STEM Career Connections: Linking an Interactive Web-Based Resource to Tech Prep's Successful Business-Education Partnerships
Our students are primarily Hispanic and poor. Many must contribute income for their families. Tech Prep's college-and-career-focused systems incorporate entry and exit points providing upward mobility with transitions between college and the workplace. Our system is working. Tech Prep students scored better than all others on state math and science tests last year.
We want to change the way public schools teach math. We already work with STEM professionals on classroom instruction linked to worksite visits and summer educator externships impacting instruction. We have partnered with DaVinci Minds on high school math and want to work with them on middle school initiatives now. Our goal in partnering with DaVinci is to increase STEM leaders' impact in Valley classrooms.
About You
About You
First Name
Patricia
Last Name
Bubb
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Tech Prep of the Rio Grande Valley, Inc.
Organization Website
Organization Phone
956.364.4509
Organization Address
1902 North Loop 499, Harlingen, TX 78550-3697
Organization Country
United States, TX
Country where this project is creating social impact
United States, TX, Cameron County
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
More than 5 years
The information you provide here will be used to fill in any parts of your profile that have been left blank, such as interests, organization information, and website. No contact information will be made public. Please uncheck here if you do not want this to happen..
Innovation
Entry Form title
STEM Career Connections: Linking an Interactive Web-Based Resource to Tech Prep's Successful Business-Education Partnerships
What change do you want to bring to the world?
Our students are primarily Hispanic and poor. Many must contribute income for their families. Tech Prep's college-and-career-focused systems incorporate entry and exit points providing upward mobility with transitions between college and the workplace. Our system is working. Tech Prep students scored better than all others on state math and science tests last year.
We want to change the way public schools teach math. We already work with STEM professionals on classroom instruction linked to worksite visits and summer educator externships impacting instruction. We have partnered with DaVinci Minds on high school math and want to work with them on middle school initiatives now. Our goal in partnering with DaVinci is to increase STEM leaders' impact in Valley classrooms.
What are the primary activities of your project?
Our plan is to link Tech Prep’s initiatives described below with DaVinci Minds’ work in WhyCareers.
Tech Prep Labor Market Report. Tech Prep has published regional labor market reports regularly since 1996, incorporating information from STEM professionals and others. Educators utilize the Tech Prep report to plan programs and course offerings; to train their staff; and to provide career counseling for students and families. The career information in this report is linked with Tech Prep’s other initiatives described below.
ALA Educator Externships: These summer externships place educators with employers for two or three weeks. STEM professionals from manufacturing, construction, criminal justice, agriculture, and healthcare participate. Educators develop lesson plans based on the experience, and employers must endorse the products developed to be paid. Educators then use the materials developed with students the following year. Educators and employers develop lasting relationships through ALA.
Education & Career EXPO: Tech Prep staff lead the planning for this regional college-and-career fair, which serves over 1,000 students annually, providing information about college and career opportunities in STEM and other careers.
Job Shadowing and Careers in Construction are one-day experiences in which educators and students interact with employers, many of them from STEM. Careers in Construction blends worksite visits with classroom lectures by STEM professionals and introduces careers in architecture, engineering, construction management, computer-based Building Information Modeling (BIM), and hands-on construction careers. The careers introduced require differing levels of preparation: some require a high school diploma or GED, and others require post-high school certificates, associate degrees, bachelor’s degrees, and more. The message conveyed to students is that success is achievable once students find and pursue their passion in careers that offer opportunities for motivated, prepared individuals.
Tech Prep has a partnership with DaVinci Minds to bring WhyCareers, a web-based classroom resource, to Valley middle schools. Tech Prep plans to link its collaboratives described above with DaVinci Minds’ WhyCareers implementation. Our plan is to sponsor three to five pilot sites in districts and work to align the career information in WhyCareers with that in Tech Prep’s labor market report. WhyCareers is designed to teach middle school students about careers in math and science by having them participate in a “green energy game” where they manage a power grid. Integrated within the game is current information about math, science and technology career pathways available in the region.
Linking the work done by Tech Prep with that done by DaVinci Minds will increase the impact of STEM professionals in Valley classrooms. Tech Prep already has a network of STEM professionals who are passionate about helping Valley students succeed, and DaVinci Minds will introduce STEM professionals from other regions, expanding the number of STEM professionals providing input in Valley classrooms. Connecting DaVinci Minds' work with Tech Prep's multiple regional collaboratives wil enhance the impact of STEM professionals who are working with Valley educators to help students and families understand the opportunities available in STEM careers and the steps students can take to prepare for them. The Valley is a resource-poor area that will benefit from participation of STEM professionals from within and without the region. Linking the work of Tech Prep with that of DaVinci Minds will increase the potential for success of both.
