Massachusetts has joined the movement toward re-segregating our public schools by race or gender or sexual orientation. Superintendent Richard W. Rege Jr. in Chicopee is reportedly in favor of a new proposal to segregate students by gender for math classes. It is part of a trend that threatens the advances that we have made in the last six decades in desegregating our school system. Now, there will be “girl math” and “boy math” classes.
Various states are experimenting with all boy or all girl school, not just classes. I have been a critic of this trend, here and here.
The most recent proposal appears the brainchild of Bellamy Principal Matthew T. Francis, who reportedly attended an all-boys school as a child. He believes that other genders is a distraction and part of the reason that his school has underperformed: “I want to take away one of the variables.” Strangely, other schools not under Mr. Francis’ supervision have excelled on tests and math without adopted segregation by gender.
There are some studies that suggest that there might be marginal benefits from such segregation, but these studies remain sketchy. More importantly, segregation does not appear to be a significant factor in comparison to having good teaching, sufficient resources, and most importantly reasonably sized classes.
For the full story, click here.
Lotta,
That’s a very good point, and one I hadn’t considered (mainly because I’ve always lived in areas where nobody could afford that kind of thing). I think there are a couple of things to consider before throwing in “dumbing down” with cosmetic surgery though.
The first is to just look at the percentages, I know there’s no hard data on pretending to be dumb, but I’m sure that it’s much more frequent than surgery. I’m also sure that it’s just as common for boys as girls. The second is that dumbing down knows no social\economic bounds, I knew rich kids who did it, and I knew poor kids that did it. Cosmetic surgery is a vice of the very wealthy. The final (and I think most important) thing is that by the very nature of the fact that it’s surgery cosmetic surgery requires parental involvement and approval. I don’t know the numbers, but I suspect that a vast majority of teen-age girls who have cosmetic surgery have mothers who had the same surgery. I think that you have to look at how much of the pressure to comes from peers and how much comes from parents. The pressure to fit in by not acting so smart was (in my experience) almost completely from other teenagers.
As someone who labored in Algebra and Geometry, I can attest to the fact that I was much better looking at everything and everyone around me, except for the material. It wouldn’t have mattered if it was all boys in my classes. I would have been drowning with an all boys class or a mixed gender class. These children need to learn how to cooperate with everyone of every gender and race. As long as we don’t have any homogenital sex, the math scores will be fine.
Completely unconstitutional for a public school – last I checked separate but equal is NOT the law of the land (Brown V. Board of Education, anyone?). This POS administrator can try, but will cost the district MILLIONS in law suit settlements and, most importantly, will do unmeasurable damage to the academic life of countless young women. This guy is out of his mind.
The truth when it comes to studies in social science is that they too often achieve the results the researcher started out to find. With that perspective I take the preliminary studies on segregating the sexes in school with a large shaker of salt. Let’s pull back a tad and view the problem with this educational nonsense.
Elementary, Middle and High Schools exist not only to provide education, but to provide socialization in the sense of learning to live together. All boy and all girl schools delay the progress of socialization and in fact retard maturity in both sexes. As proof, rather than offer professional studies, I offer the experiences of all of us who spent our public education in coed schools. Much of my time in school was not a happy one, but the experience, painful as it was, provided me with the rudiments of social behavior and the familiarity of female behavior. If one looks back honestly at the experience I think most would agree, whether they were popular or pariahs.
I too think Bron had identified something in his post that is at play here. Many who are champions of this kind of segregation have had personal problems and/or prejudices. There is, however, another common sense factor in this.That is as I have alluded school is for more than intellectual indication. The emphasis on school as a quantifiable measure of progress and as preparation for future success, as typified by “no child left behind,” misestimates the growth process.
A.S. Neil in his masterwork “Summerhill” in the 50’s and Chaim Ginott in the 60’s and 70’s presented a more balanced view of the tasks of growth and the supervision of children. Different children and teens learn and mature at different rates. School systems based on measuring progress by birth date do serious harm to children.
The shame of our society is our educational systems are modeled on the assembly line and we leave scores of children with potential as casualties of the callousness of the system.
The US will finally demonstrate that it has left the tough guy/cowboy/independent man philosophy behind, when it fully invests in our school systems. When we provide a high, uniform level of education in every community. One that is based on humane principles that protects and nurtures our children. Instead we have a system that is based on the false premises of Social Darwinism and eugenics.
Male, female, gay, straight and transgender are all iterations of our humanity. Just as are color, ethnicity and religion. We will leap the chasms between them though when we can learn to interact and appreciate our similarities and dissimilarities. That’s why I too am not fond of the concept of GLBT schools. The idea is to get it right in the general context and protect children from predation by their peers.
