Physically, of course, boys aren't made of snips and snails nor puppy dogs tails, and neither girls of sugar and spice, but whether the two genders are different mentally might be a matter of debate at the Sept. 7 meeting of the Toronto District School Board (TDSB).
That's when trustees are scheduled to review a report on the feasibility of creating four new "programs of choice" in schools, proposed by board director Chris Spence, including both a junior kindergarten-to-Grade 3 boys leadership academy and a grades 4 to 8 girls leadership academy. The other programs being considered are a choir school and sports academy, both for students in grades 4 to 8.
However, it's clear that it's the boys school that will draw the most discussion, as it's been driven by Spence since the former CFL player and author came into his current position last summer. Spence, who holds a doctorate from OISE, co-founded the Boys2Men mentoring program in 1993 while he was a teacher at Oakdale Park Middle School in the Jane/Finch neighbourhood and started single-gender programs at schools during his five years as director of the Hamilton-Wentworth School Board.
"The director (Spence), when he first was hired, his big initiative and interest was to create a boys school," said St. Paul's Trustee Josh Matlow. "And that was met with a lot of apprehension by trustees, we didn't support it initially. So it seems to me the boys school has now come back to use repackaged as one of several options to frame it more as programs of choice rather than what I believe this is really about, which is creating a boys academy, a boys school."
Boys school is segregation: Trustee
Trustee Howard Goodman (Eglinton Lawrence) said he's opposed to, not apprehensive about, single-sex schools. He was one of three trustees, along with Gerri Gershon (Don Valley West) and Mari Rutka (Willowdale), to vote against even doing the feasibility study on the programs of choice, according to board minutes.
"Segregated by gender is precisely the problem," Goodman explained. "The issue is, when we set up schools that are divided by inherent and not necessarily material qualities, at least as far as education goes, we do damage to the concept of universal education."
Goodman said that as children enter kindergarten there is a significant gap between the genders in oral literacy - vocabulary, complexity of grammar in speech, comprehension of structures of language - with girls about four months ahead on average, something he attributes to how parents interact verbally with girls versus boys rather than innate differences between the sexes.
While that would be a concern if left unaddressed - there's a strong correlation between oral literacy in middle elementary grades and school success, he said - better pedagogy, not splitting up the sexes, is the solution, suggested Goodman.
"The techniques used in classrooms traditionally have assumed that the kids come in with good oral literacy and so the kids that come in with poor literacy are left behind, and those are boys," he said, citing a study he said has been taking place in northwestern Ontario school boards over the past few years. "However, if you assume the kids come in with not good oral literacy and you...focus on increasing everybody's oral literacy...you end up moving everybody farther along."
After a year of that pedagogy, the boys and girls are at the same level, he said.
Scarborough Centre Trustee Scott Harrison said he's seen no evidence that single-sex schools result in better academic achievement. And he's no fan of having schools specifically for groups that underachieve academically for various reasons, pointing to the experience of the board's 33-year-old First Nations elementary school.
"That's been around for some time and it's one of the lowest schools on our learning opportunities index (and its) EQAO (test) results are one of the lowest," Harrison said.
Conversely, Eastview Junior Public School in Scarborough "has a lot of First Nations students in the school and it does a far superior job including regular students. So I'm a firm believer of dual track schools."
However, it doesn't appear board staff will attempt to justify gender-based schools for academic reasons. In a March report to trustees, staff stated, "There is no conclusive research to indicate any specific program of choice directly improves student achievement or impacts upon enhanced student outcomes."
Instead, the benefits of such programs are the increased choices they offer parents, students and teachers as well as providing environments where different teaching strategies can be modeled while maintaining the regular curriculum, the report suggested.
Alternative schools common at TDSB
Such alternative programs or schools are not new in Toronto.
The city's Catholic board has a number of single-sex schools as well as the popular St. Michael's Choir School. The TDSB also has one all-girls high school, Heydon Park, and many schools with single-sex classes. It also has 22 alternative secondary schools and a number of specialized programs, from those that accommodate elite athletes who need special timetables to those teaching cyber arts, operating out of various high schools.
Such programs also exist at the TDSB's elementary level in only slightly less abundance. Along with specialized arts and sports programs, the board offers 19 alternative schools, 16 located in the former Toronto and East York, two in North York including the recently opened Africentric school, and one in Scarborough. Such schools are usually quite small, requiring a lottery system to be used for entry, and revolve around different pedagogy such as those that focus on peace and justice, community service or the democratic participation of students.
However, less than one per cent of elementary students attended an alternative school or specialized program in the 2008/'09 school year. Just under 10 per cent, however, attended extended French programming.
"I've heard from some parents who are supportive of the concept of providing more program choices, but in the same breath many of them will say, 'How can the TDSB start creating new programs when the current programs, such as French immersion for example, are under-resourced and understaffed?'" said Matlow.
Matlow said he's reserving judgement on the programs of choice until he sees how much they will cost and where staff intend to find the funds to pay for them.
"Certainly I think the argument would be stronger for this initiative if the board can demonstrate...that there would be new sources of funding due to increased enrollment into our system," he said, meaning the program offerings would have to attract students from either the Catholic or French school boards or private schools.
Both Matlow and Harrison said they would also prefer such programs of choice be exactly that, programs in existing schools, not standalone schools.
Goodman, on the other hand, said he won't support the boys school, especially if it's put forward as a solution for struggling students
"If you lower the expectation of a teacher that they're able to reach a boy that's not the easiest kid to teach to, you give them an excuse to give up and that is unconscionable," he said. "And that is what I believe will occur, unavoidably, in every single classroom in our system if we say boys need separate schools.
"And I know there are parents who believe that and I know there are educators who believe that, but if you allow somebody to say skin colour matters, gender matters, hair colour matters, eye colour matters, height matters, weight matters in the basic thing of learning, we are telling our teachers, basically we give them the unintended permission to give up on kids who have characteristics that fit the ones that we say need special attention."