Split Decision

Public schools are finding new reasons to segregate the sexes.

By Mark Bixler

Deborah Roberts doesn’t run her room like a typical 5th grade teacher. Enthusiastically exhorting her students, whom she refers to as her “team,” she runs a loud, unabashedly “high-energy” class. Drilling the kids like a coach, she openly fosters academic competition. It’s a setup calculated to engage the boys in her Woodward Avenue Elementary School class, tapping into their natural competitiveness and boisterousness. This way of teaching could easily alienate the girls in the room, but her class at the DeLand, Florida, public...