Single-Sex Schools Deserve Funds

Education is always high on the nation’s agenda, but how best to make it work is receiving renewed attention nationwide. Candidates make improved education the most prominent of their promises. Teachers, administrators and theorists look for the best ways to help students learn.

Amid great hoopla several years ago, Gov. Pete Wilson took a page from the book of private schools and announced a new experiment in public education: single-sex schools. The governor announced 12 such schools at first, six each for boys and girls. Later, he said the number would be doubled.

Two years and a new governor later, the number of single-sex schools is down to four--two pairs--and state education funds have disappeared. One pair is in East Palo Alto. The other, run by the Orange County Department of Education, is in Fountain Valley, with 50 boys and 30 girls now enrolled.

The Department of Education deserves credit for keeping the single-sex school experiment operating locally. Three years is not long enough to pronounce an education experiment a success or failure.

Single-gender schools long have been a staple of elite private and parochial education. California law allows the experiment to be used in public education, but insists on equality of treatment. That means boys and girls, all volunteers, must have access to the same resources and teachers.

Research has indicated that some girls do better in classes by themselves, especially in math and science. The theory is that boys in mixed classes get more attention from teachers and are quicker to yell out answers before being called on. Boys sometimes do better in classes where they are not distracted by girls.

The Fountain Valley students are selected after having had trouble with regular high school classes. In the single-sex school, some have gone on to community college or back to their regular schools.

The county Education Department says as long as the results are good, the school will continue to operate. That’s a good idea. Today’s education is filled with innovation in an effort to improve learning. Phonics competes with whole language, new math with old. Smaller classes in lower grades are the norm.

If single-gender schools help some students to do better, they deserve funding. If the research proves the worth of such schools, Sacramento should look again at paying for more of them.