I’ve been grappling with this question all day, and have yet to come up with a reasonable answer:
Are the Public Schools supposed to prepare people to work in the real world? Or are they supposed to create an environment that is most conducive to learning? Or is it some of both?
That question was prompted by two things. First was the (black) Omaha State Senator who proposed an amendment (which passed) to a state-wide school redistricting and busing law that would separate Omaha’s school district into three separate districts drawn explicitly along racial lines. Second was this article in the New York Times on the four remaining all-male colleges.
Both the all-male colleges and the State of Nebraska are basically arguing that people learn better when surrounded by others who are like them, and that education can more easily be tailored to the needs of the students in less diverse environments. Critics say that this misses the point, and that it is just as important to teach people to interact with different people and operate in diverse environments. I can understand both arguments, but I definitely lean towards the latter.
Still, I’ve known several people to go to all women’s schools (high school or college) who had positive experiences there; and my understanding was that at least some of the benefit of those experiences derived from the single-sex environment. So, am I missing something here? Furthermore, isn’t the diversity argument also an argument against “honors tracks” and for forcing children of a variety of intellectual abilities to interact with each other in the classroom, even if that means that none of the children learn as well as they otherwise would? In other words, can diversity be taken too far?
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