MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. Single-sex classes have been a mainstay of private school education for centuries and they've been a topic of contention for just about as long. But in the last five years, the debate has gone mainstream with the relative explosion of single-sex classes in public schools. As a result of education reform efforts over the last decade, public schools have begun to experiment with boys-only and girls-only classes. More than 500 schools nationwide are offering single-gender classes including a handful in the Washington region. They're banking on the belief that boys and girls have different learning styles, so they learn better separately.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIPrincipals at low-performing schools say single-gender classes are worth a try to boost student achievement. But critics say the nation has rejected separate but equal enough times that it clearly doesn't belong in the public schools. We're gonna have that conversation, inviting you to join it by calling 800-433-8850. If your public school offered single-gender classes, would you put your child in one? 800-433-8850. Joining us in studio is Tish Howard, principal of Washington Mill Elementary School in Alexandria, Va. and author of "Poverty is Not a Learning Disability." Tish Howard, thank you for joining us.

DR. LIZETTE "TISH" HOWARDThank you so much for asking me to join.

NNAMDIJoining us by telephone from Newburgh, N.Y. is Frances Spielhagen, professor of education at Mount Saint Mary College and author of "Debating Single-Sex Education: Separate and Equal." Frances Spielhagen, thank you for joining us.

MS. FRANCES SPIELHAGENAnd thank you for having me.

NNAMDITish Howard, you introduced single-gender classes at Washington Mill Elementary School four years ago.

HOWARDRight.

NNAMDIWhy did you think your girl -- your students would benefit from boys-only and girls-only classrooms?

HOWARDIf I had to be absolutely honest with you, I wasn't sure if we will benefit or not. But I knew that we had tried so many formats in school trying desperately to close the achievement gap and create an environment that was conducive to learning at school. And I had spent some time in my youth in single-gender classrooms. And the problems that year that really caused me to pursue it was a lot of aggravation in the sixth grade classrooms where students were soon discovering sexual tension, you know, if I could use that even amongst sixth graders. Boys and girls were fighting over who was going with who and whose feelings got hurt and who liked whom. And we just really cannot afford that amount of time to be taken away from constructive learning. So I started to explore it mainly for that reason.

NNAMDII myself am the product of eight years of single-gender education, from the 5th to the 12th grade. I am either a beneficiary or victim of it. (laugh) I can't say which for sure. But my experience with my son was when he was about 14 years old in high school here, his French teacher said that he wasn't paying as much attention as he normally did. And when I asked the French teacher why, he looked at me as if I was a little crazy and said, (laugh) there are girls in the class.

HOWARDThe class.

NNAMDIHe is distracted. Never having had that experience myself, (laugh) it was one that I could not relate to. But allow me to go to Frances Spielhagen. Fran, single-sex education has been a mainstay of private schools for a long time, but it's only recently come to public schools. How did No Child Left Behind and new interpretations of Title IX opened the door to single-gender public education?

SPIELHAGENWell, in the year 2001, the state department -- the federal Department of Education did say that under No Child Left Behind that schools could use unusual arrangements to address deficits and achievement gaps. And in that time period, several schools began to experiment within around 2002, fall of 2002. However, the U.S. Office of Civil Rights said they would put this under examination. And actually examined and invited participation -- public participation in the dialogue. And it was in 2006 that it was decided that this was allowable under the law.

NNAMDIWe're inviting...

SPIELHAGENAnd...

NNAMDIGo ahead, please.

SPIELHAGENTechnically, it was never not allowed under the law. Title IX did not prohibit it. But it was broadly interpreted under Title IX that it was not allowable. 2002, as they said, the door got cranked open. And 2006, the U.S. DOE and the Civil -- Office of Civil Rights weighed in and said, yes, this allowable with certain caveats.

NNAMDICaveats being?

SPIELHAGENWell, first of all, separate should not be different in terms of content. There's no reason to say, well, if the girls and boys are separated, girls need to learn this and boys need to learn that. If you can take the long view of American education wherein the early years of the 21st century, the early years of the 20th century, it was very common for girls not to be able to be expected to study advance math. In fact, we have records of school superintendents saying that they did not have the mental constitution that would allow them to this rigorous study nor did they have the need to do the rigorous study.

SPIELHAGENAnd it's very easy then to make the connection between that kind of separation by gender to separation by race. Why would you need to study advance math if you were this person or that person? So it's a slippery slope, really, in terms of separate if we start changing curriculum. So the first caveat is curriculum has to be equally offered to both genders.

NNAMDIAnd...

SPIELHAGENAnd so that's the first caveat.

