Under Kids First Leadership Hoboken High School Receives a Grade of D from The Newark Star Ledger- "Parents beware of these schools. Test scores are below average, and there is little academic growth" (p.31, September 2013- Inside Jersey)

Click to enlarge

In a story written by Frederick Kaimann of The Star-Ledger, ratings were recently computed which took data from the New Jersey Department of Education on the High School Proficiency Assessment results for language arts and math tests among the general student population for all high school students in New Jersey. Then, the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores were added for each high school and weighted. The results according to Kaimann, "separate the best schools from the worst using the same four letter grades children see scrawled across their assignments- A, B, C, D." 

The median score (score by which all public high schools in New Jersey are split in half) is 317. The median growth for public high schools in New Jersey from 2008 to 2012 is + 4.8%. 

Hoboken High School achieved a score of 235.3 which represented a negative growth of -3.7% and a grade of D. The score of 235.3 is among the lowest in Hudson county and the grade is D is the lowest grade possible. 

In the words of The Star Ledger, a grade of D means "Parents beware of these schools. Test scores are below average, and there is little academic growth" (p.31, September 2013- Inside Jersey). 

Approximately 356 public high schools were graded with this new rubric which weighs HSPA and SAT scores. Only 6 high schools in New Jersey (Palisades Park H.S., Bogota H.S., Medical Arts H.S, Pitman, H.S., Paulsboro H.S., and Lakewood H.S.,) experienced a greater percentage drop than Hoboken High School. 349 high schools (98% of all New Jersey public high schools) achieved greater percentage gains than Hoboken. 

This assessment coincides with recent NJ Department of Education's Report Card results which said of Hoboken High School:  

This school's academic performance significantly lags in comparison to schools across the state. Additionally, its academic performance lags in comparison to its peers. This school' college and career readiness lags in comparison to schools across the state. Additionally, its college and career readiness is about average when compared to its peers. This schools's graduation and post-secondary performance lags in comparison to schools across the state. Additionally, its graduation and post-secondary readiness lags in comparison to its peers. - NJ Dept of Education

This analysis is particularly concerning and shows how quickly academic success can be retracted when one considers that in 2007 and 2008 Hoboken High School received successive Honorable Mention (Bronze Medal) recognition by US News and World Report and in 2008 was voted New Jersey's "second most improved high school in New Jersey" by New Jersey Monthly. 

How did this decline occur? It is difficult to point to 1 or 2 simple causes. Likely, it is more systemic. But, it is important to realize that since February of 2010, under the leadership of the Kids First super majority at the Board of Education, Hoboken High School has had 4 principals (a retired interim, a gym teacher who was never a principal, among others....) in 41 months. During the same 41 months the district has had 3 different superintendents, two of whom were retired interims with little to no objective academic success at either the district or school level. In fact, Kids First selections Interim Superintendent Peter Carter, Interim Superintendent Walter Ruszak along with Interim Principal Joy led Hoboken High School on its downward spiral back in 2010 when the school failed to meet federal and state Adequate Yearly Progress standards for the first time in school history.  

Such turnover seems to have had significant and tangible impact on the educational process at the school and the district. Recall that in December of 2011 the Hoboken School District was designated a DINI District or "district in need of improvement" by the NJ Department of Education. Again, for the first time in the district's history.

What is particularly distressing is the vast amount of independent and unsolicited analysis which showed Hoboken High School was on a very positive trajectory just a few years ago under the leadership of a different Board of Education majority and more consistent school and district level administration. While the political group known as Kids First would like people to believe they inherited a failing school district and had failing schools-- independent data by NJ Monthly, US News and World Report, the NJ Department of Education, the Newark Star Ledger, The Wall Street Journal and numerous other independent publications show otherwise. 

Hoboken Board of Eduction Agenda- August 20, 2013

  08-20-13 Agenda for Public Meeting

Hoboken BOE Meeting Announcement- August 20, 2013

  08-20-13 Public Notice of Meeting by Hob151219!

