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A Message from the Co-Presidents: Kathryn Brown & Amy Bisek

The January 8^th STEM conference at Mt. San Jacinto College is a wrap and the February 25^th STEM conference at the University of Redlands is just a month away.

One of the downsides of serving as co-presidents this year is that we have had to step back from our recent years of STEM Committee participation to become observers as we watch this year’s STEM Conference Committee (very competently) forge ahead without us.

AAUW Redlands developed its STEM Conference in the mid-1990s as a result of two significant events: (1) The 1992 AAUW study, “Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America”, showed that although boys and girls started out equal in our national education system, girls wound up behind in most areas by high school,  especially in the  areas of math, science and sports; and (2) In April 1993, a group of AAUW Redlands members attended a conference put on by the Palm Springs branch of AAUW, which focused on gender roles in the classroom. Inspired by these events, AAUW Redlands soon came up with a plan of action and the AAUW Redlands Math-Science Conference for 8th Grade Girls (now re-named The AAUW STEM Conference for 8th Grade Girls) came to be. 2026 will mark our 32nd conference year.

Every year, post-conference evaluations received from attending students, school staff, and volunteers alike consistently report a high level of conference satisfaction. Year after year, AAUW Redlands members encounter local residents who recount their own (or their daughter’s or granddaughter’s) positive conference experiences.

In 2017, while preparing to celebrate our 2018 25th conference anniversary, a few of us remarked (only partly in jest) that we were “looking forward to the day when we could cancel the conference” because girls were no longer lagging behind boys in their math classes.

The Associated Press has recently analyzed data from the Stanford Education Data Archive and found that in the decade before the pandemic struck, girls had overtaken boys’ scores in math and finally closed the long-standing gender gap in that gateway subject. Then the pandemic struck, and math scores dipped across the board in its wake, but girls’ scores dropped far more precipitously and have continued to remain lower than boys’.

Similar results hold true in California. Girls had higher math scores in 62% of California districts in 2018-19, but only 4% in 2023-24. Locally, RUSD and YCJUSD math scores for 8th graders echoed that trend: for the first time, in 2015, RUSD 8th grade girls tested equal to the boys in math performance, and that year, YCJUSD girls surpassed the boys by an impressive 9 point margin! The RUSD girls continued to increase their test scores faster and had progressed beyond the boys by 7 points as of 2018-19; in YCJUSD, by 2018-19, the girls were still ahead of the boys by 3 points. And then what happened after the pandemic?

Studies have indicated that girls reported higher levels of anxiety and depression during the pandemic, plus more caretaking burdens than boys, but there isn’t much data to explain why the math gender gap reopened, and math experts worry that we won’t ever know. The current administration has slashed education research programs, and federal funds for professional development have also dried up, which will make it harder to address any achievement gaps.

While standardized math testing does not begin to tell the entire story, it is an important and easily available measure of progress over time. We’re hopeful that the gender differences in math testing performance will soon (again!) disappear. Meanwhile, we at AAUW Redlands have observed over the years that our STEM conference benefits go well beyond impacting academic achievement to also enhance students’ self-esteem, mutual respect, motivation, and an awareness of how essential STEM knowledge is for 21st century career advancement. Our conferences also provide an important opportunity for our members and other volunteers to experience the joy and camaraderie of working together for the benefit of our community.
We’ll see you at the conference on February 25!

Kathryn & Amy
Co-Presidents, AAUW Redlands Branch