Are corporate technology initiatives
more PR than philanthropy?

By Karen Southwick

Nineteen-year-old Cristal Johnson dreams of designing a spaceship. It's a dream few young women have, but she believes it might be possible one day for her.

Johnson, now a sophomore at Prairieview A&M University outside of Houston, majors in electrical engineering. She credits a Motorola Inc. school-to-work program with helping her get there. At her Austin, Texas, high school, Motorola employees came into math and science classrooms to talk about their jobs. Besides focusing on skills like resume-writing and interviewing, the Motorola program put Johnson to work as an intern in its Austin semiconductor plant, doing such things as data collection, testing, and quality control.

"In high school, everything is thought out for you," says Johnson. At work, "you're left to figure out how to do your job on your own. It forces you to think for yourself. The money is a bonus." When she finishes college, she probably will work full-time for Motorola or another technology company.

"Students are used to a certain structure that doesn't exist in the workplace," says Sharon Knotts Green, external education manager for Motorola in Austin. "We don't ring bells when you're supposed to come in to work. We don't tell you what to do with every minute of your time. You're expected to assess what's needed and be aggressive about getting your task done."

To give students a jump start on the job market, many companies offer an array of programs--from internships to mentoring to curriculum modules centered on work. Beyond that, companies such as Motorola, IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp., and Apple Computer Inc. donate millions of dollars in equipment, materials, cash, and employee time. Companies and their employees have also joined with neighborhood volunteers in such efforts as the recent NetDay, which claimed to wire 100,000 schools nationwide for Internet access.

IBM, for example, sponsors a $25 million Reinventing Education initiative aimed at encouraging "systemic improvements" in education. Over half its worldwide contributions go to education. Microsoft CEO Bill Gates donated the proceeds of his book, The Road Ahead, to an education foundation. Microsoft itself has myriad programs, from sponsoring "school technology nights" to funding technology-based curricula. Intel is a major force for improved math and science courses.

There's no doubt such programs have done some good, encouraging students like Johnson, for instance, to pursue interests in math and science, equipping schools with technology they might otherwise not get, or helping teachers revise lesson plans to incorporate the technology revolution.

There's also no doubt that the companies have their own interests at heart in promoting education, which is as much a part of a sound business plan as a philanthropic effort. For one thing, the technology industry needs a steady stream of trained engineers, programmers, mathematicians, and other skilled graduates to remain competitive globally. Then too, as anyone who has ever wrestled with loading Windows or surfing the web realizes, it takes a certain knowledge base just to get technology to work properly. And highly educated consumers are the primary buyers of home computers.

Finally, the marquee value of donating to education is not lost on the technology industry, which has the reputation of being coldhearted in its social views. Many technology executives espouse libertarian ideas that hold government bureaucracy to be anathema, yet they're aware that education is one government-run operation they cannot ignore.

So what kind of value do education programs offered by technology companies really give? What is the return on investment? How well do the targets of these investments--schools, teachers, and kids--fare once the initial PR effect wears off? Are technology companies committed to education for the long term, or will they take their money and run at the first bump in the road?

The 'Big Blue' view

The largest technology company in the nation, Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM is known to insiders as Big Blue for the color of its logo and the legions of blue-suited salesmen who hawk its products. It also has a tendency to do things in big ways. Thus, when IBM tackled education improvement, it sought sweeping global change, not backyard diddling with one or two neighborhood schools.

"Our strategic focus has been to figure out the ways you can use technology to systemically fix the flaws in school systems," says Stanley Litow, president of the IBM Foundation and director of IBM's corporate support programs. "We're a technology company that knows how to solve problems. We decided to treat [education] as if it were a very important and sophisticated business problem."

Under Reinventing Education, conceived in 1994, IBM picked 10 school districts around the country to receive about $2 million each in cash and equipment. The idea, says Litow, is to target programs where "we can make a major breakthrough and demonstrate a new way to solve an educational problem."

Take parent involvement: IBM is working with the Charlotte, N.C., schools to build a computer network giving parents online access to their children's assignments. Parents can also communicate with teachers via e-mail. "By using technology, we'll see whether or not extensive parental involvement can lead to improvement in educational performance," says Litow.

Other programs developed with IBM's three-to-five-year grants range from an online resource bank of information for science and math in Chicago to development of software for portfolio assessment in Vermont.

Results will be measured through student test scores, attendance, and dropout rates. Teachers will be tested on their proficiency in technology. Litow expects some interim measures to be available later this year.

A former school administrator, Litow acknowledges it will be difficult to solve entrenched education problems in the face of legislative mandates, fiscal constraints, and union demands. Nonetheless, he says, "the new equation is the power of technology."

Bob McNamara, manager of school development for the Vermont Department of Education in Montpelier, would agree. Working with IBM brings in not just money but expertise, says McNamara. The state and the company are developing software tools to assess student performance and to realign curricula to better serve student needs. The tools will be deployed over the next two school years, with teacher training scheduled for this summer.

