Gillibrand Promotes STEM Education During National Engineers Week

Press Release

Gillibrand Promotes STEM Education During National Engineers Week

This week, Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand used National Engineers Week to help promote a local educational outreach program that has spread nationwide. The program, which started in Clifton Park, NY, is called Project Lead The Way (PLTW).

"There is much concern about building America's science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in this country," said Gillibrand. "As

New Yorkers and Americans, we must produce more STEM graduates as they are the generation that will make the United States energy independent, build our country's infrastructure and ensure longer life spans through medical technology."

Congresswoman Gillibrand sent a letter with an educational brochure describing the program and its importance to our educational system to each one of her Congressional colleagues in Washington D.C.

Project Lead The Way is a non-profit program supported by private partnerships and foundations and has developed a four-year sequence of courses which introduces students to the scope, rigor and discipline of engineering and technology prior to entering college. This program has successfully shown young people the importance and career applications of study in the STEM disciplines.

Currently, Project Lead The Way is in 47 states and 1500 schools nationwide. Their growth and success is buoyed by recognition from the National Academy of Science and their renowned report, ‘Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future', which cited Project Lead The Way as a model curriculum with "world class standards." Over 300,000 students have taken a Project Lead The Way course and PLTW students are five times more likely than the national average to elect engineering and related majors.

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