patterns of girls and boys are flawed. Moreover single-sex education is opposed because it is more costly and has many drawbacks, not the least of which, it discriminates on the basis of sex, which many people believe is a violation of Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education.

The Feminsit Majority Foundation supports the repeal of Bush administration 2006 Title IX regulations, which make it easier to establish public single-sex classrooms and schools. Title IX permits single-sex education only when it can be shown that it affirmatively reduces sex discrimination in education.

Media Resources: Women's E-News 11/24/10; Feminist Majority Foundation 11/30/10

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