A measure that would permit Arizona schools to provide single-gender classes will allow for better performance from students, the sponsor said, because many students are more comfortable around peers of the same gender than they are in coed settings.
“The underlying objective is better education for the students,” said Rep. Andy Biggs, a Gilbert Republicans.
But the American Civil Liberties Union called the measure bad public policy and cited a 2005 federal government study that found no clear evidence of academic success among single-gender programs.
“These programs are questionable…in terms of their effectiveness,” said Alessandra Meetze, executive director of the ACLU’s Arizona operations.
Biggs, though, said numerous studies show a significant increase in academic performance by students who take single-gender classes. For instance, researchers at Stetson University compared single-gender classes with coed classes at a Florida elementary school. That study found boys in the single-gender classes performed nearly 50 percentage points better that their peers in coed classes on the state’s assessment test. Girls in the single-gender classes, meanwhile, scored 16 percentage points higher.
The reason for the increased learning, Biggs said, is because students behave better when surrounded by students of the same gender. That, in turn, allows teachers to concentrate more on educating than on disciplining.
“It’s not a curative for everything, of course, but the studies show the teacher can focus more on teaching,” he said.
However, Meetze said it isn’t right for the state to introduce “experimental” education models when there is a budget deficit, like the one the state is currently facing.
“Right now, when we’re facing a huge budget crunch, is not the time to experiment on students by placing them in these single-sex programs,” she said. “Instead of spending resources on what is really a social experiment, we should be spending it on what we know works, like smaller class sizes and higher paid teachers.”
But H2086 wouldn’t require schools to begin offering single-gender classes, Biggs said. Rather, it would merely allow them to offer the courses, as long as they met federal educational guidelines requiring a substantially equal class to be available to students
“I think there’s plenty of articles demonstrating these settings work and the majority of test scores go up for boys and girls,” he said. “It’s not experimental in any sense.”
The House Education Committee unanimously approved the bill Jan. 30.