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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Nation's High Schools Still Operate 'Separate and Unequal' Vocational Education |
Current rating: 0 |
by National Women's Law Center
(No verified email address) |
07 Jun 2002
Modified: 03:46:28 PM |
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Nation's High Schools (Including Illinois) Still Operate 'Separate and Unequal' Vocational Education for Male and Female Students, Says National Women's Law Center |
WASHINGTON - June 6 - Young women and girls face widespread sex discrimination in high school vocational and technical education programs across the country. Pervasive sex segregation, sexual harassment in the classroom, discrimination in counseling and recruiting, and other gender-based bias are creating serious barriers to their future earning power, according to a nationwide investigation released today by the National Women's Law Center (NWLC). NWLC examined problems in depth in Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Washington State. (View state information at http://www.nwlc.org or call 202-588-5180.)
As a result of these findings, NWLC today issued a report and filed 12 Petitions for Compliance Review -- one in each regional office of the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. The petitions request Title IX investigations of -- and demand remedies for -- sex discrimination in vocational and technical education across the country. Title IX is the law, passed 30 years ago this month, that bars sex discrimination in all aspects of federally funded education.
Thirty years after Title IX, boys are still being steered toward courses that lead to traditionally male, and higher paying, careers in technology and the trades, while girls are clustered in programs that lead to lower paying jobs in cosmetology, child care and the like. National patterns of sex segregation, based on data in the 12 states, shows that 96 percent of cosmetology students are female, as are 87 percent of those enrolled in child care courses, and 86 percent of those enrolled in health aide preparation courses. Meanwhile, boys comprise over 90 percent of the students enrolled in carpentry, automotive, and plumbing. The pattern of sex segregation is even worse in some states. For example, in Florida, 99 percent of the students in cosmetology are female, while 100 percent of the students taking plumbing are male.
The pervasive sex segregation of female students into traditionally female programs severely compromises their future earning power. For example, cosmetologists earn a median hourly salary of $8.49 and child care workers earn a median hourly salary of $7.43. In contrast, students in the predominantly male, higher-wage careers can earn median hourly salaries of almost $20 as plumbers, electricians or mechanical drafters.
Beyond the data showing stark patterns of sex segregation, NWLC obtained additional information that underscores the sex discrimination that girls face in vocational education. This includes teachers who help male students get summer jobs but do not help female students; guidance counselors who steer female students into cosmetology based on their lower expectations for them; and schools that fail to protect girls from sexual harassment. Moreover, half of the states across the country have not met their legal duty to designate a Title IX coordinator to carry out the states' responsibilities under the law.
Young women enrolled in traditionally female programs often receive inferior educations. Today's actions follow NWLC's finding last year that New York City's vocational schools were highly sex segregated and that the predominantly female schools, unlike the male schools, offered almost no advanced math or science courses. Special technology programs, like Cisco Networking Academies, which lead to industry certification in computer networking and jobs that pay between $42,000 and over $100,000 per year, were placed in the predominantly male schools, but were not available in the schools attended by young women.
"High school vocational and technical education programs can provide a path to economic independence for many young women and girls. Thirty years after Title IX, it is unconscionable that their dreams and futures are still being shortchanged," said Marcia D. Greenberger, NWLC co-president.
"Girls in vocational and technical programs suffer discriminatory practices that discourage them from progressing and succeeding. These girls have to tolerate instructors who really don't take them seriously and deny them the experience of any real training. Instead, they are given the attendance book or other administrative duties while the boys are being trained with the tools," said Geri Harston, a Chicago electrician and recruiter for the nation's second largest electrical apprenticeship program.
Melissa Barbier, director of girls' programs at the Chicago Women in Trades, said, "I've seen first hand the obstacles girls must overcome to enter the trades. But I've also seen the positive results when schools make the effort to provide an encouraging environment for girls in the nontraditional trades, and when they inform girls about the financial benefits and consequences of their career choices."
For more information, view "Title IX and Equal Opportunity in Vocational and Technical Education: A Promise Still Owed to the Nation's Young Women" at http://www.nwlc.org.
The National Women's Law Center is a non-profit organization that has been working since 1972 to advance and protect women's legal rights. The Center focuses on major policy areas of importance to women and their families including economic security, education, employment and health, with special attention given to the concerns of low-income women.
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Where this is still happening... |
by ...
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
07 Jun 2002
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..it needs to be stopped. But certainly no such barriers appeared to exist at my small midwestern high school 20 years ago, so I'm not quite sure just what godforsaken backwaters one would have to go to to find this sort of thing. We had girls in every vocational class there AFAIK. Can't speak to harrassment - but any such jerk should be fired on the spot regardless.
At any rate... serious earnings differentials due to *high school vocational courses*? Not impossible, but...
The author is also apparently using attendance rates without accounting at all for actual student preference..? You have to use numbers of students who were steered there, not just numbers of students who are there, sorry.
Just try to survive between classes as a male student in a child care program - or try to get a job in it after graduation - and a very different view of the sources of this sort of outcome might arise. =) |
