DARN CONSERVATIVES...:

The higher education minister in the new Taliban government says women can study in universities, including at post-graduate levels, but that classrooms will be gender-segregated and that Islamic dress is compulsory.

Last October, more than 450 public school teachers, principals and central administrators from across the United States -- as well as from Argentina, Bermuda, Canada and Poland -- came together in Atlanta, Georgia, for the fifth annual convention of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education.

Dozens of presentations extolled the superiority of gender-segregated classrooms and entire schools, with lecture titles such as, "Burps, Farts and Snot: Teaching Chemistry To Middle School Boys," and "Just Don't Say 'SEX' -- tips on how to implement single-gender programs in conservative, rural communities."

Attendees ranged from Chicago and Philadelphia inner-city high school teachers to elementary school principals from small towns in Idaho and Indiana. They represented a fraction of recent converts to the Single Sex Public Education (SSPE) movement, which has expanded at a remarkable pace.

In 2002, only 11 public schools in the United States had gender-segregated classrooms. As of December 2009, there were more than 550. [...]

Separating boys and girls is a longstanding tradition at private and parochial schools. The concept began to gain traction in American public schools earlier this decade as schools began to experiment with SSPE in oft-desperate attempts to reduce disciplinary problems and improve test scores. The Department of Education accelerated the trend in 2006 by altering the Title IX provision of the No Child Left Behind Act to ease restrictions on gender-segregated education in public schools.

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