The main cause which led to the start of more public schools having single-sex classes or entire schools was when the reforms to the Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 were passed in 2006. Originally Title IX had allowed separation of males and females in certain areas in school prior to the new changes. For example, they were allowed to have single gender classes for physical-education when there were contact sports involved and also for sex-education classes. Kasic (2008) indicates that the new regulations allow nonvocational public schools to still receive funding if they offer single-sex classes or entire single-sex schools, but in order to start these programs they have to have a governmental or educational objective. These programs are also required to be voluntary, so public schools cannot be required to offer these single-sex programs and if they do they cannot force students to participate in them. Diana Schemo explains in a New York Times article, "Until now, publics school districts that offered a school to one sex generally had to provide a comparable school for students of the other sex. The new rules, however say districts can simply offer such students the option to attend comparable coeducational schools" (Schemo, 2006, p. 2). Since these regulations were approved the number of public schools offering single-sex programs has been on a steady incline due to the fact that the rules are more flexible.