the coercion of segregation..

So I recently watched a segment on ABC World News (tiny and short), which was focused the implementation of single-sex education in the Greene County school district of South Carolina. The news segment which aired on February 18th was supplemented by this news article, which states:

“Next fall, public schools in Greene County may be the first to implement single-sex education. By separating students by gender, educators hope to improve low test scores, and cut down on teen pregnancy and disciplinary issues, which trouble most of the school system in that rural district.

‘Our high school still ranks 332 out of 369 schools in Georgia,’ said Shawn McCollough, superintendent of the Greene County schools. ‘So, it’s pretty alarming when you see you’re that close to the bottom.’

The board of education approved the measure in a unanimous vote last week. The sports and band programs will remain mixed, and boys and girls will continue to ride the same buses to school. Only the academic programs will be segregated.” (source)

The article goes on to acknowledge that the parents of Greene County students were not able to vote for or against this measure, and that many parents feel helpless and rightfully upset over the “forced” segregation of their children. The way in which the Greene County board of education has dealt with a single-sex segregation enforced school district has outraged even Leonard Sax, from the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, and one of the lead advocates for single-sex education.

single-sex education in the news.

Nightly News began a 4-part series called “The Truth About Boys and Girls” on January 15th. The name alone makes me cringe, just because of the finality of the title. Anyways, they interviewed Leonard Sax on single-sex ed, so for anyone who is interested, you can watch it here.

 The other segments are also available for view msnbc.com, with the last segment airing tomorrow on Nightly News.