Sounds very interesting

Organize a meeting with those who hold the purse strings and policy book...set a date...people will come! Let's start the process! With so many engineers/scientists/mathematicians employed locally by government contractors, we have every reason to "grow" their future replacements right here in Newport County!

Didnt we have that in the newport area career and techinal center . i think that s what it was called and that seemed to tank and they closed it down

This idea may have strong merit, but the proposition presented here didn't seem to explain how a special school for STEM education would resolve the "circumstances that are beyond [high school teachers'] control". What are those circumstances, how do they affect the ability of teacher's to fill that skill gap, and how will the new school fill this gap? Please explain how the "STEM" specific school enables students to perform better, while maintaining a balanced education in other liberal arts, public policy, etc. Why are our current schools unable to adapt? These are salient points that need to be made to help people understand why you're advocating this new school. Please understand that I'm not against the idea. I believe STEM education is important, but answering these questions will make it clearer why time, energy, and money should be spent to pursue this course.

Love the idea. I would send all of my kids to a STEM school in a heartbeat. As long as the teachers have real world experience in the content they are teaching (in other words, have earned an income professionally in STEM areas). I would also not be against paying these teachers salaries that are competitive with their experience and the careers that they would be leaving. And please, no teacher's unions. Just pay them what they are worth and treat them like professionals...meaning, annual evaluations, no guaranteed raises, full year work schedules, etc. Maybe have mandatory summer courses where older kids have to show up for "work" where they do projects like build and maintain web sites for local businesses, learn how to maintain a small engine, use current technologies to make music videos, build robots, enter engineering contests, etc.)

This country's focus on "liberal arts" over the past 20 plus years is why we are so far behind in the STEM areas and is the reason why young adults are not able to find jobs. This economy is FULL of jobs in engineering, math, and technology that companies are struggling to fill and end up filling with qualified people from other countries. We need to put a laser focus on teaching our children the skills that will qualify them for these jobs.

Leaving college with $100K+ in debt and a degree in History is equivalent to giving someone a spoon to fill the Grand Canyon.

My first reactions is to a root issue of connecting with students early.
We have CCRI in Newport County and around the state. Yes, with a subsequent path to URI where student achievement was demonstrated. Why is this not the already in place vehicle for such an agenda? Yes, perhaps along with the existing HS supplementing to better prepare students for such a programs? We have a lot of economic challenged and lack affordability to issue yet more public bonds an offer such as a new free public education track at the HS and or college level. All must return to having their own and their families skin in the game. Perhaps if people independently wish to start a private (self funded) non profit or for profit venture it is still a free country, so far. We might better focus our energy in a consolidation delivery of both government services including education such that the cost is lowered and the overall value to all parties better realized.

I think that a STEM school would defeat part of the purpose, to integrate technology across all disciplines, not just science and math. Technology can be a bridge between the sciences and humanities for more comprehensive and substantive learning and problem solving. A better alternative would be to have a STEM specialist in each district or school. It's easier to change curriculum rather than create an entirely new school. Just a thought.

Chris offers a strong vision. Newport County would do itself, and future generations of students, well by founding a STEM charter H.S. The teaching talent is already here. There's also plenty of private industry talent within a 50 mile radius and plenty of opportunities for public-private partnerships.

It's being done in Washington State via the Washington State STEM Education
Foundation --http://washingtonstemeducation.org/organization/our_projects/
Their initial project -- "Delta High School" -- appears to be delivering strong test results; a high level presentation is at
http://washingtonstemeducation.org/images/uploads/Delta%20Presentation.pdf ;
their slides show the chronology for the rollout of the school and list the critical success factors for success

Here are the first three critical success factors that the Washington
State participants list as making their vision a reality:

-- Collective Will
-- Collaboration and cooperation
-- Ongoing support from community, the Foundation and partner

How can we get beyond RI's quaint myopia and parochialism and develop this idea further?

All of the high schools offer wide varieties of AP math and science classes and provide engineering internship opportunities with the navy. A way to strengthen the programs would be to regionalize the high schools and have several magnet schools in stem, arts and voctech for example. But there is zero political will to pursue that option.

Hi
I was in Seattle , Calgary and Vancouver on business this week.
Thank you for taking the time to comment on this Blog, I have been following all of the excellent comments .
I am investigating what it takes to hold a forum on this topic and will update when I have progress.
Have a Great weekend!
Regards
Chris Semonelli

Today we are closing schools throughout the County, laying off teachers on an annual basis, and basically teaching our children just to pass standardized tests. It makes much more sense to create these programs in our current schools or to utilize CCRI. Why would we need to create a charter school when our current school enrollment is dwindling and we can not afford to even pay for school supplies. Not only do I have to buy my children new school clothes at the beginning of the year, but now we are burdened with supplying supplies for their teachers too.

This charter school would be similar to our colleges where we educate our youth only to ship them out to other states because there are no jobs in Rhode Island. There are no jobs in Rhode Island because our politicians, including Mr. Semonelli make it difficult to do business here. Sounds like a waste of time and resources to me, but that is something Rhode Island politicians are good at.

You can’t have STEM without a commitment to teaching technology. RI lacks tech ed standards until children reach 6th grade. And please don’t confuse USING tech with UNDERSTANDING it. Just because a child knows how to go to nickjr.com or watch YouTube videos on a tablet doesn’t make that child tech literate. Very few RI public schools begin tech ed before middle school, even though they may be using tech in the classroom, and many schools don't have functioning tech in the classroom. There’s a lot in the new Core Curriculum about English and Math, but still no reference to tech until 6th grade. To me, this demonstrates a lack of commitment to teaching tech to RI students.
The last time I looked at the results on www.projectred.org, RI was ranked 49th in the nation in terms of technology richness in schools. We don’t have the money to invest in it, or to make sure our teachers have the tech skills they need to integrate tech into the classroom in an age-appropriate way. We need to be using it early and often. Imagine what you can do to teach science and engineering when you use technology?
So, now we have a significant number of adults of all ages in our community who use computers all the time but really don’t know how to do much more than watch videos, check Facebook, and maybe use email. That means that these people lack the skills required in the job market when there are jobs available. Assuming there are tech jobs available in RI, who’s qualified for them?

