A Platform for Progress: Building a Better Future for Women and Their Families: Improving Women's Education

Ensuring Equal Access to All Educational Opportunities

Far too many students across the country do not receive an equal chance at a high-quality and affordable education, and young women continue to be denied equal opportunities in many important educational programs. For example, girls today represent only 15% of students taking classes in traditionally male, and higher-paid, fields such as carpentry, masonry and welding – a statistic virtually unchanged from their representation in trade and industrial classes in 1977. That under-representation is mirrored in disciplines like the hard sciences and engineering; for example, women receive fewer than one-fifth of the bachelors' degrees awarded in engineering. Young women of color continue to lag behind white women, and men, in admissions to institutions of higher education and to face constrained educational opportunities in K-12 education. Yet Title IX, the landmark law prohibiting sex discrimination passed in 1972, has been weakened in key respects over the years.

• Restore Strong Legal Protection Under Title IX Against the Full Range of Sex Discrimination in Schools. Young women's ability to address the barriers that continue to limit their educational opportunities suffered a severe blow when the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision in the case Alexander v. Sandoval, cut back on their power to challenge a broad range of discriminatory practices, like tests that operate to screen them out of key educational opportunities. For young women and students of color to achieve true equality of educational opportunity, it is important that Congress overturn the limitation imposed by the Supreme Court to ensure that students can challenge practices that have the effect of excluding them from educational opportunities based on their race, national origin or sex. A provision doing just that is included in the Civil Rights Act of 2008, and Congress should enact that bill expeditiously.
• Expand Access for Women to Programs in Which They Are Under-Represented. Despite the significant under-representation that young women face in too many fields – and despite the particular barriers that young women of color confront in education – the Supreme Court has limited the ways in which secondary and post-secondary schools can take action to address under-representation and improve the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of their classrooms. In response, schools have cut back on proactive measures that are designed to improve opportunities for under-represented groups – even though Title IX and other anti-discrimination laws in fact allow schools to take affirmative steps to address the barriers that still exclude girls and students of color from educational opportunities. The Administration should issue guidance making clear that schools are still fully empowered under the law to take carefully structured action targeted at improving educational opportunities for under-represented groups of students, and should provide technical assistance on the ways in which such programs may be implemented. Congress should also provide incentives for schools to expand their efforts to recruit and retain students from under-represented populations and hold schools accountable – including by reporting requirements – for making progress to fully diversify their programs.
• Ensure that Young Women Have Access to Educational Opportunities Without Regard to Their Sex. Much of the under-representation that young women face in education – be it in traditionally male areas of career and technical education, athletics, or the hard sciences – results from the explicit sex segregation and stereotyping that was the norm in education for much of this country's history. This sex segregation has not only drastically limited girls' access to education based solely on their gender; it has also perpetuated damaging stereotypes about the interests, abilities and learning styles of both male and female students. But even though girls continue to battle the invidious legacy of this discrimination and sex segregation, the Department of Education in 2006 weakened long-standing Title IX regulatory protections to make it easier for schools to once again segregate male and female students, stating that schools may do so based on rank stereotype, and that these schools need not provide more than “substantially” equal education to those excluded from classes on the basis of their sex. The Administration must restore the original Title IX regulatory protections to ensure that schools are not allowed to perpetuate stereotypes and inequality.

Protecting Against Sexual Harassment

Sexual and other forms of harassment remain a pervasive problem in schools across the country. Eight in ten students in kindergarten through 12th grade report having experienced sexual harassment at some point during their school lives, and girls are at particular risk. Nearly two-thirds of college students also report being subjected to sexual harassment. The consequences of harassment are serious and damaging. For example, students report feeling emotional stress as a result of the harassment and not wanting to go to classes in which they have experienced it.

• Provide Strong Legal Protection from Harassment. Despite the prevalence of sexual harassment and its damaging impact, female students have less legal protection to rely on than do women in the workplace or than teachers or other employees in their schools. The Supreme Court seriously undermined Title IX in a pair of 5-4 decisions that so weakened students' protections that, unlike school employees, they often cannot hold their schools accountable for the harassment they have endured. Congress should restore adequate protection from harassment for students by enacting legislation that will create for students the same legal protections that apply to employees in the workplace. The Civil Rights Act of 2008 would provide these protections and should be enacted promptly.

Leveling the Playing Field for Girls' Athletics Participation

Despite the tremendous gains in opportunities for young women in athletics, they still lack equal opportunities to participate in sports – and lack equal treatment when they are allowed to play. High school girls receive only 41% of the opportunities to play competitive sports in their schools, and their teams are too often subjected to inequities in facilities, fields, equipment and school support. When they reach college, young women face similar problems, compounded by receiving only 45% of athletics scholarships and 33% of the recruiting dollars spent by colleges and universities.

• Require Information Collection to Identify Gender Discrepancies in High School Athletics. To ensure that discrimination can be identified and resolved, high schools should be required to collect, and annually report, data on the gender breakdown of their athletics programs and the treatment of girls' and boys' teams. The Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act requires the collection and reporting of similar information at the college level, and it is time that similar attention was focused on the nation's high schools. Providing access to data that enables advocates and the public to assess gender equity in the nation's high schools is a first step toward holding schools accountable for violations of the law.
• Restore Title IX Protections. In March 2005, the Department of Education issued guidelines that significantly weakened schools' obligations to provide equal opportunities to their male and female students to participate in sports. Under the so-called “Additional Clarification,” the Department authorized schools to rely on a single e-mail survey to evaluate their female students' interest in participation opportunities and to interpret non-responses to the survey as evidence of lack of interest. This Additional Clarification created a damaging loophole in a school's responsibility to ensure that it is accommodating the athletics interest and abilities of its female students. The Department should rescind it immediately; if it does not, Congress should take the requisite steps to ensure that the Clarification, which is inconsistent with Title IX, has no legal force or effect.

