Tag Archives: civil rights

ACLU Appeals Single-Sex Classroom Decision in Louisiana

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The ACLU appealed a case against the Vermilion Parish (La.) Public School District for instituting gender-separate classes.

Roughly 540 public schools IN THE United States offer single-sex classrooms. Vermilion Parish (La.) Public School District wants to add to that number— but it won’t happen without a fight from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Last May, the ACLU and the ACLU of Louisiana, representing a Vermilion Parish parent, appealed a case against the school board for instituting genderseparate classes at a middle school after a district court allowed a modified version of the program to continue in the school. The school district maintains that the classrooms are voluntary and have prompted positive feedback from most parents and staff, while the ACLU believes the program violates Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause.

The program was piloted at Rene A. Rost Middle School, which is comprised of about 420 students in grades 5-8 and located 150 miles west of New Orleans, during the 2008-2009 school year as a test by the principal, who was pursuing his doctorate at the time. After the principal reported positive findings to the school board, the program continued in the middle school into the 2009-2010 school year with four single-sex classrooms in each grade for five core subjects.

The original lawsuit was filed in September 2009 after a parent’s two children had been placed in single-sex classrooms against their wishes. The judge ruled a revised version of the program could continue, and the district reduced the number of singlesex classes to two—one boys’ class and one girls’ class per grade—and made the classes opt-in by parents only.

“The faculty had seen such an improvement in behavior and attitude of kids,” according to Calvin Woodruff, legal counsel for Vermilion Parish Public Schools. “The program is entirely voluntary. There is no difference in course materials in each class, and if no child was elected in, all classes would be coed.”

Lenora Lapidus, director of the Women’s Rights Project at ACLU , says the school’s data supporting the program was flawed and that, to date, there is no credible data to support the claim that single-sex classes increase student achievement.

“It’s a regression,” says Lapidus. “These decisions are based on outdated gender stereotypes. It’s saying that boys and girls are so different that they must be taught in separate classes.”

A similar case is currently pending between Breckinridge (Ky.) County Middle School and the ACLU and the ACLU of Kentucky. Both Vermilion Parish Public Schools and the ACLU have agreed to an expedited appeal and hope to receive a decision by early fall.

District Administration magazine, July/ Aug. 2010

Is It Segregation or Fragmentation?

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An alarming trend shows glaring gaps in race, ethnicity.

An unsettling trend is emerging in urban pockets across the country as some school districts are redrawing their boundary lines. As a result, many municipalities are showing glaring gaps in race, ethnicity and economic status.

A recent study shines a spotlight on Jefferson County, Ala., and illustrates the distressing process of metropolitan subdivision and the direct consequences of subsequent school resegregation. “Splintering School Districts: Understanding the Link between Segregation and Fragmentation,” from the fall 2009 issue of Law & Social Inquiry, centers on a Birmingham community where local control over education is revered and the fragmentation of districts is prevalent. Any city in Alabama with over 5,000 residents can form a district separate from the county.

“It’s a complex pattern that developed over a period of several decades since the 1950s,” says Erica Frankenberg, author of the study and research and policy director for the initiative on school integration at the Civil Rights Project at UCLA. “The discourse over these decisions is around local control, not segregation. Communities view schools as a valuable resource, but there is little evidence of thinking how that might affect other people in the metropolitan areas.”

According to the study, between district segregation accounts for approximately 70 percent of all school segregation. It describes how families that do not face economic barriers in the housing market are able to move to homes in areas considered to provide high-quality schools, while others cannot.

In Parents Involved with Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007), the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to use race as a factor in assigning children to public schools, but agreed districts may consider it to be a compelling interest to achieve a diverse student body.

“It’s a disturbing phenomenon,” says Susan Eaton, research director at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School. “Racially diverse schools do far better in terms of short- and long-term achievements for kids, developing critical thinkers and children of color persisting and finding success.”

Unable to legally redistribute the student population, districts must encourage diversity through other means, such as implementing regional magnet schools and cross-district transportation systems, addressing housing policies, and stabilizing communities, according to Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA.

“Thousands of schools around the country are becoming more unequal, and many people aren’t doing anything about it,” says Orfield.

Going forward, Orfield believes the Obama administration may encourage policy changes and the courts will become more skeptical of motions for district fragmentation.

District Administration magazine