Technology companies should realize that deploying new programs in schools "is not like bringing out a product," he cautions. "In the schools you have to change the way people do things. Education is run at the local level. You have to spend the time to get people to want to do something." Though he welcomes IBM's investment, he says that "there aren't any quick fixes."

IBM hopes to develop models that can be used by others throughout the country. "We'll produce a tangible product with a technology base that can be shared with other school systems," Litow says. That's the difference between IBM's initiative and adopt-a-school programs, which he sees as limited: "Maybe they get new uniforms for the band." The gain for IBM if Reinventing Education produces tangible benefits? "We'll be seen as a company that can solve your most difficult problems."

Opening new windows

If IBM is the grand old man of U.S. technology, Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft is the upstart that knocked the old man back on his pins. Through its dominant operating systems for the PC (first DOS, now Windows) and its plethora of applications, Microsoft--though a 10th IBM's size in revenues--is the leading force in the technology industry today. And it approaches education in the same blustery, finger-in-every-pie fashion.

In an initiative called the Connected Learning Community, Microsoft aims to link students, educators, parents, and the extended community via computers. The company offers free software for home/school interaction and works with partners in the telecommunications arena to wire schools. Microsoft also sponsors the Global Schoolhouse, an educational resource on the Internet.

Microsoft has also teamed with MCI Communications Corp. to help K-12 schools have a presence on the World Wide Web. Schools that have created new web pages or registered existing pages are eligible for technology grants totaling $100,000. Other initiatives include: providing a software program that lets educators identify technology-related goals and how to achieve them; providing a free CD-ROM to allow educators to publish on the web; sponsoring family technology nights that give parents, educators, and students information about new technology while participating schools get free software; and underwriting a "teacher of the year" award to recognize teachers who develop innovative technology programs.

Separately, CEO Gates has donated $3 million in proceeds from his book to the National Foundation for the Improvement of Education, an arm of the NEA. The money is funding a professional development program offering grants, training, and mentoring on the use of telecommunications and multimedia technology to 22 community/ teacher teams.

Such seeming generosity on Microsoft's part has a definite ulterior motive: to help break Apple's dominance of the educational market. By giving free Windows-based software and computers to schools, Microsoft hopes to accelerate the movement away from the old Apple IIs to Windows, rather than Macintosh, operating systems. Some critics believe that certain Microsoft philanthropic efforts cross the line to commercialism. Indeed, Consumers Union of New York has objected to family technology nights, in which Microsoft products are demonstrated to teachers and parents.

Liz King, general manager of the education customer unit for Microsoft, acknowledges that her marketing unit works closely with the company's philanthropic arm on education initiatives. "Everything is built around this notion of a connected learning community, using technology as a collaborative tool," she says.

Barbara Dingfield, Microsoft's manager of corporate contributions and community programs, echoes King's comments. "We do not have a separate foundation for education," she says. "We have an understanding that the best way for corporations to add value to society is doing what they do best. In our case, it's helping people gain access to technology."

She says Microsoft employees individually donate time and effort to schools, at the discretion of their supervisors. (One group of 100 volunteers works in the schools of nearby Bellevue, Wash.) Employees may donate software to their kids' schools, and Microsoft matches those gifts up to $12,000.

One of the model schools Microsoft likes to point to is Blackstock Junior High School in Oxnard, Calif., which developed a technologically advanced network with help from Microsoft and other companies. The school's 1,100 students--mostly Hispanic and African American--spend part of their learning time in "smart classrooms" linked by a fiber-optic Ethernet backbone, says technology coordinator Steve Carr. The school has 700 computers, 170 of them with Internet access via a T1 line that reaches every classroom. Teachers in the 11 smart classrooms were able to take a year off from their regular duties to become "content experts" on what's available and develop lesson plans that integrate it.

Microsoft donated software and a year's worth of tech support to Blackstock, which also received a $2.5 million seed grant from the state of California. The school also has gotten smaller grants from local businesses.

Carr admits the interaction between technology companies and schools is not always perfect. "Schools really need to figure out what they need," he says; otherwise, they may get stuck with donations of old, outdated equipment. Still, he shrugs: "I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth."

Intel outside

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel offers another pattern of education philanthropy. Intel's microprocessors run virtually all the Windows machines, giving rise to the nickname "Wintel" for the powerful duopoly of Microsoft/ Intel. In the image of its hard-driving CEO Andy Grove, an immigrant engineer who coined the phrase "Only the paranoid survive," Intel is fiercely committed to strengthening math and science curricula and creating budding workers for its fabrication plants, or "fabs."

Consequently, many of its educational efforts are focused on schools in regions around its fabs--such as Santa Clara County, Rio Rancho, N.M., and Hillsboro, Ore. In New Mexico, Intel agreed to provide up to $30 million to finance construction of Rio Rancho's first public high school, expected to open this fall. Of course, Intel was seeking $8 billion in industrial revenue bonds from Sandoval County at the time, to retool its manufacturing facility there.

