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LAUSD OKs Girls-Only STEM School, Plans Boys-Only English Language Arts School
theodp writes: Citing statistics that showed a whopping 46 more boys than girls passed the AP Computer Science Exam in 2011-12, the 640,000+ student Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) on Tuesday approved a waiver to enable the District to operate a single-gender, all-girls STEM School called the Girls Academic Leadership Academy (GALA). Students in GALA will follow a six year sequence of computer courses starting in middle school that will culminate in AP Computer Science Principles. "Fewer females take AP courses in math, science, or computer science, and they are not as successful as males in receiving passing scores of 3, 4 or 5," argued the General Waiver Request (PDF, 700+ pages). "An all girls environment is reasonably necessary for the school to improve the self-confidence of girls in their academic abilities, especially in STEM areas where an achievement gap currently exists. GALA's admissions shall also comply with AB 1266 to ensure male students who identify as female are admitted to the school." The school's CS-related Partners include the UCLA Exploring Computer Science Program, as well as Google-bankrolled Girls Who Code, Black Girls Code, and NCWIT. One of the reasons the all-girls STEM school reportedly got the green light is that its backers satisfied federal regulations requiring a "substantially equal school" for excluded male students by submitting a plan for a companion all-boys school that would emphasize English Language Arts, where they often fall short of girls' test scores, rather than GALA's focus on STEM. One suspects the no-fan-of-gender-restricted-public-schools ACLU may call BS on this maneuver.
Yet we are just creating more and more by bullshit like this. Usually it's just for women's benefit, but in this case there's also discrimination against gals too.
Why can't we just end this bullshit and let children grow up to do want they want to do?
Only america could create a society that tells me I should feel bad for finding a career I enjoy in a well paying field.
If you want equality, then stop trying to segregate, and stop man-shaming.
This country has fought long and hard to remove segregation and discrimination and it is not acceptable to slide so far backwards. One of the biggest challenges in our future is our failures in education today. Our current trend is that secondary education is becoming more and more female, and believe me, we don't want to deal with the crime and productivity implications of an abundance of under-educated men in our country. Focusing on educating girls is a bad idea. Rather, the focus should be on educating all children. We don't give kids the credit they deserve. They are perfectly capable of choosing their favorite subjects on their own.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
I am awed and stupefied, how the idea of sex-segregation — hitherto denounced as "detrimental to equality" — comes back around as a good one.
What's next? Whites-only school of basketball?
I wish, I was trolling...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
"Boys will also receive additional vocation training in the ditch-digging, garbage collection, and front-line soldiering arts to help prepare them for their future careers as beasts of burden."
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Whenever I read something about girls-only or boys-only, I like to replace the gender designations with race designations: "Citing statistics that showed a whopping 46 more Whites than Blacks passed the AP Computer Science Exam in 2011-12, the 640,000+ student Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) on Tuesday approved a waiver to enable the District to operate a single-race, all-Black STEM School called the Black Academic Leadership Academy (BALA)." ... even more interesting if you switch the races around...
Some things need to be said...
Time to start masculanism movement, because anti-male gender discrimination hit mainstream.
First of all, I would just like to say that I applaud this move on the part of the L.A. school district. In the spirit of these groundbreaking projects, I would like to propose a similar measure here in Alabama that would help advance learning among our students as well. My new initiative would launch a series of White-only and Black-only schools that would better serve to the individual needs of students and help them to feel more comfortable in schools where they can feel free to speak freely and learn in a less hostile environment.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
If you don't understand that 3, 4 or 5 is the right passing score then you should have studied harder *+&
* For the humor impaired, please try and find the joke in there before you mod me down. /. for?
+ For the math impaired - yes there is a joke in there
& For the humor AND math impaired, what the hell are you on
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
You see, back in the grand old days of the USSR, all the rage was creating the "New Soviet Man" who would have all the best qualities and truly bring about World Socialism. All differences between race, ethnicity, even gender would be erased. Everyone would be the same fine specimens. We see how well that worked out.
It's amazing that the LA school district can't think of anything new, so has to replicate the failed policies of the Soviets.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Ive come to find in my scientific research that black people have a tremendous underrepresentation in the STEM fields. My proposal im sure youll find unique and enriching, is of course to create a special school. This school, for blacks only of course, would focus on fostering STEM education. Ideally this school, while entirely ignoring existing structural inequality and systemic racism in society predicating everything from wage to employment discrimination, will serve as a beacon for for 21st century STEM future.
However should it become too cost prohibitive, or should quarterly market revenue predictions indicate the inability to fellate shareholders with ever glorious profits increasing in an unsustainably linear fashion, I'll close the school and turn it into an H1B visa advocacy think tank. Should this fail too, I'll renovate the first floor into an Urban Outfitters and the second floor will become a janitorial company entirely unrelated to race, class, or capitalist striafication in america. Failing these remarkable endeavors I have another project my stakeholders have approved which involves grinding human bone to a fine powder, then amalgamating this dust with adhesives manufactured from endangered birds and creating a final product suitable to paint road lines.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I just do not know that this is really needed. I know lots of very smart women in STEM that are very bit as talented as any male.
There is no lack of talent, just lack of interest. I run an after school robotics and programming class at the local elementary school. The boys love it, and beg their parents to sign them up. Most of the girls are there because their tiger-parents* forced them to join. Many of the girls dropped out, especially when the tryouts for the school play started. I was very frustrated when this happened last year, so this year I recruited a nerdy mom to help out, and provide a role model. That made no difference in the dropout rate.
