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Fewer distractions within a classroom setting will inevitably enhance opportunities for student learning and achievement. Single-sex schools are able to provide students with a learning environment that encourages them to maintain their focus on instruction rather than on the opposite sex.

Standardized testing has become much more frequent since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind policy. Since students are facing more and more pressures to perform, it is imperative that the school system does what it can to facilitate their success in the classroom. By minimizing potential distractions, the opportunity for learning is maximized considerably.

With hormones kicking into high gear during early adolescence, it is no surprise that students are easily distracted by the opposite sex. Students in co-ed schools are more likely to devote precious time and effort to studying the opposite sex than they are their schoolwork. Without the opposite sex to dote over or impress, students will be more inclined to focus their attention on improving academic performance.

Single-sex schools may also help to eliminate many of the social pressures and gender stereotypes that run rampant through their co-ed counterparts. They afford students with more freedom to pursue areas of interest that might otherwise have been unofficially reserved for the opposite sex.

Another benefit of the single-gender format is that it also eliminates the need for educators to factor in gender-related learning differences when designing their lesson plans. Though all students have their own personal learning styles, evidence suggests that boys and girls do learn differently. Single-sex schools therefore have an advantage over co-ed schools in that they are able to implement lessons and programs that appeal to the specific gender that they service.

Until recently, I was undecided about whether or not single-sex schools would be more effective than co-ed programs but my mind was made up shortly after the school where I teach adopted the single-gender format, which was implemented at the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year.

I work with middle and high school males, most of whom have learning disabilities and/or behavior problems. Providing meaningful instruction for these reluctant learners has always been a challenge but the new single-gender format has dramatically enhanced the quality of learning that takes place in my classroom. Despite student complaints about the lack of female peers, both behavior and academic performance has improved significantly.

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