Washington D.C. is set to welcome a new all-boys charter school aimed at providing a robust education to boys of color, a demographic often facing academic challenges. The Empowering Males of Color Initiative is investing $20 million to establish a charter high school specifically for black and Latino boys in one of the nation’s most underprivileged areas.
This development raises important questions: Is it permissible for a publicly funded school to prioritize admissions based on race? The answer is no. Although the school will focus its outreach on minority boys, Robert Simmons, the district’s Chief of Innovation and Research, clarifies that all boys are welcome to apply. Furthermore, the legality of single-sex public schools is a complex issue, as seen with UrbanPrep in Chicago, which operates all-boys charter schools but faces legal ambiguities, particularly in the absence of equivalent options for girls. The ACLU has voiced concerns to Washington officials about potential violations of Title IX.
The overarching inquiry remains: Does single-sex education genuinely offer an advantage, assuming all other factors are equal? A 2011 study published in Science examined various neurological theories supporting single-sex education and found them lacking. Additionally, questions arise regarding how charter schools like UrbanPrep measure student success. While UrbanPrep celebrates high college enrollment rates among its graduates, it does not account for the number of students who leave before completing their education. A comprehensive meta-analysis by the American Psychological Association reviewed 184 studies on single-sex education, revealing that only those studies without control groups indicated any benefit to single-sex settings, and even then, the advantages were minimal. In contrast, studies that included control groups showed that co-educational schools tended to provide better outcomes, particularly for girls.
Single-sex institutions, especially those that promise a rigorous curriculum and a pathway to college, can be appealing to parents, especially those with limited educational options. However, the real issue plaguing American education is not the presence of the opposite sex; it is poverty. If a child starts kindergarten already at a disadvantage compared to their more affluent peers, the gender composition of their classmates becomes irrelevant.
This article was originally published on April 21, 2015.
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In summary, while the allure of all-boys schools remains, the evidence suggests that the advantages they claim may not be as significant as many believe; addressing the root causes of educational disparities is far more crucial.
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