NNAMDIInterestingly enough, in my own experience in British colony back in the 1950s and 1960s was that my sister at the girl school studied something called domestic science...

SPIELHAGENMm-hmm.

NNAMDI...meaning learning how to cook and prepare. And we at the boys' school studied woodwork, meaning we learned how to build things. But in very many ways, the distinction remains the same. Tish Howard, advocates of single-gender classes say boys and girls learn differently. They say boys have a hard time sitting still and need to move around a lot, that they thrive on competition and clear rules. Describe what we'd see if we walk into one of your all-boys classrooms?

HOWARDWell, I agree with that, and I don't put myself out as a total universal expert on single gender. I am a principal of a school of 605 children, so my experience is totally what you're asking me for is qualitative. If you go into our second grade classroom of all boys, it would not be an unusual. And this is our fourth year, so we've evolved to this place where some things are okay, and they're understood better. But if you walk into the second grade boys' classroom, it's not unusual to see a boy sitting on a desk, next to the desk, standing behind the desk, but always focused on the instruction that's going on in the classroom.

HOWARDThe teacher is teaching or there are projects going on, and they are mentally engaged in the learning that's going on, except they're not forced to sit absolutely, positively still in a seat. We've just found out that boys feel harnessed, and there are more -- more thought is given to how can I get out of this chair, instead of what's going on in the classroom.

HOWARDSo, you know, the first year that we were there, I have a great teacher that's teaching second-grade boys that came to me and said I think I might retire after this year because there was so much tapping on the desks and so much fidgeting around. And one thing that we instill were those little squishy balls. We bought one for each of the boys that made a difference, gave them something to do with their hands. So we do see differences. You know, and all those things that you mentioned -- competition, boredom, lighting -- you know, Kojo, it's just not a matter of taking a bunch of boys and putting them here and a bunch of girls and putting them there. I mean, there was -- we've been learning practitioners over four years as far as lighting and music and seating structure, you know, and I totally and made a note there's absolutely no difference in the content of either one of those classrooms. It's just sometimes different the way it's presented.

NNAMDISingle-gender advocates say girls tend to be social creatures who like group projects and perform worse when they feel stressed. What goes on in an all-girls class?

HOWARDWell, the girls are -- they're more verbal. I would say they're more verbal for an extended period of time. They want to talk about their feelings. They want to discuss things. They like working cooperatively. They do have their mean tendencies at times. You know, that's one thing we've discovered that girls can be a bit catty and clicky no matter whether they're in single-gender or in mixed classrooms. The advantage that we've had is with the all-girls classrooms we can counselors go in and address those as a girls' unit, which we've found very effective. So you will see girls sitting around tables of four, you know, working out things.

HOWARDYou know, my sixth-grade teacher this year is taking a break from the boys and has a mixed class, and one very telling example was last year he had the boys whenever he would give a common assessment to all of them, the scores went on the board top to bottom -- listed top to bottom. The boys didn't have a problem with that. They became very competitive to raise their scores up. They worked together to raise the class average as a whole. When he approached that same system with a mixed class this year, he said the girls got hysterical. They don't want their names on the board. They didn't want anything to do with competition with the boys. They wanted that privacy of their own grades and that one on one with the teacher. He said I really learned something else this year, you know, just going into a mixed classroom. It's not going to work in this environment this year.

NNAMDIWe're interested in the public participation on this conversation, so you can join it by calling 800-433-8850. Do you think boys and girls have different styles of learning or not? 800-433-8850. You can go to our website, kojoshow.org. Join the conversation there. Send us a tweet @kojoshow or shoot us an e-mail to kojo@wamu.org. Fran, from your experience, how does the atmosphere differ in an all-girls class compared with an all-boys class?

SPIELHAGENWell, I'm sure you know that the reason you contacted me was that when I did my study of single-sex classrooms that ended up turning into a book of several studies, and we did observe -- I certainly did in the school district that I was evaluating the program. We've observed differences in the boys' behavior. The boys did behave differently in all-boys classes than they did in mixed classes. And, yes, they were more competitive. The downside of that there was definitely more posturing on the part of some of the boys, and there was some tendency towards bullying.

SPIELHAGENGirls, on the other hand, in their single-sex classes were consistently more positive in their single-sex settings than they were in the mixed settings. And that's across the six studies that are in the book. And we've found it interesting because we all -- most of us who collaborated on this volume were from different parts of the country. The study I did took place in a school that was in a small urban area in New York State, and they only had single-sex classes for their core courses -- so English , social studies, math and science. As the rest of the day, the kids were in mixed arrangements.

