Single-Sex Classes on Trial Expect Girls to Sit Down and Shut Up

by Alex DiBranco · 2010-02-25 10:53:00 UTC
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In Kaplan, LA, the local middle school thinks girls learn better by sitting down and shutting up.

Days before the start of the 2009 school year, parents at Rene A. Rost Middle School suddenly learned that their sons and daughters would not be sharing core curriculum classes together. The principal's rationale? He wrote that boys are "more likely to enjoy argument and lively classroom debate" while "females may be content to simply observe," requiring a different teaching approach based on gender. This is nothing more than harmful, unsound gender stereotyping about girls' and boys' innate temperaments.

Essentially, boys will learn to be active, dynamic participants in conversation, to be leaders and movers and shakers, while pushing girls to sit quietly and listen to what people tell them, setting them up for a nice obedient life of doing whatever their husband says and never speaking up. The classroom reading material reinforces this dynamic: Leonora M. Lapidus, ACLU Women's Rights Project Director, tells us that the girls' book focuses on a love triangle, with "the message that girls who are independent and take risks are rejected by society, and that elopement with a man is the best escape," while the boys get a "manly" hunting book that encourages risk-taking and adventure.

After parental uproar and a call to the ACLU, the public school changed its plans and told parents that sex segregation would be voluntary. Well, at least they pretended to change their plans. One-third of parents insisted on having their kids in coed classes -- but, without realizing it, they were actually choosing between regular single-sex classes and special education classes that had remained coed. What kind of a choice is that?

Now, the school's policy is in the courts, facing a lawsuit on Title IX grounds. Sex segregation has no place in public schools, especially when its message is that girls ought to sit down, shut up, and find a man to take care of them.

Photo credit: rob.wall

Alex DiBranco is a Change.org Editor who has worked for the Nation, Political Research Associates, and the Center for American Progress. She is now based in New York City.
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