The Benefits of Attending a Girls' School - Section 3

 

Abroad and At Home

Many countries overseas have significant student populations enrolled in single-sex schools, and collect detailed achievement statistics for comparison purposes.

 

In Great Britain, the National Foundation for Educational Research examined 2002 student performance data from 979 primary and 2,954 secondary schools. Among its objectives was to test assertions that single-sex education can be beneficial for girls and boys alike. The study concluded that:

 

•  Girls' schools help counter gender-stereotyping in subject choices

•  Girls in single-sex schools perform better than girls in co-ed schools, regardless of socio-economic and ability levels

•  Boys with low prior academic achievement score better on the GCSE standardized test in boys' schools than in co-ed schools

•  Boys in single-sex grammar schools perform better than those in co-ed grammar schools

 

A similar conclusion comes out of Australia, where Dr. Ken Rowe, Principal Research Fellow at the Australian Council for Educational Research, summarized the findings of several studies involving more than 270,000 students. Dr. Rowe presented the results of his research to The Second National Conference on Co-Education, held in Australia in April of 2000, telling the audience:

 

"Co-educational settings are limited in their capacity to accommodate the large differences in cognitive, social and developmental growth rates of girls and boys between the ages of 12 and 16. In contrast... evidence suggests that during these key adolescent years, single-sex settings better accommodate the specific developmental needs of students."

 

Girls First & Foremost

Dr. Rosemary C. Salomone, the researcher cited earlier, conducted a similar survey of the  research for her book Same, Different, Equal: Rethinking Single-Sex Schooling. She writes:

 

"All-girls settings seem to provide girls a certain comfort level that helps them develop greater self-confidence and broader interests, especially as they approach adolescence. Research has found that single-sex schools and classes promote less-gender-polarized attitudes toward certain subjects - math and science in the case of girls and language arts and foreign languages in the case of boys."

 

For generations, girls' schools have served students of many abilities, interests, talents and backgrounds. What unites these schools is a long-standing commitment to learning environments that place girls first and foremost. What sets them apart from other educational settings is an in-depth understanding of how girls learn and succeed.

 

Every Opportunity

At NCGS member schools, girls enjoy not just equal opportunity, but every opportunity. All the speakers, players, writers, singers, team captains, community organizers and leaders are girls. Mentors and role models are not hard to find. There are no chilly classroom climates to endure, no subtle signs of second-class citizenship.

 

Myra and David Sadker, the American Univer-sity researchers cited earlier, put it this way:

 

"When girls go to single-sex schools, they stop being the audience and become the players."

 

It is a frame of mind that puts girls' school graduates at a competitive advantage when entering college. Robin Robertson, a former university professor who went on to become a girls' school principal, says girls' school alumnae stand out in a crowd:

 

"As a college professor I could identify students from girls' schools with a 90 percent accuracy rate on the first day of class. They were the young women whose hands shot up in the air, who were not afraid to defend their positions, and who assumed that I would be interested in their perspective."

 

Drawing on Tradition, Embracing New Opportunities

NCGS member schools are educational leaders, not followers of trends, and have paved the way to excellence for generations. They are incubators of innovation, where best practices for the teaching of girls draw upon decades of tradition while embracing the challenges and seizing the opportunities of the 21st century.

 

In the nearly two decades since the National Coalition of Girls' Schools was founded, single-sex education has experienced what can only be described as a renaissance. Dozens of new girls' schools have opened their doors across the country, with more on the way every year, representing the full diversity of today's educational landscape.

 

Some girls' schools are brand new, some bring generations of history - in a few cases, more than a century. Some of our member schools are in urban settings, some in the suburbs or the rural countryside. Some are big, some are small. Some are independent schools, others are public. Some are boarding schools, some are day schools, others a mixture of both.

 

But they all share one core principle: Every girl deserves the opportunity to realize her full potential, to draw forth her talents and discover new ones, in a setting where she is valued for who she is and what she brings to the experience.

 

Girls' schools know that students who are held to the highest expectations, given access to the best resources, and who are led to understand that serious schooling is theirs for the taking - these are students who do not turn back. This is exactly the culture of a girls' school, and time spent within one transforms girls. It is a sound investment for life.

 

Also:

Gender and the Brain » 

Single-Sex Learning and Career Aspirations » 

 

 

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