I’m sorry for this rant, since I know I’m just blowing smoke. The possibility of a sane educational system is minuscule as long as people like this school administrator have positions and power, while lacking understanding and the ability to think beyond constraints of conventional wisdom.
Gyges,
“The unfortunate truth of the matter is that most things outside the norm are viewed as negatives in high school, higher intelligence is no exception. That tends to apply as much to boys as girls.”
That is so stunningly and sadly true.
The Chicago Board of Ed made an adjustment from the “Pride Campus” to Social Justice Solidarity High School. Modeled after a School in Milwaukee.
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Proposed-Gay-High-School-Changes-Focus.html
Instead, Solidarity school aims to address “citywide concerns over violence, bullying and harassment.” The teacher in Milwaukee says, “They find it to be a place where they can be themselves,” and “it’s a safe place.” A school grounded on tolerance, where kids can develop, terrific!
When I read the article and before I even got to the comments my head went to exactly the same place as Chimene’s comment did. While I’m anti-segregation for the sake of argument I can defend the virtue (at the college level which would be entirely voluntary) in having your child spend part of their college years in a sexually or racially segregated college from the point of exposing them to strong role models from their own sex or race.
Exposing them (for their first 2 years of college education) to a ‘world’ where ‘they’ ran things, made all the decisions and maintained a exclusive meritocracy might work well to build self esteem and influence career decisions in keeping with their skills instead of societal preconceptions.
Gyges post is correct in that high school culture is difficult for anyone falling outside what that particular high schools culture determines to be the norm and destructively so but I can refute (in a convivial and respectful way)the statement “Your argument assumes that by nature girls will tend to demure to what boys society wants.” with very few words: Rhinoplasty, liposuction and boob jobs for high school girls happen every day.
Me too Gyges…
Sally,
No difference. That’s why I’m against the school in Chicago.
Hey they’ve got a school for gay kids in Chicago (or is it New York?). So what’s the difference? They’re still segregated.
Chimene,
Your argument assumes that by nature girls will tend to demure to what boys society wants.
The unfortunate truth of the matter is that most things outside the norm are viewed as negatives in high school, higher intelligence is no exception. That tends to apply as much to boys as girls.
Let’s keep those darned left handed students segregated from right handers. They present a distraction by holding their arms in a funny way while writing and they’re always complaining about things not suitable for their alleged “special needs” like scissors and stuff. Let’s have seperate classes for right-handers and left-handers.
I don’t know why this guy is doing it, but hasn’t there been LOTS of concern about the phenomenon of girls dumbing themselves down at a certain age? So they won’t become unfemininely “smarter” than the boys? Besides the well-known phenom. of teachers paying more attention to boys in the classroom anyway/already? Not only are the boys less distracted by the girls, but maybe the girls are also less distracted by the boys??? I find it interesting that almost all the responses so far (7 so far) are assuming an intent to put the girls down, when it could absolutely turn out to even the playing field in their favor!
The current sexy theory of in-school education is to remove the boys so that girls won’t be so distracted.
Personally, I’d much rather see a focus on retooling teaching strategies to address the real issues. Sexual segregation addressed no real issue.
How about separating students based on ability? Or is that too difficult a concept?
I’ve heard the pros and cons on the subject of segregation, whether by age, gender, sexual orientation, and I’m simply not convinced. There are some positives indeed, but we are trying to live in an integrated society outside and this can’t be a helpful approach. If we can justify seperating folks by the criteria above can we, might we, one day segregate based on political affiliation, family background, health, etc.?
All in all, I think Bron hit it closest to the mark with the response to Queen.
Jeeezzz
Maybe they won’t have a budget to implement this manure.
Queen:
the selfesteem thing may be the reason. Mr. Francis may have had his ass whipped in Trig by a young lady and this is payback.
Let’s see…there is already a dearth of qualified math teachers, so who is going to teach the extra class? And won’t that add to the school’s payroll? And what will the boys learn that the girls won’t, and vice versa? And those pesky “word problems” in math – will the boys learn to figure the speed of a bullet train as it covers 500 miles in 2.3 hours as opposed to the girls learning how to convert a recipe for chicken kiev for four to one that will feed 60?
Or maybe the principal and superintendent are just afraid of the girls out-performing the boys if they’re kept in the same class. After all, that would negatively effect the boys’ self esteem.
My daughter is pretty good at math, better actually than most boys in her high school class. and I had a female tutor for math in college, she was awesome.
Is this guy a mysogynist? What a moron and people wonder about the public skool sistem.
Let me see . . .
3a+(b/150)-c^2=x
E=mc^2
f=ma
Yep, math doesn’t care what sex you are.
What’s next Mr Rege? Keeping the girls shoe-less and pregnant? Locked in the kitchen?
I knew two brilliant mathematicians in college. The better of the two was a woman. Join the 21st Century, sport. You’ll be wasting a lot of potential talent until you do.