why an all girls school the all-girls advantage
At DSHA, it’s all about girls. Recent research confirms the wisdom of our founders and reinforces the transformations we see everyday at DSHA. All-girls' schools offer enormous value to their students, value that isn't easily replicated in other school settings. At DSHA every class leader is a girl. All the speakers, players, writers, singers, athletes, leaders, and stars are girls. They are the first ones to raise their hands in class, the leaders in planning Masses and service projects, the loudest cheerers at athletic events, lead actors in the plays and musicals, and the members of student council.
In a 2000 survey of 4,274 girls' school alumnae conducted by the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools, a majority of the survey's participants stated that compared to coed schools, girls' schools achieve the following:
Better prepare students for college courses
Offer stronger academic training
Do a better job of encouraging leadership
Are more relevant to their lives
Provide meaningful real-world experiences
Why Single Gender Education?
According to Research from The Harvard School of Education & The American Association of University Women:
In a co-ed classroom:
- In general, teachers give more attention to young men than to young women.
It's little wonder that many young women experience a decline in self-esteem as their voices become silenced in the educational environment.
Researchers confirm that by senior year, students at single gender schools excel beyond their coed peers in the areas of reading, writing, and science.
Overall, graduates of all-women's high schools are more satisfied with their schools and the quality of education, more open-minded about their roles and possibilities, and are less impacted by the social pressures of adolescence.
- According to Dianne Hales, in her 1999 book Just Like A Woman - How Gender Science Is Redefining What Makes Us Female, single-sex education is receiving more attention across the country:
“In the United States, enrollments at single-sex schools are soaring, and even coed schools, public and private, are setting up all-girl and all-boy classes in math and science. There is a growing recognition of gender differences in learning styles. As early as first grade, girls approach arithmetic problems in different ways from boys. In middle and high school, girls' math smarts (and scores) improve when they get frequent feedback, engage in collaborative group work, and learn connections between abstract concepts and practical applications.
Issues of gender inequity in education may go beyond teaching approaches. As researchers have documented, social dynamics are different in same-sex and mixed-sex classrooms. In elementary grades, boys are more active and assertive. They shout out an answer--any answer--before the teacher has finished a question; girls wait until they're sure they know the right response. And even teachers with gender-equity training report that they still devote more attention to the high-spirited hi-jinks of boys than to the quieter academic difficulties of girls.
Small classes and caring teachers may make a bigger difference, but it is also true that at least some girls speak up more and perform better without the distractions and disruptions boys can bring, especially in challenging subjects like math."
"Women also have long made significant but unheralded contributions in science, math, and technology. In the fifth century, Hypatia, a teacher and mathematician in Alexandria, wrote treatises on geometry and algebra and invented scientific instruments. An empress of China, Shi Dun, developed the first paper from the bark of mulberry trees. In 1738, at the age of twenty, Maria Gaetana Agnesi of Milan wrote a textbook of calculus and mathematical analysis considered so brilliant that the University of Bologna sent her a diploma and named her to its faculty. In eighteenth-century Bath, Caroline Herschel, who learned astronomy from her brother while serving as his housekeeper, discovered eight new comets and earned a pension from King George III--the first woman to win such support for scientific work.
The twentieth-century counterparts of these largely unknown women remain almost as obscure. Few people know--or could be expected to know--who invented such modern innovations as bulletproof vests, Macintosh computer icons, the laser optics used in CD players, or the ceramic tiles that allow the space shuttle to survive reentry into the earth's atmosphere. Yet most would be surprised to discover that these inventors are all female.
According to Patricia Bauch’s article, “Single-Sex Schooling and Women’s Education,” women's education resembles an ecological model that fosters inclusiveness, interaction, caring, values, and attention to learning as a way of life.
Bauch states that traditional co-ed schools however, approach learning from a "factory model" where the emphasis is on structure and functionality. The goal is to create an economically efficient delivery system for single sex education.
In her book, Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, (Ballantine Books 1994), Dr. Mary Pipher explained the extent of gender discrimination in the typical classroom:
In classes, boys are twice as likely to be seen as role models, five times as likely to receive teachers' attention and twelve times as likely to speak up in class. In textbooks, one-seventh of all illustrations of children are of girls. Teachers choose many more classroom activities that appeal to boys than to girls. Girls are exposed to almost three times as many boy-centered stories as girl-centered stories. Boys tend to be portrayed as clever, brave, creative and resourceful, while girls are depicted as kind, dependent and docile. Girls read six times as many biographies of males as of females.
