Single-sex schools prosper -- if you can get kids to go
Miami-Dade's single-sex public schools have performed splendidly. The only problem: convincing the kids to attend.
BY KATHLEEN MCGRORY
KMCGRORY@MIAMIHERALD.COM
It's a familiar scene at most high schools nationwide: Girls and boys date, break up, mope and spend months avoiding each other in the hallways.
Not at one Little Havana high school.
The Young Women's Preparatory Academy is the only all-girls public school in Florida.
The single-gender model has long been a hallmark of private and parochial schools, including some of South Florida's most prestigious academic institutions: Belen Jesuit and Columbus for boys, and Our Lady of Lourdes and Carrollton for girls.
But never in public schools, at least not until a national movement to create more choices for students prompted the Miami-Dade district to reconsider. In 2006, the district opened the Young Women's Preparatory Academy. A brother school in nearby Buena Vista opened its doors two years later.
The two magnet schools, which enroll kids from all over the county, are among a handful of single-sex public schools in the nation. Both boast above average test scores and attendence rates, and have placed students on track to attend top-tier colleges like Wellesley, North Carolina and Duke.
Local school officials and their counterparts around the country are watching. Under competitive pressure from private and charter schools, they are looking for new formulas to engage students and boost academic achievement.
A few other South Florida schools are trying it out. The Richard Allen Leadership Academy, a charter elementary school in Miami Gardens, enrolls only boys. And both Miami Carol City Senior and Nova High School in Davie have several single-gender classrooms.
For advocates of single-gender education, the point is providing options.
``We are not suggesting that every child should be in a single-sex classroom,'' said Leonard Sax, a national advocate. ``This is about offering choices to parents who don't have $20,000 to spend on private-school tuition.''
DEFYING CONVENTION
On a crisp November morning, a gaggle of giddy teenage girls surrounds the pull-up bar at the Young Women's Preparatory Academy.
Next up: 14-year-old Priscilla Gutierrez, a lanky girl with ribbons in her hair.
``C'mon, Gutierrez!'' the girls cheer. ``You can do it!''
Her wiry arms shaking, Priscilla completes six painstaking pull-ups. She smiles widely when she jumps down from the bar.
``Who's next?'' asks petite phys-ed teacher Irene Fox.
Defying convention is among the school's many goals.
It's apparent in classes like Advanced Placement economics, a course typically dominated by boys. The girls feel comfortable asserting themselves.
``They push their teachers and they push each other,'' social studies teacher Sergio Nieves said.
Over the past four years, the Young Women's Prep has earned a slate of As and Bs from the state Department of Education. This past year, the school saw 57 percent of sophomores pass the state reading test -- on par with respected high schools like Palmetto, John A. Ferguson and Ronald Reagan.
The numbers are impressive, considering more than two-thirds of the girls live below the poverty line.
``At this school, they don't worry about their hair and their makeup,'' said Principal Concepcion Martinez. ``They can concentrate on school.''
The school was a tough sell for some girls, in part because of the formal uniform required on Wednesdays: a knee-length plaid skirt, white blouse, crested navy blazer and cross tie.
``They brought out the outfit and the blazer and I literally started freaking out,'' recalled Gretha Suarez, who nonetheless decided to enroll.
A few days into the inaugural school year, the eighth-grade girls had already separated into two distinct cliques.
``It was the black girls over here and the Hispanic girls over there,'' Keyla Valladares said.
Said activities director Anthony Cabrera: ``We didn't know how we were going to bring these girls together. But we were determined to do it.''
COOLING 'EM DOWN
If you take a tour of the Young Men's Preparatory Academy, you'll notice that the walls are all white, and the temperature is a cool 69 degrees.
There's a reason.
``Color is a distraction for boys,'' explains principal Leonard Ruan. ``Boys also need an environment where it is a little cooler. We tend to be warm blooded.''
In other ways, the experience is customized. The sound system in each classroom is enhanced. (Researchers say teenage boys don't hear as well as girls.) Books like Why a Curveball Curves andAncient Rome stand on display in the library. There's also a section devoted to graphic novels.
``We're all guys so we can act like guys,'' said Jordan Jaworksi, a 14-year-old freshman from Key Biscayne.