University of Texas at Austin Announces Bold 5 Point Plan for Technology-Enhanced Education

President Bill Powers
The University of Texas at Austin 

For several years, UT Austin has been rapidly developing its capabilities in the field known as blended and online learning. The University's students - native-users of technology - increasingly expect internet technology to play a part in all they do, including their education, and it is already enhancing the learning experience in profound ways. Big questions face everyone in this new paradigm: Who will control the curriculum? How do we reward faculty for their work in online courses? What will this mean for academic standards? How do we get the most out of our efforts and share our expertise with like institutions? How do we make blended and online learning financially sustainable? The following is a letter to the University Faculty by President Bill Powers explaining a new 5 point program for Technology Enhanced Education which, in my opinion, is sure to become a national model in the near future. -Dr. Petrosino 

A Report to the University community

August 15, 2013

Face-to-face interactions among students and professors can never be fully replicated in cyberspace. I believe a first-class college education will continue to consist of a cutting-edge experience at a residential university. Nevertheless, rapidly advancing technology is changing virtually every aspect of our lives, and education is no exception. The changing landscape presents challenges, but it also gives us great opportunities. We need to lead change in higher education, both for ourselves and for the future.

Though it might be hard to believe, the internet first came to UT Austin some 20 years ago. From the mid-1990s, various divisions such as Continuing & Innovative Education pioneered “distance learning,” but the initiatives were à la carte, and enthusiasm for online education was uneven across the campus. Over the last decade, however, advances in streaming video, the development of smart phones and tablets, and the exploding popularity of social networks have fundamentally changed how we communicate with each other, consume news, shop, and learn. Moreover, we have learned a great deal about how our students learn.

We have seen this change coming, and for the past several years, I’ve collaborated with many national leaders in the emerging field known as blended and online learning. In 2010, I began organizing the Public Flagship Network, which started with a core group of leaders from 10 great public research universities, to collaborate on these issues. We have developed an informal consortium of key Texas higher education leaders including universities, community colleges, and university system leaders and have been working together on multiple initiatives related to educational delivery models. This summer I had the opportunity to speak at the Forum for the Future of Higher Education at the Aspen Institute about these initiatives and the implications of new technology for American higher education. UT’s Center for Teaching and Learning has been instrumental in helping us lead the way.

The exploratory phase of this large project is quickly coming to fruition, and now we have reached the stage at which decisions must be made and the work of implementation must be embraced by a larger circle of faculty and administrators. Because we are in a very different place than we were even a year ago, I want to share some thoughts and guiding principles as we move forward.

First, I’m always impressed by the high regard in which our faculty and staff are held. UT Austin is a recognized leader on this frontier. Online course material, software, assessments, and other resources developed by our faculty, students, and staff continue to enhance education here and across America:

• Our professors routinely use new technology to “flip” large courses. This means reversing the traditional order of learning so that students use web resources like video lectures and interactive problems to learn the content and skills first. When they report to the classroom they are ready to discuss what it really means and focus in on the most difficult areas.
• We’re developing “on ramp” course materials and technology to help students in high schools and community colleges prepare for the demands of a leading public university.
• We’re building massive open online courses (MOOCs) and a new educational delivery and research platform called edX with Harvard, MIT, UC-Berkeley, and other major research universities. This work is supported by our partnership with the UT System’s Institute for Transformational Learning, which has provided $1.5 million to fund these MOOCs and another $4 million to support the development of new online courses in Liberal Arts and Natural Sciences.

We are working at the leading edge of nearly every form of blended and online learning. But, of course, there’s more to be done. UT Austin’s mission as a premier public research university demands that we empower our faculty to design and deliver 21st century education. And it’s not just technology that is developing quickly, but our understanding of how we learn. The fusion of technology with learning science is enabling us to customize course materials and exams to identify and target students’ individual needs.

For us, the purpose of investing our creative effort and resources in this work is clear: to transform our students’ lives, inspire their intellectual excitement, and prepare them as leaders, all of which is underpinned by the work and recommendations of UT’s Commission of 125.

It’s consistent with our mission as a leading public research university to discover new knowledge. It also will become a key dimension of the design and business model of a 21st century public research university.
To ensure that this work continues to be consistent with our broader mission, five general principles should guide us:

1. Our faculty and academic units control the curriculum. Our faculty and academic units are responsible for ensuring that online resources, courses, certificates, and degrees reflect the content and rigor appropriate for a leading national university. Without compromising our deep commitment to the academic freedom of a world-class faculty, we should recognize that these technologies amplify the visibility and impact of individual faculty and staff as representatives of the University on a global scale. Our online curriculum should mirror the rigor of our traditional curriculum, and our online courses should feature the same high-caliber faculty. Conversely, data captured and lessons learned from our online programs should also enhance what we do on campus.

