Pre-engineering Program Launches Star Students 

An article in Time reported “the U.S., the world’s greatest technological civilization, is running short of engineers.” It stated that the shortage also meant that “most engineering graduates have a least a half dozen offers, with an average starting salary of $350 a month.” Not a bad salary for April 21, 1952, when the article was published.

It was a time when “the basics” were not emphasized in school and fewer students were entering science, engineering, and math careers. Scientists and educators alike tried to emphasize that this trend would result in a loss of the dominant technological status we had maintained since the industrial age. The government was also underfunding science and technology. The debate ended on the evening of October 4, 1957, when the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, into orbit. Students began to pour into engineering and science programs. In response to Sputnik, President Eisenhower formed the Science Advisory Committee, the Science Advisor position, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Soon after, President Kennedy announced the goal of sending men to the moon. These and other programs led to significant investments in technology research and development.

Today, we are once again experiencing a decrease in the number of students graduating with math, science, and engineering degrees, yet technology is far more important in our daily lives than it was fifty years ago. The US graduates 84,000 engineers a year, far behind other countries, including China which has over 300,000 engineering graduates per year. Those who entered engineering fields because of the effects of Sputnik are now nearing retirement. The US Department of Labor - Bureau of Labor Statistics calculated that fewer engineering graduates, coupled with increased retirement and greater demand, have led to almost 1.3 million jobs recently becoming vacant. Now, as technology applications are growing, there are fewer engineering degrees being awarded and a rapidly decreasing workforce. How do we reignite interest in the discipline?

In the 1990s, a program was developed to increase the quantity and quality of students in engineering fields. It started as a small program in an upstate New York school district and, in 1997, it became known as Project Lead the Way (PLTW). At the time, Mr. Richard Blais, chairman of the school district’s technology department, hoped to expand it to twenty schools. The initial goal was to generate student interest in college engineering and technology programs by offering pre-engineering classes combined with math and science coursework while students were still in high school and even middle school. The director of research and evaluation for PLTW, Gary Adelson, Ed.D., explained in an interview with the Central New York Business Journal that the mission of the program “is to provide the engineers this country needs for the next 50 years.”

Today, Project Lead the Way has become a phenomenon, with high school students around the country striving for placement in the program. Currently, PLTW is active in over 2,200 schools, with over 200,000 students enrolled in PLTW classes and 7,000 teachers and 5,000 counselors trained in the program. As a not-for-profit organization, PLTW forms partnerships with public schools, higher education institutions, and the private sector to help achieve its goals. In a video for PLTW, Mr. Richard Kissane, Technology Director for Albany High School in New York, attributes the program’s success to its curriculum because it is “hands-on, out-of-their-seat, building something, designing something, seeing the actual product working at the end.…it’s real important for high school students to see the end product.”

Education Week reported that at Wheaton High School in Montgomery County, Maryland, “members of the academy’s 26-student class of 2007­—its first graduating class—went on to study in mechanical, electrical, nuclear, and other engineering fields at such selective universities as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cornell University, claiming more than $1.6 million in scholarships.” Of Wheaton’s 1,325 students, 89% are members of racial or ethnic minorities. As statistics show, minorities are underrepresented in engineering professions. The Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology reports that the total US labor force is 82.7% white, 10.9% Asian, and 6.4% underrepresented minorities. In comparison, the population is 69.1% white, 3.6% Asian, and 25.4% underrepresented minority. Historically, PLTW has closely mirrored the US population, with slightly higher Hispanic and slightly lower African American levels. Successes in recruiting and retaining minority students, like Wheaton’s, are being repeated across the country.

In 2006, the East End Chamber of Commerce in Houston, Texas, studied education challenges in the East End through its Education Task Force. In the inner city, low income, largely Hispanic area around the newly opened Chavez High School, the task force found a greater than 50% dropout rate and limited parental involvement. In March of that year, they discovered Project Lead the Way and began to investigate its success in other Houston-area schools.

Faculty and administration at Chavez High School, already familiar with PLTW, enthusiastically partnered with the Chamber to notify incoming ninth graders and their parents about the program at informational dinners. Ms. Diane Lipton, president of the East End Chamber of Commerce, recalls that “through the enrollment period, we had a good turn out of students, but we were surprised by the even greater turnout of parents and siblings. There was a lot of enthusiasm for the promise that the program held. Younger siblings saw the support and commitment that the school district and the community was giving and wanted to know how they could get into it, too.”

Chavez principal, Mr. Dan DeLeon, tells his students that the only prerequisite to getting into the program is “you have to come with the desire, not necessarily a particular previous knowledge, experience, or expertise.” They had 100 seats open for the first year’s course, Introduction to Engineering Design, which were filled long before the school year started. The Chamber and its members worked closely with the high school to make sure they had enough computers, software, and supplies in place before the school year started.

After completion of the first year in 2006, 96 of the 100 students returned for the second year (four moved outside the district). At a meeting with business leaders, student work from 2006 was exhibited. One company president was impressed by the project completed by student Jason Cherry, remarking that he “had engineers who can’t do that.” He hired Cherry for the summer, and then for two hours a day after school this year.

Ms. Deborah Jaques, the PLTW Academy Director for Chavez, describes the parent involvement as astronomical. She said that “the parent/student dinner for the second year not only ran out of food, but every student returned the application, filling the program immediately. We also have had a lot of students who didn’t sign up for the program last year asking how they can get in. We are looking to see if we can make some accommodations.” She added that “their peers don’t see engineering as nerdy, as some people have labeled it. Through PLTW, they see it as cool and creative.”

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For additional information on this General Construction and Engineering article, please contact:

Steve Parker
(713) 626-2525

Source: Interface Consulting

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