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NC/1NR — AT: No Gender Gap
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- Rigorous Standards in Common Core Boost Female Presence in the STEM Fields
- Studies Prove—STEM minority and gender gaps aren’t getting better
2NC/1NR — AT: No Gender GapThe STEM gender and race gap remains deeply entrenchedU.S. News and World Report 15 — U.S. News & World Report is a digital news and information company that empowers people to make better, more informed decisions about important issues affecting their lives. Focusing on Education, Health, Personal Finance, Travel, Cars and News & Opinion, www.usnews.com provides consumer advice, rankings, news and analysis to serve people making complex decisions throughout all stages of life. 30 million people visit www.usnews.com each month for research and guidance. Founded in 1933, U.S. News is headquartered in Washington, D.C. (“The U.S. News/Raytheon STEM Index Shows Gender and Racial Gaps Widening in STEM Fields” June 29th, 2015, Available online at http://www.usnews.com/info/blogs/press-room/2015/06/29/the-us-news-raytheon-stem-index-shows-gender-and-racial-gaps-widening-in-stem-fields Accessed 7/10/15) Washington, D.C. – June 29, 2015 – Multi-million dollar initiatives by both the public and the private sectors have failed to close gender and racial gaps in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, according to the second-annual U.S. News/Raytheon STEM Index, unveiled today at http://www.usnews.com/stemindex. The STEM Index, developed exclusively by U.S. News & World Report with support from Raytheon, provides a national snapshot of STEM jobs and education. The index measures key indicators of economic- and education-related STEM activity in the United States since the year 2000. The 2015 STEM Index shows that while employment and degrees granted in STEM fields have improved since 2000, gaps between men and women and between whites and minorities in STEM remain deeply entrenched. Mathematics remains the Achilles’ heel of STEM fields: Across all demographic groups, interest in mathematics has declined since 2000. Key insights on women and minorities in STEM from the 2015 U.S. News/Raytheon STEM Index: The gender gap in engineering and technology fields is already well-formed by high school: High school girls are much less interested in pursuing engineering and technology than their male peers. In 2014, only 3 percent of high school females reported an interest in engineering, compared to 31 percent of males. In the same year, just 2 percent of girls reported an interest in technology, while 15 percent of boys expressed an interest in the field. On Advanced Placement (AP) tests, male students scored higher than females in all STEM subjects; on the SATs, males of all demographics scored at least 30 points higher on the math section than females. Gender gaps remain deeply entrenched in college and graduate school: At the college and graduate levels, women earned more STEM degrees each year, but they kept pace – rather than catching up – with their male counterparts. In 2014, only 6 percent of associate degrees and 13 percent of bachelor’s degrees granted to females were in a STEM field. By contrast, 20 percent of associate degrees and 28 percent of bachelor’s degrees granted to males were in STEM fields. At the graduate level, in 2014 only 10 percent of graduate degrees earned by females were in STEM fields. In the same year, 24 percent of graduate degrees granted to males were STEM degrees. While high school interest in science has increased among white, black, Hispanic, Asian and American Indian students, gaps between whites and non-Asian minorities in STEM are apparent in high school and continue into college and graduate school: On the SAT, black students scored an average of 105 points lower than white students and 169 points lower than Asian students on the math section. Race gaps were pronounced in students’ scores on the math and science sections of the ACT. While Asian and white students had the highest scores; black, Hispanic and American Indian students lagged behind. From 2009 to 2014, the percentage of bachelor’s degrees granted to white students in STEM has grown from 16.8 percent to 19.5 percent, rising every year. Over the same time period, the percentage of bachelor’s degrees granted to black students in STEM has grown more slowly, from 12.7 percent in 2009 to 13.6 percent in 2014. "Over the last decade, there has been significant national interest in improving STEM employment and education," said Brian Kelly, editor and chief content officer of U.S. News. "The U.S. News/Raytheon STEM Index allows us to chart our progress – or lack thereof. It’s clear that we need to focus our efforts on engaging the majority of the future labor pool – young women, Latinos and African-Americans – in STEM." "Clearly, we need to do more to make diversity a priority in science, technology, engineering and math fields to keep the United States competitive and the economy growing," said Mark E. Russell, vice president of engineering, technology and mission assurance for Raytheon Company. He pointed to organizations such as Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Engineering is Elementary and National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering as change agents that are delivering successful outcomes for underserved populations throughout their academic years and into their professional paths. "It’s our collective responsibility to identify, support and scale programs like these and the vital service they provide," he said. The STEM Index methodology details how the U.S. News data team created the index, which is made up of 19 sub-indices and thousands of data points divided into nine component areas: ACT math and science scores, Advance Placement test scores in STEM subjects, college and graduate degrees granted, U.S. employment in STEM fields, Program for International Student Assessments (PISA) math and science scores, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study data (TIMSS), SAT math scores, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math scores and high school students’ interest in STEM. The Index relies on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Center for Education Statistics, the College Board, the National Research Center for College & University Admissions, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, the ACT and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. U.S. News, host of the fourth annual STEM Solutions National Leadership Conference, is