A Dose of Stupid v.19

It happens every day. In fact, it is pretty hard to avoid it. There are some things that can only be understood with a slap on the forehead. Things so mind-boggling that one wonders how humans managed to evolve thumbs while being this mentally inept. Case in point:

Philly school rekindles same-sex education debate:

Boys’ Latin of Philadelphia, one of the city’s newer charter schools, began its second year on Wednesday, aiming to be an educational beacon in the financially and academically troubled district.

Because it’s a single-sex public school — one of four in the city — Boys’ Latin faced huge opposition and almost didn’t exist.

So what exactly is the opposition?

The Women’s Law Project and the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania had opposed Hardy’s charter application based on its exclusion of girls.

It was initially rejected by Philadelphia school officials in January 2006, but was approved five months later after then-district CEO Paul Vallas called the gender achievement gap “a crisis.” Boys’ Latin opened in fall 2007.

New rules implemented by the U.S. Education Department in 2006 allow same-sex education whenever schools think it will expand the diversity of courses, improve students’ achievement or meet their individual needs.

But ACLU attorney Mary Catherine Roper said those regulations conflict with the Constitution and Title IX, a federal law banning sex discrimination in education. There are nonexclusionary ways to improve education, such as decreasing class sizes, she noted.

“There is no justification for offering kids different opportunities based on their gender,” said Roper.

That sounds like a fine argument, except later in the article this is stated:

Juniors at the city’s public High School for Girls, which has been single-sex since its founding in 1848, scored 79.3 percent proficient or higher in math and 85.3 percent proficient or better in reading. [David] Hardy noted that no one has suggested making that school coed.

And the contradiction does not stop there. Recently, several all-girl schools opened, none of which appear to have had as much criticism and rejection from feminists or ACLU lawyers as their all-boy counterpart did. Instead, there appeared to be a great deal of jubilation about the concept of girl-only courses and a curriculum designed to best help girls. Obviously, such schools are completely exclusionary, blatantly discriminating against boys who could also benefit from such a well-funded and well-designed environment. However, it would appear that gender discrimination is a one-way street.

Only girls can be discriminated against. So despite the fact that Philadelphia already funds an all-girl public high school and has done so for 160 years with apparently no complaint, any attempt to improve boys’ chances of graduating and going on to college by creating an environment specifically suited to their needs is unjustified and sexist.

I wonder if Roper or anyone from The Women’s Law Project realize how utterly hypocrtical they sound or if they are too caught up in playing the gender card to realize just how stupid it makes them look.