Bevin education losers: women, blacks

The 1950s model of women doing clerical, low-paying jobs or staying home and of blacks being relegated to second-class status seems to be returning.

Who exactly is going to benefit from the top-heavy engineering and science public colleges? Who is going to benefit from the change of lottery education money from need-based scholarships to workforce development (otherwise known as free training for corporations)?

Unless Gov. Matt Bevin is making serious efforts to cultivate talented girls in our elementary and high schools to see that they will be accepted and made comfortable in these largely male-dominated fields, the result is going to be disastrous for women in the next generation.

The statistics are out there, as are the studies showing the subtle, and not so subtle, discouragement of girls who enjoy and want to study in these fields. The same is true for black students who once had hoped to get need-based scholarships from lottery funds.

The man who promised to disclose his taxes, then did not — a rich boy who had the luxury of studying Japanese in college, but now wants to keep higher education for his corporate cronies — has an attitude like Marie Antoinette’s: Let them eat cake.

This story was originally published February 23, 2016 at 6:42 PM with the headline "Bevin education losers: women, blacks."