Slashdot Mirror
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.
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...
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.
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 my son wants to go to the special programming school, because that's what he's really in to, will he be allowed to? No. And why not? Because he might disrupt the all-girl environment and damage the self-confidence of the girls in the class. "You can't come because boys are icky." How is that not "man-shaming?"
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.