1. education
2. school

22
Perspective
24-26 April 2015
The Australian Financial Review | www.afr.com
AFR
Business to
teach schools
a lesson
Education Internet coding, the importance of
professional feedback and an IBM ‘teacher’. A US
school model backed by Obama is coming to
Australia, write John Kehoe and Tim Dodd.
I
n morning computer science
class, ninth-grader Nicholas
Vega is giving feedback to classmate Suriana Rodriguez about
the ‘‘All About Me’’ website she
has built and is presenting to the
class.
On a projector screen, she displays the computer coding language used to
make the webpage, which includes her personal profile and a colourful poker dot background. But rather than viewing her as just
another student, Nicholas is meant to picture his fellow Newburgh Excelsior
Academy classmate like a colleague in the
workplace.
Suddenly, IBM liaison officer Cliff Archey,
seated among the students, interjects to
assess Nick’s professional feedback skills.
‘‘One thing Nick did was be specific. ‘I like
what you did with that background.’ Specificity is important,’’ Archey tells the 25 students. ‘‘No matter what type of feedback
you’re giving, whether it is a strength or
something to improve, you always have to
be specific and use concrete examples.
‘‘This feedback you guys are discussing is
exactly how you give feedback in the real
world. It’s how we do it at IBM. It’s how we
do it here.’’ Teacher Joyce D’Imperio then
continues to tutor the class. It’s not the typical interaction you would see in a traditional high school. But the Newburgh
academy in upstate New York, which
opened last year, is no ordinary education
experience. The school is one of at least 27
schools that has teamed with companies in
the technology, advanced manufacturing,
telecommunications, healthcare, environment and finance sectors to deliver the
Pathways in Technology Early College High
School (P-TECH) program in the United
States.
The plan has high-level political support.
President Barack Obama praised P-TECH
schools in his 2013 State of the Union
address and visited an IBM-partnered
P-TECH in Brooklyn, New York, where he
said: ‘‘This country should be doing everything in our power to give more kids the
chance to go to schools just like this one.’’
Last June, Prime Minister Tony Abbott visited the same school and enthusiastically
lauded it as an ‘‘innovative and valuable
education model for us to consider in Australia’’. He set aside $500,000 to start a pilot
P-TECH program in Australia and this week
IBM announced it would partner with a
school in Ballarat, due to open next year,
which will operate like the Newburgh
academy with IBM playing a similar role.
The computer giant will support a second
P-TECH pilot school in Geelong, offering
companies that choose to be involved use of
the tools and materials which have been
created for P-TECHs in the US.
AFRGR1 0022
Already in the US, there are more than
4000 P-TECH students typically aged
between 14 and 20. The goal is to have about
100 schools running by 2016, teaching
100,000 pupils.
The program embeds practical workplace skills into regular curriculum subjects
such as maths, English and social sciences.
For example, students might learn statistical skills as if they are working with a real
estate developer. But the idea is to teach
more than technical skills like computer
programming. Soft skills that are vital in the
workplace, such as teamwork, oral communication, writing, presentation, project
management and collaboration, are considered just as essential.
Students progress at their own learning
rate and at the end of the six-year program,
which starts in 9th grade they can graduate
with not only a certificate for completing the
four years of high school (under the US system) but also a two-year college degree.
Business Council of Australia president
Catherine Livingstone believes Australia
needs P-TECHs. In a speech last year at
Swinburne University she said it was
increasingly vital for education to integrate
with business and create ‘‘an unprecedented level of co-operation between industry
and [education] providers’’.
‘‘We need to unleash initiatives like
P-TECH,’’ she says, praising it for teaching
maths and science, as well as soft skills like
problem solving and inquiry, and for exposing school students to real-world problems.
Another strong advocate is Nicholas
Wyman, chief executive of the Skilling Australia Foundation, who helped arrange
Abbott’s visit to the Brooklyn school. ‘‘I
think the Australian model will probably
start in year 10, probably two years of a
[post-school] diploma and possibly a third
elective year of an advanced diploma,’’ he
says, describing a six-year curriculum.
Wyman thinks high-technology apprenticeships could also be worked into the model.
Top: Carolina Vega
learns HTML coding
with teacher
Jacqueline Hess at
Newburgh; above:
Eric Waliszewski
works with students
on creating a
website. PHOTOS:
ALLYSE PULLIAN
I
BM’s Stan Litow, one of the movement’s founders, who was in Australia
this week to speak about P-TECH, says
many high school graduates are not
adequately prepared for university.
‘‘Simply having a high school diploma is
not a ticket to a middle-class job,’’ says
Litow, a former deputy chancellor of New
York City Public Schools who has been in
charge of IBM’s corporate social responsibility for 20 years.
He says that students who graduate from
the IBM-partnered P-TECH in Ballarat at the
required level will be ‘‘first in line’’ for a job
with IBM, which has a customer service and
call centre facility in Ballarat.
The objective in the US P-TECHs is to position students to be ready for professional
entry-level jobs offering salaries of
$US40,000 ($52,000) and more.
Litow says the program will turn out software developers, technical support staff, or
people who can work in call centres. Students are not obligated to work for IBM and
many won’t. ‘‘Some of them are already
indicating they want to be doctors or lawyers. They may never come into the IT
industry,’’ he says.
There are about 70 corporations affiliated
with the schools in the US, including aerospace giant Bombardier, network systems
provider Cisco Systems, technology equipment multinational Fujitsu, GE Health Care,
defence equipment contractor Lockheed
Martin, Microsoft, Motorola and several
health companies.
The motivation for being involved is
partly because the companies can help
mould the skills of prospective employees.
There is also an element of corporate social
responsibility, particularly in the US, where
corporate philanthropy is a much bigger
part of the business environment than in
Australia. Litow says even if the P-TECH
graduates never work for IBM or the other
companies involved, the corporation will
still benefit because one day the students will
be a stakeholder – such as a business associate, client or customer.
IBM has partnered with four schools so
far, in Brooklyn, Chicago, Connecticut and
Newburgh. The computer giant places a
staff member at each school and helps
design the curriculum.
In the US, Democrat politicians who dominate in the cities of the north-east and midwest, where traditional manufacturing is
disappearing, love P-TECHs.
Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel backed
the private-public partnerships with the five
high-tech companies behind the P-TECHs in
his city, saying they would offer the skills
graduates needed in the modern workforce.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo says
P-TECHs are ‘‘unlocking the door to tremendous opportunities for some of the
youngest New Yorkers’’.
But their view is not shared by the Australian Education Union, representing teachers, which opposes P-TECHs coming to
Australia. ‘‘We believe that corporate-run
schools are not in the best interests of Australian students,’’ AEU president Correna
Haythorpe says.