THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 4, 1995 TAG: 9505040369
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
The two hand-shaped wooden race cars, powered by a blast from carbon-dioxide gas cartridges, streaked across the cafeteria floor at Booker T. Washington High School at about 80 mph. Chester A. Jones Jr. whooped as his midget car edged out one built by a classmate.
``Wheew! It smoked 'em,'' he shouted at the Tech Prep Spring Fling after school Wednesday.
Jones, a 17-year-old junior who built the car in his technology class at Booker T., was just having fun. But teachers at the school said serious learning was taking place.
The car project, which required students to meet 20 specifications such as mass, height and weight, is typical of the kind of ``hands-on'' and``real-world'' approaches to education that Booker T. teachers use with Tech Prep students like Jones.
Tech Prep is one of the hottest education reform movements sweeping the country. It began in the late 1980s, growing out of a concern that high schools were graduating students who lacked skills needed to compete in the global marketplace of the 21st century.
In the late 1980s, Norfolk's Norview High served as a pilot for Tech Prep and the city's school system later became a model for the program nationwide. Since then, all of Hampton Roads' school districts have built Tech Prep programs.
June marks a milestone in Norfolk: the Class of 1995 will include the first students to earn Tech Prep seals on their diplomas.
Educators view Tech Prep as an antidote to the general diploma, which critics say allows kids to take lower-level courses and leave high school qualified do nothing beyond minimum-wage jobs.
Tech Prep combines a tough academic course load with technical training: It is designed to equip students with the academic preparation needed to get into four-year colleges and the skills to land decent-paying jobs, either out of high school or when coupled with additional training at a technical school or two-year community college.
``What we're trying to do is to get the kids to look beyond today,'' said Melanie R. Yules, an assistant principal at Booker T.
``We try to encourage our kids to develop some kind of job outlook so they can leave with marketable skills. The kids can see this looks good on a college application or for a technical school, and it gives them a little more focus,'' she said.
For sophomore Elizabeth Johnson, 15, Tech Prep offers a safety valve. Johnson, who wants to become a pediatrician, is enrolled in the school's business marketing cluster.
Along with typical college prep courses, including honors biology, advanced Spanish, and advanced placement world history, she is taking business courses in which she has learned such skills as keyboarding.
``It motivates me, and in case something else happens in my life it gives me different routes to take so that I will meet my goals eventually,'' Johnson said. ``Tech Prep is just another booster to push you toward your goals.''
The program has proven popular. In Norfolk students can choose from among business, engineering and technology, fine arts, and health and human services. Enrollment has grown tenfold in three years, to approximately 1,000 students this year from 100 in 1992-93.
The national move toward Tech Prep was spurred largely by frustrated business and industry leaders.
In 1990, Congress gave money to the states to set up Tech Prep programs that link high schools to local college systems. Building bridges between high schools and colleges is key to the Tech Prep program.
School districts in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Portsmouth joined Norfolk and Tidewater Community College to form the Tidewater Consortium in 1992. Suffolk, Franklin City, Isle of Wight and Southampton County school districts formed a separate alliance with Paul D. Camp Community College.
Norfolk banker Clyde McFarland has helped teachers with the Tidewater Consortium rewrite the business marketing curriculum to dovetail with the banking industry's needs. He's sold on the merits of Tech Prep.
``Any time you can improve the quality of education and open up more opportunities to people, certainly that's a good thing,'' said McFarland, vice president and controller of Commerce Bank in Norfolk. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by CHRISTOPHER REDDICK, Staff
Terri Ballance, 15, left; Leon Hayes, 14; and Rosalyn Ballard, 14,
participate in a cake-making contest held for students interested in
the Tech Prep program at Booker T. Washington High School. The
program combines the study of technology and academics.
KEYWORDS: VOCATIONAL EDUCATION JOB SKILLS by CNB