Making Advancement Add Up;

Program Sharpens Women's Skills
Making Advancement Add Up


As with too many 8th-grade girls, it was the algebra that stumped her.

The Chief-Leader/Adrienne Haywood-James DOING THE MATH: Vivian Williams Shine (left) tells Access For Women director Nona Smith that she wants to take the introductory math class to pass a college entrance exam. She intends to move from being a receptionist to becoming a nurse, which could double her salary. "Back in the day, my passion was bookkeeping, but I had a problem with algebra," Noelia Garcia said. "I passed it by the skin of my teeth. This is my second chance at learning it."

Aiming Higher

Ms. Garcia was one of about a dozen women who registered last week for a free, basic math class at the Access for Women program, which provides training to allow women to enter traditionally male-dominated fields.

It took Ms. Garcia more than three years on a state civil service list to get her job as a timekeeper at the Fulton Correctional Facility in The Bronx, and now she is looking for a better-paying position. "There are math portions on the exams that I need to take," she explained. "I want to move up."

Access For Women offers the math classes because, director Nona Smith says, it is often a fear of math that prevents women from entering technical fields, where jobs pay more than "pink-collar" professions such as child care, reception and retail. But Access does not stop at math. Women can also take courses in electronics and building maintenance.

"Women are amazed at how simple and easy these things are," said Ms. Smith, who taught math for 14 years in the city's public schools, "and how many transferable skills they have. They are fixing things in the home; they are managing household budgets. They can master this."

Salary Increase

But the classes can lead to more than improved self-esteem. A construction trades worker in the metropolitan area makes about $54,500, and electricians bring in about $64,000, according to Federal Government statistics.

One of the women in the math class, who is currently a home-health aide, said she needed the course to help her pass a test to become a pharmaceutical technician. The average salary for a home health aide is about $20,400, while pharmaceutical technicians make about $28,500.

Ms. Smith believes that most of the barriers for women come from socialization. Her program also offers skills classes to 6th-to-9th-grade girls. "We have courses we call measurements and problem-solving," she said. "They are really physics and math. We just don't call it that, and the girls do quite well."

'You Use Math Every Day'

Ms. Smith's confidence in her pupils' ability to learn math had the group of visibly uncomfortable women grinning and nodding by the end of class. She reminded them that for most people, skills such as driving a car are only hard until they have gained the necessary knowledge.

"Is there anyone who doesn't spend money?" she asked the women, who laughed in response. "Then you use math every day." She spoke about the process of seeing something on sale, figuring out how much money you have and how much you are going to spend. "When you do this, you are addressing an unknown, which is algebraic thinking," she explained.

Access For Women, which is housed at the New York City College of Technology, has had to survive a series of budget cuts over the past several years. Until 1999, it was funded by the Job Training Partnership Act, and provided not only electronics, building-trades training and job placement, but also driving instruction, physical fitness, and courses on how to get a job and thrive in a mostly male workplace.

JTPA was replaced by the Workforce Investment Act, which meant that programs were reimbursed based on benchmarks. Access could get so much money for a certain number of people registered, graduated, and placed in jobs. But the programs had to come up with the money up front, and got reimbursed later. That forced Access to cut back on many of its programs and charge some participants tuition.

Parks, MTA Partners

Still, there are scholarships available, and Ms. Smith has convinced the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to partner with her to provide an electronics course this fall.

An agreement with the Human Resources Administration and the Parks Department has allowed her to offer a 15-week construction and building maintenance training course to Work Experience Program participants. The students learn to build a room, put up sheet-rock and receive general maintenance training. Parks officials then help to place graduates in city agencies or with private companies.

At the end of the introductory math class, Vivian Williams Shine was beaming. A receptionist at Long Island College Hospital, she had taken an exam to enter a City University of New York nursing program two years ago. She passed the test, but failed the math portion. She was told she would have to retake the entire exam. "I got discouraged," she recalled.

Then she saw a flyer for Access when she was dropping off her daughter at a Fresh Air Fund camp. "I said to my family, 'Just give me this one thing, just two nights a week; this is the thing that's holding me back,''' she said.

Made Her a Believer

Ms. Shine said that Ms. Smith made her believe she could learn the math she needed. "I am on a $4-a-day budget for my family," she said, "and I figure out every day how to make that stretch. I felt like she was speaking right to me."

Receptionists on average make about $27,500, but licensed practical nurses average more than $45,500.

Ms. Shine said she would return in September to begin the decimals and percentages class. "I'm finally doing this," she said. "You have no idea what this means to me."