Fight Club: Single-Sex Classrooms

Arguments
Pro-article (for single sex-education)--Matthew

• Accessible to wealthy families and not as affluent families as well. Financial aid can open this to not as affluent families.
• It is a choice that parents should have.
• Does not create stereotypes. 
• From his experience, males can focus on the humanities
• For females, they can develop more math and science skills.
• More relaxed environment, so students can focus on just learning and forming friendships.
• Students can decide to pursue their interests. Everyone can prosper 
• Prepared for the real world, intellectually and socially.
• Students from single-sex schools are able to have friendships with people of the opposite sex. They are not completely isolated socially.

Against the article (against single-sex education)--Matt

• These schools are sexist because they separate boys from girls. There can be animosity between the two schools.
• From his experience, there was a large feminist movement from the girls because the guys did something to upset the all-girl's school.
• Encourages stereotypes
• Unintentionally, a sexist environment arises. In an all male school, boys doing sports is emphasized. If the all-male school is excellent at athletics, this further builds the stereotype that males play sports.
• The real world is not a separation of boys and girls. High school is a huge adjustment period for teenagers, so students should not become too comfortable with an environment that is not like the real world.

Response

Can you realistically have single-sex schools in the public sector? In that case, the community would need a boys school, girls school, and a coed school. This would stretch resources thinly instead of concentrating them all on one school.

• Matt: No. Funding three different public schools will cause each to lose quality teachers. Funding education is an important issue today, so instead of setting up single-sex schools, communities should instead establish coed schools to improve education in the United States.

Matthew: Single-sex schools do prepare people for the real world because they can still interact with people form the opposite sex. However, one might have to actively seek that out.