Scientists Lend Skills in Partnership With Schools

During the Cuban missile crisis, engineer Al Raisters worked at Vandenberg Air Force Base, testing surveillance satellites. He has helped design missiles for Hughes Aircraft Co., and advised the largest electronics firm in Latvia, his native country.

Now retired after a 35-year career with Hughes, Raisters volunteers in local classrooms overseeing technological tasks that are simpler but, he says, at least as rewarding.

In one experiment, students learn about magnetic fields by putting tiny pieces of metal on a flat surface and watching them fall into patterns when a magnet is moved underneath. To experience the amplification of sound, students place a live housefly in an inflated paper bag, rest their heads on a table so one ear is on the surface and then hold the bag next to the other ear.

“It’s the only way to teach math and science, Raisters said. “Confucius said, ‘If I read, I forget; if I see, I remember; if I do, I know.’ ”

Raisters is part of a cadre of Hughes employees and retirees working with teachers and parents to develop stronger math and science education in Los Angeles area schools. Besides trekking to elementary, junior high and high school classes to help instruct students, the present and former Hughes workers also train math and science teachers.

Last week, Hughes opened a 4,000-square-foot math and science center at its El Segundo facility to provide a place where Hughes personnel can help teachers improve their math and science curricula. The center includes classrooms, a library, 25 computers and a room where parents can meet with teachers. A group of teachers from Teach for America, a corps of young educators, will also staff the center.

Corporate partnerships with schools are becoming more common as concern mounts about inadequate schooling of American workers. Some companies have drawn criticism for throwing money and computers at schools and then walking away. But experts say the business world is increasingly regarding partnerships as vital, long-term investments, and they point to the Hughes program as a prime example.

“There are some companies who just want to send a check and move on,” said John McDonald, spokesman for the Los Angeles Educational Partnership, a nonprofit group working with businesses to reform public education. “But more and more companies realize this is a serious issue that will ultimately effect California’s economy.”

The Hughes project stems from an educational partnership the company formed with William Mulholland Junior High in Van Nuys and Humphreys Avenue Elementary in East Los Angeles.

The first partnerships were started in 1990, after former Hughes chief executive officer D. Kenneth Richardson took part in a “Principal for a Day” program organized by the Los Angeles Educational Partnership. Richardson spent one day at Humphreys, a school with a large immigrant population, talking to students and teachers and taking note of how math and science were taught.

“I was in the first-grade science class, which was taught in English and Spanish. They were studying the principle of density, doing floating and sinking experiments,” Richardson said. He was impressed, he said, but felt that some of the teachers did not have adequate training in math and science. “It was apparent from talking to teachers that they needed more help,” he said.

Richardson decided that since Hughes had a vast pool of talent, company employees and retirees could be recruited to help teachers instruct students in math and science. Mulholland and Humphreys were used as pilot schools.

As more schools heard about the program and approached Hughes, Richardson saw a need to expand. Linda Page, a former elementary school principal, was hired to help organize participating Hughes employees and retirees and coordinate their work with local schools. Hughes is now working with 13 schools, including those in the Lennox School District.

Each of the 13 schools has been assigned a team consisting of a Hughes employee, a Hughes retiree, a teacher and a parent. Each team will meet to decide what aspect of the math and science curriculum to address and what tasks each group member will perform.

Page said Hughes will devise ways to measure the success of the partnership program. Short-term progress is especially noticeable, she said.

“Students who had never done so before are participating in math and science competitions, and they have done well,” she said. “Being able to demonstrate a math or science principle is something that gives them more self-esteem. Learning how to analyze and sort a theory out is a skill they can use the rest of their lives.”

Raisters hopes some of these students will grow up to become the global warriors in the technology battles of the future. But for now, understanding how a computer functions is good enough.

“When you see the eyes of the children, the joy of discovery when they do something with computers, it is an unforgettable sight,” he said. “Some of us had tears in our eyes.”