Single-Sex Schooling Gets New Showcase

South Carolina's top education official sees a statewide push for single-gender programs as a way to boost public school choice and scores. But critics question the effort's pace and wisdom.

Kingstree, S.C.

In this small, mostly African-American, overwhelmingly poor town in rural South Carolina, Kingstree Junior High School’s new principal, Margie Myers, was desperate to boost dismal test scores and rein in severe discipline problems—without spending money she didn’t have.

So she did a simple thing: She split the boys and girls into separate classrooms.

Kingstree Junior High now is one of 97 schools in South Carolina that have embraced a new push to spread single-gender education throughout the state’s public schools—including to suburban and urban districts, to poor and wealthy areas, and to schools that are mostly...