Essay --

It is not a big secret that America’s quality of education is sub-par. According the article, â€Å"US 17th In Global Education Ranking; Finland, South Korea Claim Top Spots† by Amrutha Gayathri, it’s obvious from the title alone that the United States is falling behind. Without change, the United States will continue to be behind in education. An issue that currently plagues the American education system is gender bias. Gender bias in schools has been addressed in laws, but it still persists in American schools, such as Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the U.S. code Title 42, Chapter 21 regarding Civil Rights. Both laws attempt to discourage gender bias through the illegality of gender discrimination. Title IX addresses bias in federally funded educational and athletic programs in schools and colleges within the United States. Title 42, Chapter 21 of the U.S. Code prohibits discrimination based on gender, age, race, religion, and other characteri stics within a number of settings, including education. Despite these laws, gender bias is still prevalent within American schools. A proposed solution to gender bias is gender segregated classrooms, which has proven to be a popular alternative to co-ed classrooms. Leonard Sax, author of â€Å"Six Degrees of Separation: What Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences,† is a leading proponent of single-sex schools. Single-sex schools are not without critics though. Jaclyn Zubrzycki’s article, â€Å"Single-Gender Schools Scrutinized,† claims that single-sex environments â€Å"are not inherently beneficial for boys or most girls.† When considering both Zubrycki’s and Sax’s findings, it would seem that the ideal solution to liberate the American education system of gender... ... teachers to believe that boys are more intelligent than girls. Scantlebury found that teachers who do believe boys are more proficient than girls in mathematics, are more likely to reframe and breakdown questions â€Å"into a series of simpler questions† in an effort to assist the student to attain the answer. No such luxury is given to females in math classes. Teachers are more likely to restate the question and ask another student to answer; typically the student teachers selected to answer the question was a boy (Scantlebury). It’s clear that in classes which are perceived to be male oriented, teachers are willing to work more in-depth with males. Interestingly, Scantlebury found the opposite to be true in â€Å"subjects perceived as feminine.† Teachers spend more time with female students than with male students in subjects that the teachers believe are female oriented.