From my hometown paper, the one and only New Orleans Times Picayune.

Deion Dedeaux sensed that sixth grade at Martin Behrman Elementary in New Orleans would be full of possibilities. A new school. A chance to improve his grades. A teacher who seemed like a father.

And no girls.

"You know girls," Deion said. "They like to talk. I just knew it was going to be better this way."

Apparently the national trend in single-sex public education is taking root in New Orleans, already home to a large parochial single-sex education community. Nationwide, single-sex public school programs or classes are up from about a dozen five years ago to more than 360 today, according to the National Association for Single Sex Public Education.

This huge jump is attributed to popularity, strong advocacy, and the passage by the Senate in 2001 of an amendment "legalizing single-sex education despite Title XI, the federal law requiring equal educational opportunities and programs for both genders".

Next fall will see two more single-sex public schools opening in the New Orleans are under the charter system. One of them, the American Scholars Academy, was founded by Natasha Baker, whose inspiration came from her experiences as an inner-city high school teacher.

Low-income boys were over-represented in special education classes and on lists of suspended students, but under-represented in gifted and talented or advanced placement classes...

After teaching in various cities, Baker, 30, began to ponder a school targeted at urban males, one that would offer a double dose of reading, mentoring from professional males and activities aimed at building camaraderie among the boys.

Obviously, not everyone agrees that single-sex education is a great idea.

While educators drawn to single-gender schools come with their own sense of mission, experts continue to squabble about the shift.

Leonard Sax, the founder of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, said he believes single-gender programs have a firm basis in science showing the different brain development and learning styles of boys and girls. It also offers parents choices.

"The idea is that parents should have a choice," he said. "I'm not insisting that every child should go to a single-sex school."

Others, however, say the trend stems from "pop" psychology of advocates like Sax. Rosalind Barnett, a senior scientist at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., said the advocates' arguments are based on little more than stereotypes: that girls are better with language, and boys excel at math, for instance.

"Without batting an eye, we are resegregating schools based on gender," she said. "If for a minute people talked about resegregating on race, people would be up in arms."

The two sides disagree about studies and anecdotal evidence suggesting children perform better academically in a single-sex environment. While Sax cites such studies as proof for his advocacy, Barnett said they do not factor in the quality of the teachers, the resources available to the schools, or the fact that parents who choose a single-sex environment might be more actively involved in their children's education.

Students generally report positive reactions to the gender separation, although some would like to see co-ed education restored. Others, however, want to continue on without the distraction of having the opposite sex around. Nycole Sterling, of O. Perry Walker High, says "If I'm in class with my boyfriend, I'm going to be focused on him, not my work...In my opinion, the guys just play clown around...Honestly, I'd rather leave it like this."

I'm really curious about this topic but have no experience with it, having been in co-ed classes my whole life. I'd love to hear from any readers who were educated in single-sex schools and want to share their thoughts.