committed to ongoing coverage of the STEM challenges facing the country. Rigorous Standards in Common Core Boost Female Presence in the STEM FieldsCenter for American Progress 14—The Center for American Progress is an independent nonpartisan policy institute that is dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans, through bold, progressive ideas, as well as strong leadership and concerted action. Our aim is not just to change the conversation, but to change the country. (“For Women and Girls, the Common Core Is a Step Toward Greater Equity” Center For American Progress, October 28th, 2014, Available online at https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2014/10/28/99435/for-women-and-girls-the-common-core-is-a-step-toward-greater-equity/ Accessed on 7/8/15) Women and girls continue to benefit from dramatically increased educational opportunities. Due in large part to the success of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, more than half of the associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees awarded by U.S. colleges today are earned by women. Yet despite this progress, large gender-based disparities and inequities in education and employment persist. In particular, girls of color and girls from low-income backgrounds underperform academically compared with their white, higher-income peers. Girls also often lack access to high-quality, rigorous courses, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM. These courses can benefit girls by better preparing them for college and for careers that pay competitive wages. The Common Core State Standards represent an important step toward closing achievement gaps and opening the door to higher-paying STEM fields for millions of girls. By establishing uniform and more-rigorous academic standards, the Common Core helps ensure that all students—both girls and boys, regardless of their income levels and backgrounds—are taught to the same high expectations. For example, in New York—an early adopter of the Common Core—last year, black students’ scores grew more than 3 percentage points, and Hispanic students’ scores increased by more than 4 percentage points. Educational gaps for girls and students of color The Common Core State Standards can have an invaluable impact on girls— particularly girls of color. In kindergarten through 12th grade there are achievement gaps in math and science between girls and boys; in particular, girls of color significantly lag behind their peers. On the eighth-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress exam, a nationally representative assessment of the knowledge and skills of American students, girls are 20 percent less likely to achieve proficiency in science than boys. Strikingly, 39 percent of white girls are proficient in science, compared with just 9 percent of black girls and 13 percent of Hispanic girls. In math, the gap in proficiency between boys and girls is only 1 percent, but large race-based gaps persist. While 44 percent of white girls reach proficiency in math, just 15 percent of black girls and 20 percent of Hispanic girls reach proficiency. Girls and students of color take the Advanced Placement, or AP, exam for computer science at lower rates and pass less frequently than boys and white students. About 30,000 students took the most recent AP exam for computer science, which teaches the fundamentals of computer programming. Less than 25 percent of test-takers were girls; only 8 percent were Hispanic, and approximately 3 percent were African American. In Mississippi and Montana, no female, African American, or Hispanic students took the AP exam.11 In addition, white men passed the exam at a higher rate than women, African Americans, and Hispanics. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, is a nationally representative assessment of the knowledge and skills of American students. Students are tested periodically in math, reading, science, writing, the arts, civics, economics, geography, U.S. history, and—beginning this year—technology and engineering literacy. NAEP exams are administered uniformly across the country and provide a common metric of student performance across states and urban districts. NAEP and Common Core-aligned assessments are similarly rigorous and evaluate the knowledge and skills students need to be ready for college and the workforce. Girls are underrepresented among AP test-takers in nearly all STEM fields. In 2013, for each female student that took the Physics C exam, more than 2.5 male students took the same test. Boys took the the Physics B exam at a rate of nearly 2-to-1 compared to girls and took the Calculus BC exam at a rate of nearly 1.5-to-1 in the same year. In higher education Female students and students of color take more remedial college courses. Thirty-nine percent of female students in their first undergraduate year take a remedial course, compared with 33 percent of boys. Moreover, 31 percent of white first-year students take remedial courses, compared with 43 percent of Hispanic students and 45 percent of black students. College majors are segregated by gender. Female students are still more likely than male students to major in the social science and health care fields, while men are more likely than women to major in science, math, engineering, and computer and information sciences. Women make up 88 percent of graduates in health care fields and 81 percent of graduates in education. In engineering and engineering technology, however, women make up just 18 percent of graduates; in computer and information sciences, they make up just 19 percent. After college and beyond The pay gap between women and men is established directly after college. In 2009, college-educated women made, on average, 82 percent of men’s salaries one year after graduation. While women choose fields that pay less—such as social sciences and teaching instead of engineering and computer science—even after controlling for factors such as college major, occupation, and average hours worked, the wage gap still exists. Student-loan repayments make up a larger part of women’s earnings. Because women earn less than men do after college, student-loan repayments make up a larger part of women’s earnings. In 2009, among full-time workers repaying their loans one year after college graduation, 47 percent of women were paying more than 8 percent of their earnings toward student-loan debt; 39 percent of men were doing the same. Conclusion More engaging and challenging standards build a strong academic foundation for all students. Girls—and in particular, girls of color—have