The American Civil Liberties Union widened its challenges of single-gender programs in Florida public schools, filing federal complaints in three more Florida counties this week.
The ACLU's legal push is based on federal regulations intended to bar gender discrimination in education. It comes amid efforts to expand single-gender instruction around the state, and not just in district-run schools. The latest round of complaints also targets a charter school in Broward County.
Other similar complaints may be in the offing. Galen Sherwin, a senior ACLU attorney, said the group has sought information from more charter schools but has yet to receive a response.
From recently opened or forthcoming schools in Jacksonville and Bradenton to a short-lived experiment in Tallahassee, a host of relatively new charter schools throughout Florida have adopted single-gender models, often aimed at students who have struggled in other settings.
The jist of the ACLU's legal argument is that single-gender programs have a high bar to clear under Title IX regulations. Schools must demonstrate the single-gender classes help the school achieve specific objectives that couldn't be accomplished in other ways. Students of both genders need to have access to the same kinds of programs.
The complaints filed Wednesday argue that school districts in Broward, Volusia and Hernando Counties, as well as the Pembroke Pines charter school Franklin Academy, have not justified their programs with adequate evidence.
Among other things, the complaints say the programs rely on "stereotypes" about differences between male and female students. As a result, they argue, the Education Department should investigate the schools, and they should be ordered to end the practice of separating students by gender, whether for individual classes or the entire school day.
"The only sufficient remedy would be to cease the sex separation altogether and revert to a fully coeducational structure," the Broward complaint states.
Earlier this year, the ACLU filed a similar complaint in Hillsborough County. The Tampa Tribune reported that in that case, the school district is arguing the civil liberties advocates don't have a legal basis for their complaints because they were never victims of discrimination.
Hillsborough officials also note the programs have proven popular with parents, who voluntarily enroll their children in the schools, and that the wo single-gender schools with A's after years of academic struggles.
The proliferation of single-gender programs has become a national trend among charters and district schools alike, aided by a revision of U.S. Education Department guidelines under the George W. Bush administration. Sherwin, the ACLU attorney, said the new schools are often proposed "as a solution for the problems that are obviously plaguing many schools in low-income and minority districts."
The problem, she said, is that federal rules require the programs to be supported by evidence, and "there's no sound evidence that separating students on the basis of sex will fix any of those problems."
The evidence from research on single-gender schools is mixed, and as StateImpact Florida has documented, the quality of the studies is often lacking and the conclusions often align with the researchers' views.
Part of a legislative framework passed this year would require school districts to compare student achievement in single-gender classrooms with results for other students, which might help shed light on their academic impact. The resolution of the ACLU's complaints may determine how many schools will be able to operate under that framework.
