What is HiTECCC?
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| Signing of agreement creating HiTECCC, October 2004. | The High Technology Education Coalition of Collin County (HiTECCC) is a first-of-its-kind collaborative effort designed to ensure that area students receive a high-quality science, technology, engineering and math education. Local education leaders announced its creation in October of 2004. HiTECCC is now celebrating the accomplishments made in its inaugural year.
The charter members of HiTECCC are the Plano Independent School District (PISD), the Collin County Community College District (Collin) and the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) with an advisory committee of industry leaders from Lockheed Martin, Nortel, Raytheon and Texas Instruments.
As industry reliance on technical skills continues to be an engine for economic expansion in North Texas, it is essential that a greater percentage of students are equipped for careers in math, science, engineering and technology. The coalition’s mission: cause a stepwise improvement in the educational infrastructure of the area so companies expanding or relocating will find a positive climate for research and innovation in Collin County.
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Photos from one-year anniversary reception
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Why North Texas needs the partnership
According to a 2005 report titled “The Looming Workforce Crisis,” the United States should expect to see more than 2 million available jobs in computer science, mathematics, engineering and physical science by 2012. Yet recent statistics show a downward trend in the number of engineering graduates. At the same time, more than half of all science and engineering workers in our country are over 40 and 26 percent are older than 50, which could further accelerate the shortage.
US wide, eighth grade students are ranked 19th overall in their math ability behind such countries as Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Bulgaria and Slovenia, says the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.
HiTECCC seeks to combat these trends, create synergy among the institutions and members and increase the number of local students pursuing math and science based careers.
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Progress to date
In its first year, HiTECCC evaluated possible areas of improvement and laid the foundation for growth. The 2005 milestones and accomplishments include:
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Camp participants conduct experiments with mentors during their summer camp. | 47 PISD junior and senior girls attended an Advanced Placement ® (AP) Physics summer camp to strengthen their understanding of physics concepts, introduce them to mentors and expose them to careers in high-technology. The course gives the girls a jumpstart on the fall semester as all work is tied to the district’s physics curriculum and AP exit exams.  By offering the camp, PISD hopes to achieve the same gender parity ratio in AP physics that it enjoys in students taking AP calculus AB exams, (girls 49 percent and boys 51 percent). Of the 172 students passing AP physics exams in 2004, 29 were girls (17 percent), and 88 percent of the girls who took the exam passed with a score of 3 or greater. Coalition members hope to not only maintain the excellent passing rate for girls, but also increase the pool of girls taking exams by 40 percent. The program is in its fifth successful year in the Dallas ISD and has seen growth in the percentage of passing rates for girls on AP exams.
15 PISD students completed summer research internships working alongside faculty and students on high level projects on the UTD campus.
Three Collin faculty received full scholarships to pursue doctoral degrees at UTD.
Collin and UTD refined their “dual admission” agreement, which allows students to transfer seamlessly from Collin to UTD with credits intact.
 19 Collin students received SMART (Science, Math, Advanced Research and Technology) scholarships to pursue high-tech degrees, and two SMART scholars have already transferred to UTD. TI created SMART through a $1 million grant to Collin in order to encourage Plano students to pursue college degrees in engineering.
Ten PISD principals are participating in the Executive Principal Program that pairs them with community business leaders to mentor, provide guidance and teach business practices that could lead to better overall school performance. This innovative concept builds relationships between the business sector and public schools and has been in operation at targeted Dallas campuses for more than 10 years. In virtually all instances, the mentored principal has been able to improve on one or more state measured indices. The program has the potential to impact nearly 8,500 PISD students in its first year alone.
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Next steps: Second-year objectives
HiTECCC’s second-year objectives include:
- Develop and deploy programs in science, technology, engineering and math disciplines to increase preparation and achievement in diverse and economically challenged populations;
- Improve retention rates in first-year college engineering majors;
- Design a longitudinal assessment tool to measure program effectiveness;
- Raise awareness in community, especially with parents and educators, on the growing demand and value for science, technology, engineering and math skills in the workplace;
- Increase percentage of students taking and passing AP math and science exit exams.
For more information on HiTECCC, contact Torrence Robinson at t-robinson4@ti.com.
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Published by: High Technology Education Coalition of Collin County.
Following are comments from PISD students who attended a summer AP physics camp at UTD. (For more information, see story titled "Progress to Date"):
"I expected to be working on more well-known organisms and to make more progress than we did, but this was a surprise and not a disappointment. I realized how many hours and how many hypotheses a scientist must devote to every newsworthy discovery."
"I would recommned this program to other students because I experienced the functioning of a college laboratory as a 16 year-old. I couldn't get over the fact that I wasn't working toward a definitive answer [that] my teacher knew, but an experiment that nobody in the world knows its outcome."
"I would recommend this program to other students because as a student said in the awards ceremony, I learned to answer problems myself without the aid of an adult or teacher. This skill can be applied to any area of life. Also, through this program I gained confidence and greater interest in the field of science. In fact, I changed my schedule to accommodate an extra science class."
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