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Why Girls'
Schoools?
The
Difference in Girl-Centered Education
By Whitney Ransome & Meg Milne Moulton,
NCGS Executive Directors
Originally published in The Fordham Law Journal,
Vol. XXIX
"As a college professor I could identify the students
from girls' schools with a 90 percent accuracy rate on
the first day of class. They were the young women whose
hands shot up in the air, who were not afraid to defend
their positions, and who assumed that I would be
interested in their perspective."¹
-- Dr.
Robin Robertson
I. A Historical
Perspective
The past decade has witnessed a remarkable resurgence
of interest in all-girls' education.² Since 1991,
student enrollments at schools belonging to the National
Coalition of Girls' Schools (NCGS) have risen 29
percent, applications 40 percent, and more than 30 new
girls' schools have opened.³ These recent developments
represent a significant reversal of fortune from the
1980s. Spurred on by the passage of Title IX4
in 1972, the 1980s were characterized by a broad-based
commitment to educational equity.5 The fervor
of that era led many to question the relevance and
efficacy of girls' schools.6 Single-sex
schools were losing ground to coeducational
institutions, which were considered by the vast majority
to be the norm.
Title IX set forth notions of equal treatment and
equal access.7 Under the rubric of this
statute, any form of separation between the sexes
amounted to unequal treatment. Former all-male schools
and colleges were quick to admit girls8 -- a
move prompted as much by economic and demographic
realities as pedagogical commitment to equal access.
Accompanying these newly coeducational institutions,
however, was a change in assumptions about girls'
schools. Girls' schools historically existed to provide
quality education for young women who had been denied
schooling alongside men; however, as the opportunities
for coeducation grew, this goal seemed less necessary.
In fact, single sex education became characterized as
anachronistic, out of touch with the "real world," and
irrelevant.9
What, then, explains the remarkable renaissance that
has occurred in just over a decade's time? What has led
to the renewal of interest in girls' schools? How does
an all-girls education differ from a coeducational
education? The answers to these questions can be found
in a series of interrelated developments in educational
theory, gender research, and the link between brain
function and the learning process.
These developments, however, were not solely
responsible for the resurgence of girls' schools. In the
late 1980s, two educators, Rachel Belash, head of Miss
Porter's School (Connecticut) and Arlene Gibson, head of
Kent Place School (New Jersey), issued a call to action
among their girls' school colleagues. These visionary
women had no doubt about the value and benefit of
single-sex education, and their goal was to
systematically document those benefits and to share that
information broadly.
»
Next
»
I. A Historical Perspective
» II.
Documenting Girls' School Outcomes
» III.The
Power of Collaboration: The NCGS Model
» IV. New
Reports, New Perspectives: Emerging Theories/a>
»
IV. 1999 NCGS Research: Girls' School Graduates Speak
Out
» VI.
Girls Schools in 2001: The Changing Landscape
» VII.
Notes
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