Friday, October 9, 2009: 2:40 PM
In 2003, three Philadelphia middle schools with similar demographics and failing student achievement levels were taken over by an educational management organization. Two were transformed into distinct single-sex academies within the original school buildings and a third remained coeducational. Students did not have the option where to attend, eliminating selection bias. Through funding from a Spencer Foundation grant, data was collected on 1,000 students for 2002-03 through 2004-05 to examine impacts of gender-segregation. We find students in single-sex schools witness greater improvements in standardized test scores, with boys gaining the most, and no differences on Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale.