Phebe and Nick Lockyer are 13-year-old twins, but they have had their own distinct personalities since birth.

	Daniel Marsula, Post-Gazette Click illustration for larger version.

Phebe, who has long straight blond hair, is focused and punctual, like the character Rory of "Gilmore Girls." Nick, who has tousled dark hair and cool black glasses, is laid-back and last-minute. More like Luke. The two Point Breeze teenagers are close but have never had their own secret twin language.

When they started first grade at Liberty School in Shadyside, administrators encouraged them to be in different classes so they could develop their own identities and their own friends. But their parents wanted them together so they would feel comfortable at their new school together, and they successfully lobbied to keep them in the same class.

"It was a big thing. They didn't want twins in the same class," mother Barbara Vilanova says. "It just seemed ridiculous. It was like the thing they wanted to do -- separate twins because you don't want them co-dependent. But I always feel like it was so nice they had each other."

Although Pittsburgh Public Schools does not have a policy on twins, Marcia Cohen, former principal of Point Breeze's Linden Academy, always strongly urged parents to separate twins by first grade.

"Kids bounce back more easily than parents," says Mrs. Cohen, principal for 10 years until retiring in 2005.

"Each child grows up in each other's shadow for five years. They have to develop their own identity. My experience is that twins would cling to each other if they were together. Too much togetherness is not good."

Just how much twin togetherness should be allowed in schools has turned into a national debate.

	Tony Tye , Post-Gazette Nick and Phebe Lockyer of Point Breeze are 13-year-old twins who were encouraged to be in separate classes when they started elementary school. Their mother, however, wanted to keep them together. Click photo for larger image.

Armed with new research that says that the emotional well-being of twins can be harmed if they are separated, parents in states ranging from Texas to Massachusetts are pushing to have a greater say. They are following the lead of Minnesota, which last year became the first state to let parents of multiples decide if they stay in the same class. The debate pits some administrators, who think twins need to develop separate identities, against some parents, who bemoan the perils of "forced separation" of twins.

It has become a big issue with the boom in twins -- sometimes called the twin epidemic -- as evidenced by all those pairs of tots in double strollers, eliciting extra coos.

There were 31.1 twins per 1,000 U.S. births in 2002, a 38 percent jump since 1999, says Nancy L. Segal, psychology professor at California State University in Fullerton and author of the book "Indivisible by Two: Lives of Extraordinary Twins."

Kellie McMahon, a Burlington, Wis., mother, is fighting to keep her 5-year-old fraternal twins together for first grade in the fall after they complete kindergarten together this school year.

"There is no reason why Jake and Ashley should be separated," Mrs. McMahon says. "They just don't want twins together. It is a general bias, an old-school philosophy. We feel like we are banging our heads against the walls."

"Emotionally they are not ready to be separated," she says. "It is going to hurt their self-confidence. They are going to go from 'Isn't it cool, I am a twin' to 'What's wrong with me? Why can't I be with my twin?' "

Steven Bloom, superintendent of Randall Consolidated School District, where the McMahon twins attend, says the general practice of the district is to separate twins. "The earlier the better. I myself have two sets of twins and would never keep them together. It doesn't allow them to develop individually."

He also says he doesn't want to set a precedent that would allow other parents to have a say in their child's class placement. What would stop a parent from requesting that a child be placed with her best friend? "The placement of students is an administrative decision."

But others say such administrative policies ignore the special bond of twins.

Twins who are pulled apart against their will "miss the intimacy and camaraderie and security," says Dr. Segal. "Why do twins have to separate from Mom and then each other?"

Staying together, she says, "is a real advantage, and the schools are taking it away."

Dr. Segal points to a recent study by a team of researchers at King's College of London that shows twins, especially identical ones, who were separated at age 5 were more anxious and withdrawn than twins who stayed in the same class. The study showed that identical twins who were separated later, by age 7, had more reading problems than twins who stayed together.

(Dr. Bloom, the Wisconsin superintendent, counters, "As with most educational studies, you can find research on both sides of the fence.")

The King's College of London study comes as no surprise to Bettie Carlson of Murrysville, mother of 13-year-old identical twins, Margaret and Caroline. She still grimaces at what happened when she agreed to separate her daughters during first grade at the community's Sloan Elementary School because teachers had trouble telling them apart.

"It was a big mistake," she says. "It was a traumatic year for everyone. They had night terrors. They were considerably out of sorts all year. They were practically on top of each other on the bus coming home. We found them in the same bed some nights."

One of the twins developed reading problems in first grade, which she has since overcome. The girls insisted on dressing alike that year as "identity solidarity." The district let the Carlson twins reunite for second and third grade, and the girls did considerably better.

"You can't understand what it is like to have someone who is that close to you," Mrs. Carlson says. "They have never been alone. They were born on the same day."

Not all mothers of twins want them together, though. Some mothers say twins can get too competitive with grades or even snitch on each other.

"Everyone I know says, 'Please separate them,' " says Teresa Boley, a McCandless mother of 11-year-old identical twin boys.

Her sons were together in kindergarten. "We saw problems with them being together. One was always forgetting a book and homework and using his brother's book. ... All kids have to have their separate identities."

And Phebe and Nick Lockyer, who walked into first grade at Liberty School holding hands, have been content to be apart from second grade on up.

"We are still together at home," Phebe says. "We don't have to be together all the time."

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Correction/Clarification: (Published March 16, 2006) Nick and Phebe Lockyer attended Liberty School in Shadyside. Marcia Cohen was the former principal of Linden Academy in Point Breeze. The names of the two schools were given incorrectly in this story about educating twins as originally published on March 12, 2006.