School's gender split gets results

That's what staffers at Thurgood Marshall Elementary figured in 1998 after receiving fourth-grade scores on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, the state's mandatory annual exam.


	When recess is over at Thurgood Marshall Elementary, students line up to return to their classes, which are divided by gender. Paul Joseph Brown / Seattle Post-Intelligencer Click for larger photo

So they tried something unusual: separating students by gender.

And up the scores went.

When the 2001 WASL results were released last week, the number of Marshall students who met state standards had climbed to 51.2 percent for reading, 9.8 percent for math, 35 percent for writing and 58.5 percent for listening.

"We turned the school upside down," said principal Benjamin Wright, whose Leschi-area school has one of the city's highest percentages of minority and poor students.

The change started last school year when Wright, with the blessing of Seattle Public Schools and the school's PTA, separated fourth-grade boys and girls. He also lowered class sizes.

This year, Marshall became the only school in the Seattle district to separate boys and girls throughout all grades.

The goal, Wright said, was to "change the way boys act and girls act," helping them focus more on their own abilities and identities. Separated, children often feel less self-conscious and develop greater self-confidence than in mixed classrooms, Wright and other educators said. And teachers face fewer behavioral problems.

Wright said the classroom gender split was one of many moves made to heighten academic focus and personalize education for all 343 students.

He also expanded class time for math and reading, lengthened the school day by 20 minutes, and began an aggressive community outreach effort to attract tutors and other support.

And, in another unusual move, the school required individualized learning plans tailored to each student. In a school where 68 percent of children are African American, 15 percent Latino, 11 percent Asian and 5 percent white, maximizing individual attention to students became a prime goal, Wright said.

Although the gender separation is not the only major factor in the school's progress, it is the most visible change, along with the crisp blue-and-white uniforms adopted several years ago.

Rose Austin, who teaches third-grade girls at Marshall, said: "It works out fantastically. There is a calmness -- lots of camaraderie. The girls felt comfortable. Competitiveness was down. There was a unity of sharing. They had no gender to impress but themselves and put their energy and minds into learning."

Jamika DeFilippis, 8, agreed.

"I like it better with just girls," Jamika said. "You feel more free."

Teacher Sheldon Chow, who teaches third-grade boys, was a major skeptic. Now, he said, "it's beginning to take hold."

"Boys are different from girls; they play differently, they work differently," Chow said. "I was concerned about behavior differences. Girls, you can reason with. Boys, some are defiant. The first few weeks were not exactly white-knuckled, but we had to work on abiding the rules."

C.J. Dorsey, a program supervisor in the career and technical unit of the Office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, said Marshall's gender separation is unusual, though she has received some inquiries from other school districts.

"It's usually a classroom management issue, districts tell us," said Dorsey, who helps oversee state compliance with Title IX, the 1972 federal law mandating equal educational opportunities for boys and girls.

"Some tell us that students feel more comfortable in all-boys or all-girls environments."

While someone might make an issue of separating boys and girls -- a potential concern under Title IX -- Dorsey has received no complaints. (Most Title IX complaints, she said, deal with cases involving athletics.)

"I'm not sure why they are doing this. I don't know of any research that says that boys and girls in the same class cannot focus and learn, or that students separated by gender do better," Dorsey said. "But experimenting is OK -- as long as we know what we're experimenting with."

Nationally, on a limited scale, some public schools in some states have separate classes for girls in math and science, two subjects where girls generally are outperformed by boys.

Mary Meullion, president of Marshall's PTA, said the gender issue was not controversial for parents.

"Everyone seems to think it is working," Meullion said. "I think parents feel it's made a difference, but so has improved communication with parents, extending the school day, more focus on reading and homework, the tutoring. Above all, we feel thankful to the teachers."

Indeed, Wright credits the staff with making the biggest difference in higher achievement. Ultimately, he said, the school's ascendancy is the result of teachers' higher expectations and their willingness to adapt.

"They're not just a little incredible, they're super-incredible -- talented and committed," Wright said.

The school has one of the district's poorest student populations, with 76 percent eligible for free and reduced-price lunch. "But teachers here don't talk about excuses or disproportionality. They talk about kids waiting to excel," Wright said.

"Our goal is to have 90 percent of our kids meeting standards."

They still have a long way to go, but they're on their way.

P-I reporter Debera Carlton Harrell can be reached at 206-448-8326 or deberaharrell@seattlepi.com

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