SPIELHAGENNow, from my point of view, that's probably the most positive way of addressing the single-sex question in terms of allowing for interaction in mixed-gender settings in other subjects, and this was also a middle school -- grades six, seven and eight. And so that was my setting. But then we had the Midwest. We had the South. And so across all the studies, we found that the students behaved differently in the single-gender classes than they did in mixed classes, and the boys behaved differently from the girls when they were in that single-gender class -- much more active, much more competitive, all of the things that become almost stereotypical in our thinking. I think the important thing for us to realize is that what works for some kids doesn't work for all kids. And so the key piece here is student, teacher and parent buy-in.

SPIELHAGENMs. Howard, I was pleased to hear about your interactions with your teachers because teachers need to be brought into the process And they need to say, well, this is what's happening and this is what I see needs to happen. We -- teachers frequently comment on the energy level in the all-boys classes. It seems that in the mixed classes the girls act as buffers for that energy output. So teachers need to be brought in, and you're very right in saying simply separating them doesn’t solve the problem. There has to be active strategies to address their responses to being in that situation.

NNAMDIWe're talking with Frances Spielhagen, professor of education at Mount Saint Mary College, author of "Debating Single Sex Education: Separate and Equal." She joins us by telephone from Newburgh, New York. Joining us in our Washington studio is Dr. Tish Howard, principal of Washington Mill Elementary School in Alexandria, Va., and author of "Poverty is Not a Learning Disability." We're inviting your calls. If the lines are busy, go to our website, kojoshow.org. Join the conversation there. Otherwise, if you can get through, to 800-433-8850. If you have called already, stay on the line. We'll get to your call. The American Civil Liberties Union is fighting single-sex classes in public schools on legal grounds. We'll hear that argument when we come back. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWe're discussing single-sex public education with Dr. Tish Howard, principal of Washington Mill Elementary School in Alexandria, Va., and author of "Poverty is Not a Learning Disability," and Frances Spielhagen, professor of education at Mount Saint Mary College and author of "Debating Single Sex Education: Separate and Equal." Joining us now by telephone from New York is Galen Sherwin, staff attorney with the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU. Galen Sherwin, thank you so much for joining us.

MS. GALEN SHERWINThank you for having me.

NNAMDII like to start by reading you an e-mail we got from Twist (sp?) in Alexandria, Va., before going to my question. Twist writes, "The motives and justifications for sex-segregated schools are exactly the same as the old discredited arguments for racially segregated schools. In every case, historically, separation is driven by determination to privilege one group at the expense of the other. Under the guise of education reform, segregation teaches only one profoundly anti-democratic and dangerous lesson, class difference without regard to individual characteristics. Children readily parrot nonsense about girls are so distracting. Boys are so noisy, blah, blah. Such stereotyping is invidious and would certainly never be advocated on a racial basis because the 14th Amendment would not tolerate it. But sex discrimination against women and girls is still constitutionally okay, so the harm can continue unchecked if citizens don't fight back. Obviously, citizens are fighting back. The ACLU is fighting single-sex classes." Explain what Title IX, the equality in public education law in the Constitution say that pertains to public school single-sex classes, Galen Sherwin.

SHERWINSure. Well, I mean, to start off, it's really -- it's -- I think that e-mail got the principle right, that it's a key principle of our education system that all children should have equal access to educational programs regardless of their race or their sex. And what this means is that children have to be offered the most appropriate educational program based on their individual needs and not on stereotypes about how boys and girls learn. So, unfortunately, what we've seen in the past few years is a rise in the number of programs that have really been relying on some very faulty theories about supposedly developmental differences between boys and girls' brains. And these are not based on any scientific evidence. There's -- some examples are, you know, certain proponents to sex segregation said that boys are naturally better than -- at math due to daily surges of testosterone, while boy -- while girls, rather, have equivalent mathematical skills only during the first few days in their menstrual cycle when they have an estrogen surge. So this is completely without a basis in science. And these claims, unfortunately, are really playing out in the classroom in some shocking ways that do sound a lot like sex stereotypes. So some examples are that proponents argue that teachers should never smile at boys or look them in the eye when they're teaching, and the boy should be allowed to jump around during class.

SHERWINWhereas, girls shouldn't be given time limits on tests and should be allowed to take off their shoes in class because they don't perform well under stress. And these are really just repackaged sex stereotypes that read like something out of the 1950s. And while they may sound, in some cases, true or like they sometimes accurately seem to describe our experiences, that's not a sound basis for educational policy. And that's really what both Title IX and the Constitution are about that the educational program should be based on individual needs and not your group membership.