Ensuring Full Enforcement of the Anti-Discrimination Laws

Although all federal grant-making agencies are charged with the responsibility to enforce Title IX in educational programs and activities that they fund, their enforcement activity has in the past been woefully inadequate to ensure that recipients of federal aid end discrimination.

• Strengthen Enforcement Efforts by Government Agencies. Statistics demonstrate the government's failure to adequately enforce the law. For example, the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights – the primary Title IX enforcement agency – conducted only a single compliance review of schools' athletics programs during the period between 2002 and 2006. And the Government Accountability Office found in a study released in 2004 that three of the federal agencies that make grants for scientific research had failed to undertake any reviews of their grantees' compliance with Title IX's requirements for math and science educational programs. These agencies should take basic proactive steps to enforce the laws, including by initiating systemic investigations where appropriate, and the President and Congress should fully fund these enforcement efforts.

Reducing School Dropouts

Recent research by the National Women's Law Center has shown that an alarming number of girls are dropping out of high school and that these female dropouts are at particular economic risk compared to their male counterparts. An estimated one in four female students does not graduate with a regular high school diploma in the standard, four-year time period. The rates are even worse for female students of color. Nationwide, 37% of Hispanic, 40% of Black, and 50% of American Indian or Alaskan Native female students respectively failed to graduate in four years in 2004. While all high school dropouts pay significant costs for their lack of education, economic costs are particularly steep for women, who face especially limited employment prospects, low earnings potential, poor health status, and the need to rely on public support programs.

• Include Dropout Prevention Programs Tailored to the Needs of Girls. Available evidence shows that gender influences both the reasons for, and the most effective responses to, the dropout crisis. For example, studies have found that low attendance rates, the impact of sexual harassment and academic concerns – although relevant for both boys and girls – can be more significant factors for some groups of girls than for boys when deciding whether to drop out. Congress should authorize and fund research on gender-based differentials in the risks for dropping out, and should ensure that all research that is done to evaluate the effects of prevention strategies assesses those impacts separately on boys and girls of all races and ethnicities.
• Hold Schools Accountable for Monitoring Dropout Trends. Congress should adopt a uniform definition of graduation rates, hold schools accountable for raising these rates, and mandate that all data collected to monitor students' academic progress, including performance on tests and graduation rates, be cross-tabulated to allow evaluation of refined subgroups of students.
• Target Programs to Pregnant and Parenting Students. One-third of female dropouts reported in a recent survey that pregnancy and parenting responsibilities were a major factor in their decisions to leave school. At the same time, pregnant and parenting students are the group of dropouts who were most likely to say they would have worked harder if their schools had demanded more of them and provided the necessary support. Congress should enact legislation to support this group of students, including requiring comprehensive sexuality education and supporting other effective pregnancy prevention mechanisms; mandating that schools track the academic progress of pregnant and parenting students; and funding programs that would provide enhanced supports for these students, such as on-site child care, home-based instruction, transportation to school locations more conveniently located to child-care options, and coordinated referrals to out-of-school service providers. The Department of Education should also issue guidance informing schools of their responsibilities to avoid discrimination on the basis of pregnancy and parenting status and take proactive enforcement steps to ensure that schools meet these legal requirements.

Ensuring Adequate Funding for Education at All Levels

All students, at every level of education, are entitled to access to a high-quality education. And yet, funding to provide these educational opportunities has been woefully inadequate. Local education grants under Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act have been under-funded since enactment, thus depriving low-income and at-risk students of desperately needed funds, including for programs for children before they enter kindergarten. The purchasing power of Pell grants – the major federal program providing financial aid for students pursuing higher education – has declined substantially over the last two decades, at a time when college costs are rising dramatically.

• Fully Fund Title I of No Child Left Behind. The President should include in his budget, and Congress should authorize and appropriate, the monies necessary to ensure full funding of Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act, thus promoting a vital goal of the legislation to improve educational opportunities for low-income and at-risk students.
• Provide Students the Funds They Need to Pursue Higher Education. Higher education is particularly important for women, who make up a majority of undergraduate students. Because women are paid less than men to perform the same work, women need some college education to earn as much, on average, as male high school dropouts. For these reasons, it is critical for the President and Congress to work together to provide the financial support necessary for low-income students to pursue post-secondary education. Among other things, the President should budget for, and Congress should fund, the Perkins Loan program and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, as well as increase the maximum amounts of Pell grants. Congress should also enact the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act, which would make certain children of undocumented immigrants eligible for federal and state financial aid for higher education.
• Support Educational Opportunities for Nontraditional Students. Nontraditional students – those who are attending school part-time, are working, are older, or are parenting – face particular challenges in financing, and completing, a college education. For example, many federal loan programs require students to be enrolled on at least a half-time basis to receive aid, thus precluding financing for nontraditional students who take only a limited number of classes at a time. Congress should restructure student aid and loan programs to eliminate these types of barriers to the receipt of aid by nontraditional students. In addition, Congress and the Administration should adopt programs to meet the needs of nontraditional students, such as by funding on-campus childcare and providing mentoring and support services.