Every afternoon, highlights from the weekend's NFL games play on a flatscreen in the cafeteria. Maybe it's good they get a sports fix, because there aren't enough kids to field a football or basketball team. (They could try out at their neighborhood school, though few do.)
Some aspects of the school break gender stereotypes.
One of the most popular classes is Advanced Placement art history. Nationwide, two out of every three AP art history test takers are girls.
Kids being kids, the boys are sometimes teased for choosing a school without girls. But most don't mind.
``It gives you a chance to get away from your girlfriend,'' explained Clarence Moore III, a junior. ``If you get into a fight with her, you don't have to go to school the next day and see her and all her friends.''
PUT TO THE TEST
Except for a handful of schools for young mothers or troubled boys, virtually all of the 98,000 public schools in the United States are co-ed.
But over the past five years, districts have been experimenting with single-gender classrooms -- and paying close attention to the results.
One test case is Woodward Avenue Elementary, 25 miles outside of Daytona Beach.
Five years ago, the school gave parents a choice: Enroll your kid in a single-gender or co-ed classroom. A team from Stetson University studied how the fourth-grade students fared on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test in writing.
In the co-ed classrooms, 59 percent of girls passed the FCAT. In the single-gender classrooms, the number was 75 percent.
The split was even wider for boys. In co-ed classrooms, 37 percent of boys earned passing scores. In single-gender classrooms: 86 percent.
Why does it work?
Studies show that girls and boys are hard-wired differently -- and their brains develop at different rates.
``There is evidence that language skills develop faster in girls,'' said University of Miami child psychologist Monica Dowling. ``Also, we know that boys need to move around more. They don't like to sit down and talk about feelings.''
Sax, the national advocate for single-gender education, said benefits go beyond the academic realm. Girls who attend single-gender schools are less likely to use drugs and alcohol than girls at co-ed schools.
``The single-sex format is tremendously empowering for girls,'' Sax said. For boys, it allows them to make high marks without being perceived as a nerd.
Still, the research is far from definitive. Some studies say single-gender schools are successful because they are small and can be selective. And some child psychologists caution against separating boys and girls, saying school should be a microcosm of society.
In Miami-Dade, both single-gender high schools have outperformed the neighboring co-ed schools. Like its sister school, Young Men's Prep has received only As and Bs from the state. When the first class graduates, the principal expects a perfect graduation rate.
``These schools add one more dimension to wide array of parental options,'' Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said. ``It's not for everybody. But what we have learned is that the children who attend these schools have a strong attachment to the environment. They feel freer. They don't have to live up to certain things that are expected of them as boys or girls.''
The year the Young Women's Preparatory Academy opened, social groups broke down by race so much that teachers nicknamed the school Checkerboard High.
``We were all talking behind each other's backs,'' said Gretha Suarez, who was in the eighth grade.
``I really didn't want to be here,'' said Shaquira Robinson, also an eighth-grader then. ``It was too many girls and too much drama.''
GIRL TALK 101
Administrators paired the older girls with the younger girls and devoted each Friday morning to mentoring. Cabrera, the activities director, wrote a poetic alma mater and created a ring ceremony.
``We wanted them to realize that they had nobody else but each other,'' he said.
Shaquira started a program called Girl Talk 101 that allowed classmates to speak openly about important issues.
``Everybody worked to make that dream a reality,'' Gretha said. ``We had to build a legacy.''
This year, those eighth-grade girls are seniors. They spend each morning together in what they call the ``senior office,'' working on college applications and discussing families, boyfriends and futures.
The boys at the Young Men's Preparatory Academy are working to achieve that level of cohesion.
Recruitment remains difficult, as does retention. The school, which can hold up to 400 students, currently enrolls about 140. Some refuse to attend. Others are forced by their parents -- and do whatever they can to get kicked out.
Ruan, the principal, plans to continue adding programs and raising academic standards in hopes of making the Prep among the most elite schools in the county.
It's already working for Francisco Monzon.
Francisco, a sophomore, lives in a public housing complex off Northwest 23rd Street in Allapattah with his mother, stepfather and 7-year-old sister Andrea. One afternoon a few years back, he saw a man shot dead in the courtyard.
Francisco wants to study physics and psychology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
``We live in a place where 80 percent of the kids weren't going to do well,'' said his mother, Coral Martinez. ``But instead of going the way everybody else does, he wants to make progress.''
She paused.
``I think that's because of his school.''
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