Boys are more likely to be praised for academics and intellectual work, while girls are more likely to be praised for their clothing, behaving properly and obeying rules. Boys are likely to be criticized for their behavior, while girls are criticized for intellectual inadequacy. (page 62)
Girls feel more free to speak out in a single gender school, according to William Perry in the Feb. 1996, issue of the NASSP Bulletin.
Perry found that in a single gender science and math classes, girls grade point averages were higher than in co-educational classes.
In "A Place of Their Own" by Felice J. Freyer which appeared in the April 23, 1997 issue of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
St. Mary Academy-Bay View President Sister Elizabeth McAuliffee said, "What parents always say to us is, 'I can see the changes in my daughter. I can see the growth in her self-esteem. I can see her being much more attentive to her studies. I can see her more relaxed.'"
Society still tells girls they have a choice as to whether or not they will work for pay.
- Yet, women are nine times as likely as men to be single parents.
- 9 out of 10 women work for pay at some time during their lives.
By paying attention to the educational achievements and career aspirations of young women, we will ensure that females can have economic security, a better quality of life, and more career choices. Working women continue to be clustered in "traditional female occupations."
Yet women who choose non-traditional careers can expect to have lifetime earnings that are 150% of those women who choose traditional careers.
According to the "Expect the best from a girl and that's what you'll get" program of the Women's College Coalition,
"If present trends continue and girls are not encouraged into math and science and computer programming, they will be trained only for the data and information-retrieval capabilities of the computer. These are still secretarial/clerical skills, and females will remain at the low end of the service-oriented pay scale.”
Excluding sales, the highest paying occupations will be those requiring the highest technical skills, such as: computer systems analysis, programmers, engineers, technicians, and repair and service people. Ninety percent of the jobs today's kindergartners will be doing when they reach adulthood do not even exist today. "
In a mixed gender educational setting, where the focus is on males and the stereotypes of "women's work" continue to dominate - girls are not given adequate encouragement. Boys are instructed to take the "hard sciences," while girls are more apt to be encouraged to explore the "humanities." Males are more likely to be directed towards the advanced mathematics courses, while girls are encouraged to take other types of electives. Boys are trained as programmers and application developers, while girls are directed to data entry and information-retrieval capabilities of the computer.
The Solution is Single Gender Schools
According to “The Gender Gap in Advanced Placement Computer Science: Participation and Performance 1984 – 1996,” by Heinrich Stumpf and Julian C. Stanley that appeared in The College Board Review in July 1997, male students are prompted to explore science and math more often than female students.
Starting in elementary school, male students show a stronger preference for computer-related activities, are more confident with respect to computers, and experience somewhat less anxiety working with them.
There is also evidence that, at the elementary school level, boys are treated differently from girls in computer classes. One study found that teachers spend more time interacting with boys than with girls in computer classes. (page 22)
According to the Women's College Coalition's Expect the Best from a Girl campaign,
"Adults, even teachers, often have different expectations of boys and girls." These are the differences and inequities that can severely impact the potential of young women.
In almost every way elementary school age females excel over their male counterparts. Very young girls talk earlier, read earlier, and count earlier than boys. Before the influences of the traditional mixed gender schools, pre-school girls score significantly higher on IQ tests than pre-school boys. Throughout grade school, females receive higher grades than males - but something begins to happen in pre-adolescent education.
- By the fifth grade, far more males are identified as gifted than females.
- Females begin to suppress and repress their natural intellectual skills and abilities.
- Between the fifth and ninth grades, "girls begin to go underground with their talents," according to the Women's College Coalition.
Why Teachers Can't Stop the Underground Movement
Teachers focus on boys' interests and behaviors - because boys primarily "act out." The class clown, the bully, the disruptive student, the openly aggressive pupil all tend to be male behavioral patterns. In mixed gender situations, the teacher must focus on these disrupters in order to ensure classroom control. Pre-adolescent girls express their frustrations by withdrawing - by acting in. During this intellectually critical period of life, girls become non-participative and silent - they withhold interactions as a form of aggression. In mixed gender situations, the teacher is naturally grateful for this withdrawal, because the teacher needs to handle the more openly disruptive boys. | 