NNAMDIFrance Spielhagen, one of the premises behind single-gender classes is that boys and girls are hardwired to learn differently. Is there research that backs up that claim?

SPIELHAGENWhat I'd like to say that I'm not so sure I subscribe to the hardwired. I'm much more social context person in both in my approach and in the research that I have done. How does the social environment affect what they're doing? I think that the -- I think the jury is out on the hardwired. For everyone who says this is what we can tell you, I mean, there are people who do brain scans and response time and that kind of neurological work. There's someone on the other side saying, no, that's not true. And I -- you know, I totally concur that the stereotypical thinking is the most dangerous part of the single-sex movement. Not to say that it should -- that the -- I don't believe the option should be eliminated. I think it should be an option if parents, teachers, administrators and the students buy in, especially when you get into those middle school years. Kids have to wanna be there.

NNAMDIAllow me to interrupt. Galen Sherwin, what do you think about the optional notion?

SHERWINWell, I think there are certain things that -- there are values in our educational system that are important. And there are some choices that we have a -- as a society have decided aren't appropriate in the context of public education. So obviously, race segregation was one of those. We can't choose to opt our children into a race-segregated program. And while no one is saying that the two forms of discrimination are precisely analogous, we can definitely learn lesson from the Civil Rights Movement. And I think, since Brown versus Board of Education, our policy goals have really moved toward inclusion and diversity. These are important values in the public education system. And we shouldn't be making an exception when it comes to separating students by sex.

NNAMDIThe ACLU is suing school Districts in Kentucky and Louisiana over their single-sex classes in public schools. Why are you pursuing cases against those two jurisdictions?

SHERWINWell, our principal reasons are that those two programs really did seem to embody some of the stereotypes that are a big concern for us that I was mentioning earlier. And those programs, we challenge them in those places, because we are trying to establish the principal that it's not appropriate way to structure an educational program.

NNAMDIAllow me to go to the telephones and e-mails, and I'll go to a few at a time because we have so many piled up at this point that I'd like to hear a variety of points of view. We will start with Catherine, who is in Savage, Md. Catherine, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

CATHERINEHi. Thank you, Kojo. Like yourself, I'm a long-term product of single-sex education, but I started in fourth grade. And I wanted to hear your guests' thoughts on the merits or difficulties with separating the genders earlier rather than later, and some possible problems with reintegration, say, in college. I didn't have difficulties but I know several of my female friends did. And I'll take my answer off the air. Thank you.

NNAMDISeveral of your female friends who received a single-sex education had difficulties when they got to college?

CATHERINEYes. They felt that they didn't know how to talk with their male classmates. They felt that they were looked at strangely because they were perceived as being more outgoing in class, raising their hand more perhaps than other girls. But because I haven’t really known anything beyond a single-sex education, it's difficult for me to be objective about that.

NNAMDIAllow me to share a couple of e-mails and then I'll go to you, Tish Howard. E-mail from Beth in D.C. "As an elementary school girl, I ran faster than everyone in my grade except two boys. I also climbed ropes faster, shot hoops better, et cetera, et cetera. If I had been competing with only girls, it would have deprived me of the competition I needed to excel physically. As a result of that early competition, I was never afraid of competing with males, so you can guess how I feel about sex-segregated education." And this e-mail from Sarah, "While it maybe true that more boys are more restless than girls are, clearly, that is not true for every individual. What if a girl would like to sit on her desk or be more active? In Germany, in our mixed first and second grade classes, one option for any child was to sit on a large rubber ball instead of a chair." A lot of our employees here have chosen that option, I can say. "They were a few per room and they were shared. Some girls like them as well as some boys." What does all of these say to you, Tish Howard?

HOWARDWell, I think, there's a lot of valid points here. I think the word that screams to me is stereotypical and one size fits all. And I think that's a danger. There are some -- you know, everything is opted in in our school. And there are some girls who just won't opt into a single-gender classroom. When you take a look at the stress factor, you know, one of the guests made a comment about girls being able to take off their shoes because they can't handle stress. Well, in Virginia, we have the S.O.L. test. And let me tell you, that's stressful for every child.

NNAMDIThe standards of learning test. Yes.

HOWARDRight. It’s a stressful test for boys and girls, and we introduce something last year were the children were allowed to wear their slippers to school, male and female, mixed classes, single-gender classrooms. They were taught how to give themselves a break and push their chair back and stand up and stretch if the stress became too high for them. So that was across the board for all children. And I think those are the kind of things that make it dangerous. When you say that all girls learn this way, all boys learn this way, all boys are fidgety, all girls like dim lights in a classroom, all girls are talkers, I think that word all is very dangerous.