2. We need to support and reward faculty. Virtually all innovations in society are made by those doing the daily work. Put another way, they can be supported from the top, but they are developed from the bottom up. In our case, that means by the faculty. Our incentive structures need to encourage faculty innovation in this area. Just as faculty members who write textbooks or create devices benefit from their work, we should ensure that faculty who create online content can benefit, as well as their departments, colleges, and the University. Even when the University sponsors the creation of these resources, our general position should be that faculty own the copyrights for the content they create and grant licenses to the University to use and adapt their content, consistent with Regents’ Rules and the law.

Beyond that, we must support our faculty in creating scalable online modules, courses, certificates, and degree programs that reflect our commitment to academic excellence. We must also quickly implement a new technology and support infrastructure to nurture this innovation and research. Over the next few months we need to work aggressively to ensure that the necessary infrastructure to sustain these innovations will be there.

3. The model must be financially sustainable. As a public university, our main goal is not to make money from courses, but neither can we afford to lose it. Many innovative programs have collapsed because they were not sustainable for their universities and in some cases even made course delivery more costly. The business model of the 21st century public research university cannot simply be a streamlined 20th century model. Creative uses of online resources are not the only solution, but they will be an important part of the new model due to their potential to generate revenue, improve productivity, and dramatically increase the number of students who benefit from our faculty. We must support our deans, chairs, and individual faculty members as they develop creative solutions to these challenges.

4. We should share content. Blended learning will never be sustainable if every professor or every university must reinvent the wheel. We have never expected our professors to write all of the textbooks from which they teach; likewise we cannot expect all teachers who use blended learning to generate all-original content. Rather, we should produce content and technology that is sharable across many different platforms. A faculty member might begin with building content for a flipped class on campus, then experiment with using the same resources in an online course. Another might build simulations for a MOOC, and then develop training modules to help instructors around the world use that content in their own flipped classes. Yet another faculty member might repurpose interactive content created for an advanced undergraduate course into stand-alone modules that help professionals stay abreast of developments in their field.

These kinds of adaptations can multiply the impact of our online resources, amortize their development costs across multiple projects, and facilitate other educational innovations. Our policies, technology and support infrastructure, and partnerships with other universities and private entities should all be configured to ensure that UT Austin is a world leader in helping faculty develop, implement, adapt, and scale up these innovations. Where appropriate, we also should learn from, leverage, and grant credit for high-quality online content and technology created by other leading universities.

5. We must never stop innovating. Centuries ago, the innovation of printed books created new possibilities in university classrooms because teachers could assign a greater variety of material than merely their own lectures. Similarly, interactive course materials created by our faculty and colleagues at peer institutions, learning analytics that help us identify and address individual students’ needs, and social media tools with the ability to engage great numbers of learners around the world set the stage for innovations that will define 21st century education. We must support our faculty and academic units in this creative and vital work. We’ve already been working with faculty on these issues for several years and will be working closely with the Faculty Council to ensure that the University is one of the best places to work in the field of educational design and delivery.

And in our work to develop and innovate, we must never forget the students, who are, in one sense, the experts. Online experience is second nature to them in a way it might not be to those of us born in an analog age. Students will increasingly expect that their education will be high-tech as well as high-touch. They will want to go to a university that holistically and effectively incorporates technology into education. Students will be our partners and we will leverage their native-user sensibilities to continuously improve their education.
What is more, for residential students these new educational delivery models can help us enhance many aspects of what is most distinctive about a UT Austin experience — not merely the accumulation of credits but participation in research labs, design studios, study abroad, writing seminars, internships, and so on.

As I mentioned earlier, we now have reached a new stage in our evolution. We must make decisions that will lay the groundwork for the decades ahead. And we must bring larger numbers of faculty and campus leaders into this effort. Over the coming months I will ask our administrative leaders and faculty to work closely with me to identify and address the policy challenges inherent in these efforts. We’ll also collaborate closely with our peer institutions and outside entities to strengthen and accelerate this work.

The foundation of a UT Austin education will always consist of interactions among our world-class students and faculty. New technologies developed by our faculty, students, and staff will strengthen our students’ on-campus experience, improve learning, and accelerate graduation. These innovations will create new educational models that can transcend the time and space restraints of traditional academia. They’ll increase productivity, generate revenue, and save students and their families’ money. They will also broaden UT Austin’s impact, not only through our own offerings but also through strategic partnerships with other universities, community colleges, and high schools.

