IS P-TECH AND PRIVATIZATION THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION?

This year my vertical high school campus, Navarro, became part of IBM's P-TECH initiative and it has opened my eyes to the benefits and drawbacks of involving big enterprise to have a stake in public education. For those who have never heard of P-TECH before (perhaps you have seen commercials on television for IBM's involvement), it is a six year pathway that allows students to obtain their associate's degree in a computer or STEM-related field while in high school, then transition to the workplace to complete their final two years as an intern with the possibility of getting hired on.

The P-TECH program is a partnership between the school district and private enterprise; in our campus's case, it's IBM (others in Austin have been sponsored by other corporations, such as Dell). While students learn and get a cost-free education, these companies begin grooming students to their ecosystem at an early age. For low socioeconomic communities such as ours, this is a great opportunity. With funding from a private entity like IBM, or students have access to many things they would not normally have access to from district funding only. For example, students at my school, Burnet, do not compete in high-end Robotics competitions because there is a student buy-in as far as cost goes; only the more affluent students in our district can afford to pay the $300 participation fee that other campuses charge. With corporate funding, many of those barriers are eliminated and allow for a more level playing field.

A drawback, however, is that it prevents a wholistic view of learning. IBM is NOT going to fork up big money for students to learn Apple Swift when their enterprise uses Python coding only. If you are on a pathway towards IBM or DELL or any other company that has involved in the P-TECH program you have committed to learning their way of doing things. It makes sense, and the opportunity itself is most likely the best option these at-risk students would have otherwise, but it creates a sort-of corporate self-identity that permeates Japan and their lifelong devotion to certain brands. Do we really want to pigeonhole our best and brightest to this narrow ecosystem instead of giving them a sea full of creation and innovation? What would have happened if Steve Jobs had gone to P-TECH'S XEROX HIGH SCHOOL instead of having the free thinking opportunities that allowed him to create Apple? Are we selling the soul of education-neutrality? Will this stifle upstarts and put more money into the coffers of these mega-corporations? I don't know, but it's something to think about.