What is innovative about your initiative? How is it a new contribution to the field?
Tech Prep is itself an innovative initiative, helping Hispanic students who live in poverty to experience successes once believed to be impossible.
A problem for STEM education is that public schools, colleges and universities, workforce boards, and economic developers work separately, in silos. This results is communication "disconnects" so that desired changes do not occur.
Tech Prep has developed a regional system that cuts across separate silos, expediting the flow of communication. Proof of success is seen in the graduation rates, college-transition rates, and standardized test scores of Valley Tech Prep students.
The Valley is a resource-poor region with one of the highest high school dropout rates in the nation; however, Tech Prep students have lower dropout rates and higher achievement levels than their counterparts who do not participate in Tech Prep programs. Tech Prep students also score better on standardized tests in mathematics and science and transition to college at rates higher than those of their non-Tech Prep peers.
Tech Prep works through a private-sector-led board of respected community leaders. Tech Prep has successfully created a system of regional collaboratives that help STEM professionals to have meaningful input into classroom instruction.
Most of Tech Prep’s work has been done at the high school level. Working with DaVinci Minds will allow Tech Prep to expand into middle schools, and connecting solidly to Tech Prep’s collaboratives will increase DaVinci Minds’ potential for success with WhyCareers.
What stage is your project in?
Idea phase
Tell us about the community that you engage? eg. economic conditions, political structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experience with engagement efforts.
The 80,000 public-school students Tech Prep serves are 88.6% Hispanic/Latino and predominantly low-income. Poverty rates in the region are high: Cameron County, 31%; Hidalgo County, 31.7%; Starr County, 36.1%; and Willacy County, 41.2%, compared with Texas, 13.2%. The Valley is a bi-national, bi-cultural region with a large youthful population that has the potential to be developed into a workforce capable of helping to support economic growth in the region; however, educational attainment in the region, although improving, is well below state averages.
Tech Prep is a public-private collaborative partnership that strives to help Rio Grande Valley students achieve their potential and thereby help to create the skilled, literate workforce that is needed to improve the economic prosperity of this region. Tech Prep works regionally with partners including chambers of commerce, economic development organizations, workforce development boards, and leaders from business, government, and education.
Tech Prep’s work is important not only for the region, but also for the state and the nation. According to Dr. Steve Murdock (former U.S. Census Director, former Texas State Demographer, and now Director of the Hobby Center for the Study of Texas at Rice University), all of Texas will soon have demographics like those of the Rio Grande Valley. Systems that help students from the Valley should ultimately help both Texas and the United States.
The STEM Careers project is new, but Tech Prep is an established, successful regional nonprofit organization
Share the story of the founder and what inspired the founder to start this project
I grew up on a farm near Abilene, Texas, in a family structure much like those I found when my husband and I moved to the Valley shortly before the birth of our first child. I had dropped out of an honors program at the University of Texas at Austin in my senior year and begun working for attorneys. Law is a world of ideas, and I enjoyed it.
In the Valley, I completed a degree in English and history in order to secure a good job. I learned in one history course that the people who lived here had been at the "bottom end" of an oppressive caste system for centuries.
I taught at a technical college and came to realize that many people have the perception that career education is second-rate education. Actually, the benefits of technical careers for Valley students coming out of poverty were huge! Many programs led to jobs with companies that paid for continuing education. In teaching, I learned that educators and employers speak different languages and that there are many disconnects between public education systems and workforce realities.
Helping my own children in public schools, teaching at the college, and completing my degree helped me understand that huge elements of what my generation considered to be "basic education" had disappeared from public schools.
My college offered me an opportunity to write a proposal for a Tech Prep planning grant. The proposal was funded, we subsequently created the Tech Prep corporation, and our Tech Prep collaborative was born. I’ve been working on a private-sector focus and excellence for all students ever since!
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
Please describe how your project has been successful and how that success is measured
Tech Prep has long recognized the need for collaboration with community leaders and business people and has concentrated on building these partnerships from its inception in 1992. Tech Prep has established working collaboratives that bring together 32 school districts, 5 institutions of higher education and multiple community leaders and employers to focus on educational success and job market outcomes, as illustrated by these working partnerships:
• The Lower Rio Grande Valley P-16 Council is a group of educators focused on sharing information and best practices. Recently the group has undertaken a project to bring Early College High School opportunities to students in Valley school districts, large ones as well as small and rural districts.
• RGV Mentors is a group of Rio Grande Valley professionals who serve as mentors to students enrolled in Tech Prep and other courses. Both school-based and community-based components are included in the RGV Mentors plan.
• The Education & Career EXPO began as a Harlingen Area Chamber of Commerce event, but has transitioned into a regional event with multiple partners. Every year the EXPO allows students to explore possibilities at Valley businesses and post-secondary educational institutions.
We measure success in outcome data for Tech Prep students. According to reports provided by a college contracted by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to create reports using data from the Texas Education Agency, dropout rates for Rio Grande Valley Tech Prep students are significantly better than those for their non-Tech Prep counterparts. Tech Prep students were also more likely to graduate (94.8% compared to 92.0%) and more likely to prepare for college (94.9% compared to 87.3%) than non-Tech Prep students. Other studies reflect that Tech Prep students transition to, and graduate from, college at rates higher than those of non-Tech Prep students.
How many people have been impacted by your project?
More than 10,000
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
More than 10,000
How will your project evolve over the next three years?
Tech Prep's existing partnerships will continue to operate, supplemented by new ones. Our goal is to change the way academic instruction happens in public schools, to infuse project-based learning and the hands-on methodologies used in technology-based and career-focused courses into academic instruction. We hope to expand our partnership with DaVinci Minds (see http://www.davinci-minds.com) because of the innovative approaches to mathematics, science, and technology that DaVinci's projects afford. We are also working to create strong partnerships with other organizations doing similar work, such as the Texas High School Project (see www.thsp.org), which is working in the area of Early College High Schools.
Sustainability
What barriers might hinder the success of your project and how do you plan to overcome them?
Tech Prep lost over half of its funding for 2011-2012 when federal budget negotiations resulted in the elimination of Title II Perkins funding, which would have provided approximately $400,000 to support Tech Prep’s operations in the year beginning September 1, 2011. This source of federal funds has provided the base of support for Tech Prep's regional operations since 1992. Tech Prep Board members and staff are working actively now to replace the funds lost in time to be able to continue moving forward in the new year beginning September 1, 2011.
We are working with economic development organizations, one state-level foundation, school districts, and colleges to secure new funding to replace that which was lost. The college where we are housed has given us enough funds to support staff salaries for six months while we work to establish new funding. Meanwhile, we have created a meeting schedule for the coming year and shared with our regional partners that we are moving forward.
Tell us about your partnerships
Our current partnerships include 32 school districts, 5 colleges and universities, the Region One Education Service Center, 2 workforce development boards, and other organizations. We also have partnerships with the Harlingen Economic Development Corporation, McAllen Economic Development Corporation, Brownsville Chamber of Commerce, Harlingen Area Chamber of Commerce, Weslaco Chamber of Commerce, Rio Grande Valley Partnership (regional chamber of commerce) and numerous individual employers and community leaders.
STEM professionals who work with us include a gastroenterologist with whom we are developing a school- and community-based mentoring program; a commercial construction leader who is passionate about sharing opportunities available in architecture, engineering, and related professions; female architects and engineers; a woman who owns a commercial plumbing company; leaders from agriculture and criminal justice, and others.
Current annual budget of project, in US dollars
$500,001‐1 million
Explain your selections
We receive grant funding through the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and Harlingen Economic Development Corporation. A U.S. Congressman is working now to help us secure federal funding to replace our lost Perkins funds. We have fee-for-service arrangements with 27 school districts. Three colleges and universities provide in-kind support for our scholarship program. Our board conducts a variety of fund-raising activities that generate donations from corporations and individual supporters.
How do you plan to strengthen your project in the next three years?
We are working to diversify our funding and to develop partnerships that will allow us to have greater impact in the areas of science and mathematics while continuing implementation of Tech Prep's college-and-career-focused programs of study. My personal goal is to diversify Tech Prep's funding and to leave the organization in good shape when I ultimately leave it. Reaching my personal goal is a what I envision doing to strengthen not only the STEM Career Connections project, but also all of Tech Prep's regional initiatives, in the next three years.
Partnerships and Accountability
Please tell us more about how your partnership was formed and how it functions. What specific role does each partner play? What unique resources does each partner bring to the initiative?
Tech Prep was created in 1992 to manage the affairs of the Lower Rio Grande Valley Tech Prep Consortium; the organization began with membership including 10 independent school districts and 2 two-year colleges. Tech Prep now works with 32 independent school districts, 2 universities, 2 community colleges, 1 technical college, the regional education service center, 2 workforce development boards, and several chambers of commerce and economic development organizations. Tech Prep's partners work together through a variety of collaborative partnerships. Educators participate because they respect the membership of the Tech Prep board, which is a private-sector-led collaborative that also includes superintendents and college/university administrators. The collaborative operates through a meeting structure developed over time, as follows:
• The Tech Prep Board meets quarterly in the months of February, May, August, and November of every year. Directors serve staggered two-year terms, with new Directors elected at the annual meeting each year.
• The Board’s finance committee meets quarterly in the month prior to each Tech Prep board meeting, reviewing financial statements and resource development activities to prepare recommendations to be made to the board. This committee also serves as Tech Prep’s audit committee and leads biennial reviews of Tech Prep’s bylaws, policies, and cost allocation plan.
