Commentary: Where are all the girls?

Margaret Spelling, U.S. Secretary of Education, announced a comprehensive review of research about how and why girls turn away from the fields of the future.

She is requesting definitive insights into what goes wrong, when, and why. She made this announcement during her Remarks to the First National Summit on the Advancement of Girls in Math and Science in Washington, DC on May 15, 2006.

Here are excerpts from her remarks:

Where are all the girls? … Girls continue to be underrepresented in critical fields related to math and science. They make up only a third of AP physics students… and only 15 percent of AP computer science classes. At the college level, less than 20 percent of engineering majors are women. The number of women with computer science degrees has dropped 25 percent since 1985.

People need to realize that Algebra, geometry, and calculus teach problem-solving skills that are essential for every student–not just the top one percent.

President Bush has called for $25 million to help recruit 30,000 math and science professionals to be adjunct teachers.

Over the last two years alone, the number of fourth-graders who learned their fundamental math skills increased by 235,000 – enough to fill 500 elementary schools.

Spellings addresses participation in science and math as public policy issues. That’s important. That’s her assignment by the President. Arriving at definitive reasons for establishing policy changes is tough.

And, whatever public policy changes her reviewers recommend will not necessarily address reasons any one girl (or boy) decides not to excel in math or science in or out of school. Empirical research based public policy recommendations address aggregated data from many sources and observations, not discrete decisions or behavior of any specific individual.

I know three school age girls quick as a whip with math and science. One wants to become an astrophysicist, another can solve advanced math problems in her head, another can show others how to perform math problems easily. They all attend advanced classes in middle and high schools, as well as each likes to learn and is good at it independently as well as with formal instruction. They each continue to score above 95th percentiles in all standardized test subjects whenever examined since entering schools.

Yet their responses have changed over the years to the simple question, “What did you learn in school today?” The older each grows, the more frequently each responds with some version of “eh,” or “not much.”

To probes, they describe waiting for other students to catch up with lessons, having to cover undone work of other students in group assignments in order to earn top grades, and having to wait for teachers. Their most frequent response is some form of, “Waiting.”

Each has been chastized sufficiently by teachers or administrators for correcting teachers’ mistakes and for “going ahead of lessons” that now they idle away their time in classes while looking attentive. Teachers glory in these students’ performances.

I see these girls’ interest in math and science waining. They have to fight power and authority requiring conformity and community, vs. individual maximization of learning. These are imposing odds set by individual adults.

Spelling argues that the culture must change in order for females to address more options in math and science. OK, she’s probably correct, if you accept that the abstract idea of culture exists (and I accept that it does exist).

But, it’s personal for these three girls. It’s not a public policy exercise for them.

Each of these girl’s teachers can change instructional behavior today, if he or she decides to do so. Each principal can require that change, if he or she decides to do so. Each superintendent can hold teachers and principals accountable for changing today, if she or he decides to do so. And each school board can hold the superintendent accountable today for insuring that each girl learns to her capacity in math and science today, if the board decides to do so. These changes are voluntary, based on decisions of individuals, not based on policies, programs, or competence.

No mysteries exist about how to assist these girls to maximize their learning. Educators are adults. They know what to do and they know how to do it. If a teacher doesn’t know how to support maximization of individual performance in a group setting today, then that person can get help promptly, or can get out of these students way.

Spelling has asked what goes wrong, how and why girls turn away from the fields of the future, including from math and science.

I wonder, “Why don’t professional educators change their behavior today, so these students can maximize their learning today?” This is a pertinent (or impertinent) question education policy analysts should be addressing directly with recommendations for action before school resumes in Fall, 2006.