School reform initiatives almost always pay close attention to curriculum, says Kathy Sullivan, director of the Battelle Center for Mathematics and Science Education Policy. They tune in to instructional design. They acknowledge the need for a sound project management plan and careful budgeting.
What they often overlook, she says, are the activities school leaders end up spending most of their time on -- communication, outreach and building relationships with those who can help them achieve their goals.
That, in a nutshell is how Sullivan views the work of the Battelle Center. As a founding partner with the Ohio STEM Learning Network (OSLN), the center has been at the forefront of Ohio's STEM learning initiatives since the beginning.
Battelle Memorial Institute created the center in 2006 within the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University. The Battelle Center was charged with bringing together those in higher education with leaders in K-12, business, technology, and government to develop policies and practices that increase the number of students prepared to be leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Since then, the center has been an active partner with Ohio's STEM schools, beginning with Metro Early College High School in Columbus.
"At about the year and a half point after Metro opened, we used some of the center's funds in partnership with the PAST Foundation to take a first look at the public-private network processes, structure and status," Sullivan says. "We stayed involved in OSLN from its inception as a technical assistance provider, helping (Battelle) and others strategize and think through the formative steps of OSLN. And then, over these last nine months or so, basically taking the kind of methodology we had used with Metro and spreading that across the existing five OSLN hubs."
The goal, she says, is an interconnected, innovative, scalable system of STEM education throughout the state.
Source: Kathy Sullivan, the Battelle Center
Writer: Gene Monteith