HOWARDBut the thing, you know, as a 63-year-old, I have lived through the civil rights era. And equal -- separate but equal was never equal. I mean, I've been in classrooms in schools were, you know, that was not equal. And the thing if it is that we do on our classroom, is it's all equal, you know. They are separated for their content areas. They're not separated for P.E., art, music, lunch time, recess. There's plenty of opportunity there to learn how to talk to the other gender.

NNAMDIIs it possible, Galen Sherwin, to have separate genders but equal education? Separate gender classes?

SHERWINWell, we haven't seen that in the programs that have been popping up certainly, because so many of them have been relying on these types of stereotypes and, you know, faulty scientific claims about the differences in the way boys and girls learn. So what we've been seeing is these programs that really do explicitly adapt these different teaching methods for girls and boys. And I think some of the comments that you just read really do go to the point that there are these exceptions to the rule, and that's why we have these laws to protect people.

SHERWINWe all know the girl who likes to run around and catch can't sit still. So the question is, what about her in this program? Wouldn't she benefit from the opportunity to have a more active learning environment? And I think the second point is that if boys don't learn to sit still and girls don't learn to perform well under time pressure, how will they do in a college environment? How will they do in a work place? These programs really aren't preparing them well for the real world.

NNAMDIHere is somebody who wanted to make a point along that line, Anne in Clarksburg, Md. You're on the air, Anne. Go ahead, please.

ANNEHi there. Yes, that was exactly my point. I have a daughter in fourth grade in Montgomery County and a son in first grade. My daughter is definitely one of these outliers that you're describing, very fidgety, but that's sort of beside the point. I was a women's studies major in college, and I do have sort of feminist street cred, if you will. But, yeah, I do think that the science is kind of open as to whether and for what extend boys and girls in the mainstream tends to learn and behave differently. Nevertheless, I'm an attorney, and I have worked and lived in a male-dominated profession my entire career. And I find the prospects of girls in this type of classroom -- I have to say that I'm relying completely on the description in your sessions learned about this.

ANNEBut the type of environment that these girls are learning in, there's no resemblance to the type of professional environment they might want to end up in. And conversely, the boys certainly don't need any encouragement to make it more their own kind of environment and less welcoming to what maybe a more comfortable phase for women. So I think, my biggest concern, would really be for kids whose parents decided that they should be opted into these sorts of single-sex classrooms would then find themselves sort of naturally drawn only to stereotypically gender-based careers.

NNAMDIYou say that you are operating still today in a male-dominated environment, Anne?

ANNEAbsolutely. I mean, certainly...

NNAMDIAnd you seemed to be suggesting that girls in schools ought to be prepared for that?

ANNEI would like -- certainly, I dream of a future, where my daughter is going to work and live in a professional environment, where, you know, everyone is equal, where the ways in which people relate to each other are not gender based. And I do, definitely, see a shift in the younger generation in my law firms than in my generation. But nevertheless, I think it's unrealistic to think that every type of profession is by the...

NNAMDIOkay. Let me bring France Spielhagen back into the conversation. Here, Fran...

SPIELHAGENYes.

NNAMDI...we're talking, I guess, about a process of reintegrating, if you will, girls and boys, for that matter, after they have been -- had single-sex or single-gender education.

SPIELHAGENWhilst I've been listening to the comments in the -- of both colleagues on the panel today and the e-mails, you know, I'm thinking about various things that happened over the last 20 years in terms of education of girls in particular. You know, 20 years ago, we were talking about short changing girls, short-changing America and how girls were lost in the classroom. And remember the studies in Sadker and Sadker watching what went on in classrooms and how boys presumably under those studies were getting more attention than the girls. And AAUW to whom I have owe a great debt, because they were the first organization...

NNAMDIThe American Association of University Women.

SPIELHAGENYes. That's right. American Association of University Women funded my first research when I was a classroom teacher. And I looked at girls' perceptions of achievement through their Eleanor Roosevelt Fellowship. AAUW, at first, embraced single-sex education as an opportunity for leadership development among girls, and then reversed the stance because of the fear that slippery slope of stereotypical thinking. And I think that's where we are with this. This -- we have to be and we've said it, and it sounds prosaic, but it's the stereotypical thinking that can ruin what might be a good option for some kids, for some children, if they opt in and if they're comfortable. The arguments that, say, private education, you can choose that for your child. But in public education, you have no choice -- very few choices of what you can do with your kids.

