[EDEQUITY] Funding needs/priorities (Past Dialogue on Funding)

From: CFlood@aol.com
Date: Wed Nov 22 2000 - 12:43:21 EST


Responding to Amber's statement:

We have been round about this Title IX and atheletics issue before.
see substantial evidence of universities willing to address the
disproportinately high budgets for football at the expense of other
programs
(men's and women's), the question of Title IX being responsible for
eliminating men's sports is a hollow one. I have asked you about this
before, but you have chosen not to directly respond. For example, why doe
the University of Michigan find it necessary to "suit up" over 130 football
players for a home game. Do you have any idea what the cost of the unifor
are alone?Last I checked there are only 11 players/team on a football fi
eld at once. Three strings of offense and defense is still only 66 players.
There are plenty of coaches and athletes in other sports at the collegiat
level who are willing to admit that this is a significant issue.
football "rules" on college campuses. And few football programs have been
touched as that debate has been waged.

Last, your concern about scholarships for women is simply not
discriminatory...it is not against the law to offer them. If a scholarship
offered in a Title IX covered institution, there have to be equal numbers
of
awards/scholarships for men and women. The scholarships you refer to
reflects the concerns of private organizations and advocacy groups that
recognize and want to support the well-documented educational needs of
girls
and young women.

Nothing is preventing similar scholarships for young men from being
offered.
If you and others truly feel that there is a need for more scholarships for
men, why not turn to the "war against boys" advocates for such support?
These groups have far more access to funding than most of the women's
advocacy groups. Just consider all the funding behind the efforts to=20
illuminate the false assumption that feminism's attention to girls has led
t
boys suffering in schools. If they are so concerned about boys' education
needs not being served, why not advocate for those groups to address some
of
the needs through scholarships?

It is more than ironic that the problems they have cited for boys have been
serious issues long before gender equity efforts. I know because I have
worked directly with boys in a number of educational settings throughout my
career...which began pre-Title IX. So, where is the scholarship money and,
most important, the advocacy for these needy boys? Despite the rhetoric,
those so-called "boy advocates" are not involved in any substantive efforts
to truly address their needs.

Frankly, the boys they care about are being taken care of just fine. The
boys most needy in our schools are of little interest to Ms. Sommers and
her
colleagues. They are boys pushed to the margins for a broad range of
factors. They fill our special education classrooms and head the list in
expulsions and drop-out rates. The truth is that boys and their very real
problems are little more than "red herrings" in the real efforts to
undermin
public education in this country. If you can show me otherwise, I would
appreciate it. As a curriculum specialist, I will tell you further that
her
suggestion that we return to "compeitiveness," bring back "war poetry," and
male dominated fiction is a weak attempt at addressing the critical issues
for boys in schools. Take a close look, the push for academic standards
keeps competitiveness "alive and well" in most schools. And, sadly, the
downside leads to marginalization for many students, particularly boys.

Gender equity does not undermine healthy education for girls and boys.
Sommer suggestion that it promotes the "feminization" of boys is perhaps
the
most homophobic argument for educational reform since Teddy Roosevelt's
fear
of the "tender-minded" male at the turn of the 20th century.

As a gender equity advocate for almost twenty years, my work has always
addressed the needs of both girls and boys. Boys do not suffer in schools
because of gender equity advocacy. That is nonsense...as is most of Somme
rs' book, The War on Boys. To read that book, one could make the false
assumption that America's schools have been swept by a tidal wave of gender
equity efforts. This is simply ridiculous. I have worked with hundreds of
schools districts, have had access to thousands more, and am hardpressed to
name more than a small percentage that have truly institutionalized gender
equity concerns. And, not surprisingly, where they have, all the students
are better off than before those concerns were addressed. As is usually the
case, your response will be to press me on those numbers. But, I would ask
you first to quantifiably substantiate some of Sommers broad assumptions
and
sweeping statements about the effects of gender equity efforts on schools.
Sorry, but the proof does not lie in the suggestion that "girls are
thriving
in schools and benefitting from an inordinate number of scholarships.

Thank you.
Craig Flood



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