Five Questions for Beatriz Chu Clewell

Beatriz Chu Clewell, director of the Program for Evaluation and Equity Research (PEER) and principal research associate in the Urban Institute's Education Policy Center, is a leading expert on breaking barriers to move more women and underrepresented minorities into the science and technology workforce. Her recent journal article, "Taking Stock: Where We've Been, Where We Are, Where We're Going," traces women's progress in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology over the past decade. She is also an author of a 2005 review of mathematics and science curricula and professional development models for middle- and high-school levels proven effective in increasing student achievement.

STEM is science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Sometimes it's referred to as SET, especially when it's linked to the workforce. You hear SET workforce used a lot.

Women and minorities — and I'm referring to underrepresented minorities (Hispanics, African-Americans, and American Indians) — are lacking in the SET fields. Asians are over represented and so are white males. If we look at workforce composition, whites make up about 75 percent of it, but they comprise 81 percent of SET. African Americans are 11 percent of the entire workforce, but only 4 percent of the SET workers. Hispanics, also at 11 percent, only represent 3 percent of the science and engineering field. For Asians, it's 4 percent of the workforce and 11 percent of science and engineering. Women, at almost half of the workforce, are only 19 percent of those working in science and engineering.

So why do we want to increase the participation of these underrepresented groups? For one, we're losing talent. Science and engineering really contribute to this country's preeminence in the world and its competitive edge. These fields are very vulnerable to talent deficiency. So by losing the contributions that women and underrepresented minorities could make to the talent pool in science, we really are losing a lot. Several reports by the business community document this problem.

Another reason to encourage more women and minorities to enter these fields is our dangerous reliance on foreign-born workers. A large percentage of our present SET workforce is made up of foreigners. For example, almost 40 percent of all PhDs in science and engineering were born abroad. We've brought some of them in on H-1B visas for professionals and many have stayed in the U.S. after completing graduate degrees here. But in the last three years, the application rates of foreign-born students to graduate programs in science and engineering fields have gone down. This is happening for several reasons—one of them is 9/11, of course.

Meanwhile, the college-age population is being made up more and more of underrepresented minorities and women who don't traditionally go into the sciences. The white males who long dominated the sciences are no longer entering at the same rate. The science and engineering workforce is shrinking because of retirements at a time when that sector of the workforce is expanding much more rapidly than other sectors.

There is also the social justice argument. These are jobs that usually pay well. Women and minorities should not be excluded from having access to these jobs by the conditions of society.

So you have a confluence of forces that really could create a problem. The U.S. could wind up with a very serious shortage of skilled science workers, and that could threaten the economy.

2. Why have these fields been mostly dominated by men?

In many cases, it is the perception that only men should be doing these jobs. Remember Shakespearean England, where only men were actors? Medicine and law were traditionally male-dominated fields too until women showed that they could do it, and now medical schools are almost half women. Women are in the majority in law schools at this point.

I certainly think about [Harvard President] Larry Summers and the reasons he gave for why women are not in the sciences. One is that women are the ones who give birth and provide most of the care giving, so they don't have as much time to contribute to a scientific career. His second, of course, was that women are genetically unsuited. Third was that there are barriers.

I definitely don't buy his first two arguments. But women and certain minorities definitely do face barriers to participating in science and engineering.

3. What are the barriers to participation in STEM for women and underrepresented minorities?

The barriers are different for women and for minorities. Women have all the qualifications to enter science and engineering by the time they finish high school. Many have taken advanced math courses. They didn't use to, but thanks to [Title IX] reforms initiated in 1972, women are now taking high-level math courses and AP [advanced placement] courses—calculus, physics, etc. And they are doing almost as well as men on the quantitative portion of the SATs. Upon graduation from high school, they're really poised to enter math and science in college. But they're not majoring in those fields. Those who do choose a science major in college persist and graduate at a greater rate then men. So it's not that they can't do it. They can, but they're not choosing to.

Things are not equal yet. The pressures on women are so great in these fields and the environment is hostile. Women take a look at it and think, "I could be a lawyer. Why would I want to subject myself to this?"

The case for minorities is different. They do not have access yet to high-quality education. Study after study shows that minorities are educationally segregated, virtually if not legally. We also know that schools with high minority enrollment have fewer teachers who are qualified to teach math and science. Minorities take fewer advanced courses and graduate at lower rates. Entry into college is lower, especially for Hispanics.

However, when whites and minorities are asked about going into sciences, they generally respond positively at the same rate. So women are ready but don't want to go into science; minorities are not ready but do want to go into science, so that when underrepresented minorities become science majors, they drop out at a greater rate than whites and Asians.

4. What is being done at the middle- and high-school levels to increase student achievement in math and science?

In the last 20 years, there have been numerous efforts to improve math and science education. Test results show that our third and fourth graders are doing okay on international tests like TIMSS (Third International Mathematics and Science Study), where they score above the mean. Our eighth graders are also above the mean. It is the 12th graders who are in trouble. But elementary school is where the school reform movement has concentrated. I think that says something.

In the last few years, we've had the school reform movement, and we've had the standards movement that has homed in on math and science. The national math standards were established by NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics) in the 80s and the science standards were issued in the 90s by Project 2061 and the National Research Council. We really are seeing a movement, not only to establish standards, but also to align the curriculum and instructions to those standards.

There is also the movement to improve teacher quality. Plus, we have the National Science Foundation's incredible effort to improve and develop science curriculum, based on the inquiry method of instruction. NSF has also done a yeoman's job of promoting systemic school reform in science and mathematics education at the state and district levels.

5. Why is it important to evaluate the curriculum being taught?

Few school districts really know how effective a curriculum is when they adopt it. Typically, a committee decides what gets taught and makes this decision at the district level, sometimes at the state level. But often it's the textbook companies bringing in samples of textbooks (sometimes state-approved) and the teachers selecting from among them.

Very rarely are decisions made based on how effective the textbooks have been for the kids in that specific district. Not only do these curricula have to be effective, they have to be effective for the kids attending the district's schools. And most of the time effectiveness data are just not available for curricula.

In our curricula review and the related evaluations, we found that very few of the curricula had been evaluated. We looked at middle- and high-school math curricula and found that, of 89 math curricula, only 18 had been evaluated. Those 18 had had multiple evaluations, and they were published, usually in journals.

For science curricula, our findings were different. Of the 80 science curricula that we reviewed, maybe 20 or 21 had been rigorously evaluated. And in the case of science, many curricula had only one evaluation and few had been published. We had to get the evaluation reports from the developers, who were mostly academics. Most had not had time to publish the results of the evaluations, though they had collected the data.

Textbook companies do not usually collect data on effectiveness of the curricula. Their data is on who uses the books.

I don't know how we can get more developers to evaluate curricula. Having the school districts require evaluation data before they adopt curricula would encourage this. Districts should also be encouraged to collect effectiveness data on the curricula they are using, but they may not have the expertise or the money to do it.