When I was in the fourth grade, my parents brought up the idea of going to an all girls private school for middle and high school.  My initial response was that I did not want to go to an all girls school because then I would be really weird, unable to talk to boys, and too preppy.  Of course, these things are generally stereotypes, but I was not thinking about that at the time.  My mom said that I did not have good enough reasons for not wanting to go, so I went. From 6-12th grade I went to a Private, all girls, college prep school, and I loved it.

But does single-sex education really make us smarter/have a better education?   I looked into some studies to find the answer to this question.  The National Association for Single Sex Education posted some very interesting research on the topic.  Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania traveled to Seoul, South Korea.  In schools there, students are randomly assigned classroom that are either co-ed or single sex education environments.  The researchers found no difference in the way the teachers treated the students, and all of the schools were government funded.  I found this to be a very important aspect of the study, because in many private schools the teachers have to be more “qualified” in order to teach there, and they may receive lots of donations, as well as tuition money which will allow for more use of advanced technology which could affect the success of the students of that school.  In this study, they found that girls attending all girls schools and boys attending all boys schools are both more likely to attend four year colleges, and they have significantly higher test scores.  So, it is concluded that single sex education, going to a four year college, and high test scores are casually linked.

This research to me, seems like it could be accurate because the research seems like it was done fairly, but it is presented by the Association for Single Sex Education.  So, it is not surprising that the research concluded that single sex education has more benefits to students.

The American Psychological Association posted a story about an all boys school which also supports my claim.  The school is called Urban Prep Academy, and it is located in Chicago.  The article talks about how the school only had 4% of the freshman class able to read at a grade level, but when they switched to being an all boys school, 100% of their senior class was accepting four year college offers.  It mentions that it could be other factors, though that caused this to happen.  When the school switched to single sex education, it also put a heavy focus on college prep and english class.

Overall, I think that it is hard to say whether single sex education makes a huge difference in one’s education but in my opinion it does because of these studies and my own experience.

http://www.singlesexschools.org/research-singlesexvscoed.htm

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/02/coed.aspx

http://www.rpcs.org/image/academics/MS-LibraryClassroom.png

http://www.dallasnews.com/incoming/20110905-schoolboys.jpg.ece/BINARY/w940/schoolBOYS.jpg