While most people equate all-girls schools with white gloves and proper manners, Kathleen Bennett equates them with high self-esteem and high technology. In the fall of 1998, she plans to open the Girls' Middle School in Palo Alto, a sixth-through-eighth-grade school that will focus on math, science, and technology with the goal of shaping techno-savvy power babes.
According to a September 1997 report released by the Commerce Department, US women account for only 1.1 percent of bachelors, masters, and doctorates in computer science. In 1994, their share in the field fell to the lowest level since 1979. Bennett, a former teacher, believes that a girl-friendly environment will give adolescent girls the dose of confidence they need to spark their interest in math and science at a critical age.
"Research shows that in 4th and 5th grade, girls and boys have the same career aspirations," she says, "but many girls' self-esteem plummets in sixth grade, and they lose interest in math and science."
Why the change? When adolescent girls hit what she calls "a wall of femininity," many no longer want to compete with boys in math and science because they're afraid they will be perceived as too masculine. "Society sends very mixed messages, like 'girls can be smart, but not smarter than boys,'" she says. "Many girls feel they won't be popular if they are too aggressive."
As the mother of two daughters, the elder of which is pursuing her PhD in computer science at the University of Washington, Bennett, 52, is not unfamiliar with this crisis of self-esteem. "My daughter finds herself at a disadvantage "competing with boys who have been programming since they were 12," says Bennett.
She is not alone. According to Meg Milne Moulton of the National Coalition of Girls Schools, a resurgence in single-sex education has been spurred by both popular opinion and hard research that girls are shortchanged in coeducational classrooms, where boys are more frequently called on and intellectually challenged. The American Association of University Women released a report in 1992 entitled "How Schools Shortchange Girls." The report inspired journalist Peggy Orenstein's 1994 book, School Girls: Young Women, Self-Esteem and the Confidence Gap. Last year, California passed legislation offering US$500,000 to districts that create all-boys and all-girls academies with equal facilities.
Bennett is also not unfamiliar with the world of high tech.
"I was employee number 214 at Apple," where she worked as a writer in the technical-publications department, she says. When she married Tom Malloy, vice president of advanced technologies at Adobe, it allowed her the financial flexibility to quit her job to pursue her dream of starting her own school.
"My first love has always been education," she says. Bennett received her teaching credentials at Berkeley in 1969 and taught social studies in various public junior high schools for fours years, before the lure of a higher salary drew her to work in the high-tech industry.
Years of running in high-tech circles has connected her to some of the best-known women in Silicon Valley, who now sit on her advisory council. They include Anita Borg, a consulting engineer at Digital Equipment Corp. and founder of Systers network; Carol Bartz, CEO and chairwoman of Autodesk; Adele Goldberg, the founder of Neomettron and chairwoman and founder of ParcPlace systems; and IBM researcher Barbara Simons. "We need ways to crack through the barriers that most women face when they enter the technology world," said Borg. "In this day and age, we can't continue to accept the stereotypes about girls and math."
The council also includes numerous educators who specialize in the different ways that girls learn about math and science. One is Sheri Sheppard, a mechanical engineer at Stanford whose research has concluded that women tend to work better in project-based engineering. "Sheri's research has concluded that women tend to do better when they have a sense of the big picture and entry points," said Bennett, "So our classes will be organized to meet those needs."
"We will also hire teachers that are passionate about girls learning science," she adds. "That's a big leap forward, because most science teachers tend to have higher expectations for boys."
Other plans include a "girl-friendly" computer lab. A 1996 study by the University of British Columbia found that when interacting with technology, girls tend to work better in pairs and clusters. So the Girls' Middle School computer lab will have work stations that make it comfortable for girls to work in pairs or small groups. "There also won't be any boys around to hog the equipment," said Bennett. "My goal is to have every girl be able to program by the time they are in eighth grade."
Although there will be a strong emphasis on technology, she insists that her goal is not to create "girly geeks." "I'm just trying to ensure that if girls are interested in technical stuff, they get the support to do it," she says. "The ultimate goal is to ensure self-confidence. The girls will have special workshops in which they can openly talk about their feelings. She also plans to have her students work in teams to start their own mini-companies, in which they will create and market products.
Although she has not yet found a site for the school, Bennett has raised more than half a million dollars. Tuition will be $12,000, and she hopes to provide financial aid to 25 percent to 30 percent of her class. Bennett wishes that her school could be public and free, but under current charter school law, in order to open a single-sex girls school, you must be able to also provide equal facilities for a single sex boys school. "I'm more interested in running a school for girls," Bennett says.
In order to build a socio-economically and racially diverse student body, Bennett is working with Barbara Baryardo, a Mexican American with a PhD in education from Stanford, to organize focus groups with women of color at companies such as Hewlett Packard. "We hope these women will help us better understand how the Girls' Middle School can serve their needs," Bennett says "If Silicon Valley is to stay in the forefront of technology, we need to be able to draw on 100 percent of the pool of employees."
