I don't think it hurts to try. It shouldn't cost a thing to place girls in one school and boys in another. You make "quick" and "fix" seem like negative terms. The potential outcome could be wonderful.
But, how would you ensure an equal education between the two groups? Inevitably a disparity would arise. I don't think separating boys and girls is really the answer. Better teachers, lower ratios, more resources are what provides quality education. I don't see how just separating the groups and not fundamentally changing the education they're receiving is going to make a hill of beans difference.
Quite frankly, I think that the girls will meet the NCLB standards and the boys will be left in the dust. Then what?
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/021608/news_20080216058.shtml
Greene County has about 2,000 students, most of whom are black and from low-income families.
Many students there feel the effects of generational poverty, McCollough said, and for years the high poverty rate has translated to lower levels of academic success, parental support and a graduation rate that's below the state average.
But what concerns McCollough is a gap between the performance of boys and girls who attend Greene County schools, especially at the county's middle school.
Boys consistently lag behind on standardized tests like the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test given to students annually at elementary and middle schools. In the sixth grade last year, 42 percent of boys failed the language-arts section of CRCT - twice as many as the girls - and boys failed at greater rates than girls in nearly every other subject of the test.
At the high school level, girls also outperform boys.
Girls graduate 73 percent of the time, while boys just 61 percent. Girls pass most end-of-course tests in greater numbers than boys, particularly in literature and composition, and are half as likely to be disciplined.
