Resource and Peer Impacts on Girls' Academic Achievement: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment

摘要

The No Child Left Behind Act has implemented strict annual accountability goals, but at the same time has given schools unprecedented freedom to experiment with new models to promote achievement. One increasingly popular response to the challenges raised by accountability has been to experiment with single-gender schools and classrooms. The Young Women's Leadership School (YWLS) in Harlem opened in 1996 as one of the first single-sex public schools in the nation, and is an oft-cited example of success. The school's impoverished, mostly Hispanic population has high test scores and high graduation and college attendance rates. Partially because of the well publicized success of YWLS, in 2004-2005 there are at least 34 public schools, spread all across the country, that are single sex, and another 117 schools that offer single-sex classrooms within a coeducational school setting (Rosemary Salomone, 2003; NASSPE, 2004).