I think a separate program for girls is a bad idea. It just gives them the message that they can't compete. When we form teams the kids always self-segregate by gender, but that is their choice, not something being pushed on them by the authorities. Since they are on separate gender teams, the girls are not dominated by pushy boys trying to show off. Completely separate classes are not needed.
*ALL of the girls that participate are Asian (Chinese, Indian, or Vietnamese). I have never had a single white/black/Hispanic girl join. I live in San Jose, which has lots of Asians. If I lived in a "normal" place, the gender balance would likely be even worse.
We have those already; they're called "charter schools." Here in Atlanta, anyone can attend the charter schools in theory, but in practice the white parents are the ones who sign their kids up, so the charter school ends up 70+% white and the regular public school (that serves the same neighborhood) ends up 80+% black.
(By the way: yes, those are real numbers; I looked them up.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Or, maybe, women and men simply aren't the same?
The anatomy and physiology are demonstrably different. Could those natural differences be having an effect on the interests in life? Feminists would like us to think, all of that is due solely to upbringing, but they offer no evidence — while denouncing detractors as "sexists" themselves.
Though businesses aren't allowed to discriminate, sports-leagues openly do all the time. A "co-ed" volleyball team, for example, must have at least two females out of six players at all times — because having more males is an advantage. A team showing up with only one woman is penalized one way or the other (see rule 11 of this set, for example), a team showing up for a coed game without any women automatically loses.
In chess too, for some reason, there are very few female Grandmasters (GMs). It got so embarrassing, a lesser title of Woman Grandmaster (WGM) was introduced... And there are some — but very few (all of them from countries with "traditional" views on gender-roles, BTW).
Now, I am not going to claim, women are intrinsically "inferior" to men — for a I don't think, the sexes are comparable, nor do they have to compete. We represent the same species. But we are certainly different — and I am not surprised, if the difference is manifested in aptitude for or interest in different carriers and pursuits.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If it's a matter of not having students who are sexually attracted to each other, they have a serious logistical problem:
I'm not positive, but I think you'd need something like this:
It's pretty clear to me that that's what the people designing this program think, at least!
I mean, holy shit! They're talking about implementing a six-year academic program just to get these girls ready to pass the AP exam, which is only equivalent to an introductory college CS course! How fucking insulting can they be, to imply that those girls need six years to learn what they should be learning in one?!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I am reasonably sure the research on this is clear. Girl's self-confidence is inversely proportional to how much time they spend with other girls.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
I've read studies that show girls (and boys) learn better in single-sex classrooms, and also when their teacher is the same sex. I think segregated schools like the one in this article are a great idea. There's nothing wrong with "separate but equal" if they're really equal... and that's the big problem here. The boys' school is not the same as the girls' school.
To your point (sorry!) There is no "fault". Girls tend not to care about STEM subjects. It's that simple. STEM requires endless hours studying alone, about subjects that would bore an anvil to tears. We literally drug our children to hold still and have the stuff poured into them. It isn't for everyone; that's why so many antisocial types gravitate towards it. You either like it, or you don't.
Teachers don't "fail" - students fail. And "failure" is not the right word. You can't force interest into a human child like some personality-altering enema. A teacher can instill the basics of how to be a human being, like history, and arithmetic, and reading. The rest comes from the child and the matrix the child lives in. You can't manufacture Alan Turings, and God help us if you could - the world does NOT need to be composed of semi-autistic math prodigies. We need the other types as well.
Let the DAMNED children become what they want to become. Here's a poser: has any one of these STEM-pushers asked the kids what they think about their "failure" to become good corporate tech fodder?
The girls get a school which emphasizes a broad range of subjects, most of which are geared towards targeting gender inequality by creating a safe learning environment. Even if one of those emphasized subjects doesn't appeal to a particular girl, one of the others may. In other words, it will be labelled as an enrichment program.
The boys get a school which emphasizes a singular subject, most of which are geared towards targeting gender inequality by addressing low test scores. While English will appeal to some boys, it will not appeal to the majority of boys. That is true even if those boys are interested in fields that are traditionally dominated by women. In other words, it will be labelled as a remedial program.
I fail to see how this addresses gender inequality in any meaningful way. If the boys were offered a school geared towards the humanities and the arts, it may be possible to make such an argument. But that's not what's happening here.
The IT business is rough for women, or so says women.
So why would anyone want a woman that came from an all woman school and now has to deal with men.
Seems to me working with others is a teachable item for both men and women, but not when they are isolated.
Also, it's been my observation that ideas like this rarely pan out in any meaningful way.
And I have the sneaking suspicion that the instructors will pass on their prejudice in such a setting.
Why do women that have daughters continue to teach the "female standard" in clothing, behaviour, and expectations?
I have seen nothing so damaging to "gender rights" (A phrase that would never exist in a rational society) as the way the children are raised.
Then you expect to clear that intellectual sediment through protesting? Or isolation?
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
"For historical reasons the best solution to racial problems in society is mixing."
What historical reasons are those? What do you mean by "problem"? What data do you have to support the conclusion that "mixing" is the best solution to that "problem"?
I've never seen tangible evidence to indicate that this society's obsession with "diversity" and "multiculturalism" is justified or that implementing public policy to achieve it yields net positive results.
Honestly if we lived in a neighborhood that was 80-90% people of different color than us, I'd pay a couple thousand a year to put my kids in a school where most of the other kids looked like them. Otherwise you are inviting a world of pain into your children's life. In my experience 12-16 year olds revel in uniquely cruel forms of racism and bullying. If I can could keep my kids out of that situation for 5% of my income, I'd do it every time.