It started out as a computer glitch. According to a report broadcast on Iowa Public Television this week, Virginia Baily Bridge Middle School Principal Deborah Marks was informed that the fickle machines had somehow arranged 98 percent of classes to be single gender. After three sleepless nights struggling to come up with a solution, Marks decided to turn the crisis into an opportunity. Last year, she allowed the arrangement to remain status quo, curious to discover what would happen.

Academic achievement shot up. Disciplinary problems fizzled. Students requested that the arrangement be made permanent. Parents cheered. But that has not been the scenario in other parts of the nation.

There are currently 11 single-sex schools operating in the nation according to the Brighter Choice Foundation, a private nonprofit group that has helped finance single-sex schools around the country in states like New York, Virginia, Washington and California.

Controversy over single-sex classrooms in public education has erupted since a new federal law spurred the opening of single-sex public schools, which proves to be another sign that public education reform is long overdue. Title IX has prohibited separating the sexes in the public classroom until now. The U.S. Department of Education is drafting new Title IX regulations that are expected to take effect this year.

Opponents want to discredit what they say is the only evidence supporting single-sex classrooms — student testimony of how much better the learning environment is. What about the improved test scores? What about the significant decrease in discipline problems? To date, there has been no published record of a student saying that he or she would rather be in a mixed classroom or educators saying no differences have been observed.

Women’s rights advocacy groups worry that segregating boys and girls in public education will result in a decrease in quality programs for girls and perpetuate sexism and stereotypes. Expose the girls to the mathematics and sciences and the boys to humanities and fine arts? Gender stereotypes aren’t broken down among students. Gender stereotypes are broken down by individuals and teachers. How many female instructors are there in chemistry and physics and math? How many male instructors are there in the humanities and fine arts?

Other experts argue that boys and girls will not be adequately prepared for real world integration if they aren’t educated together in a public setting. Skeptics also claim their reduced class sizes and more individualized attention are improving student performance and test scores, not a single-sex classroom.

The argument is not that too few quality studies have been done. Rather, criticism is directed toward the type of educational settings in which the studies have been done. Most studies have focused on women’s colleges, elite private schools, Roman Catholic schools or single-sex schools overseas instead of American public schools. For example, a six-year study of Australian school children was conducted using test scores of 270,000 students. The scores of the students who learned in a single-sex environment were on the average 15 to 22 percent higher than the scores of the students who learned in a co-ed environment. The public schools in America that have experimented with single-sex classrooms have nothing but improvements to report. In Seattle, administrators wanted to experiment with the arrangement because the male students were struggling academically. They reported that separating girls and boys significantly decreased discipline problems and test scores improved for the state standards from 10 percent to 73 percent.

In interviews published in print and broadcast media, students who are placed in a single-sex classroom say they are less distracted. Girls claim they worry less about their appearance — without the boys to impress, who cares about dazzling lipstick or perfect hair? Boys say they feel much more at ease to ask questions — no girls are there to make them feel stupid. And both say they appreciate the closer relationship with their teachers. The argument could be made that implementing single-sex classrooms is another way of adjusting to different learning styles. Should such radical steps be taken simply because a few students speak out about how it has benefited them?

The only thing experts can agree on at this point is that more research is needed. The irony is that the Bush administration hasn’t allocated much funding, despite his claims of wanting to improve public education.

The real question at stake is what is in the students’ best interest.ÿ