North Carolina Taking Pre-Engineering Program
State Wide
PLTW offers students chance to solve real world problems
Education Daily - Sept 15,2003
By Travis Hicks
Acknowledging the difficulty of attaining an engineering degree without a strong foundation at the secondary level, North Carolina on Thursday announced it will make a national pre-engineering program available to interested middle and high schools across the state.
The state education agency plans to begin sharing detailed information on the program— Project Lead the Way (PLTW)—with districts in the next two or three months, with a goal of having at least two engineering academies in each of the state’s eight regions.
The first areas targeted by the state’s Department of Public Instruction are the Research Triangle, which includes Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region, said June Atkinson, one of the project’s co-leaders and the director of instructional services at the state education department.
The North Carolina education department is partnering with Duke University in Durham on the effort. The agreement with the university will provide expertise and resources that the state normally couldn’t afford, including professional development for teachers, say state education officials. Launched in 13 schools in 1997, PLTW now operates in 31 states. As a nonprofit, PLTW does not charge for its four-year curriculum and ongoing professional development activities and support.
The program’s four-year sequence of courses are: an introduction to engineering design; digital electronics; principles of engineering; computer-integrated manufacturing; and engineering design and development. As part of PLTW, students work with mentors on real world problems. “Making school more relevant for students is a critical need,” said state Superintendent Mike Ward. “We view Project Lead the Way as a viable way to show students that they need to start preparing for the future while they’re in school.”
PLTW’s founders claim that the program’s students not only score higher than their peers on national reading, science and math exams, but that they are also more likely to attend postsecondary engineering and technology programs than other high school students. The program’s graduates have thus far maintained better retention rates in their college courses as well, said Richard Blais, executive director of PLTW.
Graduates of the pre-engineering program also can get a jump on college. Under an agreement with Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in New York, PLTW students who pass RIT-administered exams earn college credits at several institutions across the nation, including Duke University, eventually. North Carolina will use funding from its Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act grant to jump-start the effort, but local programs will look to private foundations for more resources.
Four of the state’s high schools have already implemented the program, but the cost of teacher training prevented North Carolina from taking it statewide earlier, according to Atkinson. “With Duke providing professional development training for our teachers, we can finally get this program launched statewide,” she said.
Teachers and guidance counselors at PLTW schools participate in “intensive” professional development seminars in the summer to help instructors implement the curriculum and inform counselors about the many job options within the industry. Atkinson said implementing the pre-engineering program across the state will expose more diverse populations, including minorities and women, to the field, and ultimately increase the likelihood that they will pursue engineering as a career.
North Carolina will use funding from its federal Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act grant to jump-start the effort, but local programs will likely look to some of the state’s private foundations for additional resources.