NON-PROFIT HOPES STEM' PROGRAM WILL TAKE ROOT
One of the biggest education ideas of the year was floated at the School Board's July meeting by a local business law attorney and the Greater Norfolk Corporation.
Charles McPhillips and GNC, a non-profit group promoting the city's development, are soliciting support for a Norfolk-based high school that would specialize in students hungry for math, science and engineering.
Such a high school could "lead to the producing, growth and nurturing of future innovators and inculcate values of risk-taking," McPhillips told the board.
Models of this kind of school include the New Horizons Governor's School for Science and Technology in Hampton and the Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, he said.
"Do we have anything of that regional nature, of that caliber? We don't have that," McPhillips said. "We're not even in the game for the competition for STEM education," a reference to science, technology, engineering and math.
Christina Harris, the Norfolk division's chief academic officer, said she visited Thomas Jefferson this year and found students who "owned their learning" and who were doing amazing research.
If that doesn't impress you, maybe this will: On an annual basis, Northern Virginia sees 60 to 80 percent more business startups per 10,000 people than we do in South Hampton Roads, McPhillips said, citing Old Dominion University's State of the Region Hampton Roads 2010 report."That's where the jobs are, that's why our children and grandchildren are leaving to go there," he said.
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