By now, you’ve heard about STEM Education. Advancing STEM Education reforms is something Greater Spokane Incorporated has been involved in for the past few years, along with a number of regional partners.
Praising the virtues of STEM Education is one thing, but getting reforms enacted is another, and the ultimate goal of “STEM Madness” is to grow the number of graduates with STEM-related degrees, thus helping our region and state (and nation, too) fill STEM-related jobs.
So what’s happened, recently?
Well, we’ve just started the back nine of the legislative session in Olympia, and STEM Education is on the minds of lawmakers – especially Governor Jay Inslee, if his Inaugural Address is any indication. Washington STEM even called Inslee “The STEM Governor Washington State Needs.”
But words in an Inaugural Address are one thing, while taking action is another. Governor Inslee showed that he would back up his praise of STEM Education when he testified in support of a bill in the House that would create a STEM Education Innovation Alliance to serve as an advisory council to the governor.
It raises an interesting point – computer programming lessons spur thoughts and ideas. Technology is moving so fast, our economy depends on it and the workforce needs to know how to keep up. Keeping up starts with our schools, which is where your future workforce is trained.
We help connect the business and education communities in ways that prepare for the future. At our annual Economic Forecast breakfast last November, Avista’s Chief Economist – Dr. Grant Forsyth – opined that our current education system isn’t preparing kids for our current economy.
We continue to work with business leaders and educators to change that through our Teaching the Teachers program, the Work 101 program, the establishing of the Riverpoint Academy and Spokane Valley Tech, partnering with Spokane Public Schools on career fairs, and a lot more. Changing the way our education system prepares kids also starts in Olympia. In January, 17 people from our 87-person delegation were from the education sector.
We also facilitate a K-12 roundtable where members of the business and education communities meet to talk about how to best prepare today’s kids. Our Higher Education Leadership Group (HELG) also tackles education issues at the higher education level. The leaders of our area colleges and universities make up HELG and work together to promote and enhance higher education in our region.
What do you think? Does this video get it right, in that more computer programming classes are needed in our schools?
We always enjoy seeing our members featured in the news for accomplishing something. Here are five recent newsworthy items that include our members. Is your company newsworthy? Let us know!
Spokane Public Schools Named to AP Honor Roll
The state’s second-largest school district was one of 539 school districts in the U.S. and Canada to earn this distinction from the College Board.
What does the health of a community depend on? A lot of things, obviously, but one thing in particular is how educated its kids are.
Kids dropping out of school and living without a high school diploma don’t create a healthy society. A group in Spokane is aiming to catch at-risk kids before they drop out. (more…)
Why do we support public education? Because when a community supports its schools, the community thrives. Our community is strong right now because of things happening in our area schools.
Here are a couple cool things happening right now.
Fourteen area public school districts will have a levy on the Feb. 14 ballot (which drops in the mail Jan. 27). These levies fund vital programs and resources, such as textbooks, teaching materials, extracurricular activities, classified support staff and a lot more.
The levies will fund bus transportation and vital programs and resources, such as textbooks, teaching materials, extracurricular activities, classified support staff and a lot more.
The Executive Committee of Greater Spokane Incorporated voted on behalf of the Board of Trustees to support the school levies.
It’s often been said that teachers are the most important people in a child’s life, besides parents. Teachers contribute to the shape of our workforce.
Here at Greater Spokane Incorporated, we’re constantly working to create a better, more skilled workforce. One way to do that is to put careers in front of educators, who will then take that information and pass it along to their students.
