IBM ought to engage high schools to train young people on the system i!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120476410964115117.html
High Schools Add Classes Scripted by Corporations Lockheed, Intel Fund
Engineering Courses;
Creating a Work Force
<snip>
Companies that employ engineers, fearful of a coming labor shortage, are
at the movement's forefront. Lockheed Martin Corp. began funding
engineering courses two years ago at schools near its aircraft testing
and development site in Palmdale, Calif., saying it hopes to replenish
its local work force. Starting in 2004, British engine-maker Rolls-Royce
PLC has helped fund high-school courses in topics such as engine
propulsion. Intel Corp. supports curricula in school districts where
engineering concepts are taught as early as the elementary level.
HIGH SCHOOL INC.
* The News: Corporations such as Lockheed and Deloitte are helping to
write curricula for public-school courses.
* The Background: Fearing a worker shortage, especially in the
engineering field, the companies are seeking ways to bolster their own
work forces.
* The Debate: While schools welcome the materials, critics say the
initiatives add a commercial agenda to academics. Schools, for their
part, have embraced corporate support as state education funding has
remained flat for a decade and declining housing values now threaten to
eat into property-tax revenues. Teachers, meanwhile, often welcome the
lesson plans, classroom equipment and the corporate-sponsored
professional development sessions.
But however well-intentioned, such corporate input may blur the line
between pure academics and a commercial agenda, critics say. "When you
have a corporation or any special interest offering an incentive, you
are distorting the educational purpose of the schools," says Alex
Molnar, an education-policy professor at Arizona State University who
directs the school's Commercialism in Education Research Unit.
<snip>
Nonetheless, many school officials are receptive. Tamika Bauknight, the
Roselle district's director of curriculum and instruction, concedes that
corporate self-interest is at work in the curriculum provided by
Deloitte, whose career-choice materials include profiles of the
company's chairman of the board and an audit manager. But she believes
students benefit. "If through the curriculum they consider becoming an
accountant and thinking about Deloitte," she says, "that isn't a bad
thing."
Businesses have sought to shape public-school lessons before, but past
initiatives focused more on teaching trades. In the early 20th century,
companies fostered industrial education in high schools to feed their
factory needs. More recently, Cisco Systems Inc. has offered
information-technology certification to students who learn
computer-networking skills. Now, by contrast, companies are seeking to
start training students for professions that often require university
degrees.
Robotics for Middle Schoolers
One of corporate-sponsored curricula's largest conduits into U.S.
classrooms is Project Lead the Way, a nonprofit organization based in
Clifton Park, N.Y., that develops engineering coursework used in more
than 2,000 schools nationwide. For high schools, it offers eight
full-year engineering courses, including digital electronics and civil
engineering. It also provides five 10-week units for middle schools on
topics such as robotics.
Project Lead the Way was formed 10 years ago with an initial $1.5
million grant from a foundation run by Richard Liebich, chief executive
of a tool-manufacturing company based in Orchard Park, N.Y. Mr. Liebich
said he could never find enough engineers to hire, and envisioned an
entity that could help by creating engineering courses for pre-college
students. The group's curriculum is technical, with no textbooks.
Open-ended questions and problems encourage students to be creative, the
organization says.
<snip>
In another case, a senior engineer in the Indianapolis-based unit of
engine maker Rolls-Royce, which had been funding Project Lead the Way
courses in a handful of local schools, noticed what he considered a lack
of material on propulsion. So he helped write a new lesson for the
project's aerospace course. Now, the class has an optional six-day
"Introduction to Propulsion" unit that includes a PowerPoint
presentation on a gas turbine engine "by kind permission of Rolls
Royce."
That same aerospace course is scheduled for revision again, and this
time Lockheed Martin is contributing $146,000 to have a say in the new
version. A presentation shown to company executives outlining Lockheed's
educational efforts specifies that "increasing general interest in math
and science for all students" is "not our goal." Nudging students toward
Lockheed, the presentation says, is.
Lockheed is bracing for a worker shortage. The company estimates that
about half of its science- and engineering-based work force will be
retiring in the next decade or so. Meanwhile, interest in engineering as
a career is declining among U.S. students. In a 2007 survey of more than
270,000 college freshmen conducted by the Higher Education Research
Institute at UCLA, 7.5% said they intended to major in engineering --
the lowest level since the 1970s. National-security restrictions
preclude the Bethesda, Md., company and other major defense contractors
from outsourcing many jobs overseas.
"We're already within the window of criticality to get tomorrow's
engineers in the classroom today," says Jim Knotts, director of
corporate citizenship for Lockheed. "We want to address a national need
to develop the next generation of engineers -- but with some affinity
toward Lockheed Martin."
Lockheed is particularly eager to refresh the engineer pool at its giant
facility in Palmdale, Calif. Here, at the southern edge of the Mojave
Desert, the company works alongside aerospace giants Boeing Co. and
Northrop Grumman Corp., designing aircraft and testing them near an Air
Force facility known as Plant 42. Luring workers to this flat, parched
area is a challenge, Lockheed and local officials concede. So the
company, working with local schools, is hoping to develop its own
talent.
<snip>
Chatting With Engineers
Beyond coursework, Lockheed touts the benefits of introducing students
to its local work force. Company engineers volunteer their time at the
schools, serving as subject-matter experts to teachers, chatting about
their own work or mentoring students on after-school robotics-club
projects. This past fall the company started sending employees to high
schools near Lockheed facilities in four other districts around the
country that already employ Project Lead the Way's engineering
curriculum.
<snip)
In about 20% of the cases, corporations provide money directly to
schools to underwrite these costs, says Mr. Tebbano, the group's vice
president of operations. Others may get funding from state budgets,
foundations or even federal sources, he says. Last year, he says, the
nonprofit generated $4 million from software leasing and sales of
educational materials, which went to sustaining the project's work.
Some schools are discovering that corporate support doesn't last
forever. Since 2000, Intel has provided more than $1 million toward the
engineering curriculum in three school districts near its office campus
in Colorado Springs, Colo. But a year ago, Intel announced plans to sell
the plant and leave town. Spokeswoman Judith Cara says that Intel
prefers to focus its local philanthropy on communities near its
facilities, so funding for the school district will likely cease after
2008.
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