A University/Public High School STEM Partnership

Purdue University President Mitch Daniels

STEM charter schools are popping up all over the country, some with specific emphases like the new all-girl STEM public charter school in St. Louis, Hawthorn Leadership School for Girls for grades 6-12.

The STEM-based school in this video, however, could be a wonderful model for a charter school in Lincoln because of its collaboration with an R1 university. Here in Lincoln, we're fortunate to have amazing academic resources in University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Like Purdue has done with Purdue Polytechnic High School, UNL could do here in Lincoln. Offering a world-class STEM education to Lincoln students could open pathways to entrepreneurship and a high-tech workforce that could benefit Lincoln for generations to come.

The curriculum for Purdue Polytechnic High School is being developed by Purdue professors, and the school will offer some dual-credit opportunities that will help these students, many of whom are first-generation college attendees, to reduce their university costs and shorten their journey to a bachelor's degree.

This is yet another example of the way school choice can benefit individual students and the entire community--innovation and progress in education are inevitable when people have the freedom to think outside the traditional public school district model.