GUILDERLAND — "Why not the best"" is the mantra of Project Lead the Way, Inc., said the vice president of the not-for-profit as he made a pitch to the school board here on Tuesday night.
The group has programs in 2,300 middle schools and high schools in all 50 states, said Niel Tebbano, and 700 more schools are joining. "We turn away foreign interests," he said since the point is to develop American engineers. A report from the National Science Board has said more United States engineering and science professionals are needed to stem the tide of work sent abroad.

The plan is to add a four-year sequence of elective engineering courses at Guilderland High School, which would cost $152,300 over the first four years. The school board will consider the proposal as part of developing next year’s budget, said board President Richard Weisz.

A year ago, a committee of high-school English and social-studies teachers came before the board with a proposal to create a writing center and to phase in a modified course load that would cost about $650,000 over three years — a plan the school board ultimately rejected.

The current proposal is in response to the school board’s goal, formulated last year, to improve technology education at Guilderland, said Assistant Superintendent for Instruction Nancy Andress.
Tebbano began his presentation with a story about Admiral Hyman Rickover, charged with developing a nuclear navy after World War II. He asked one of his young ensigns — James Earl Carter — to prepare a report and Carter was stunned when the admiral’s only question on the finished report was, "Ensign, is this your best work""
When Carter conceded it wasn’t and expounded on how it could have been done differently, the admiral asked, "Why not the best"" This, said Tebbano, defined the future president’s adult professional and personal life. Tebbano said the question is particularly important when working with young people.
Tebbano went on to describe how a blue-ribbon panel determined "educational intervention" was needed in the United States to deal with a shortage of qualified engineers, leading to the founding of Project Lead the Way. The program uses project-based learning and a relevant and rigorous curriculum, he said, so that students learn to think critically, collaborate, and solve problems.
"‘Why do I need to learn this and where will I use it"’ is seldom asked by students in our courses," said Tebbano.
Teachers assess their strengths and weaknesses before they teach the courses. They train for two weeks for each course they will teach and then continue their training through a web-based "virtual academy," or in university courses, he said. Since 1999, seven thousand teachers have been trained, he said.

Schools are evaluated on their compliance with the program’s policies. Graduates of the program are 10 times more likely to enroll in engineering courses than the national average and their grade-point average their freshman year of college is .2 higher, said Tebbano.

Engineering at GHS

Kathryn Perry, Guilderland’s technology supervisor, said the program is related to three of Guilderland’s priorities — professional growth for teachers, and problem-solving and using technology to communicate for students.

High school Principal Michael Paolino went over the courses the school would like to offer:

— Design and Development for Production (DDP), where students use computers to make three-dimensional sketches of models that solve problems;

— Principles of Engineering (POE), where students explore various technology systems and manufacturing processes; and

— Digital Electronics (DE), a course in applied logic, followed by either

— Civil Engineering and Architecture (CEA), which provides an overview of those two fields, emphasizing their interrelationship; or

— Engineering Design and Development (EDD), a research course in which students design and construct a solution to a problem.

In the first year of the program, 2008-09, Perry said, the school anticipates 120 students in six sections would take the first course, Design and Development for Production. The next year, in addition to 120 students taking DDP, another 20 would take Principles of Engineering, bringing the total number of students in the program to 140.

In 2010-11, the third year, 20 more students would take the third course, Digital Electronics, bringing the total to 160. In the fourth year, another 40 students would be added, taking either CEA or EDD, for a total of 180 students.

Expenses the first year would total $56,000, which includes $30,000 for equipment, $20,000 for training, and the rest for materials and software. In 2009-10, costs would total $44,000 — $20,000 for equipment, $11,000 for training and the rest for materials and software.

The third year, costs would amount to $12,000 and the fourth year would jump to $39,000 to handle increased staff, said Perry, which would account for $26,000 of that year’s expenses.

Board concerns

Colleen O’Connell asked how the new courses would differ from the current offerings with similar names.
"It’s those courses on steroids," said Tebbano. "The only similarity...is the title...We take the New York State syllabus and we ramp it up significantly."

Responding to a question from Denise Eisele, Tebbano said that, unlike with Advanced Placement courses, Project Lead the Way students only pay if they will receive college credit. If they score 85 or higher on the test, they pay $200 for college credit, through the Rochester Institute of Technology; the credits are transferable to other schools, he said.

Catherine Barber wanted to know if the new courses would replace other classes.
"You never want to take away from another program," said Perry, noting that Guilderland historically enrolls 120 to 140 students each year in Design and Production. "Down the road, it might become a concern," she said.

Vice President John Dornbush, followed by Peter Golden and Weisz all expressed concern that the students who are already taking four years of math, as Project Lead the Way requires, as well as a science sequence won’t have room in their schedule for the engineering courses, especially if they also take music classes.
"There is a choice process...the way the high school is currently structured," said Perry. Guilderland High School uses block scheduling.
"There’s got to be a way of integrating them, more like Tech High School," said Dornbush.
"We may have to think outside the box," said Paolino.
"The curriculum is designed for the top 80 percent of students," said Tebbano. "Whether they decide to go into engineering or not, they’ll be ready for college because of the critical thinking skills they’ve developed."
He also said, "An emerging trend, a number of juniors and seniors, especially young ladies, start [engineering courses] in their junior year...when they begin to take more seriously their academics." They realize, "Music may be great but it won’t get me into the college I want," said Tebbano.
He concluded by saying that schools like Duke, MIT, and Cornell are "recruiting and offering big dollars for scholarships to Project Lead the Way students."