SPIELHAGENAnd so to get back to this reintegration, I think as I said earlier, and I heard Ms. Howard say, the whole idea of options is critically important. And in terms of having kids buy in to the situation or by out, and say, I don't want to be there. When I did my study, I talked to a young man. And it was a regular qualitative study, so it was empirically based. I talked to boy in sixth grade, and he really, really enjoyed being in his all-boy class because he likes to compete. And these were things that he said himself, and he said, but, you know, I think wanna see girls when I'm in the ninth grade. Yeah, the really clear vision of the fact that this is good for me right now.

SPIELHAGENWhen I interviewed him three years later, he had stayed with single-sex education through his middle school years. And he was comfortable with it. And he was ready to move on. The girls in that study and in the other studies that I've worked with, vocalized being comfortable in an all-girl environment, specifically in around eight grade, and then anxious to be in a co-ed environment in ninth through 12th grade. Now, again, you're getting from a researcher's point of view, a social context researcher and education researcher and someone who has been a classroom teacher. I think the final thing we have to understand about this gender issues is that gender is continuum as your call-in person said your e-mail, you know, behavior surround the continuum and gender is not fixed. Obviously sexuality also has, you know, some clear point...

NNAMDIOh, yeah, we have a call about that too.

SPIELHAGENAnd so, again, we have to be careful about how we framework it. I would offer that we should look at more programs to see what is actually happening in other places. If there are programs where there's stereotypical behaviors happening among the teachers and in the curriculum, then we need to look at, you know, other programs to see, you know, if this happening across the nation. Simply targeting a few -- and I'm sure ACLU is very busy doing everything that they do, but we need to look at other programs in Colorado for example or in -- right there in Washington D.C. area, there are programs there, what's happening in those environments so that we can see is there a continuum actually of delivery...

NNAMDIGalen Sherwin, you have said a study by the Department of Education on the early implementation of public single-sex schools was equivocal at best.

SPIELHAGENWell, basically what they allowed was researchers like myself and others to get in there and start seeing what was happening and that's how, you know, the early studies came out and basically invited public comment, and they basically left it up to the local control. Again, that's the foundation of American education as local control. And then one (unintelligible)

SHERWINActually I think that was -- he was referring to a study that I had cited which was Galen Sherwin...

NNAMDIYes.

SHERWIN...speaking.

NNAMDIYes.

SHERWINThat the federal government had commissioned in 2005, which was a meta-study looking at all of the different studies that have been done to that point on single-sex education and its benefits or otherwise. And that review showed that the data was inconclusive and said that some data showed that it could be helpful. A lot of the data showed no difference, and some data showed that it could in fact be harmful. And that's actually very similar to the conclusion reached by all of the, sort of, literature reviews that have been done -- that there is no clear benefit to single-sex education. And that's why it's so troubling that schools are really leaping to adopt these programs in light of such weak evidence.

NNAMDIGalen Sherwin, you again, could you give us a timeline on the cases you're pursuing in Kentucky and Louisiana?

SHERWINWell, they're both pending and without getting into too much of the legal nitty-gritty, there was a request for preliminary release in the Louisiana case that was denied and that has been appealed to the court of appeals. And in the Kentucky case, that's still in the trial court waiting for determination.

NNAMDIGalen Sherwin is staff attorney with the Women's Rights Project at the ACLU. She joins us by telephone by New York. Thank you for joining.

SHERWINThank you for having me.

NNAMDIWe're gonna take a short break. When we come back, we will continue our conversation on single-sex public education. If you have called, stay on the line, we'd like to get to your call. 800-433-8850 or send us an e-mail to kojo@wamu.org or tweet @kojoshow or go to our website kojoshow.org, ask a question, make a comment there. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWe're talking single-sex public education with Frances Spielhagen, professor of education at Mount Saint Mary College and author of "Debating Single-Sex Education: Separate and Equal." She joins us by phone from Newburgh, N.Y. In our Washington studio is Dr. Tish Howard, principal of Washington Mill Elementary School in Alexandria, Va., and author of Poverty is Not a Learning Disability." Here is Laura in Baltimore, Md. Laura, you are on the air. Go ahead, please.

LAURAHi, Kojo. I am the one with a question concerning the gender continuum. There are definitely kids that from a young age don't feel the gender that they present as, as well as kids who are gay and lesbian, transgender. So I'm worried about how those kids are gonna feel in an environment where they're separated according to how they physically appear, and that they may be teased and made fun of and not have someone to choose for support, which is they'll be in an environment which is one-gender.

NNAMDITish Howard.

