Single-sex schools tied to leadership

When considering educational reform, consider the results of schools like Urban Prep in Chicago and the association between leadership and graduation from a single-gender school. Based on National Center for Education Statistics tables, in the heyday of single-sex education, graduates of single-sex schools may have represented as much as 7 percent of the population. Since the 1960s when the number of single-sex school began to decline, they have represented considerably less than 5 percent of the population.

One study found graduates of such schools to be disproportionately represented among people in positions of leadership. These are not all graduates of upper-crust New England prep schools and Ivy League colleges. Many prominent African-Americans and children of immigrants and working class parents who attended urban single-sex schools in working class neighborhoods are among them, people such as Rosa Parks, Madeleine Albright and John Boehner.

Consider the following representation of graduates of single-sex schools among our nations leadership: 3 of 3 female U.S. secretaries of state; 1/3 of all U.S. senators and governors in 2007; 4 of 9 justices of the U.S. Supreme Court 2007-2011; 12 of 19 U.S. presidents since 1900; 6 of 11 U.S. presidents since 1952; 9 of 16 presidential candidates in 2007 primaries; 12 of 26 cabinet members under the Clinton administration; 16 of 45 cabinet members and department heads under the W. Bush administration; 7 of 15 cabinet members under the Obama administration; 9 of 59 Illinois state senators.

Daniel I. MacKinney

Libertyville