On June 28, the House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Education Reform held the third in a series of hearings on improving American high schools.
Noting that the subcommittee has heard testimony from governors and nonprofit organizations on high school reform, Chair Michael Castle (R-DE) stated, “Today we will hear from some of the private sector corporations and business partnerships that are increasing innovation and improvement in our nation’s high schools… The private sector is uniquely qualified to help address the challenges of high school reform, because businesses recognize the importance of a strong secondary education in preparing students for future success.”
Ranking Member Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) expressed her pleasure that “two of our witnesses include the importance of increasing girls’ interest in science and math, so that our technology workforce can draw from the greatest possible pool,” adding, “As Dr. Susan Hockfield, the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said recently, squandered talent ‘is one of the key issues of women in science and engineering.’”
Testifying on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) U.S. Community Partnerships Director Bill Shore highlighted the role of business in supporting education: “Companies rank education as the number one social issue that they should help to address…There are public-private partnerships in approximately 70 percent of the nation’s school districts, providing goods and services to 35 million students.” Mr. Shore detailed GSK’s education initiatives, highlighting two programs specifically aimed at girls and women: the GSK Women in Science (WIS) program and the Destiny Traveling Science Laboratory Program. Explaining that the WIS program “is committed to reversing the trend of under representation of women in fields like chemistry, medicine, mathematics and pharmacology,” he said, “The WIS program pairs outstanding undergraduate women at North Carolina colleges and universities with GSK women scientists working in laboratories and other environments conducive to further study and research. Our scientists, as mentors, guide students along pathways to learning more about rewarding careers in the sciences. The students, as scholars, gain a vicarious view of corporate life as mentors show them, by example, that women can succeed in science.” Mr. Shore said that GSK helped establish and continues to sponsor the University of North Carolina’s Destiny Traveling Science Laboratory Program. The fully equipped science laboratory, “Destiny,” visits underserved secondary schools, encouraging “women and minority students to pursue science careers.” In 2004, Destiny reached 4,000 students in 90 schools. GSK also has a leadership development program for pre-college girls at Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Microsoft Corporation Program Manager and National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) Workforce Alliance Chair Sarah Sterling stated, “The gender gap in America’s technical workforce represents our most significant opportunity to build an innovative and highly trained workforce for the U.S. to maintain its competitive edge.” Asserting the “direct relationship between the diversity of a company’s workforce and company earnings,” Ms. Sterling said, “The group of companies with the highest representation of women on their senior management teams had a 35 percent higher return on equity and a 34 percent higher total return to shareholders than companies with the lowest women’s representation. A diverse talent pool creates more cutting edge and dynamic technology.”
Ms. Sterling detailed the scope of the gender gap: “While it is true that women earn more than half of all bachelor’s degrees conferred, they are conspicuously absent from technology fields of study…According to NCWIT data, in 2000, women accounted for only 28 percent of all degrees in computer and information sciences, down from 37 percent in 1984, and the percentages are lower at major research universities. Out of the female students who do pursue computer science degrees, the attrition rate is between 40 to 60 percent by the time they graduate. Although women make up nearly half the total U.S. workforce, they represent only 25 percent of all professional IT workers and represent only 11 percent of corporate officers at the top 500 U.S. technology companies.” She pointed out that, although “computer use among girls has more than doubled since 1984, girls represent only 15 percent of test-takers in Advanced Placement (AP) computer science the lowest female representation of any AP test,” and blamed “the stereotype of technology as inhospitable or incompatible to girls and women” and “the absence of mentors, teachers, and other role models in IT.”
To address this, she said, NCWIT, a coalition of “corporations, academic institutions, government agencies and non-profits” was formed “with the mission to ensure that women are fully represented in the influential world of IT and computing.” NCWIT initiatives include:
Microsoft’s support, Ms. Sterling said, assists NCWIT in projects such as the Scorecard, “a metrics-based research report that informs the public on the status of girls and women in information technology,” scheduled to be published in 2006; and a series of university pilot programs that “seek to engage female students who would not normally classify themselves as math or science oriented but are interested in the human factor and creative aspects of computing, such as user interface design, artificial intelligence, and graphics.”
