Kay Bailey Hutchison: “this is an amendment that several of us have worked on for quite a while trying to come up with the right formula. I…”

“this is an amendment that several of us have worked on for quite a while trying to come up with the right formula. I thank Senator Kennedy, and I especially thank the cosponsors of my amendment, Senator Collins, Senator Mikulski, and Senator Clinton, for trying to come up with a solution to a problem that we have seen over many years; that is, obstacles put in place against public schools being able to offer single-sex classrooms and single-sex schools. We are trying to open more options to public school than are available in private school because we want public schools to be able to tailor their programs to what best fits the needs of students in that particular area. Most of the time coeducational classes in schools are going to be the answer. But sometimes in some circumstances we find that girls do better in a single-sex atmosphere and boys do better in a single-sex atmosphere. We want parents who might not be able to afford private school or might not have the option of parochial school to be able to go to their school board and say: We would like to offer a single-sex eighth grade math class for girls or we would like to offer a single-sex chemistry lab for boys or we might want a whole single-sex school, such as some that have had wonderful results.…”