Spartanburg Charter School

SCS girls and boys will socialize and learn with students of the opposite gender during activity classes, lunch, and recess as well as during other social and recreational activities. However, SCS core instruction will be in single-gender classes beginning in Kindergarten.

Single-gender education has, in many cases, been found superior to coeducation on traditional measures of academic achievement. Even after controlling for students’ academic ability and other background factors, both girls and boys perform significantly better in single-gender programs. Girls in single-gender programs attain the highest achievement followed by boys in single-gender programs, then boys in coed programs, and, finally, girls in coed programs.

SCS believes that other variables, such as breadth of educational opportunity, are equally as important as academic achievement, and the data support the superiority of single-gender programs in that regard. Girls in all-girls schools are more likely to study subjects such as advanced math, computer science, and physics. Boys in all-boys schools are more than twice as likely to study subjects such as foreign languages, art, music, and drama.

Additional benefits of single-gender education include:

• Improved student behavior
• More positive attitude toward learning
• Higher educational aspirations
• More confidence in learning abilities
• Better organizational skills
• More involvement in classroom activities

For more information see:

The South Carolina Department of Education
http://ed.sc.gov/agency/divisions/dcs/Singlegender.html

and

The National Association for Single-Sex Public Education
http://www.singlesexschools.org/