a lot to gain from more-rigorous learning standards that better prepare them for college and career success. By raising the expectations for student learning, the Common Core State Standards allow girls the opportunity to seize STEM learning opportunities while in grade school; to pursue a diverse set of college majors; and to obtain jobs that command higher salaries. The Common Core State Standards can expand on the progress girls have made since Title IX and can have a long-lasting impact on women in society. Studies Prove—STEM minority and gender gaps aren’t getting betterAbdul-Alim15 — Jamaal Abdul-Alim is an award-winning freelance journalist who covers higher education. His articles have appeared in several national newspapers and magazines, including Education Week, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal and US News & World Report. He currently serves as a Washington correspondent for Diverse Issues in Higher Education. Abdul-Alim broke into the newspaper business as a crime reporter at the old Milwaukee Sentinel while completing his undergraduate studies in print journalism at the University of Wisconsin -- Milwaukee. Since then, Abdul-Alim has gone on to win a number of journalism awards and accolades. He is a former Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan (Class of '08); and a former Spencer Education Journalism Fellow at Columbia University (Class of '14). He has won several awards from NABJ and was named 2013 Chess Journalist of the Year. ("Efforts to Close Gender, Race Gaps in STEM Not Working," No Publication, 6-30-2015, Available Online at http://diverseeducation.com/article/75927/, Accessed 7-21-2015) Despite all the time, money and effort devoted to closing racial and gender gaps in STEM fields in recent years, those gaps remain entrenched and have in some instances grown wider, according to the latest version of an interactive STEM Index released Monday. Also, a separate report released Monday by American College Testing (ACT) shows that, even though underserved students aspire to STEM fields at the same rate as the overall population, they generally lag behind the rest of the population when it comes to college readiness in math in science. Taken together, both reports add to the growing amount of research that has found America’s efforts to get more students from low-income backgrounds and minority groups motivated and prepared to work in STEM fields are coming up short. Brian Kelly, editor and chief content officer of US News & World Report, which produced the US News/Raytheon STEM Index, said the gaps stem from a variety of factors. They include a lack of awareness among parents on the importance of STEM fields—which continue to constitute the fastest areas of job growth—and an inability to bring to scale STEM education programs that work. “I think a lot of the education system can be blamed in many ways as a culprit here, too, because the way we teach these subjects is not as engaging as it needs to be,” Kelly said. “A lot of evidence says you need to teach math and science in a more hands-on practical way so kids understand ‘Why am I solving this problem,’ or ‘I’m doing this experiment because it’s about real life,’ and the education system is more focused on the abstractions.” The STEM Index published Monday by US News examines STEM activity by a variety of indicators that range from employment to degrees granted to Advanced Placement tests taken in STEM fields. The index turned up troubling gaps in several areas. For instance, the index found that: • From 2009 to 2014, the percentage of bachelor’s degrees granted to White students in STEM grew from 16.8 percent to 19.5 percent, rising every year. During the same timeframe, however, the percentage of bachelor’s degrees granted to Black students in STEM grew at a slower pace, from 12.7 percent in 2009 to 13.6 percent in 2014. • From 2000 through 2014, women at the college and graduate levels earned more STEM degrees each year, but they only kept pace—as opposed to catching up—with their male counterparts. To wit, only 6 percent of associate degrees and 13 percent of bachelor’s degrees granted to females were in a STEM field. In comparison, 20 percent of associate degrees and 28 percent of bachelor’s degrees granted to males were in STEM fields. At the graduate level, the figures were 10 percent for females and 24 percent for males. • The gender gap in engineering and technology fields is “well-formed” by high school, with just 3 percent of high school females in 2014 indicating an interest in engineering, compared to 31 percent of males. In the same year, just 2 percent of girls reported an interest in technology, while 15 percent of boys did. The gaps are troubling because they portend lack of access to employment in STEM fields, which has shown the most growth over the past decade or so. “Overall, STEM increased 20 percent since 2000, the largest increase of all the sub-indices,” the index states. The STEM jobs in demand range from petroleum engineers since “fracking” and horizontal drilling have led to the opening of more than one million new oil and gas wells, to computer-related jobs that range from programmers to systems analysts and administrators. “Clearly, we need to do more to make diversity a priority in science, technology, engineering and math fields to keep the United States competitive and the economy growing,” said Mark E. Russell, vice president of engineering, technology and mission assurance for Raytheon Company. As for the ACT report—titled “Understanding the Underserved Learner: The Condition of STEM 2014”—the report found that, even though underserved students had an interest in STEM at the same level as the overall population—nearly one out of two—they are far less likely to be adequately prepared for first-year college STEM courses. For instance, the report found that just 31 percent of underserved, STEM-interested students “met or surpassed the benchmark on the ACT math test, while only 25 percent achieved the benchmark on the science test.” Those figures compare to 43 percent and 37 percent of all 2014 ACT-tested graduates, respectively, ACT states. “Underserved students have the same STEM aspirations as others, so it’s sad to see their achievement levels so far behind,” said Jon Erickson, ACT president. “This research provides an important reminder of why it’s so important to help improve educational outcomes for students who don’t have the same access to quality resources as others.” Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 0.81 Mb. 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