Susan McKevitt
Administrator
Bureau for Equity
NH Department of Education
101 Pleasant Street
Concord, NH 03301
Phone (603) 271-6613
Fax (603) 271-1953
Email: smckevitt@ed.state.nh.us
-----Original Message-----
From: Jacquelyn_Zimmerman@ed.gov
[SMTP:Jacquelyn_Zimmerman@ed.gov]
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 1998 9:58 AM
To: edequity@tristram.edc.org
Subject: Re: H. Furbrow
This is in response to H. Furbrow's comments on Deborah
Brake's
opening statements, questioning the accuracy and relevance
of her
statements about the current unequal education conditions
of girls and
women.
While sex discrimination is no longer routinely accepted in
education
and has been prohibited since Title IX became law, the
incidences of
sexual harassment and assault that are continually reported
show that
freedom from threats to learning still has not been
achieved for girls
and women. Other conditions that inhibit equal opportunity
in
education, which also impact the workplace, remain:
1. Although women earn half of all college degreees, they
are less
likely than men to earn bachelor's degrees in computer
science,
engineering, physical sciences, or math. At higher levels
of
education, they account for only 17% of doctoral degrees in
math and
physical science, 14% of doctoral degrees in computer
science, and 7%
of doctoral degrees in engineering. This gap becomes even
more
significant in the labor market where salaries are among
the highest
in math/computer science and engineering--fields in which
women are
underrepresented. Without more equity in these fields,
women will
remain at the low end of positions and the pay scale in the
information age. Let me add that this last statement is
true whether
or not it is true that, as H. Furbrow says, women "want" to
be
secretaries and other low-paying jobs and not go in to
these higher
paying professional fields. This opinion of women's
desires is
irrelevant to the "truth" of the marketplace and the
opportunities for
them in it.
2. In U.S. high schools, there are still about 24,000 more
boys'
varsity teams than girls' teams; in college, women receive
only
one-third of all athletic scholarships; and between 1992
and 1997
overall operating expenditures for women's college sports
programs
grew only 89%, compared to 139% for men, representing only
23% of the
total operating expenses.
3. Even though women make up half of the labor market, not
only are
tney underrepresented in jobs in scientific fields, but
they are often
paid less than men for the same jobs. In 1993, only 18% of
employed
recent female science and engineering graduates worked in
scinece and
engineering occupations, compared to 35% of their male
counterparts.
In the sameyear, women who had majored in the natural
sciences earned
15% less than men who majored in the same field.
4. Despite women's larege gains toward equal educational
attainment
and their accompanying gains in labor force participation,
their
earnings are only 80% of the earnings of their male
counterparts with
the same education--$26,000 vs. $32,000, respectively, for
graduates
of 4-year colleges in 1993.
It's not that we haven't made progress toward equity for
*all* since
Title IX was passed 26 years ago; it's that we are aware
that more
needs to be done and that we must be vigilant if we are to
accomplish
the next stage of progress, as in all developmental areas.
When
efforts focused on one group--in this case, girls and
women--succeed,
all groups benefit. If your neighbor's house was on fire
you wouldn't
say "Ho, hum" and close your windows and shades. You'd
most likely
call the fire department or run to your neighbor's house to
find out
if they had called the fire department because the
conditions in their
house will most certainly affect yours. This is why we
struggle, for
example, with the question of separate schools for girls
and women.
We are really asking what conditions of education produce
the most
gains, with gains having numerous definitions according to
one's
"agenda," culture, ideology, beliefs, politics, class, and
so forth.
For example, we know that the math/science/computer fields
command
high salaries. If the conditions are not good for girls to
learn math
then they are in fact excluded from the opportunity to earn
high
salaries. One can question whether a given woman's goal is
to earn a
high salary or whether it should or shouldn't be her goal,
but one
cannot put into question the opportunity to do so.
The bullets above were taken from "Title IX, 25 Years of
Progress" by
U.S. Department of Education, June 1997. I'm happy to send
a copy to
those who request one.
jacquelyn_zimmerman@ed.gov
______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: Re: Parts II & III - Deborah Brake's opening statement
Author: edequity@tristram.edc.org at Internet
Date: 4/20/98 2:26 PM
>The ongoing problems include: discrimination against
>pregnant and parenting young women, combined with wholly
>inadequate educational opportunities, which exacerbate
>high dropout rates and foster economic dependence with
>all of its attendant problems;
Drop out rates, according to the government, are higher for boys
in all
age and racial categories.
>the rampant problem of sexual harassment; substantial
>underrepresentation of females in math, science and other high
>technology programs;
How do you define "substantial"? Female representation has been
increasing in all categories. On the 1996 National Assessment
of
Educational Progress math tests, eighth and twelfth grade girls
did as
well as boys. Reversing earlier patterns, girls are more likely
than
boys to take geometry, algebra, and chemestry in high school,
and
equally likely to take trigonometry and calculus.
How does this square with the need for an "educational equity"
program
aimed exclusively at girls?
>significantly lower scores on a wide variety of
>standardized tests; biases against girls' participation
>in the classroom and biased curricula;
Girls outperform boys (and I believe, always have) by a
substantial
margin in reading, and especially writing. In 1995, Science
magazine
warned that this trend could seriously damage young men's job
opportunities in the information age.
>highly sex-segregated vocational education programs
>with females overwhelmingly in training programs
>for traditionally female -- and traditionally
>low wage -- jobs;
Unless you can cite figures for the above claim, I'll choose to
believe
that the problem is not as bad as you make out. Some girls
*choose* to
be secretaries or hairdressers because they plan on being
mothers and
homemakers rather than engineers, scientists, or lawyers. We
will
always need secretaries and hairdressers, female or male. And
some
women will choose full time mothering despite our best efforts
to lead
them to the corporate world. Removing these "traditionally
female" jobs
as options for young women, and continuing to discourage and
ridicule
boys who might want to pursue them sends a message that you look
down on
their choices and see them as inadequate.
>exclusion of female students from many athletics
>opportunities, including athletic scholarships
>worth hundreds of millions of dollars;
What exclusion from what athletic opportunities? The Title IX
lawsuits
which swept across tha nation in the 1980's have closed down
many
moneymaking male sports activities, the reduced funding
resulting in the
loss of programs for both sexes.
>and the availability to men but not women of entire
>classes of other scholarships, many for study in
>fields in which men already have a participation
>advantage.
Do you have an example of such scholarships, and a source for
this
information? The discussion will be meaningless if we keep
using broad
generalizations like "entire classes" and "many" without any
concrete
examples.
H. Furbrow
hfurbrow@hotmail.com
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