The Young Women's Leadership Charter School of Chicago opened its doors in August 2000, as part of an effort to provide better education for disadvantaged young women on the South Side of Chicago. The charter school focuses on teaching math, science and technology - in response to statistics showing women are underrepresented in these fields. The YWLCS runs from seventh through grade twelve; providing a single sex education meant to ameliorate Gender Inequities in the Classroom (WikiEd).
The school is diverse, drawing from many neighborhoods including Bridgeport, the South Side of Chicago, but also the west and southwest sides of the city. As a charter school, it admits applicants by random lottery. Approximately 96% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, the nationally accepted indicator of poverty level in schools.
First located on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus, YWLCS has since moved into its own building nearby. Their first class graduated in June 2004; media personality Oprah Winfrey was the guest speaker. In 2005, the guest speaker at graduation was Michelle Obama.
The YWLCS founders drew inspiration from The Young Women's Leadership School of East Harlem, and the school maintains a loose affiliation with the network of Young Women's Leadership Foundation schools (TWYLS). Another TYWLS network school, The Young Women's Leadership School of Queens (New York) opened in September 2005, in the Jamaica neighborhood with a register of 81 students, under the leadership of new principal Avionne Gumbs.
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“Young women ... you are, in my opinion, disgracefully ignorant. You have never made a discovery of any sort of importance. You have never shaken an empire or led an army into battle. The plays by Shakespeare are not by you, and you have never introduced a barbarous race to the blessings of civilization. What is your excuse?”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“Every one knows about the young man who falls in love with the chorus-girl because she can kick his hat off, and his sister’s friends can’t or won’t. But the youth who marries her, expecting that all her departures from convention will be as agile or as delightful to him as that, is still the classic example of folly.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“General McLaidlaw: Lena will never marry. She’s not the marrying sort. I see no reason to worry. There’s enough to care for her for the rest of her life.
Mrs. McLaidlaw: I suppose you’re right, dear. I’m afraid she is rather spinsterish.
General McLaidlaw: What’s wrong with that. The old maid’s a respectable institution. All women are not alike. Lena has intellect and a fine solid character.”
—Samson Raphaelson (1896–1983)
“The liberal wing of the feminist movement may have improved the lives of its middle- and upper-class constituency—indeed, 1992 was the Year of the White Middle Class Woman—but since the leadership of this faction of the feminist movement has singled out black men as the meta-enemy of women, these women represent one of the most serious threats to black male well-being since the Klan.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“When Britain first, at Heaven’s command,
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of her land,
And guardian angels sung the strain:
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!
Britons never shall be slaves.”
—James Thomson (1700–1748)
“The future is built on brains, not prom court, as most people can tell you after attending their high school reunion. But you’d never know it by talking to kids or listening to the messages they get from the culture and even from their schools.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)
“Must we really see Chicago in order to be educated?”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)