IWF has long advocated making single-sex public schools an option. As a front-page story in the Washington Post shows, this is a battle we’re winning.
The Bush administration announced plans yesterday to relax restrictions on single-sex public schools and classrooms, effectively ending three decades of federal attempts to enforce a nationwide policy of coeducation.
New regulations drafted by the Department of Education will make it much easier to establish single-sex schools at taxpayer expense, and sweep away many of the legal obstacles to separate classes for girls and boys. At present, only a few dozen of the 93,000 public schools in the country offer same-sex classes in mainstream academic subjects.
The move could lead to “an explosion in the number of single-sex schools,” predicted Tom Carroll, who founded separate federally funded charter schools for boys and girls in Albany, N.Y., in 2002. “It eliminates many of the legal clouds hanging over us.”
The new regulations, which are open to public comment for 45 days, change the way the Education Department enforces Title IX of a 1972 education act, which prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded programs. Until now, successive administrations have interpreted this provision to mean that virtually identical opportunities must be provided to students of both sexes.
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