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Bio-ITEST Press Release

Ask Education Secretary Arne Duncan

On Tuesday, September 15, at 8pm ET, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will be holding a national town hall meeting as part of his “Listening and Learning: A Conversation about Education Reform” tour. This tour is in anticipation of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as the No Child Left Behind Act.

Parents, students, educators, and concerned citizens from across the country can participate in the discussion about education reform via telephone and web access. AAUW encourages you to submit a question and be a part of this important process to shape federal education policy. A list of sample questions you can use is below.

Take Action!
Watch the town hall meeting on Tuesday night. You can ask a question during the program by calling in to 888-493-9382, or you can submit your question in advance via the Department of Education’s blog. If you’re not able to tune in Tuesday night, you can watch an archived webcast after the event.

Sample questions you can use:

1. Women and girls are traditionally underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. In order to correct this imbalance, do you believe the Elementary and Secondary Schools Act (ESEA) should be amended to include science as a required area of assessment to better identify opportunities to improve girls’ exposure to and achievement in these fields?

2. Girls comprise 49 percent of the high school population, yet they receive only 41 percent of all athletic participation opportunities, amounting to 1.3 million fewer participation opportunities than male high school athletes. In order to ensure compliance with Title IX and provide girls with equal athletic opportunities, do you support requiring high schools to report basic data on the number of female and male students in their athletic programs and the expenditures made for their sports teams?

3. According to studies, eighty-three percent of girls and 79 percent of boys reported having experienced sexual harassment, and over one in four students stated that harassment happens often. More recent research shows that bullying affects nearly one in three American school children in grades six through ten. What steps is the Department of Education taking to combat this problem?

4. It is important to hold schools accountable for demonstrating that they are meeting educational goals. However, it is both problematic and discriminatory to rely on tests as the sole indicator of student progress. Do you believe ESEA should include provisions encouraging the use of multiple measures of student achievement? If so, what other measures would you deem acceptable for measuring student achievement?

5. Over the past several years, many attempts – some of them successful – have been made to weaken public education by diverting public funds to private or religious elementary and secondary schools through various voucher funding schemes. Morally and economically, such programs fly in the face of our nation’s commitment to public education. Moreover, since private and religious schools are not required to observe federal nondiscrimination laws, such as Title IX, vouchers put our students’ civil rights are at risk. Does the Department of Education stand by the idea that our country should provide an excellent education for all children, rather than private school vouchers for a few?

For more information on AAUW’s position on the reauthorization of the ESEA, read our Federal Policy Agenda.

This webinar will focus on current research findings related to youth motivation and STEM career development. Join us to hear from ITEST projects working across the U.S. and learn specific strategies for as well as successes and challenges with fostering and assessing youth motivation and STEM career interest. The presentation will additionally include project-level findings of youth’s development in these areas.

How to join the webinars:
Tel: 1-866-705-2554
Participant Passcode: 417097#

The URL is: http://learningtimes.mmalliance.acrobat.com/lrc/
Note: Select “Enter as a Guest” and type your name and click “Enter Room”

Moderator: Sarita Pillai, NSF ITEST Learning Resource Center, Education Development Center, Inc.

With a focus on student/youth diversity, this webinar highlighted specific strategies, successes and challenges related to engaging these diverse learners in STEM education and the workforce.

• What are the gender specific and/or culturally relevant strategies that nurture interest and support persistence in engagement with STEM for specific sub-populations of youth?
• What do the career development frameworks and models look like for these sub-populations?
• Who are the influencers of youth, within each sub-population and in general? How do we educate them about educational and career opportunities in STEM in ways that will increase access to these opportunities for all youth?

Participants who joined this webinar to learned from ITEST projects working across the U.S., in both urban and rural communities and with youth of varying race, ethnicity, SES, English-language proficiency, and gender.

This webinar was hosted by the NSF ITEST Learning Resource Center at Education Development Center, Inc

ACCESS THE WEBINAR ARCHIVE:
http://learningtimes.mmalliance.acrobat.com/p15838641/

Please feel free to share this archive with your colleagues.