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Published on 01/18/1999 All articles from this issue

Partners for better learning

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By Linda Taaffe

Town Crier Staff Writer

Schools, businesses join to offer students improved resources, better opportunities

Sheerin Salimi recently stood in front of her sixth-grade classmates at Springer School sharing facts about the human heart through a board game she helped design.

The 11-year-old said she learned more about the heart than she ever imagined while working on her science project throughout winter break. Like many of her classmates, Sheerin looks forward to her science class, working on experiments just as a real scientist would. She said she is even considering becoming a doctor one day.

Through a partnership with Hewlett-Packard, the Los Altos School District was able to revamp its science program, emphasizing a more hands-on approach.

This is just one example of the many business-school partnerships that have been forged in the Santa Clara Valley over the last 10 years.

The hands-on science program that Sheerin raves about is something that wasn't available to most students 10 years ago. But business leaders have become savvy to the idea that a well-educated work force is essential to the area's economic health.

Tim Cuneo, senior executive director of the 21st Century Education Initiative, a partnership of business and school leaders dedicated to improving local education, said during the economic slump of the early 1990s, business leaders worried that students graduating from public schools in the Silicon Valley were not prepared to enter the work force. They worried students didn't have essential critical thinking, teamwork, communication and technology skills and that job candidates would be reluctant to move to the area and place their children in local schools.

Many of the partnerships that formed are based on venture capital models, in which businesses invest materials, manpower and money to help schools improve student performances.

Schools in Los Altos, Mountain View and Cupertino have joined with local businesses, including Hewlett-Packard Company, McWhorter's Stationers, Roche, Whitney Foundation, Starbucks, Cisco Systems, 3COM, Synopsis and Intel to improve their educational programs.

Although businesses have stepped forward with their expertise, school officials say businesses have for the most part not overstepped their boundaries and have provided much aid with "no strings attached."

The Los Altos School District, for example, was able to create its own science curriculum from scratch, using the materials and financial aid from Hewlett-Packard and the expertise of the district's best science teachers.

Jeff Miller, a Los Altos parent and an employee at Hewlett-Packard, helped launch the K-6 Hands-On Science program between the Los Altos School District and his employer in 1995. Miller said schools are asked to stretch their resources each year and do more. Schools can either integrate new programs or layer them on top of existing programs, sometimes diminishing them, he said.

"I didn't want science to become just a bubble to do on the side," he said. "The idea is to put it more in the center and integrate it with other curriculum, like reading."

The Los Altos, Mountain View, Whisman and Cupertino school districts are among the 11 districts to participate in Hewlett-Packard's hands-on science program. Each district received a three-year grant for $90,000, which enabled them to shift their science programs from primarily text books to hands-on projects.

Districts in the program formed teams with professional engineers, scientists from Hewlett-Packard. The employee serves as a link to resources, helps with strategic planning and lends business expertise, said Catherine Lipe, education program manager.

Lipe said Hewlett-Packard has a long history of working with schools on a small scale, but didn't develop any formal programs until about 10 years ago, just after studies revealed that girls lose significant interest in science and math during the middle school years.

One of the company's goals was to help find ways for minorities and girls to stay engaged in math and science, she said. Studies indicate that there will be more than 70,000 new jobs in engineering and science by 2010, compared to the 1986 job market.

"We wanted to do something upstream before kids even to the get university level to make sure they have the option to be college prepared in math and science," said Catherine Lipe, education program manager. The K-6 Hands-on Science program is a big part of this goal. The program works on districtwide change to ensure that every student is participating in the program.

"We really want every student in every class to be doing hands-on projects - not just reading or watching," Lipe said. "Ideally we want them to have the experience of having been scientists. That's the key."

From the hands-on program, the four school districts teamed up with four more districts to form the Bay Area Schools for Excellence in Education two years ago. Through the collaboration, the districts received $5.7 million for ongoing teacher training over a five-year period. That amount also funds a science resource specialist and lead science teachers at each school site.

Hewlett-Packard participates in some of the most extensive partnerships with local schools. The company sponsors mentoring, literacy and science programs and electronics academies in more than 100 area schools and has donated more than $55 million in cash and equipment to education, and more than 100,000 volunteer hours over the past year.

Like Hewlett-Packard, Joint Venture Silicon Valley, the non-profit group that sponsors the 21st Century Initiative, participates in several partnerships that have helped develop curriculum that teaches students to effectively apply skills to real-life problems.

Under Joint Venture's Challenge 2000 program, schools are held accountable for improving student performance over three years. Business leaders work with school officials to help identify potential areas of weakness and ask critical questions that stimulate new thinking. The non-profit group has invested more than $12.2 million over three years to schools.

Business and school leaders say, in most cases, the partnerships are working.

"(Businesses) often fill in a lot of holes for things that we need but don't have the money for," said Dick Liewer, assistant superintendent of curriculum at the Los Altos School District. "We're teaching life, physical and earth science in every classroom at every (K-6) school. We weren't doing that before."

Cuneo said the partnerships have created a better understanding between business and school leaders and has encouraged more dialogue.

"This is not a quick fix," he said. "I think the message from the business community is that we really care."

Studies show that those who have participated in partnership programs have improved test scores and are better prepared to take math and science courses in high school.

Stephanie Willis, a third-grade teacher at Almond School, said she sees a big difference in student response since the district has started using a more hands-on approach.

"Anytime they can touch something, it stimulates their learning," she said.

Willis also said the teacher support has been invaluable.

Rich Fischer, superintendent of the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District , said the business community's presence is felt at almost every level in the district. He described the district's partnerships as "informal." He said businesses have helped the district with everything from installing technical equipment to tutoring students after school.

"Often they get us going on something we could not have started ourselves and move us in a new direction," Fischer said. "Many times they have the extra piece we need."