Elementary
and Secondary Education
Efforts
to promote gender fairness, equity, and diversity while achieving high academic
standards in K-12 education will fail unless education reform focuses on the
varying educational needs and learning styles of all students, including girls.
The reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is an
opportunity to review elementary and secondary policies and when coupled with
the Educating America's Girls Act (S 1264/HR 2505) the educational system will
be better equipped to determine how to best meet the needs of girls through all
levels of education.
One
area in which the ESEA will help to close the gender gap in education will be
girls in technology. While gender gaps in math and science have narrowed in the
past six years, the 1998 American Association of University Women Educational
Foundation report Gender Gaps: Where School Still Fail Our Children finds that a
major new gender gap in technology has emerged. Girls tend to come to the
classroom with less exposure to computers and believe that they are less adept
at using technology. While boys program and problem-solve with computers, girls
use computers for word processing - the 1990s version of typing. Further, only
17 percent of Advanced Placement test takers in computer science are girls.
Congress could dismantle the virtual ceiling now before it becomes a real-life
barrier to girls' futures with the inclusion of provisions within the ESEA that
compensate for different learning styles and different exposures to technology
for girls. Gender Gaps found that when compared to boys, girls are at a
significant disadvantage as technology is increasingly incorporated into the
classroom, but the ESEA reauthorization could require schools to train teachers
to recognize the different leaning needs of girls in technology; encourage
students to pursue higher education degrees and careers in mathematics, science,
engineering, and technology; and authorize a $50M program to prepare girls to
major in math, science, or technology in post-secondary education.
Provisions
could also be incorporated within the ESEA that will help make schools safer by
reducing the incidence of sexual harassment and abuse. Four out of five students
report that they have been the target of sexual harassment during their school
lives. Sexual harassment can cause academic problems for girls. Research shows
that girls who are sexually harassed pay less attention in class or don't want
to attend school. The ESEA reauthorization presents an important opportunity to
greatly reduce the incidence of sexual harassment by focusing attention on the
prevention of sexual harassment as part of the prevention of other types of
school violence, gathering data on these often hidden offenses, and preventing
sexual harassment and abuse by authorizing a $10M program to train teachers and
administrators in identifying and preventing sexual harassment and abuse in
schools.
It is only through voter education and raising the awareness of women on the importance of critical issues that will have a lasting affect on them and their communities that we will be able to promote public policy based on gender fairness, equity, and diversity in 2000 and beyond.