New legislation?

[N7UJJ]

We just received an email from an Arizona state legislator who we have met a few times:

"I want to introduce legislation next year to get more students interested in science and engineering. I am not really sure what the legislation would entail but I was thinking of something along the lines of having the state provide schools with additional funding dedicated specifically for elementary and high schools to invest in programs like yours at Carl Hayden. But I thought you might have some ideas on the subject and could help me in formulating the legislation."

So after years of promoting FIRST and attempting to "Change our culture" this offer comes along and we realize we have no idea what we would want from a state legislature. So....

Is there anything your state does that we should consider?

What kind of law would encourage kids to become more interested in science, math and engineering?

Any advice?

Allan

[Matt Krass]

It might be a bit of a stretch but maybe add FIRST to the curriculum and provide funding to schools to get themselves started with it? I'm not sure if legislatures control State Boards of Education or not, but it's an idea.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

From the point of view of a student that has moved around often to varying school programs, I would suggest this:

1) Legislation to provide funding for city-wide programs, summer camps, you name it. Anything that can get kids together. FIRST is a part of that, but FIRST can't do everything.

2) Job shadow/engineering mentorship programs. Make "career days" a big thing, kids really do learn a lot from them.

3) More opportunities to work with Universities. Self-explanatory.

[sanddrag]

Technology oriented afterschool activities. I think one of the biggest problems of parents who work is what to do with their kids between the time the kids get out of school and the parents get home. Many parents don't fancy the idea of them sitting at home or in a library and especially for middle school (jr. high) and high school students there really aren't any afterschool activities available. Get more funding to allow schools to have afterschool programs involing computers, robotics, and fabrication and design, andperhaps involving a level of competition in each.

[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by N7UJJ

What kind of law would encourage kids to become more interested in science, math and engineering?

Any advice?

Allan

I don't think a law in and of itself can do anything. But a law can provide motivation and or money to people to make things happen.

For example a law requiring every high school to provide some sort of competitive robotics program would suddenly move robotics from near the bottom of the school administration's priority list to somewhat higher. Of course then it has to compete for resources with all of the other state and federal mandated school programs. If no resources are provided, then the administrators have a good excuse not to do it even though the law requires it.

One solution might be to have the State Department of Education provide grants to schools who have competitive robotics teams. The grants should include provisions for stipends similar to those received by athletic coaches for the supervising teacher(s). The grant amount should be 50-75% of what it costs to enter a FIRST competition. Maybe 100% for the first year only.

Raytheon sponsors many teams here in the LA area. They have found that the teams that have to work to provide at least some of their own funding are much "healthier" than those who have everything provided. Having to work at fund raising seems to improve the team dynamics, though for a rookie team things are confusing enough already, and maybe you should let them see first hand what the potential of the program is before adding that extra work.

I would suggest matching grants, but that means somebody from the school has to keep track of funds raised and somebody else with the state has to decide who gets how much, which adds two layers of bureaucracy, always a bad thing. In view of the amount of money involved ($5-7.5K/school), I don't think that an added layer or two is cost effective. Sometimes it is just cheaper not to have oversight.

Ideally I think the burden of cost for Robotics teams should be born by school booster clubs with the teacher's recieving a stipend similar to the football coach's paid for by the school. Robotics should be considered a sport like track or football and funded the same way. I'd rather not have the State involved at all, but if the State insists on doing something to help, then let's help them do it right. The football model works so I'd try to get some legislation similar to that which supports the athletic departments.

ChrisH

One of the things that I have noticed in the Bay Area may be helpful here. There are almost no good computer classes at schools here, even though we are in the "silicon valley", or the "heart of technology." The main reason, I believe, is that anyone who knows enough about computers to be a really good teacher can find better pay at a company, and so this deters them from teaching a class. (I know that this is the problem with my school)

So, I'm wondering if it may be possible to make it so a teacher of computers or programming would be payed a little more than the average teacher. This may attract some of those who are actually a competent teacher. After all, computers are basically the core of technology these days.....

[SpaceOsc]

make it illegal for any company to refuse sponsorship, and give no less than $1,500 bucks to FIRST teams, just an idea Just remembered Kingman (Team 60) is in Arizona.. hmms forget the more Money


how about a law that forces booster clubs and organizations to keep public funding leveled between robotics and football .. like for every $5-10 dollars football can have, robotics need to have $1 -3? ... i know football everywhere is highly funded compared to everything else.. so before football can see a $1,000 robotics needs to see $100 bucks in green

[KenWittlief]

I would be very carefull about requiring mandatory anything. FIRST has always been a 100% volunteer organization. The teachers, the mentors and the students are involved because they want to be.

You pass a law so that teachers, mentor and/or students are required to participate and FIRST will go down the tubes.

What we could do:
From my experience starting new teams, its fairly easy to find funding for a local regional attendance, and to have several students and one or two mentors on a team, but the hard things are:

Finding space: team space, build space, shop space, machine tool space, playing field space, store-the-robot-till-next-year space....

I think it would be awesome if cities could have FIRST centers. A facility where several school teams could meet, sharing the machine shop, the playing field, and other common assets, while having smaller separate areas/rooms for each team. This could be a year-round technology center, with other projects and programs - maybe even a place for teams to show off their robots during the year to new students, and potential new schools.

Something like this would be hard for any one company in the area to sponsor and fund, but the state could easily step in and own it.

[Mark Pierce]

For several years now the State of Michigan has helped FIRST by helping to sponsor our regionals through the economic development commission or some part of the Dept. of Commerce. Having regionals close by is one of the best ways to encourage new teams.

Legislatively, the states could do more to encourage technical education. Here in Michigan, the state requires all kinds of academic classes, but schools let some kids satisfy the technology requirement by taking a one semester Word Processing class. Funding should be provided for schools to equip and operate computer labs and some kind of shop facility (even a facility shared with FIRST, theater tech, and other groups). If kids are exposed to what engineering and technology are really about, there might be more of a demand for programs like FIRST.

The state government can issue proclamations and other recognition to schools that take the effort to compete in things other than sports. Every little bit of publicity helps.

He could give businesses incentives to support FIRST. Maybe just ensuring that contributions of materials and cash, maybe even labor, are fully deductible from state taxes. Maybe something more.

Perhaps schools can be encouraged to support FRC, Lego League, and other academic competitions (Science Olympiad, etc) as part of their Accreditation or other process.

Many state legislatures are trying to fight State Universities spiraling tuition costs. Perhaps some of their funding should be based on how much they help local high school programs.