New K-12 Alliance Debuts, to Influence Girls to Enter Computing Professions
-- School Library Journal, 6/28/2007 10:21:00 AM
A new K-12 alliance will seek to reverse the trend of fewer women entering computing fields. The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) says that its NCWIT K-12 Alliance—a consortium of 19 organizations—will work on issues such as the visibility of women's contributions to computing and information technology, and the removal of barriers to their participation in the field.
"In the next seven years, women will account for more than half the nation's workforce," says Lucy Sanders, CEO and co-founder of Boulder, CO-based NCWIT. "If U.S. companies wish to maintain their competitive advantage in IT-related fields, they cannot afford to miss out on the input of half the population."
Government figures predict that more than one million computing jobs will be added to the workforce by 2014. Yet surveys by the Higher Education Research Institute show an 80 percent decline, between 1996 and 2005, in the number of incoming undergraduate women indicating an interest in computer science. Only 26 percent of current IT workers in the United States are women, says the Department of Labor.
The new K-12 Alliance, launched at this week's National Educational Computing Conference in Atlanta, released, as its first project, a resource kit titled "Gotta Have IT." The package, available online contains posters, career information, digital media, and other materials for classroom teachers. While applicable to both boys and girls, the kit pays particular attention to girls.
The Alliance's 19 groups range from corporations like Apple Computer, Avaya, and Bank of America to the Computer Science Teachers Association and other educational groups and community organizations, including Girl Scouts of the USA and Girls Inc.
Ruthe Farmer, the Girl Scouts' project manager for technology and engineering education--as well as the K-12 Alliance co-chair--speaks passionately about the need for educational emphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering, math).
Indeed, one of the Scouts' four program focus areas is STEM, Farmer says. That focus is based on the 7-million member organization's goal to give more girls access to lucrative professions and to encourage them to contribute to the design of technology "so that it serves everyone."
