Same-sex schools: brain food or bad science?

Adriana Pinon Senior Staff Attorney The Austin Independent School District is moving forward on a plan dividing two low-performing middle schools into separate academies for boys and for girls. While there are plenty of fine single-sex schools, research suggests they thrive because of parental choice and first-rate teaching. AISD’s plan for Pearce and Garcia middle schools promises neither. In fact, when the district polled neighborhood parents, less than half backed dividing the students by gender. Even fewer parents were willing to send their kids to single-sex schools. With good reason: there’s no evidence that allowing boys and girls to learn together played any role in these schools’ poor performance. So what’s behind segregating boys and girls – and only in one, low-income community? We’re concerned that this plan is driven by outdated stereotypes and debunked claims about boys’ and girls’ brains. We also ask if a more affluent community would have been singled out for this scheme. That’s why ACLU Texas has filed a Public Information request to learn more about this plan. We need science, not stereotype, to fix our public schools.