Amplify Her® Foundation recognizes that the classroom is where girls' futures are forged—where their curiosity is unleashed and their confidence ignited. This environment is particularly vital to create a pipeline where girls are trained in both the hard and soft skills necessary for success. Amplify Her® Foundation believes that building the next generation of powerful women leaders begins with expanding funding allocation for STEM career development. Comprehensive STEM education offers girls lifelong access to high wage and high growth industries of the future, where they can build socioeconomic agency in fields where they have been historically excluded. Additionally, girls must be equipped with the interpersonal skills necessary for leadership across industries. This preparation can be achieved through the development of gender equity curricula, providing girls with the skills, knowledge, and societal context for success.
Improve access to and retention in early STEM education training, designed for girls
Implementation Strategy: Collaborate with City Hall and the New York City Department of Education to develop, fund, and enhance STEM programs tailored specifically for girls, leveraging shared expertise and programming insights.
Ensuring that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are wholly integrated throughout primary and secondary education can significantly broaden professional opportunities for girls by strengthening their candidacy in high-wage and high-growth industries. Despite this, tailored opportunities for girls to explore these fields in the public education system are limited. Our focus groups with grantee partners revealed how early and consistent exposure to STEM in supportive learning environments can significantly and positively impact girls' confidence and lasting career aspirations in STEM fields.
To improve access to and retention in early STEM education, advocates can collaborate with City Hall and the New York City Department of Education to develop, fund, and enhance STEM programs tailored specifically for girls, leveraging shared expertise and programming insights.
Multiple New York City initiatives broadly support STEM education for New York City students under the New York City Department of Education’s Office of Student Pathways. The Office of Student Pathways aligns school curriculum, instruction, and operations to ensure that all students graduate with necessary professional skills, experience, and career planning to foster long-term economic security. Initiatives that could support girls’ access to STEM education include the ‘Computer Science for All’ initiative and FutureReadyNYC programming. The Computer Science for All Initiative aims to ensure that all New York City public school students gain skills in computer science, with an emphasis on supporting girls. FutureReadyNYC is a pilot program that provides New York City public high school students with career exploration opportunities in high-growth, high-wage fields such as healthcare, technology, business, and education. This support is offered through personalized advising on professional growth, career-based learning for workforce readiness, and financial literacy education to empower personal financial freedom.
Other local, public sector teams and agencies are beginning to prioritize girls’ access to STEM education as well, such as the NYC Her Future program under New York City’s Women Forward Initiative. NYC Her Future aims to address disparities faced by young women of color in education, employment, justice, and health, by equipping them with tools necessary for personal success. As part of this mandate, NYC Her Future plans to implement The STEAM Pipeline program which will provide career exposure and access through mentorship opportunities, educational enrichment activities, and academic support. The pipeline will also offer relevant professional development for school communities and educators to increase the opportunities for students to engage with rigorous STEM subjects, such as Calculus, Statistics, AP Physics, and AP Computer Science. The program will additionally foster a network for participants throughout their engagement.
These initiatives and programs can augment existing STEM education in public schools by offering interventions uniquely designed for girls. However, this work is currently limited in scope and scale due to funding limitations. As such, advocates can directly encourage the Department of Education’s Office of Student Pathways to increase allocated funding for girls’ STEM programs across primary and secondary public education, with particular emphasis on programs at the primary level to ensure girls’ early exposure to STEM. Advocacy to the New York City Mayor’s Office to ensure that Women Forward and Her Future remain central policy investments also supports this.
Advocate for mandatory gender equity curricula in New York City public schools
Implementation Strategy: Engage the New York City Department of Education and New York State Department of Education to develop, improve, and integrate gender equity curricula into New York City public school curricula.
Early education focused on gender equity is essential for instilling values of self-confidence, self-respect, equity, and equality in girls and young women. While gender equity topics are sporadically integrated into health education or civics curricula, a more comprehensive and intersectional approach is needed. Our research findings underscored the importance of beginning gender equity education early to directly counter gender-based stereotyping and discrimination, and promote inclusivity. Focus group participants emphasized the need for engaging, age-specific materials that can be integrated into existing curricula.
To expand students’ comprehension of gender equity in New York City, advocates can engage the New York City Department of Education and New York State Department of Education to develop, improve, and integrate gender equity curricula in public schools at primary and secondary levels.
Currently, the New York City Department of Education (DOE) offers Guidelines on Gender Inclusion to mandate and maintain a safe and supportive learning and educational environment in public schools. They offer a precedent for future learning materials that encourage girls’ intrinsic self-confidence and leadership. These resources hold immense potential for positive impact if they are integrated into central civics, health education, and social studies coursework.
Advocates interested in supporting the creation and integration of gender equity curricula in core subject areas can target advocacy efforts at the New York City Department of Education, the body with authority to approve public school curricula. Such curricula could be developed through partnerships between the DOE and local nonprofit organizations successfully supporting girls’ leadership through auxiliary educational programming.
