Business Group to Help Boost School Science

A group of local business leaders announced Thursday that it will locate the two lowest-performing Orange County public schools and begin an infusion of dollars and support to improve science education.

Details of the new plan are still being worked out but by this fall, two struggling schools will be chosen by the county’s Department of Education for assistance, said Joel Slutzky, chairman of Project Tomorrow.

The nonprofit group’s board includes members from local companies and schools and works to improve how science is taught in Orange County public schools.

“Our belief is that if the teachers, students and parents all really want it to happen, we can help change those scores,” said Slutzky, who is CEO of Anaheim-based Odetics. “But it’s yet to be determined how successful we’ll be.”

Slutzky said the schools will be chosen after an examination of standardized test scores, the number of students who go on to college and other indicators of performance.

In its four-year history, Project Tomorrow has helped foster teacher training programs in the Westminster School District and a docent program in Saddleback Valley Unified School District, where high school students teach science to children at elementary schools.

Other grants from the group have gone to Anaheim, Huntington Beach, Irvine, Placentia and Yorba Linda schools.

Project Tomorrow offers ideas and financial support but never dictates what should be done in the classroom, board members said.

Thus, more concrete plans for working with the two schools will not be known until they are actually chosen and educators at the campuses make their needs known.

The idea for Project Tomorrow emerged from a consensus among business leaders, including some at Orange County’s high-tech firms, that a work force literate in science and math is necessary to sustain continued economic growth.

To beef up science education, Project Tomorrow focuses on training teachers and making classroom lessons more interesting for students.

In Saddleback Valley Unified, for example, high school students have been teaching lessons in elementary classrooms as part of a strategy to make science a “cool” subject.

Meanwhile, the older students gain a deeper understanding of scientific principles and earn credits toward graduation.