This won’t be an easy transformation, but it is critical, and so it is worth our investment of energy and resources. I am confident these efforts will help support and sustain UT Austin as a leading public research university into the future. In the end, educational innovations from UT will serve far more students than the framers of the Texas constitution ever could have imagined when they mandated a university of the first class.

President’s Visit Highlights Success of UTeach and Master’s in Engineering Program

MASEE Graduation Dinner for Cohort 3
July 31, 2013

The following is a recent story about President Obama's visit to Manor New Tech High School in Manor, Texas but also emphasizes a summer Master's program I helped start at The University of Texas at Austin known as the MASEE Program (Master of Arts in STEM in Education- Engineering). A program funded by the National Science Foundation as part of the UTeach Engineering Math Science Partnership (MSP). -Dr. Petrosino 

You know you’re doing something right when the President of the United States stops by to see what’s driving student success at your school. Manor New Tech, a high school just outside of Austin, TX, was honored with just such a visit on May 9. President Obama toured the school, speaking to teachers and students and commending their innovative approach to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education.“Every day this school is proving that every child has the potential to learn the real world skills they need to succeed in college and beyond,” said the President. “You’re doing things a little differently around here than a lot of high schools and it’s working.”

Since Manor New Tech opened in 2007, The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Education has forged strong ties with the school, providing skilled UTeach graduates who have become STEM teachers there and working closely with in-service teachers who already are in Manor New Tech classrooms.

One of the key ways in which the high school’s STEM instructors have gained a teaching edge is through pursuing the relatively new Master of Arts in STEM Education - Engineering (MASEE) that’s being offered in the College of Education. The MASEE is both unique and rigorous, focusing on traditional math and science education while also stressing engineering, a subject often overlooked in secondary education.

“MASEE is funded by the National Science Foundation and, in my opinion, it’s a national model for success,” said Anthony Petrosino, MASEE director and an associate professor in the College of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction. “Over the course of three summers, we offer state-of-the art coursework in the learning sciences, effective pedagogy and topnotch engineering curriculum that really allows students to put that all together and implement it in a secondary classroom context.”

Since its inception the MASEE program has graduated two cohorts - a total of 19 students. A third cohort is nearing graduation and will bring the number of graduates to 28. Most students in the MASEE program are practicing teachers who have a background in STEM education or in engineering specifically. The program consists of four long semesters of online courses and three nine-week summer sessions on the UT-Austin campus. This blend of online and in-class courses allows working teachers to stay on the job during the school year as they earn their master’s degree.
Giving in-service teachers the opportunity to continue their professional development is a key component of the MASEE degree.

“It’s something to which our program’s very dedicated,” said Petrosino. “Our faculty take this time during the summer to teach the MASEE courses because they value in-service teacher preparation and recognize the importance of continual professional development. These teachers are getting competitive disciplinary content area master’s degrees that have value way beyond one particular classroom.”
MASEE is devoted to developing professional support networks for in-service teachers by promoting connections with top researchers and practitioners in students’ chosen specialties as well as providing opportunities for each cohort to share ideas and projects.

Like many programs in the College of Education and UTeach, MASEE emphasizes the importance of STEM education in struggling schools in urban and rural districts. In addition to content area courses, MASEE students also get pedagogical instruction that addresses the specific needs of urban and rural districts, where higher level specialized STEM education is difficult to come by.
“There’s definitely a commitment to addressing the issues of underrepresented populations and providing access to STEM education and STEM careers,” said Petrosino. “It’s critical that we do so. That’s the commitment of the program.”

For Texas teachers who are interested in expanding their technology and engineering knowledge, the flexibility and convenience of the MASEE degree makes more comprehensive STEM education  - that includes specialties like robotics and engineering - a possibility.

—Christine Benson, College of Education Communications Assistant

Expanded: Education Watchdog Blasts Hoboken School District for Pre-K Wait List By Charles Hack/The Jersey Journal

In the landmark Abbott v. Burke case there was a ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court directing the State of New Jersey to provide full-day kindergarten and well-planned, high quality preschool education for all 3- and 4-year-olds in the State’s poorest urban communities. The Abbott rulings establish key program quality standards, including an age-appropriate curriculum linked to the State’s content standards, small class sizes and certified teachers. Over 40,000 3- and 4-year-old children are now enrolled in preschool in the 31 urban school districts known as Abbotts, and there is a growing body of research demonstrating significant learning gains that these children sustain into their early elementary years. Hoboken is an Abbott district. 

