WASHINGTON — Is single-sex education a good thing, or a bad thing?

The correct answer is: Yes. And that is why the administration’s push to make room for single-sex public school classes — even single-sex public schools — is likely to set off a new round of righteous warfare.

The administration last week issued a proposed regulation to change the way Title IX is enforced. Under current rules, in place for a quarter-century, schools can separate students by sex for gym and certain other limited purposes. Under the proposed changes, the options for such separation would be much greater, provided only that they be both voluntary and evenhanded.

Opponents resist separation by gender for the same reason they oppose official separation by race: It sets up a real opportunity for discrimination, whether discrimination is the intended result or not. They sometimes seem to argue, as the plaintiffs argued in Brown vs. Board of Education 50 years ago, that separation is inherently unequal.

Proponents prefer to argue results.

"I was strengthened in my belief that single-sex classes can be good for some youngsters when I visited the Young Women’s Leadership School in New York a year and a half ago," Education Secretary Rod Paige told me last week.

"I had the opportunity to talk to these young girls, and to hear from them face to face, how this (girls-only) environment is working for them. I’m talking about youngsters who had no success in school prior to this, and they are just thriving now."

Paige’s recollection reminded me of the success, both in academic gains and in discipline, of an experiment at a Miami elementary school where some boys were assigned to all-male classes headed by male teachers.

But I also recall a conversation 10 years ago with a young woman at a private Episcopal school that was offering girls-only classes in math and science. She said she found it demeaning — an insinuation that girls are less bright and in need of special treatment. She insisted on remaining in coed math and science classes.

These two conversations underscore a couple of points that tend to get lost in the battle between competing philosophical principles.

First, single-sex education is much more widely available as an option for middle- and upper-class children who attend private schools than to low-income children in public schools.

Second, children from low-income families and troubled neighborhoods tend to show more improvement when they are switched to single-sex classes.

Third, it ought to remain a choice, not a prescription. But as things stand now, the youngsters who could benefit most from the choice are least likely to have it. That’s what Paige hopes to change.

"We need to have the option," he said. "Not every parent will make this choice, of course, but that’s the point. One of the important principles of what we’re trying to do is that it has to be voluntary. We don’t want school officials making the assignments (to single-sex classes), and we don’t want them made for disciplinary reasons. But if this is something that parents believe will help their children learn, we should have the option available."

It will take a little while. Last week’s proposed regulations will be out for public comment for 45 days, followed by a departmental review and publication of a "final" rule, similarly subject to a 45-day period for public comment.

That will be ample time for opponents to circle their wagons — and there are some fairly formidable wagons, including NOW, the American Association of University Women and the ACLU.

The other side isn’t exactly unarmed. It includes Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and common sense.

"All we’re really trying to do is devise a system than can educate all our children," Paige said. "The present approach suggests that everybody ought to fit into a single structure. Well, some children are being ill-served by the present structure, and they need a different kind of environment."

William Raspberry is a Washington Post columnist. Contact him by writing to

willrasp@washpost.com.