Growing the Next Generation of Innovators

Company/Organization: Project Lead the Way (PLTW)
CEO/Board Chair: Richard Liebich, Board Chair of Project Lead the Way
Level of Involvement: National/State
State: Indiana
Type of Initiative: Expertise
Target Education Priority: More Innovation Workers in the Pipeline

"Keep[ing] people near their roots, even for a global company...it's just good business." -- Jay Snellenberg, Senior Manager, Aftermarket Support, Controls Systems Operating Unit, Rolls-Royce Corporation, on Rolls-Royce's partnership with Project Lead the Way

Overview
Project Lead the Way (PLTW) is a national partnership program that brings together local schools, higher education institutions and the private sector to promote pre-engineering education in middle and high school. PLTW provides pre-engineering courses for students in participating schools in hopes of yielding a bigger, better-trained and technology-savvy employee pipeline. The four central elements of the program are: Identify key teachers and students, develop curriculum, provide training, and offer internships. Even though PLTW was only launched in 1996, the PLTW model is used in over 1,600 middle and high schools and 30 universities in 46 states and the District of Columbia, reaching more than 170,000 students. In Indiana alone, over 170 schools participate in PLTW, involving about 14,000 middle school and 6,000 high school students.

Strategies for Success
Traditionally, participating high school students must complete a four-year sequence of PLTW-designed courses combined with a college-preparatory curriculum. The goal is to prepare these high school students for postsecondary engineering and technology coursework. PLTW develops pre-engineering curriculum for students that is informed by the skills and knowledge required for success in the engineering industry and that is enhanced by local business-school partnerships. The curriculum promotes hands-on and inquiry-based learning; the curriculum skills and content are embedded in the standards set by national organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the International Technology Education Association.

To ensure teachers are prepared to present the curriculum effectively, a number of universities offer high school educators comprehensive professional development and ongoing support. More recently, PLTW has developed and begun to implement a middle school "gateway" curriculum to increase both student interest in and preparation for high school PLTW courses. Many middle schools have latched onto this concept and now include this class as part of a required rotation of courses designed to provide students early exposure to diverse topics in science and math instruction.

Rolls-Royce is a major corporate partner of PLTW in Indiana. Rolls-Royce's plant in Indianapolis employs over 4,000 individuals; it is the largest of the global company's manufacturing sites in North America. Rolls-Royce stands out in Indiana because the company has enhanced the PLTW model through its "Building the Innovation Generation" program. Most teacher internships often last one or two weeks and might only have a chance to scratch the surface. Rolls-Royce provides partnering teachers with the opportunity to complete a ten-week internship, requiring each teacher to brainstorm and problem-solve on real Rolls-Royce projects.

For teachers who have not had on-the-job experience in the private sector, this internship is vital to the development and presentation of the PLTW courses. In addition, selected students have the opportunity to work on-site design projects, side-by-side with engineers. The relationship is mutually beneficial: Rolls-Royce gets a new perspective on their work and expands the labor pool, while students have unique, meaningful and engaging opportunities to apply their classroom knowledge in a practical manner.

PLTW helps companies incorporate philanthropic strategies and lend professional expertise recommended by Business Toolkit for Better Schools in a variety of ways, including:

• Define the skills and knowledge graduates need to get and keep well-paying, family-supporting jobs
• Advise on subject-matter issues, such as academic standards, curriculum and assessments, especially in mathematics and science
• Partner with school districts to upgrade educator professional development, in, for example, mathematics and science
• Partner with school districts and labor organizations to upgrade career and technical education
• Fund advocacy, research and evaluation efforts that may have a longer time horizon for results or may appear to be less tangible than school- or system-based programs

Indicators of Success
A 2004 evaluation by the Southern Regional Education Board compared PLTW students with other career and technical education students. The study found that students participating in PLTW outscored the comparison group on math, science and reading assessments; were more likely to take four years of math and science instruction in high school; and had higher four-year college-going rates.

PLTW also is committed to measuring its own growth and success and has established four strategic objectives: Increasing college participation and retention, college completion, female participation and minority student participation in PLTW. Through the TrueOutcomes assessment system, PLTW can track participating students' post-high school outcomes. As of the second evaluation, based on 2005-06 data, PLTW students have begun to outpace the national average in all four areas. Over the next few years, PLTW will have much richer student-level data to analyze and share.

Next Steps
The ultimate strength of the PLTW model is that it can work in any state or local community that has energetic businesses and enthusiastic middle and high schools willing to try new curriculum. It is particularly attractive to local communities because it seeks to grow local talent and reverse brain drain trends. With the recent expansion into middle schools and more strategic analysis of well-defined metrics of success, Project Lead the Way shows little signs of fatigue.

States with Participating Schools
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.

Related Content
Websites

• Project Lead the Way
• Indiana Project Lead the Way

Presentations

• Project Lead the Way PowerPoint Presentation

Materials for the Public

• "Program Aims to Steer Students into Engineering" The Arizona Republic, October 16, 2006

Evaluations

• "Program Evaluation for Project Lead the Way, 2006-2007" October, 2007.
• Southern Regional Education Board Research Brief "Project Lead the Way: A Pre-Engineering Curriculum That Works"

Updated: February 2008