Then again, I totally relate to Lisa Simpson here. When I was that age, most of my friends were boys.

My son is that age, and he hangs with a mixed group. I would really hate to see him and his friends forced into "boy culture boot camp", as I would have gone totally whack had I been forced to grit out school with only girls - particularly at this age where difference is never forgotten or unpunished.

It isn't just a matter of the curriculum, either - it is a matter of expectations, faculty attitudes, administration tolerance of destructive cliques and bully games for both groups, etc.

I half wonder: is this really about the learning? Or is this to make it easier for the administrators to turn blind eyes?

The first link goes back to UH, not the Globe.

Swrrly I don't know where you went to school, but many of my friends (and my sister) went to secular same-sex schools and it was hardly any different at all from co-ed schools. The boys schools did not have a boot-camp mentality and the girls schools did not have either a convent feel nor a girls-clique atmosphere. They were very focused on academics and learning and both sexes were able to excel without the pressures of looking good for the opposite sex or (particularly at the girls school) getting groped by lame-ass teenage boys trying to impress their friends or just cop a feel. There was plenty of mingling at all times except in the classroom - during lunch hour down the block at the Starbucks, after school at co-ed clubs and sports activities, etc., on weekends at the mall... it's hardly segregation.

A little historical perspective:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_but_equal

Now, on another front, from Ms.Bart:

The article does address that girls are frequently the better students, but often overlooked in the classroom because of the antics of the boys.

You know, all this hooplah about boys being more active in class is just an armchair expert way for feminists to segregate boys (who, at every turn, are blamed for keeping girls down). Except, if you look at the stats for a)who goes on to college b)who finishes their degree and c)who does better academically getting their degree, women come out ahead in all three.

So, what's the deal? If women are supposedly getting the shaft as early as gradeschool, you'd think they would be less prepared for college, wouldn't you? Or maybe it turns out that they're doing just fine, and all this crap about "boys disadvantage girls" is just another chip off the block of bullshit feminist rhetoric- like the concept of "testosterone poisoning".

Has it occurred to *anyone* that children act in school based on how they're raised and what they observe in their family and society?