Why Women Should Vote: To Ensure Everyone Gets A Good Education!

A good education is the key to economic opportunity.  The next Congress will determine how our nation’s education system will be reformed and if it will be improved.  By voting, women can make sure their leaders in Washington make education a priority and fight for changes that will help all students to succeed.

Students don’t get the same protection from harassment in school – including bullying – that their teachers receive.

• Schools don’t have the same legal obligation to protect students from harassment that they have to protect employees.  Efforts to make sure students get as much protection as the adults who are charged with educating them have not passed in Congress.

Girls are dropping out of high school at alarming rates and face extreme economic consequences as a result.

• Over 25% of girls fail to graduate with a high school diploma in four years – if at all – and the rates are far worse for Black, Latina, and Native American girls.
• Far too many of those who do graduate are not prepared for college or careers.
• Girls who drop out are even more likely than their male counterparts to be unemployed and earn significantly lower wages than male dropouts if they do have jobs; as a result, they are more likely than male dropouts to need to rely on public support programs to provide for their families.

Pregnant and parenting students are being ignored and pushed out of high school instead of supported in their efforts to succeed.

• Nearly 3 in 10 girls in the U.S. get pregnant at least once before age 20.  Pregnant and parenting students are particularly likely to drop out, and far too many schools discriminate against them, discouraging them from continuing their education or creating barriers that push them out of school.  When these girls cannot continue their education, they and their children are put on a path to poverty.
• When schools create programs to help pregnant and parenting girls stay in school, they equip girls for college or careers.  But schools need resources to create these programs, resources that are scarcer than ever in today’s economic climate.

Public education remains inadequately funded.

• Programs aimed at closing achievement gaps – particularly in high schools – have always been woefully underfunded.  One in ten U.S. high schools are “dropout factories,” meaning they lose more than 40% of their students between 9th and 12th grades.
• Because of the economic downturn, states have had to make particularly severe cuts in education budgets.  While, Congress recently passed legislation to avoid widespread teacher layoffs, it funded this program by taking funds out of Food Stamp benefits.  Hunger harms the ability of students from low-income families to learn.

In the current economy, a college education is more important than ever in order for women to close the wage gap with men.

• Women with a high school diploma earn only 73% of what men with a high school diploma earn.  But women who have recently graduated from college have been able to shrink that gap, making 79% of what recent male college graduates earn.
• A college education is especially important for women trying to move into high-skill, high-wage fields traditionally dominated by men.
• In the face of high unemployment rates, more people are returning to school to retrain, and more students will need financial aid.  But the cost of college has increased significantly, and Pell grants – an important source of federal financial aid – have not kept pace. 

If women vote, Washington will listen.
REGISTER. VOTE.

The National Women’s Law Center is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that has been working to advance and protect women’s legal rights since 1972.  NWLC takes no position on candidates or elections, and nothing herein should be construed as an endorsement of any candidate or party.