This is project will a pilot effort to develop, deliver, and evaluate national curricula to educate the technicians who will be employable in the 21st century manufacturing enterprise. Instrutional delivery will be assisted by distance learning technology and the National Information Infrastructure. Added funding will come from local, state, and other federal sources. CAM-I will lead the Advanced Technical Education (ATE) Alliance, including as members Lawrence Technological University, C.S. Mott Community College, and the Goodrich, MI, area schools, and as affiliates other school districts in the Flint, MI, area, clusters of community colleges, school districts, and CAM-I company members in Oak Ridge, TN, Kansas City, MO and KN, Los Angeles, CA, and the Mescalero Apache Reservation NM, and Lehigh University and National Technological University. The knowledge and skill needs for a new breed of agile technicians, able to respond knowledgeably, effectively, and quickly in highly competitive, rapidly changing global manufacturing, are described. The ATE Alliance will meet these needs by combining existing best practices modules, already developed by its members and affiliates, with newly developed modules in an integrated, flexible, grades 11 14 program in math, science, communications, computing, and manufacturing enterprise technologies in a pilot program centered on C.S. Mott Community College and Goodrich MI area schools. The Alliance will share the modules using nationally scalable distance learning techniques. The curricula will be reinforced with teacher training, jobsite education for teachers and students, and public information programs. The ATE Alliance will establish a virtual school, combining a national network of educational resources to provide locally and temporally optimized education for employability. The pilot curriculum modules will be disseminated via distance learning techniques to the members and the affiliated Associate degree grant ing institutions and school districts. The curricula will be evaluated through performance based assessment. Successful modules will be further disseminated throughout the United States by CAM-I in publications, public fora, and through CAM-I's national network of industrial members. The ATE Alliance will provide 21st-century education in clusters with large, diverse minority populations, preparing students for employment in challenging and rewarding careers.