Let's get realistic. We need to focus on STEAM: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/08/22/from-stem-to-steam-science-and-the-arts-go-hand-in-hand/ "Innovation" is key to the future and creating more jobs for our children.

Without a doubt that would be best. Even with the best STEM education, the arts are a necessary tool to help children explore creative thinking skills, allowing them to see outside-the-box solutions in problem solving. Never mind the added quality of life just from enjoying the arts!

Hi
The Comments are great please keep them coming.
Yes I have heard of the STEAM initiative which is excellent.
Please see the STEM launch in Chicago below, for information only.
I feel that having a partner, as they do, is a powerful component of a successful program.
Regards Chris

http://www.govloop.com/profiles/blogs/rahm-emanuel-launches-chicago-early-college-stem-high-schools

Rahm Emanuel Launches Chicago “Early College” STEM High Schools
Rahm Emanuel, flanked with executives from five large technology companies, announced the formation of five innovative “early college STEM schools,” which are six-year high schools focused on preparing students for a modern, information-laden, tech-savvy future workforce. Students will also have the opportunity to be “first in line” for interviews with the companies after compeletion of the program. The program will start with incoming freshman in Fall 2012.

The five tech companies involved with these innovative schools are Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Motorola Solutions, and Verizon Wireless, each of which will “adopt” a specific school in the Chicago Public School system (which will still run the schools). Students will graduate after six years with not only a high school diploma but also an associates degree from City Colleges of Chicago, who also participated in the announcement.

It seems like this is a little bit of the blind leading the blind here. Towns that border on total incompetence in science and math education are going to lead the charge to create a new charter school that focuses on science and math education? Here is a novel idea... Let's focus our efforts on dumping all the federal and state mandates. Let's remove the union control which says a physics degree is no more valuable than a degree in english. Let's obliterate the massive burden of the excessively large administration that "run" our schools. Instead, let's let quality teachers focus on instructing our children in any/all subject matter fields. Let's evaluate our students with real grades which highlight their actual mastery of the subject. Let's teach our individual students in areas that they are individually interested in and stop trying to force-feed well-roundedness into our kids. Let's bring back the talented and gifted programs AND the remedial programs.

I'll conclude with an analogy from my own personal experience... My daughter has a birthday in November. She is very bright and more than capable for her age. We were told last year that there were no exceptions to the Sept. 1st cutoff for age-based enrollment in Kindergarten. Now, a year later, she started kindergarten and is being re-taught the alphabet and basic counting. These are things she knew 2-3 years ago. How will she ever excell when the Fed., State, Town and School want her to stagnate?

Hi I am waiting to hear from a group I have asked to run the forum by ride has agreed to a date of oct 20th at Ccri newport campus from 10 to 12 in the morning regards chris from Charlotte heading to Seattle on business

Hi

We have made the reservation below at CCRI Newport Campus for Oct 20th.

Representatives from RIDE will present the application process, representatives from New England Technical Institute will also attend ,they have offered assistance with advisors and curriculum development, if there is interest in pursuing a Local Charter School.
(Hello Chris, The auditorium is reserved for you— 10/20/2012—9am—12noon--Newport County Mentor Coop—what will you require from the IT dept.-- mics etc. and any specific set up that you may wish on stage—panel etc.—then I can give you an accurate fee.. )

fyi

Regards

Chris Semonelli from Tampa

Hi
Please see we have reserved the auditorium at Newport Campus CCRI for Saturday 10/20/12 , with Edna's help ,for this event. We have it from 9-12.
Various notes are below and The format is under development, the prime focus is a review of the charter school history ,and process, by Bill Clarke below from RIDE ,starting at 10 and a subsequent discussion as well.
A frequently asked questions charter school questions document is attached .
In addition, New England Institute of Technology representatives have agreed to attend. They have agreed to help with a curriculum and advisors if it came to this.
In addition , Retired Admiral Mcgann , who led a Stem Charter School in Massachusetts has also agreed to attend and participate.
We will get the word out.
Thanks to all for their efforts.
regards
Chris
Chris
I'm happy to start at 10. I won't need more than an hour and only if there are questions. My agenda is:
Define Charter School (includes history, tie to RIDE strategic plan, theory of action,etc)
Authorization process
Re-authorization process
Q/A
All I need is projection. I can bring laptop.
Thanks, Bill
Bill Clarke
Charter School Coordinator
Rhode Island Department of Education
Sure, I could certainly field issues about the practical issues associated with operational execution. Best, Barbara
having led one of the highest performing STEM charters in the country for over three years

Hi
This is a confirmation of the meeting next Saturday 10/20 at CCRI Newport Campus from 10-12 to be conducted by the Newport County Mentor/CO-Op Group.
I will get the word out to the press.
I attended this session in Providence last night, the Superintendent of Portsmouth schools was there as well, they are in the prelim stages of looking into the creation of a STEM Charter school perhaps in their high school.
It was an excellent session, there were people there from though out the state interested in this program, Bill Clarke is very talented, RIDE has a high level interest in creating 20 charter schools through out Rhode island and has seed funding to initiate this plan.
Admiral McGann will attend this session, NEIT has a robotics competition and a conflict, but have pledged their support if this program were to be carried to the next level.
regards
Chris