| OVERVIEW - About the TeenWeb
Project February
2004
(Also see News
for current project details)
With the dearth of graduates - at both the high
school and college level - with sufficient coursework and proficiency
in math and science, our country faces an acute shortage of qualified
workers in the burgeoning fields of healthcare, biotechnology, engineering,
aerospace, and information technology.
Our quality of life, economic health, and global leadership all
critically depend on our ability to ensure the intellectual competency
and productive capacity of the next generation. Millions of teens
are drifting aimlessly through what should be the most important,
foundation-building, learning experiences of their lives. Most believe
that if they just show up enough days to receive a diploma, life
will be theirs for the taking.
The Maryland Business Roundtable for Education (MBRT),the business
community, and State partners in education and economic development
have developed a program that reaches thousands of middle and high
school students in Maryland and has the potential of reaching millions
across the country. The Achievement
Counts campaign delivers to students information they need
to understand the connection between achievement in school and success
in the workplace; and the motivation they need to prepare themselves
for a lifetime of opportunity.
 The
Achievement Counts Teen Career Website (name in prototype
= "Be What I Want To Be") will engage students in exploring
exciting careers. The site content will motivate them to select
and successfully complete rigorous courses of study that will allow
them to pursue careers in engineering, information technology, aerospace,
healthcare, and biotechnology.
To ensure the website will attract - and retain the interest of
- teens, students play an important role in the planning/design/implementation/marketing
phases of the project. Not only is it important for us to hear and
heed the student "voice," but participating students gain invaluable
technology learning experiences in the process.
The initial launch of the Teen Career Website will highlight and
profile careers in Health, Finance, and Information Technology/Aerospace
Engineering. Partners in these
career fields have been established to help develop content materials
and to provide workers in these careers to profile. To date, NASA
Goddard, the Lockheed Martin Corporation, adn Verizon are our major
partners for the Information Technology/Aerospace section of the
website. CitiFinancial sponsors
the financial career section. Health partners include the Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Hospital,
Kaiser Permanente, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
We invite partners in education, economic development, community
development and business to support this groundbreaking initiative.
Investment in the Teen Career Website will help to:
-- Show thousands of students - in an engaging format - the wide
variety of career options in science, engineering and technology
-- Increase the number of students taking - and completing - more
rigorous science and math courses
-- Increase the number of high school and college graduates choosing
careers in science, engineering and technology
-- Support the President's education initiative, Maryland
Scholars (Maryland awarded in March 2003)
-- Enable the creation of a state model in Maryland, with potential
for a national scale up
The benefits for Maryland students will be broad, making the connection
with skills, academics and careers, and helping them see the pathways
for success in higher education and the workplace. The benefits
for Maryland itself will be substantial, creating a more skilled
and motivated future future workforce.
see complete list of Planning Documents
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