Theodore Sauyet
English Persuasive Essay
Single-Sex Education is Wrong
Have you ever thought about what it would be like to live in a world without girls,
only guys? Or vice-versa? Not speaking to, listening to, or even seeing them in any
way? Can you imaging the stress level that yours would rise to? The horror of not being
able to tell someone you love them (unless you are homosexual)? That you couldn’t
laugh and tell jokes with anyone but the members of your own, old, and boring gender?
This is what sending your child to a single-sex school would be like. And that is why
single-sex education is wrong. It is unconstitutional, and even if it wasn’t, there are the
problems with availability of qualified teachers and money.
Single-sex education is wrong because it is unconstitutional. A common
argument that is stated by many advocates of single sex education is that it will decrease
harassment, sexual or otherwise. However, according to the “California Study SingleSex Schools No Cure All”, “Harassment and other problems common in co-educational
schools do not necessarily disappear in single-sex schools.” Harassment still continues,
in and out of schools. “Whenever there are people,… there are hierarchies,” this was said
by Yakeo, a biology teacher in the book Liar by Justine Larbalestier and is portrayed as a
wise person in the book. So people will get harassed, unless they are an island, and no
man is an island. The California study also found that it is difficult to comply with state
and national laws about child equity n education. This means that the laws, which were
made by our very outstanding government, are already tipped against single-sex
education. Plus, according to “Single-Sex Education: The Pros and Cons,” “Single-sex
education s illegal and discriminatory, or so states the American Civil Liberties Union.”
This proves that a powerful group in our government is against single-sex education.
Then all the people who support single-sex education all assume that these
teachers have knowledge of teaching styles aimed at just girls or just boys – not aall
teachers have received this formal training. Even “The Promise and Peril of Single-Sex
Education Public Education,” which is heavily biased for single-sex education, admits
“There was no significant improvement in grades or test scores.” This means that it lacks
the ability to even improve anything academically. This is probably because of the
following quote from “Single-Sex Education: The Pros and Cons,” “The teaching style
promoted by advocates of single-sex education could be ineffective (at best) or
detrimental (at worst).” This would explain the same grades at single-sex education
schools. The same article also state that “Few educators are formally trained to use
gender-specific teaching techniques.”
And because of that, teachers trained to be of good use in single-sex schools are
hard to come by. This couple with lack of resources, means that a single-sex school
would be much harder to start and keep running efficiently. It would also be much harder
to get parents to go to a single-sex school than a coeducational school. Would you,
honestly, send your child to be cooped up in a building that was only males or only
females? So, it would require much more money than a coeducational school. Speaking
of money, the gap between students of a socioeconomic difference is much greater than
the gap between girls and boys. It’s the difference between the Grand Canyon and a
sidewalk crack!
In the end, single-sex education is not proper because it is unconstitutional, not
enough teachers could use it effectively, and it’s too expensive. The traditional
coeducational environment is superior in every way. This little rebellion of single-sex
education will be smoothed over like an annoying wrinkle in your best dress shirt. Even
the United States of America is ironing the future of your children. So tell your children
to pack their books and their pick-up lines, because they will be going to a traditional
school like they always thought they would!