Hilliard says schools can be configured in many ways to get high achievement, and single-sex education doesn’t guarantee that outcome.
“You can have high-performing mixed schools or single- gender schools, or low” achieving ones of either type, he says.
The Education Department rules are still subject to challenge in the courts. Theodore M. Shaw, director-counsel and president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, says his organization has not taken a position on the issue even though it is traditionally opposed to segregating individuals by race or gender. But this case may be an exception.
“I believe the crisis among Black males is so severe we have to have some room to experiment,” Shaw says.
Before retiring last year, Holland crusaded for single-sex education for Black boys for two decades. He directed the Center for Educating African-American Males, then at Morgan State University, from 1990 to 1994. Holland dismisses the legal arguments against gender discrimination.
“We have all-boys classes by default; they’re called special education because they failed to learn to read in the primary grades,” he says. “They get segregated [again] eventually. Our prisons are filled with
Black males who can’t read.”
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
