Editor’s note: This story has been updated to includes a statement from Gov. John Bel Edwards.
Tara, Port Allen and Brusly high schools will become the first public schools in Louisiana to participate in an education program that will train students for STEM jobs and potentially open doors for employment at IBM and Dow Chemical.
State officials joined representatives from IBM and Dow at the State Capitol today to announce the launch of the Pathways in Technology Early College High Schools model in Louisiana.
Dubbed P-TECH, the initiative is a six-year, dual enrollment program IBM founded at a New York City high school in 2011 to train the next generation of science, technology, math and engineering workers by helping to close the skills gap. More than half of the graduates completed the program in six years or less, earning associate degrees in informational technology.
“This is about skills development,” IBM Foundation President Jennifer Ryan Crozier says, adding the U.S. is in the midst of a skills crisis. “We have 500,000 jobs open in this country in technology yet we’re only graduating 50,000 students with computer science degrees every year.”
Louisiana is the eighth state to adopt the P-TECH model, which, Crozier says, also has launched internationally in Australia and Morocco. The program will start here in the fall, with the goal of eventually expanding to other Louisiana high schools.
“This innovative STEM-focused education model will provide students with the skills necessary for them to have successful careers in the growing technology industry,” Gov. John Bel Edwards says in a statement. “ … It showcases the kind of opportunities that partnerships between private industry and state and local government can create for our young people.”
Through a memorandum of understanding, IBM will work with Tara High School, where the CyberSTEM Academy will operate. Port Allen and Brusly High Schools will work with Dow, which will launch the Dow STEM Academy in both schools.
Students, entering the program in the ninth grade, can simultaneously take coursework to earn both their high school diplomas and associate degrees.
Those completing the P-TECH program can go on to a four-year university or enter the workforce, with graduates being guaranteed an interview—though not a job—at IBM and Dow.
Crozier says the program relies on working partnerships between public schools, community colleges and businesses willing to provide mentorship, paid internships and structured work environments. In Louisiana, partnering companies will work with the Louisiana Department of Education and the Louisiana Community and Technical College System.
