Co-Ed schools fail boys by design

And fail girls by necessity

There have been quite a number of articles on Co-Ed schools in the SMH just this last month - HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, mirrored by the ABC HERE - as the state government ploughs ahead with making sure every child has the ‘option’ of a co-ed school, by forcing yet more of the few remaining single-sex state schools to amalgamate or otherwise change their ways. Of course, removing all alternatives is the opposite of providing an option. Although boys and girls schools are equally affected, the media have overwhelmingly adopted an “is this good or bad for girls?” framing: an interesting exception is THIS interview with the executive director of the International Boys’ School Coalition. While far from unbiased, it does acknowledge the reality that the schooling system is failing boys, and even “references the work of US teen developmental psychologist Dr Lisa Damour to contend that troubling issues faced by boys are not getting the same attention as those affecting teenage girls.”

My very first Substack looked at the ways modern institutions fail both boys and girls by abandoning traditional girls’ organisations and forcing them into boys’ spaces. I include an excerpt here that shines a light on why a move that is clearly bad for girls - getting rid of the option of single-sex girls schools - is being pushed as part of the agenda against boys.

First, the numbers. I am reliably informed that across all schools in Australia 304 out of 9614 - 3.16% - are single sex, and single-sex state schools only exist in three Australian states (SA, NSW and Vic). Single-sex are fast becoming an option only for the wealthy, who can afford to send their children to private schools.

We live in an age where girls outperform boys across essentially all levels of education, the direct result of changes made to the educational system to assist girls to overcome what was once a gender-based underperformance. HERE is a look at the situation in Australia, HERE are stats for the UK, HERE for the US, and HERE for NZ: Australia and NZ have the highest gaps for reading in the OECD.

The change to co-ed schooling played a major part in this. As society in general opened up more for girls throughout the 20th century the benefits of co-ed schools were espoused, not just for equality, but for better social fostering of children, being more reflective of the real world where both genders interact, developing communication skills, respect, cooperation, and broader approaches to education that could suit the different needs of both boys and girls. These are all legitimate points: but the values of single-sex schools are also very real - teaching methods more specifically aimed at the specific children (yes, boys and girls learn differently, due to having different brain structure and growth patterns), fostering a culture of success among that gender, removing the distractions of the opposite sex, better classroom dynamics, and removing the impact of gender stereotypes. As one commenter put it: “Creative boys interested in music, drama and the arts tend to succeed in an all boys school. Girls get all the good roles/opportunities in a co-ed school.” A school with no gender distinctions means no “boys” or “girls” subjects, so girls at a girls’ school can choose to do STEM subjects, for instance, without worrying that the classes are going to be mainly boys or that the boys will react negatively to them in some ways (as we are constantly assured is a major problem).

Happily, according to the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools, “Graduates of girls’ schools are six times more likely to consider majoring in math, science, and technology and three times more likely to consider engineering compared to girls who attended co-ed schools.” This is supported by THIS analysis by a not-for-profit that found both boys’ schools and girls’ schools scored better than co-ed.

Only 3.16% of schools may be single-sex, but those 3.16% dominate academically. A quick Google search for the top 10 schools in NSW (source may be behind paywall) shows they are 7 of the top 10. Nor is this confined to NSW - a look at Brisbane co-ed vs single-sex schools shows the latter is the place to send your kids if you want them to go to university (albeit these are all private schools).

And while much of that dominance comes from the extraordinary levels of funding some of these prestigious private schools achieve, the success of the single-sex model cannot be denied.

As time goes on, the disadvantage that has been done to girls by denying them the benefits of single-sex schools is becoming increasingly apparent. Why not, then, just scrap boys’ schools and keep girls’ schools, since the point of so much of this is to remove the perceived advantages that boys have? This comes down to simple arithmetic - if the boys’ schools go co-ed, then resources will have to be diverted from the girls’ schools, because their enrolments will inevitably fall as some girls go to the new co-ed schools. Moreover, if, say, half the girls go to single sex schools and half go co-ed, but all the boys are in co-ed, then boys will out number girls in these co-ed schools roughly 2-1 and will dominate, and no-one apparently wants to risk that. This is the experience of some co-ed schools, such as Wesley College: ditto the schools mentioned HERE, as other colleges demand exemptions to stop co-ed schools becoming boy-dominant due to girls having so many other options, with the answer, in some cases, being that boys have to bring a sister along to get enrolled, to keep up the numbers. As it is, there is a feeling among many parents and commentators that co-ed schools tend to be “boys’ schools with girls in them”.

