Kinds of Schools

I asked William Ellis, Associate Headmaster for Enrollment Management, Director of Admission and Director of Financial Aid at The Kiski School in Saltsburg, Pennsylvania, to discuss educating boys. Bill very kindly offered the following essay in response to my request. ~Rob Kennedy.
Boys’ residential college preparatory schools are more important now than ever before. Statistics, surveys, and polls all show that boys’ achievement is not as strong in high school as their female counterparts. Women outnumber men in four-year colleges by a nearly three-to-two ratio that has been growing since the late 1970s. Some would say a boy crisis in education is brewing or already here. I was at my niece’s graduation from a large, highly competitive university where anecdotally the Chancellor was a woman, the keynote speaker was a woman, the president of the senior class was a woman, three of the four honorees were women and an amazing 65% of the graduates were women. Having been raised in a house of four strong sisters and a superb Mom (Dad and I were outvoted often), believe me, I am proud of all of the strides made by women since I was a boy, and I do not think their journey is complete by any means.
Having spent the first 25 years of my career at independent coed boarding schools, I have had a front row seat to this phenomenon, of the consistently outperforming the boys. My colleagues used to ask

The International Baccalaureate covers the entire K-12 spectrum with three distinct educational curricula. In this article, we focus on American private schools which offer the Diploma Programme. This rigorous course of studies targets high school students ages 16-19. Colleges and universities the world over recognize the IB Diploma. The International Baccalaureate organization must authorize schools before they can be designated an IB school. The adherence to a strict set of standards and protocols is essentially what makes the IB Diploma so valuable. Let's take a look at boarding schools which offer the IB Diploma Programme.
Annie Wright School, Tacoma, WA
Founded in 1884
Number of students: 192
Grades 9-12. Girls
Religious Affiliation: Non-denominational
Annie Wright School has a PK-8 division which is coeducational. The high school is for girls only. The campus is located on 10 acres in the north end of Tacoma. The school has been an IB school since 2009. For complete details regarding curriculum, sports, extracurricular activities, costs, and other information, see the Annie Wright Schools profile.
Cheshire Academy, Cheshire, CT
Founded in 1794
Number of students: 400
Grades 8-12. Coeducational
Religious Affiliation: Non-denominational
Cheshire Academy is situated on 102 acres in the historic Connecticut town of Cheshire. The school has been an IB school since 2011. For complete details regarding curriculum, sports, extracurricular activities, costs, and other information, see the Cheshire Academy profile.
EF Academy New York, Thornwood, NY
Founded in 2005
Number of students:



Single sex schools were the only kind of school which existed for many years starting as far back as colonial times. But they were usually boys' schools as girls were still considered inferior and generally not worth educating. As the country grew and education matured with it, coeducational schools became the norm. The idea was to promote the equality of the sexes. Girls would be given the same opportunities as boys to learn and advance.
In theory coeducation is a good idea. But there were many subtle prejudices against girls which had to be overcome. Gender stereotypes, for example, held many girls back. Women could be telephone operators, nurses and teachers but not doctors, lawyers or business executives. And so on. These barriers for women were real in most of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Fortunately things began to change dramatically towards the end of the 20th century. As a result women can now be found in all kinds of jobs and situations which their mothers and grandmothers could only have dreamed of. With these changes came a realization that girls do indeed learn differently. Girls' schools