They started Bluford Drew Jemison Science Technology Engineering Math Academy on Caroline and Biddle streets a year ago, gave the boys strict discipline and held them in school until 7 p.m. They also ensured added support with two full-time social workers and two interns.
"We inculcate our young men to be strong. We don't baby these boys over here," Stokes said.
Darius Kelly, 12, walking down the hall with his friends at Bluford Drew Jemison, said his school is a place "where you can stay focused and make something of yourself. ... We don't have our minds focused on girls." Teachers talk to the boys in a way that girls wouldn't understand, he said.
In a neighborhood where being smart and scholarly isn't always considered cool, Stokes believes his boys are setting a new standard in their white shirts, neckties and khaki pants. Instead of being picked on, he said, they have begun to put pressure on the boys on the streets of their neighborhoods.
While Baltimore is experimenting with many types of education reform, other localities have been more cautious.
In Frederick, the Monocacy Montessori Community Inc., which opened the state's first charter school years ago, applied to start an all-girls school but was turned down last year by the Frederick County school board. The group reapplied this year for a school focusing on learning foreign languages, said Angela Phillips, who has led the effort. She said the board rejected the first proposal in part because it believed a single-sex charter school was not legal.
The poor performance of boys led to the resurgence of single-sex schools. Although girls once lagged behind, they are beginning to outpace boys on many academic measures.
Consider that at every grade level in both math and reading, a higher percentage of girls pass the Maryland School Assessments, and in some cases the pass rates for girls are considerably higher. Girls outnumber boys by nearly 2-1 at the city's top five selective high schools.
And nationally, women make up 58 percent of college students this fall, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Only on the SATs are boys still able to hold on to their lead.
Some education experts have looked at brain research and suggested that boys were increasingly asked to perform in schools that were better suited to the way girls learn. Boys, some researchers argue, need more chances to move around in the classroom and should have more physical breaks in their academic day. Some all-boys first-grade classrooms have no chairs or make sitting in chairs optional.
