Teachers talk single-gender classrooms and more at weekend conference

More than 350 South Carolina teachers will visit Columbia this Saturday to learn how to run more effective single-gender classrooms.

According to a press release from the South Carolina Department of Education, classroom teachers will host 43 workshops during the professional development conference.

Some of the topics will include: gender strategies in science for boys and girls; single-gender math strategies. and teaching kindergarten boys: an all-around approach.

The department reports South Carolina is the nation’s leader in single-gender programs, with nearly 220 schools offering the option.  The catalyst for statewide growth was Rex’s creation of an Office of Public School Choice with the Education Department, followed by his hiring of a single-gender expert to help schools develop their programs.

Girls and boys in South Carolina’s single-gender classrooms say their experiences have increased their confidence, class participation, desire to succeed in school and ability to succeed.  When more than 1,700 students responded to a 2008 Education Department survey, three out of four agreed that the single-gender approach was helping them in school. 

“The increase in schools offering single-gender programs is consumer-driven,” Rex said.  “Parents clearly like this idea, and the early performance data are good.  The key to long-term success is making sure that these programs are successful, and the Education Department can help schools get that done by offering training opportunities like the one coming up this Saturday.”

Rex supports legislation designed to increase the number and variety of choices available to students and their families.  Companion House and Senate bills were filed this week that would create public school choice committees in the state’s local school districts and require that they create new instructional choices at the elementary, middle and high school levels within two years.

The House bill is co-sponsored by Republicans Ted Pitts and Gene Pinson and Democrat Anton Gunn.  The Senate bill is co-sponsored by Republicans Wes Hayes and John Courson and Democrats Gerald Malloy and John Scott.  Rex said he believes the legislation has broad bipartisan support. 

Choices are currently offered within magnet programs, schools-within-schools, alternative schools, virtual schools and charter schools. Some of the state’s public school choice programs currently include single-gender initiatives, middle college/early college, Montessori Education, evening high school, language immersion, academic academies, arts integration and international baccalaureate programs.
 
Increasing choice within public schools is one of Rex’s five goals for making South Carolina “the most fairly funded, most innovative, and most choice-driven public school system in the United States.”  The other four goals are accelerating innovation, refining the state’s accountability system to ensure maximum results and minimum testing, elevating and reinvigorating the teaching profession, and providing fair and more equitable school funding.