HOWARDWell -- and I agree with you. I have children in school who are, even at an early age, conflicted and maybe don't understand the confliction. But the word here is choice, okay? And those are discussions that administrators and teachers and parents have to have together so that right choices are made for children. I don't assume, as a principal, to make any of those choices. I firmly believe that every parent is the guide for their children. And I think if parents are in good dialogue with their children, they have a sense of when that kind of confliction may be there, and they will guide their children away from a single-gender classroom. And we have that. I mean, my parents opt in or opt out every year. The classes are formulated strictly on those opt in or opt out forms.

HOWARDI think the nuances that we're talking about here is when we tried to take one paintbrush and paint one stroke over this whole debate. There has to be conversations. There have to be girls who don't feel comfortable in single-gender classrooms, boys who don't feel comfortable in single-gender classrooms. Not all girls have the same learning styles. I think, you know, as a practitioner -- and that's what I have to go by, my day-to-day interaction -- single-gender is not the silver bullet that some schools are looking for to raise scores across this country. You know, it's a tool, and it's a tool that has to be combined with other good sound practices in education. And that's the way we've approached it at our school. We've -- we're using it as a tool, and it's a tool with many hands on the handle of that hammer. You know, there's parents, children, educators and administrators. And I think when you close your mind and expect everything to look the same, you get into some very dangerous territory and you don't allow children's voices to rise above the fray of stereotypical nonsense.

NNAMDIOn to -- and thank you for your call, Laura. We move on to Howard in Northern Virginia. Howard, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

HOWARDHi. Thanks for taking my call. My observation is simply this. As a guy, I went to an all-male boarding school for high school, and that was a little bit of a "Lord of the Flies" environment. But it's distracting that certain things were there. It was certainly nothing like going into a mixed gender environment, where if the girl sitting in front of me, if I could see, you know, any part of her that was, you know, any flesh that was showing or a piece of clothing, you know, bra strap, anything, it would be absolutely distracting in the extreme. And -- so I'm not -- but I'm not calling to advocate for single-sex classes. My observation is based on my experience. I would just say that maybe the silver bullet is one of -- if there is one -- is one of school uniforms. And that way, you, you know, sort of homogenize the population in a way that's not, you know, favoring one or the other. And that way, you can still have your mixed environment. And you take away some of the distractibility that an open dress code can usher in.

NNAMDIIs this something that you have gotten over, Howard? (laugh)

HOWARDWell...

NNAMDIOr is it still a distraction for you? (laugh)

HOWARDYou know, I'm closing in on 40 years old, and I'd say I'm still just about as distracted today by it (laugh) as I was back then.

NNAMDIPerpetually raging, huh? (laugh) Okay, Howard. Howard, thank you very much for your call. Fran, can you talk about the socioeconomics of single-sex public education, what sorts of communities tend to be looking for new methods to engage kids in school?

SPIELHAGENI'm not an expert on that. But what I do know is that schools that are looking for this are looking really to address the score differentials and the opportunity gaps and achievement gaps in their environment. I do wanna re-emphasize and corroborate what Ms. Howard said about it's a tool. It is not a silver bullet. As a matter of fact, that was the word that I was going to use. It's not a panacea. It is one organizational setup that allows schools to address students' needs just as, say, the inclusion model for special ed is a setup, just as having tutors in a classroom or mentors in a classroom. I understand the ACLU's concerns, and I -- and certainly as a second-wave feminist, I echo the concerns about inequality of offerings for women. And I would say that there is not enough evidence out there among school districts that are doing it right to see. And I believe there are some districts that are doing this correctly.

SPIELHAGENAnd so to get back to who -- it's usually places where there are gaps. Ironically, you see single-sex classes perhaps in the lower SES school districts across the nation, and then you see them in the very posh private schools. And so it's an interesting spread in terms of people opting for this kind of educational organization. I think parents need to understand what they're looking for when they're looking for a single-sex arrangement. Schools need to decide why do we wanna do this and in what way, and how to do it as equitably as possible. And as I said, students -- certainly by middle school years -- have to be asked, do you wanna be a part of this? It's an option. It should never be required. But to answer the question that you asked, it seems to me, from what I have seen, that it's usually districts where they have a shortfall in scores, and primarily, it's because they're concerned about boys' achievement that this is being implemented.

NNAMDITish Howard?

HOWARDAnd I need to add to that because I totally agree as far as it's a being tool. You know, last year, our sixth grade scores in math and reading were absolutely phenomenal. We had a 96 percent passing in math and a 96 percent passing in reading. And we're sitting right now to 56 percent minority population. And when we've compared that across schools that have percentages of minorities at 16 were outscoring score -- schools with minority percentages of 16, but that's not because we have single-gender education. You know, last year when I took a look at our sixth grade scores, those sixth graders had the benefit.

