Brought to you by WBIW News and Network Indiana
Last updated on Tuesday, March 10, 2009
(UNDATED) - The organization behind new science-and-technology-driven high schools in five Indiana cities has gotten a $10-million-dollar grant to speed up the rollout of more.
The four-year grant to the New Technology Foundation will help it support a growing number of schools, and expand a web portal which supplies schools with access to projects assigned at other New Tech schools across the country.
New Tech works with schools to build assignments around real-world projects covering a range of classroom subjects. A project to organize a forum on world hunger might call on social studies, English and science skills.
New Tech boasts the format holds students' interest, and prepares them better for college and beyond by teaching project-management skills along with the three R's.
The education nonprofit KnowledgeWorks announced the grant at a statehouse news conference. KnowledgeWorks is based in Ohio, while New Tech is headquartered in California.
The organizations say they selected Indiana for the announcement because the state has been a leader in adopting the new tech model. IPS's Tech High School and the Decatur township schools in Indianapolis offer New Tech, as do high schools in Bloomington, Columbus, Rochester and Elnora. That ranks Indiana behind only North Carolina and California among the nine states with New Tech schools.
Indiana will soon surpass them, with schools opening this fall in Fort Wayne, South Bend, Oregon-Davis and the Northwest Shelby schools.
More than a dozen more New Tech schools are in the pipeline in Indiana. Governor Mitch Daniels calls the program a proven success, and says he'd like to see nearly every Hoosier school adopt New Tech in the next four years.
1340 AM WBIW welcomes comments and suggestions by calling 812.277.1340 during normal business hours or by email at comments@wbiw.com
© Ad-Venture Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.