Research shows that children who have high-quality early learning experiences fare better in school and in life. These children are less likely to drop out, repeat grades, need special education, or get into trouble with the law. Helping all children start school ready to learn is critical to their future success and to the well being of society. It is also essential for closing gaps in achievement among low-income students and students of color.

Despite the New Jersey Supreme Court ruling and what research tells us, there is a current controversy occurring in the Hoboken School District with the creation of a waiting list of over 70 children for free, quality pre school education. The creation of a waiting list and apparent "reinterpretation" of state law and disregard of research findings by district leadership seems to have occurred with no protest by the Kids First Board majority. As the following story points out however, there are a growing number of concerned parents, community members, and children advocates who are concerned about the formation of this waiting list, its legality, and the consequences of either no or costly pre school education for the 3 and 4 year old children of Hoboken.  -Dr. Petrosino 

HOBOKEN – Despite the state mandate that requires the Hoboken Public Schools to provide free pre-kindergarten classes for every 3- and 4-year-old in the city, dozens of parents have received letters saying they have been placed on a waiting list.
"That's shocking," said Sharon Krengel, spokeswoman for the Education Law Center in Newark, a group that advocates for school funding and equal educational opportunities for all students.
By law Hoboken -- one of 31 so-called "Abbott" district schools that receive special state funding -- must provide pre-K classes for all eligible 3- and 4-year-olds, Department of Education spokesman Michael Yaple said.

"A Supreme Court ruling made it clear there can be no waiting lists...If additional parents want their children to attend pre-school, funding and space must be provided to accommodate the children, otherwise their rights to attend the program are being violated." -David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center.  

Roughly 70 students were put on a waiting list earlier this month after being registered for placement, school officials said.

READ FULL STORY: CLICK HERE
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This issue was first reported by the Hoboken Reporter on June 28. For that story please CLICK HERE. 

NJ Law, Pre School and Abbott Districts: CLICK HERE 

In addition to the Education Law Center, the Hoboken Reporter, and the Jersey Journal, a number of local and state elected officials have commented about this issue: CLICK HERE

In typical fashion of a reactionary school district, I suspect a solution will be found fairly soon as this issue gains increasing public attention. One must wonder however if making mandatory accommodations for 3 and 4 year olds only when public reaction gains attention by bloggers and the press and in disregard of research and the law is an effective way to operate a school district and to be responsive to our community's most precious resource. 

New Jersey Approves Six New Charter Schools

St. Anne's Day- 5th and Monroe Sts circa 1959
Hoboken, NJ

The New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) announced July 19 that six new charter schools have been approved for a September opening. The six were previously approved in an earlier application round, and received final approval after completing a "preparedness review."

The "preparedness review" evaluates whether a charter applicant previously approved has the proper academic and operational components in place.

The six schools, and the public school districts they encompass, include:

• Camden Community Charter School, Camden; Year 1 grades, projected enrollment: K-5, 150. Year 4 grades, projected enrollment: K-8, 950
• Compass Academy Charter School, Millville, Vineland, Pittsgrove; Year 1 grades, projected enrollment:K-2, 114; Year 4 grades, projected enrollment: K-5, 228
• Hope Community Charter School, Camden; Year 1 grades, projected enrollment: K-1, 132; Year 4 grades, projected enrollment: K-4, 330
• Jersey City Global Charter School, Jersey City; Year 1 grades, projected enrollment: K-2, 240; Year 4 grades, projected enrollment: K-6, 486
• Paterson Arts and Science Charter School, Paterson; Year 1 grades, projected enrollment: K-3, 305; Year 4 grades, projected enrollment: K-6, 486
• Philip’s Academy Charter School, Newark, Irvington, East Orange; Year 1 grades, projected enrollment: K-8, 300; Year 4 grades, projected enrollment: K-8, 300

There are now 87 public charter schools in New Jersey; that number reflects these new schools, as well as five schools that the NJDOE closed this year.

Photo Credit: Anthony Petrosino Sr. 

Classes should do hands-on exercises before reading and video, Stanford researchers say

A new study from the Stanford Graduate School of Education flips upside down the notion that students learn best by first independently reading texts or watching online videos before coming to class to engage in hands-on projects. Studying a particular lesson, the Stanford researchers showed that when the order was reversed, students' performances improved substantially.

While the study has broad implications about how best to employ interactive learning technologies, it also focuses specifically on the teaching of neuroscience and underscores the effectiveness of a new interactive tabletop learning environment, called BrainExplorer, which was developed by Stanford GSE researchers to enhance neuroscience instruction.