• Tech Prep’s annual meeting, held in October of every year, brings the Board together with Tech Prep’s corporate voting members. At annual meetings the board reports to the members, provides opportunity for input, and conducts the election of new Directors.
In addition to cash contributions of public- and private-sector supporters, participating educators and employers make significant contributions of in-kind resources. Because of staff shortages due to funding constraints, we have not tracked the value of our partners' in-kind contributions. Those contributions are, however, significant.
How are you building in accountability for students' successful STEM learning outcomes? Please provide a summary and examples.
We are utilizing data reported by local school districts and reported back to us by state agencies. We share the data with our board and regional education and employer partners. For examples of the data we report, consider these Tech Prep standardized-test scores for Texas (see http://www.techpreptexas.org):
Rio Grande Valley School districts reported 15,856 Tech Prep students in 2007-08; 16,968 Tech Prep students in 2008-09, and 20,998 students in 2009-10. Data provided by state agencies for Rio Grande Valley Tech Prep students’ performance reflects that Tech Prep students are doing well:
The following are the TAKS pass rates for 11th grade Hispanic students on the state-mandated Teas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills tests in 2009-2010 (data source: Texas Education Agency). Data is presented according to 11th grade Hispanic students’ participation in career/technical education (CTE):
MATHEMATICS:
Students who no CTE courses: Rio Grande Valley (RGV), 78.0; Texas, 83.1
Students who took one CTE elective: RGV, 81.8, Texas 83.3
Student concentrating in CTE, but not Tech Prep: RGV, 87.2, Texas, 86.9
Student engaged as a Tech Prep “dual concentrator” (academics with CTE): RGV, 92.6, Texas 90.3
SCIENCE:
Students who no CTE courses: RGV, 77.4; Texas, 85.3
Students who took one CTE elective: RGV, 83.0, Texas 85.2
Students concentrating in CTE, but not Tech Prep: RGV, 86.8, Texas, 88.5
Students engaged as a Tech Prep (blending academics and CTE): RGV, 92.7, Texas 91.4
Even though the loss of Perkins Title II Tech Prep setaside funding means that the Texas consortium system will no longer be in operation, Tech Prep has had conversations with leaders at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, who have given a verbal commitment to assist Tech Prep in the Valley with continuing to collect data after the state reporting system that has given us these reports is discontinued.
We also collect data locally about Tech Prep students' college success. Local colleges report to Tech Prep annually about Rio Grande Valley students who earn college credits through the articulated courses in Tech Prep programs and related dual enrollment courses; 2009-10 reports: 12,219 Rio Grande Valley high school students earned 116,385 credits, saving over $14.8 million in tuition and fees through articulation/dual enrollment.
We have limited anecdotal information about students' workforce success, gathered from our follow-up phone calls to scholarship recipients. We know, for example, that the first-ever recipient of one our Dr. Lauro F. Cavazos Tech Prep Scholarships went on to receive an electrical engineering degree and is now pursuing an MBA at Dartmouth. Another scholarship recipient, an Hispanic female, graduated with a two-year degree in chemical-environmental technology, secured an excellent position in her field, and is now pursuing a chemical engineering degree.
We believe that the Tech Prep system of "progressive achievement" we have created is very beneficial for students coming out of poverty. We would like to have an excellent student-tracking system that would allow us to follow our students all the way into the workforce. Lack of funding is the primary barrier to our setting up such a system at this time.
We strongly believe that our Tech Prep initiatives are producing excellent, meaningful outcomes for students and would like to have the ability to measure the success of our STEM learning initiatives in terms of students' success in public schools, colleges, and universities--and ultimately translating into career success in STEM fields.
Needs
Investment, Marketing/Media, Research/Information, Innovation/Ideas, Mentorship.
Please use this space to elaborate on your selection above and/or to add needs that may not be listed.
We have regional support and are achieving a measure of support at the state level. However, our efforts to tell our story in a way that communicates to foundations in a meaningful way has had only limited success. I checked almost every need listed above primarily because we are always open to new ideas, open to working with new partners, eager to participate in research studies to help us document our students' successes, and open to new ideas that will help us to better serve the people we are committed to helping!
Offers
Research/Information, Collaboration/Networking, Innovation/Ideas, Mentorship.
Please use this space to elaborate on your selection above and/or to add offers that may not be listed.
We are eager to collaborate with others working in the area of STEM education in the United States. Our Tech Prep partnerships are founded on working with others who have goals and passions similar to our own. We can share information about initiatives that are working here and share resources with others to save time in implementation. We can also mentor those who want to begin systems similar to the ones we have created in this region.
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