So the girls’ schools have to also be shut down to prevent boys dominating co-ed. And preventing boys doing well is ultimately what this is all about, as we see when we turn to the final issue, selective schools.

In 2017 the NSW government held a review into selective schools and opportunity classes designed to provide a path to success for “gifted students”, and released a summary of findings and an action plan in 2018. The review gives us the numbers on boys and girls applying to, being accepted by and choosing to go on to selective schools. The numbers are close, only 1% difference in applications by gender, but boys get better results (46% vs 42%), and this in turn is blown out by the difference in uptake rate: 77% of boys accept their place at a selective school, compared to only 71% of girls (pg. 20).

There are around 3% more places for boys than girls in selective schools, on account of a selective boys’ school existing that doesn’t have a sister school. So, the Education Department rushed into action. Did they build that much-needed missing girls’ school? No, they rewrote the rules to make it easier for girls to get into the co-ed schools. Pg. 21 tells us, “As an immediate response, the department has adjusted the test design process for 2019 to reduce gender effects in the assessment process”. This means reading and writing, the areas where girls excel, are now higher “weighted” compared to maths and general ability, the areas where boys excel.

Despite these changes, the most recent numbers suggest it has not made anything better if the goal is equality by any means necessary. The reason is the one glaring standout in the numbers: fewer girls taking up offers. Less girls than boys still choose to apply, and even when they get in, less are choosing to accept.

The most logical reason someone would knock back a coveted spot at a selective school after they have gone to the trouble of applying and have scored well enough to get in - would be if they get a better offer. And this is what the review itself says: “girls nominate single-sex schools at higher rates than boys. This preference may be responsible for the higher rates of girls declining offers, perhaps motivated instead to enrol in all-girls schools in the comprehensive public system or the private system” (pg. 21).

Move forward 5 years and this is the same result that the Herald found when they investigated the ongoing disparity, despite the changes in girls’ favour. They highlighted the example of one 6th grader, Bonnie, who chose to knock back an offer to a selective school: she did so because she also had been offered a scholarship at a prestigious private school, which she chose to take up instead. Who could blame her?

Whether the girl succeeds at the selective school, or whether she succeeds at the single-sex school, surely all that matters is that girls have a chance to succeed?

Apparently not. And here we get to my depressing conclusion. There is one clear difference between those two outcomes, which is this: a girl who succeeds at a single-sex school simply succeeds, but a girl who succeeds in a selective school not only gets ahead, by taking the spot at the selective school she also prevents a boy from having that same opportunity. If girls continue to knock back these selective school places and go to single-sex schools instead, boys will continue to have the advantages of selective schools - so we better shut down those single sex schools. Because the aim isn’t to help a girl, it’s to disadvantage a boy.

Changing the underlying social drivers, not doing what is best for boys, or girls either, is the focus of the people - politicians, academics, journalists - who push these agendas: the reason failing boys are ignored in favour of pushing girls into STEM, the reason girls doing better in single-sex schools are ignored for a chance to stop boys succeeding in their own institutions. And the narrative is spelled out not simply in the framing device of saying, “boys’ schools bad? Girls’ schools good?” but in the process they then follow, each of those articles from the Guardian and the ABC and the Herald and the many more like it you will quickly find if you do your own research: they focus far more on the problems of boys’ schools, and they question the value of girls’ schools, and they conclude that single-sex schools are a relic of a bygone era that will soon be gone.

Because this is their ultimate goal: a progressive world free of “toxic masculinity”, patriarchy and gender discrimination. Schooling is seen as a way to overcome these things. It is not viewed as a place to assist boys and girls to learn and grow into their best selves: it is a place to overcome “the patriarchy” and dismantle all the supposed advantages men have over women, not simply in schools but throughout society And this is despite the clear evidence that shows that girls are now ahead of boys in almost all areas of education, which has already translated into women dominating elite professions like medicine and the law.

When you adhere to an ideology to “smash the patriarchy”, every issue, like schooling or child-rearing or Boy Scouts vs Girl Guides, becomes a battlezone (or at least a skirmish site) in the wider war. And in a war, you have to be prepared to make sacrifices: hence, they are willing to sacrifice girls. It doesn’t matter if girls' schools are better for many girls - single-sex schools have to be abolished, and education has to be feminised by making every school co-ed. Every male space has to be feminised - and to do so, girl’s spaces have to be largely allowed to die off, or girls might just go and do their own thing, leaving boys to do their own thing, and that cannot be allowed to happen.

The push to eradicate single-sex schools was never really about helping girls. It is part of a broader push to redesign society according to feminist ideology.

It's not about building up girls. It's about tearing down boys.