The study buttresses what many educational researchers and cognitive scientists have been asserting for many years: the "exploration first" model is a better way to learn. In addition to these published findings, the researchers spoke at an American Educational Research Association meeting earlier this year about another study that used instructional video instead of text and obtained the same results. The team is now conducting follow-up studies.

"With this study, we are showing that research in education is useful because sometimes our intuitions about 'what works' are simply dead wrong," said Blikstein.

The study was funded with support from the National Science Foundation.

David Plotnikoff writes frequently for the Graduate School of Education.

Full Article HERE

Policy of Hiring Interim Superintendents and Administrators Part of a State Wide Investigative Report

When school superintendents in New Jersey leave for other jobs, someone needs to take over leadership of the district. As has become the policy of late, this means that often an interim steps in while school boards search for a permanent replacement. In the case of the Hoboken School District, when its superintendent left in August of 2009 after giving 3 months notice, the Hoboken School Board took a few years to find a permanent replacement. During this period between permanent superintendents, the political group known as Kids First, who hold the political majority, insisted on using this policy of hiring retired interim administrators within the school district. Specifically, the hiring of interim superintendent Peter Carter (retired) and eventually interim superintendent Walter Rusak (retired). But Kids First was not content with hiring just interim superintendents, they also hired interim principals, interim business administrators, and interim assistant superintendents. 

These retired interims and others across the state of New Jersey, received monthly checks from the Teachers' Pension and Annuity Fund in addition to their salaries in school districts like Hoboken.

The pension rules in New Jersey allow retired administrators to work for up to two years in any given interim position and there are no limits on the number of times they can hold interim positions as reported in an investigative report entitled "Double-Dips Add Up To Millions for 45 Retired School Chiefs" by Mark Lagerkvist at NJ Watchdog. 

These rules are established by the NJ Pension system and are intended to allow district to hire “temporary” people in key roles until a permanent position is filled. State pension statutes place a two-year limit on the length of time a retired superintendent can collect a pension while earning a salary as an interim superintendent.http://www.northjersey.com/news/78623007.htmlNot all retired educators are eligible for the perk. Former teachers who return to the classroom must cancel their retirements and re-enroll in the pension fund. This happened following the repeal in November 2003 of a rule permitting interim employment for up to six months without penalty. Exempted from that decision were certified superintendents and administrators, including principals and school business administrators, who already were playing by a different set of rules. Starting in January 2002, retired superintendents and business administrators were permitted to accept employment on an interim basis for up to two years in a single district. With just a small break between jobs, retired superintendents can hop from district to district without affecting their pension income.

New Rankings put The University of Texas at Austin Among Top World Universities, Best Buys in Higher Ed

Hoboken Cove- Hoboken, NJ 

AUSTIN, Texas — The University of Texas at Austin has been recognized as both the 26th best university in the world and one of the "best buys" in higher education by a pair of prestigious organizations that track higher education internationally.

In the 2013 Center for World University Rankings, The University of Texas at Austin was ranked 26th among the world’s top 100 universities. The ranking puts the university in seventh place among public universities in the United States included in the rankings.

The World University Rankings are based on several criteria, including publications by faculty, influence, citations of faculty research, patents, faculty quality and employment of graduates. Among these criteria, the university ranked highest in patents (20th) and quality of faculty (24th).

"This illustrates how important attracting and retaining top faculty is beyond the primary benefit of having great teachers and researchers," said UT Austin President Bill Powers, who will also serve as chairman of the Association of American Universities beginning this fall."Faculty quality drives rankings, rankings build reputation, and a rising reputation attracts students, professors and staff of an ever higher quality."

The only other Texas universities included in the top 100 are University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas (46), Texas A&M University-College Station (80) and Rice University in Houston (94).

Based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the Center for World University Rankings endeavors to provide the most comprehensive university ranking available.

The second prominent ranking of the university, received from the 2014 Fiske Guide to Colleges, lists The University of Texas at Austin as one of the “Best Buys in Higher Education.”

The Fiske rankings during the past 30 years have chosen a select group of schools noted for quality academic offerings and affordable cost for its “Best Buy” rankings. This year’s rankings are composed of 21 public and 20 private colleges and universities in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. It does not assign specific ranking numbers to these schools. The list includes three other Texas schools — Texas A&M University, Rice University and Trinity University.

