First-grade boys at imagine southeast Public Charter school work on a math lesson at the end of the school year. imagine southeast is one of a few Washington public schools that separates its students by gender.


ginia, and a profusion of public schools across the country. Nationally, there are three prima-


ry models: the “dual academy,” such as Imagine Southeast, where boys and girls are in the same building but are separated all day, except for special occa- sions; single-sex classes, which separate the genders only for select courses; and single-sex schools, in which the entire school is either all boys or all girls. The surge in these schools followed


new rules the U.S. Department of Ed- ucation published in 2006 allowing for single-sex classes. In 2002, the National Association for Single Sex Public Education reported only a dozen such public schools in the country. This year, more than 540 are listed among the group’s member schools. Ac- cording to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance magazine, the single-sex programs “are particular- ly popular in urban districts with large minority populations, and most con- centrated in the Southeastern U.S.” Behind the trend are a conflu- ence of factors, including some


widely publicized studies charting dif- ferent academic scores for boys and girls. In March 2010, for example, the Center on Education Policy released a report of 2008 test scores showing that boys trailed girls in reading in every one of the more than 40 states where data were available. The gender gap was as large as 10 percentage points in some states, though nowhere near as signifi- cant as the race and income disparities that researchers note. The study looked at elementary, middle and high schools, where the authors found good news, too: Math scores for girls and boys were more or less the same across the board. But over the past decade, the gender discrepancies have been bundled into “a boy crisis” by some experts and popular authors, who paint a troubling picture of boys who struggle in school, are less likely than their female counterparts to go to college, have trouble expressing their feelings and are more likely than girls to be diagnosed with learning prob- lems and to commit more violent crimes. Some educators have responded to this with a Mars/Venus schematic that holds


14 The WashingTon PosT Magazine | august 8, 2010


up single-sex schools as the answer. And plenty of hopeful parents also


eagerly embrace the idea. Imagine’s dual academy appealed to Reginald Cooper, whose first-grade son also at- tended the school in kindergarten. Cooper, a 38-year-old security officer in the neighborhood, didn’t know much about single-sex education when he first saw flyers for Imagine. But he says he was intrigued and particularly likes the school’s goal to “get the boys on the same page as the young ladies when it comes to eagerness to learn.” “Imagine has been a real positive


experience for my son,” says Cooper, whose son is in Ahmad’s class today. Imagine’s 323 students are squeezed


into the Congress Heights United Meth- odist Church annex on Alabama Avenue in Southeast. The school, which is part of an Arlington-based nonprofit chain operating in 11 states and the District, plans to grow incrementally. It will add two fifth-grade classes in September and move into a bigger, newly renovated building across the street in January. Because there is limited space, the


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