Does robotics attract the right students?

[penguinfrk]

I had an interesting conversation about the self-selection of participants in extracurricular activities with an attorney who is running for state legislature come 2012.

Here are some statistics on the five public high schools in Bellevue, WA, all of which have FRC teams, taken from the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).

                        International(492)  Newport(948)	Bellevue(949)	Interlake(1899)	Sammamish(2412)
Years with team      	11                  9                  	9       	7       	5
Grad Rate              	100.0%              96.0%       	95.3%   	89.4%        	86.2%
Science test scores    	92.3%               80.1%        	74.9%       	69.1%        	51.4%
Teacher Experience (yr)	11                  12                	9       	10             	10
Student:Teacher Ratio  	16                  17                	18           	16      	13

The correlation between the years that the team has been in existence and the performance of the schools are pretty strong even while other factors such as teacher experience and student:teacher ratio have been relatively constant.

This suggests that whether or not students are on the team has no bearing on the fact that the presence of FIRST programs (or, at least FRC) enhances the educational environment of the schools.

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Moreover, I personally don't agree with the self-selection thing, if for no other reason than that I personally was not a STEM fanatic when I first joined my FLL team.

I do think that peer pressure, in this case a fantastic thing, causes students who otherwise never would've joined a team to show up at meetings with their friends or boyfriends or what have you. Even if everyone in this group isn't all retained, there are undoubtedly many who become immersed in STEM.