 The rankings are the latest in a series that recognize UT Austin's increasing excellence. These include U.S. News and World Report, which recognizes the university as the 46th best university in the nation and the London-based Times Higher Education, which recognizes UT Austin as the 25th best university in the world.

"The vision we are pursuing at UT Austin continues to be validated by international analysts, publications and rankings," said Powers.

For more information, contact: Gary Susswein, Office of the President, 512-471-4945.

MASEE Graduate, Mr. Bobby Garcia, Takes Robotics Team to Win After Win--and Learning About Robotics All the Way

Mr. Bobby Garcia (far left) with Robotics team and
special guest- Manor New Tech HS-- May 9, 2013

Here is a story about Mr. Bobby Garcia by Christine Benson of the College of Education's Communications office at The University of Texas at Austin and his robotics team at Manor New Tech High School in Manor, TX. Mr. Garica is a graduate of the MASEE program that is offered at the College of Education from within the STEM Education Program. MASEE is funded primarily via the "UTeach Engineering" grant from the National Science Foundation of which I am a Co-Principal Investigator. To date, the MASEE program has graduated 30 in-service teachers with at least another 20 in the pipeline. -Dr. Petrosino 

Bobby Garcia, a graduate of the College of Education’s Master of Arts in STEM Education - Engineering (MASEE) program, is inspiring students at Manor New Tech High School to win. Garcia is lead mentor for the school’s robotics team and under his tutelage Team TEXplosion has garnered local, state and national awards.

Earlier this year, the team won at the FIRST Lone Star Regional Robotics Competition in Houston, which qualified them for the FIRST Championship Robotics Competition in St. Louis, MO, in April. In  the past they’ve also traveled to farflung spots like Washington, D.C., and Salt Lake City to compete.

The FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) competitions are among the most prestigious high school tech tournaments in the country and often are hailed as the World Cup of Technology and a “varsity sport of the mind.” They’re open to high school students who are interested in science and technology and, in addition to building tech knowledge, aim to boost students’ social and  leadership skills.

“This past school year, I convinced my school administration to allow me to offer a course for our FIRST Robotics Competition group,” said Garcia, who has taught at Manor New Tech since it opened in 2007, “and I helped create and run a course for our junior varsity FIRST Technical Challenge. I wouldn’t have had the confidence to teach either of those courses last had it not been for my experience in the MASEE program.” —Christine Benson, College of Education Communications Assistant

Designs on the Future of High School Engineering: UTeachEngineering

The following is a write up from the National Science Foundation on UTeach Engineering-- a grant in which I am a Co-Principal Investigator with some other colleagues from the University of Texas at Austin and the Austin Independent School District. -Dr. Petrosino 

What started as a teacher training program morphed into a year-long, high school engineering course and multiple professional development opportunities

President Obama visits Manor New Tech and some UTeach Engineering graduates President Barack Obama tours a classroom at Manor New Technology High School in Manor, Texas. Credit and Larger Version

June 21, 2013

In May, President Obama kicked off his Middle Class Jobs and Opportunity Tour with a visit to Austin, Texas. First on the agenda--a visit to Manor New Technology High School, a school committed to preparing students for the high-tech, digital world. One of the highlights of the visit was a demonstration by TEXplosion, the school's award-winning robotics team. Although their competition robot was in transit from the world championships, they delivered with their practice bot, "Yolotron."
During the demonstration, President Obama spoke with Bobby Garcia, lead mentor for the robotics team and an engineering teacher at Manor New Tech. Since its start five years ago, the team has gone from a somewhat disorganized after-school program to an integral part of the curriculum. This year for the first time, the team won two regional competitions in Texas and earned a spot at the world robotics championships held in St. Louis, Mo., in April.
Garcia credits the team's turnaround, in part, with his participation in the University of Texas at Austin's (UT Austin) Master of Arts in STEM Education-Engineering (MASEE) program, a 2.5-year mix of residential and online coursework that includes hands-on projects in engineering design methods. The program is part of a larger NSF-funded effort--UTeachEngineering--developed at UT Austin to address both teacher professional development and curriculum creation in engineering at the secondary school level.

