WINNING PRECOLLEGE EDUCATION-PROGRAMS

Three critical factors emerge from 11 industry-sponsored pre-college education programs judged to be the most successful: Hands-on experiments are a particularly effective approach to stimulating student interest and enhancing the learning process; a close working partnership between everyone involved-including scientists, sponsors, school systems, teachers, and the community-is essential to success; and finally, having well-established performance measures and a feedback system for process improvement is a hallmark of winning programs. If we are to close the gap in science and math education between the U.S. and other leading countries, there must be a major reform of our educational process. Corporations interested in getting more involved are urged to benchmark against those organizations that have demonstrated success, just as they would any other business process.