HOWARDOne entire class -- we have three sixth grade classrooms. One entire class had been with the same teacher for three years in a three-year loop, and it was a mixed-gender classroom. One classroom had been in a single-gender atmosphere for three years, and one classroom was mixed with an excellent teacher. So if you took a look at those three factors, the relationship building of a three-year loop, the three years experience with single-gender classroom and an -- they were all great teachers, but the other classroom that didn't have the benefit of the two had a fabulous teacher. So we're taking a look at all those. You know, 100 percent of my Hispanic sixth graders last year passed the SOLs in math. I mean, that's a celebration, you know. But it's a celebration where you have to be very diagnostically aware of taking a look at all the tools in your toolbox.

NNAMDISo using all of the options and choices...

HOWARDAbsolutely.

NNAMDI...providing them seems to work. Let's hear from two opposing opinions from callers. First, we will go with Yvette in Bowie, Md. Yvette, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

YVETTEI would like to say that I'm for single-sex education. I am a product of single-sex education in public school. I went to Girls' High in Philadelphia. And I remember being in the eight grade raising my hand a lot in math. And I remember a boy telling me, oh, don't raise your hand because you think you're so smart. But when I got to my high school, and I was in an all single-section environment, there was competition, my self-esteem rose. So I believe that it's a truly good environment for girls to excel and to know that they can learn and not have to be down in order to get the attraction of the opposite sex. And I...

NNAMDIYvette, thank you -- go ahead, please. Yvette.

YVETTEOh, and then I also believe that I felt so strong that I've sent my two children here in Maryland to Catholic schools, to single-sex schools. And I truly believe that they excelled well. You do need good teachers and -- no matter where you are. But providing them I think...

NNAMDIYvette, we're running out of time very quickly. So thank you very much for your call. I wanted to make sure we got in Carolyn in Hollywood, Md., who has a slightly different point of view and experience. Carolyn?

CAROLYNYes. I spent eight years of absolute misery at the National Cathedral School for girls. And it wasn't until I got to a coeducational college at Dickinson that I bloomed. I feel that all I learned at -- well, I did have a wonderful education at National Cathedral. There's no doubt about that. But what the main ethical things I learned was how to never treat other people. I think girls together, left their own devices, are the meanest things that ever came down the pike. And I just found that coeducational college was the best thing that ever happened to me. And that's when I bloomed and I excelled and I was a leader, and it had nothing to do with my single-sex education.

NNAMDIHaving gone to an all-male school for eight years, I can tell you that boys together are the meanest thing that ever came down the pikes. (laugh) So there's clearly...

CAROLYNNo. They can't be any meaner than girls.

NNAMDIWanna bet?

CAROLYNNo way.

NNAMDIWanna bet? There's a clear level of equality somewhere in there. And I guess it gets back to what Tish Howard and Fran Spielhagen have been saying all along. It's a matter of the individual child and the choices that the parent and their child and teachers all make. You're turn, Tish Howard. You're about to end the broadcast.

HOWARDWell, I agree. You know, as far as the meanest, I can sympathize with your last caller. But when you have a group of little girls, you know -- and I repeat what I said before, little girls can tend to wax mean no matter what classroom you put them in. But when we have some of the girls in a single gender, we get really good counselors in there that address that. So hopefully, we can make an impact by the time they get through sixth grade to defuse some of that meanness and turn them into smart and nice young ladies by the time they leave us.

NNAMDIFinal comment from you, Fran Spielhagen.

SPIELHAGENWell, I think that's the bottom line. When we talk about, you know, both of these, the mean girls and the bully boys, good schools, good teachers address students' effective behaviors as well as their cognitive development. And so, a good teacher sees that that's happening and sits down with the students and talks about it. I think to assume that a single-sex classroom is going to be rampant with bullying is, again, a stereotypical decision. My final comment is that I really, really strongly feel that the jury is out. However, it should -- the jury has not said this is not acceptable. The jury has said...

NNAMDIRight.

SPIELHAGEN...simply it's an option...

NNAMDIFran...

SPIELHAGEN...and carefully crafted. And teachers need to encourage that.

NNAMDIAnd we're about out of time. Frances Spielhagen is a professor of education at Mount Saint Mary College and author of "Debating Single-Sex Education: Separate and Equal." Dr. Tish Howard is principal of Washington Mill Elementary School in Alexandria, Va., and author of "Poverty is Not a Learning Disability." Thank you both for joining us.

HOWARDThank you so much.

SPIELHAGENThank you.