Meeting a need
Five years ago, some high schools in Texas began offering a year-long course in engineering to meet a state requirement of a fourth year of science for secondary school students. However, between 1995 and 2010 only 44 Texas high school teachers became certified in engineering. With the potential for 10,000 to 20,000 students enrolling in engineering each year to satisfy graduation requirements, UT Austin projected that the state could need as many as 500 engineering teachers.
Aware of the great need, UT Austin's David Allen, a chemical engineering professor, teamed with colleague Richard Crawford, a mechanical engineering professor, and Cheryl Farmer, a UT program manager. Together with colleagues from UT Austin's Colleges of Natural Sciences and Education and the Austin Independent School District, they applied for an NSF grant to fund creation of a professional development program for teachers of high school engineering. "We wanted to be engaged in defining what the high school course would be like and we wanted the teachers to be authentic in providing that course," Allen says.
However, a few months into the grant, input from NSF staff and a request from a school district partner for course materials caused the trio to completely revise their approach. "NSF suggested we develop the requested materials with the ideal high school course in mind," explains Farmer, who now serves as UTeachEngineering project director. "The goal was a year-long, high quality, low-cost curriculum that could be implemented in a variety of settings."

Creating a course
Rather than create a professional development program, the trio enlisted engineering natural sciences and education faculty, research fellows, practicing engineers--including a NASA engineer--education specialists, and high school teachers, and produced the high school course, "Engineer Your World." The algebra-based curriculum covers five units--discovering the design process, data acquisition and analysis, reverse engineering of everyday products, systems engineering, and automation and control.
Enriching these five extended design challenges in mechanical, aerospace and civil engineering are week-long explorations that introduce other disciplines such as chemical and biomedical engineering. "In each unit, students build, create, test, refine and analyze," says Farmer. "The course introduces the practice and process of engineering as well as authentic engineering skills and habits of mind." All of these areas are tied to engaging engineering activities and challenges such as building a pinhole camera for disabled artists.
In 2011-12, "Engineer Your World" was piloted in seven schools in Texas. That number jumped to 23 schools in eight states for 2012-2013. The plan is to introduce the course in 100 schools in 2013-2014 and double that number in 2014-2015.
While the course includes many challenging opportunities to learn about how engineers think and what they do, the goal of the course is not to turn every student into an engineer, says Farmer. "We are thrilled if our course helps students make an informed decision about what path they choose to follow. We are helping students be more literate about engineering."

Preparing teachers
Using "Engineer Your World" as a centerpiece, the team returned to their original plan and created several professional development components to complement the course and strengthen the ranks of high school engineering teachers. UTeachEngineering now includes:

• the MASEE program aimed at teachers who want to become leaders in secondary engineering education,
• an undergraduate certificate program for students in engineering and the natural sciences (students simultaneously obtain their bachelor of science degrees and teaching certificates),
• a certification program for those who hold bachelor's degrees in engineering or science and would like to teach, and
• a two-week summer session and ongoing support for teachers who teach the "Engineer Your World" course.

Over the next year, UTeachEngineering will add an online learning management system to foster collaboration among current and past participants as well as external resources such as industry mentors.

Rethinking the future
With more students taking high school-level engineering courses than ever before, Allen says programs like UTeachEngineering can help prepare students who may eventually teach those engineering courses along with mainstream engineers who go on to careers through colleges of engineering. Although the numbers of students taking engineering in high school are rising, the attrition rate in major engineering undergraduate programs is about 50 percent. "We can lure them in but they don't stay," says Lisa Guerra, the NASA engineer who worked on the systems engineering unit of "Engineer Your World." Allen points out that "it's critical for the engineering profession in the U.S. to utilize what's going on in high schools and to consider how we deal with the transition between high school and college."
For Garcia, his experience with the MASEE program and UTeachEngineering was eye-opening and energizing. Since graduating, he has helped develop two robotics classes for Manor New Tech students and repurposed thousands of dollars worth of equipment and space for the robotics team. "I took the plunge and applied...I was inspired and re-invigorated in teaching engineering. One of the things going right with education is exploring science and math in creative ways."

--	Susan Reiss, (703) 536-4529 smreiss@verizon.net

Investigators David Allen
Cheryl Farmer
Michael Houser
Michael Marder
Richard Crawford
Anthony Petrosino

Related Institutions/Organizations University of Texas at Austin

Locations Texas

Related Programs Math and Science Partnership
Engineering Education

Related Awards #0831811 UTeachEngineering: Training Secondary Teachers to Deliver Design-Based Engineering Instruction

Years Research Conducted 2008 - 2014
Total Grants $12,478,158
Related WebsitesUTeachEngineering: http://www.uteachengineering.org/
Engineer Your World: http://www.engineeryourworld.org/
MASEE Program: http://www.uteachengineering.org/MASEE/aboutMASEE.cfm