NY Sun’s Gerstein reports on the fallout from the admission by Jennifer Delahunty Britz, of Kenyon College, about discrimination against girls in admissions.
Also, good debate in the USA Today today about single-sex public options for girls. USA Today ed board says bring ’em on, NOW’s Kim Gandy says, no, it will lead to segregation. I just do not get the opposition from women’s groups to this idea. and frankly think they’re ill-serving the people they purport to represent by seeking to deny them a choice. No one is proposing mandatory single-sex education, which I would oppose. These are voluntary programs in the public sector.
If public schools offer single-sex options and parents choose them isn’t that a good way to increase choices and customization in public education rather than force parents who want something different to go to the private sector for it? And, to date the single-sex charter schools are promising. There is bipartisan support for the idea, Senator Clinton and Senator Hutchison have been leaders on it, for instance.
The cynic student of interest groups in me also can’t help but note that this is another one of these cases where things we’re OK with in higher education (or pre-K education) cause people to go bonkers when we talk about them for K-12…That vague and harmless don’t do this reform, “let’s offer those benefits to all students” line at the end of the Gandy op-ed sounds eerily familiar…sure, let’s offer them to all students but that’s not exclusive of giving parents and students more choices in the public sector, too!