Local group pushes for all-male school
Members say single-sex classrooms have fewer distractions
By SHANTEE WOODARDS, Staff Writer
Published 09/22/10Members of an Annapolis organization are so concerned about boys' academic performance that they want to create an all-male school.
Brian Tucker of Concerned Citizens for Successful Students approached the county Board of Education last week about tailoring an academic program specifically for male students. It would operate either as an entire school or as an academic initiative geared just toward boys. The plan is in its early stages and the group is discussing it with county officials.
"All children are capable of success, there ... (are) no exceptions," Tucker said. "The face of learning is changing. We can either embrace it or we can go against it. I'm hoping we can embrace it in Anne Arundel County."
In order for this to happen, the group has to work with the county school system's alternative education office, which already handles two all-male programs.
"We can sit down and talk with (Tucker) about what (this program) can look like and what his group's ideas are ..." said Bob Mosier, a county schools spokesman. "The superintendent is certainly willing to look at any program, traditional or otherwise, that would result in increased achievement from students."
There has been an ongoing debate about the value of single-sex education and whether both boys and girls benefit from it equally.
The National Organization for Women opposes such efforts, saying they "increase sexism and exacerbate feelings of superiority toward women," according to the group's website. But officials of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education support the concept, offering training to teachers so they can provide opportunities that do not exist in coed environments.Anne Arundel County schools already offer programs tailored toward males. The Middle College High School program at the Edgewater campus of Sojourner-Douglass College, for example, provides its male students with laptops and other supplies to improve their academic performance.
A similar program, designed as an alternative to suspension, is offered through the Alternative Center for Education and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County, administrators said.
The proposed new all-male effort could look to Prince George's County as an example, Tucker said. There, the Possibility Prep Academy - a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) charter school for boys in sixth through eighth grade - was launched this school year.
Tucker said an all-male environment would cut down on the distractions of daily school life - specifically, girls and the attention young men can't help but give them. Such a program would also give men an opportunity to mentor young students on topics they may be more comfortable discussing without women around.
"Ideally, the younger we start, the better," Tucker said. "If we catch them at the age where they're just starting school, it turns that whole pendulum."
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