Barbara Carman, Intel's Santa Clara K-12 manager, says the company does sponsor a few national initiatives, such as distributing The Journey Inside, a kit that describes how technology works. The package includes a 60-minute video on computers and microprocessors, a 300-page teacher curriculum, a hands-on science kit for students, and real silicon wafers (the stuff of which chips are made) for kids to handle. The whole thing comes in a box that looks like a computer. Over the past 18 months, Intel has given out more than 45,000 of the kits.

Intel also hands out $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 cash awards to teachers under two programs--Innovations in Teaching and Excellence in Teaching--but eligible teachers must work in areas where Intel has major facilities. The teacher's school or district must also submit a plan showing how the innovative methods will be replicated.

For the most part, though, Intel doesn't "do sweeping global efforts," says Pat Foy, Intel's New Mexico workforce development manager. Intel's focus in New Mexico is "to create curricula that will prepare students coming out of high school to go into the workforce," notably the technological workforce.

Intel's K-12 goal is to get kids interested in math, science, and technology, with particular emphasis on attracting girls and minorities. It provides resources--equipment, training, and personnel--to help schools develop math and science lessons. In the middle school, career awareness becomes a part of the curriculum, and in high school, student interns work in Intel fabs. The company also offers teachers opportunities for employment during the summer, enabling both students and faculty to get actual workplace experience.

Direct donations of equipment aren't part of the plan. "We don't give Pentium computers to a high school that has no idea of what to do with them," says Foy. "What we do isn't really philanthropy, which is giving something away. This is about making an investment in our community and our educational system. If we don't make those kinds of investments, we're going to go out of business."

Notes Roger Barnes, director of education partnerships for the Santa Clara Unified School District: "The companies are all going to have their different purposes--Intel wants to make sure they have good employees, someone else wants to improve their community image--but we want to take advantage of the knowledge base that business has." Barnes looks for a company that's willing to send people to work with the schools, providing management and training in business areas that teachers lack.

Apple's educational PIE

It's tough to consider Apple Computer Inc., the Cupertino, Calif., upstart that kicked off the personal computer revolution back in the '70s, as a battered old veteran, but that describes the company today. Under the leadership of CEO Gil Amelio, Apple is struggling to hold onto its market dominance in a few sectors, education being one of them.

Like Microsoft, Apple promotes education by donating equipment--Macintoshes and related software, of course--to chosen projects that meet its criteria. Using Apple hardware is an important component, though not the only aim, of the education grants program, which started way back in 1979. It was cutely referred to as the Apple Partners in Education program (Apple PIE) for several years before adopting the more straightforward name New Connections this year.

"In the last 18 years, we have donated $28 million in equipment, software, and training" to the schools, says Fred Silverman, senior manager of worldwide community affairs, who oversees education grants. Apple targets K-12 schools but requires them to partner with an institution that can provide teacher training, such as a community college, to obtain the grants. "The goal is that the lessons learned can be incorporated into ongoing teacher training that goes beyond our grant recipients," he says.

Apple's aim is to mesh technology with school restructuring by stressing teacher training. "In the last three or four years, we've tried to enable teachers to use technology in support of restructuring curriculum, so that the teacher is more of a facilitator of learning rather than just delivering knowledge," Silverman says. "We want to develop models where technology is a tool to support exciting educational programs."

Each year, Apple typically makes 10 grants of about $100,000 apiece to a partnership of a K-12 school and a teacher-training institution. This year, he says, "we have strengthened the community involvement component" by asking for a connection between "what the students are doing in the classroom with some activity in the community," such as working with senior citizens.

Last year, one grant went to New York's JHS 47 School for the Deaf, where students used Macintosh computers to design and produce stationery and T-shirts. They also produced short movies that showed various greetings in American Sign Language. In another project, students at Kennedy Middle School in Eugene, Ore., are studying a local wetland and developing site improvements and field guides to make the site more accessible to others.

Apple recently published the results of its 18 years of experience with technology and education in Computers in the Classroom: How Teachers and Students Are Using Technology to Transform Learning (Jossey-Bass Inc., San Francisco, 1996).

As for the next step, Apple is cautious about pushing educators onto what Silverman calls the "Internet bandwagon." Schools don't have to be wired to apply for an Apple grant. "We don't know yet what [the Internet's] true value is for education," he says. "Schools have done some incredibly powerful things with technology that have nothing to do with the net."

Other voices

Nearly every good-size technology company has some kind of education initiative, whether it's giving employees time off to volunteer in schools, sponsoring adopt-a-school programs, or donating equipment and cash.

These corporate efforts, not surprisingly, are flavored with the character of their sponsoring company. Networking powerhouses Cisco and 3Com, for example, emphasize wiring schools for online access and collaborative learning. Applied Materials, which prides itself on the diversity of its executive team and workforce, stresses aid to school districts serving minority and lower-income areas.

Hewlett-Packard extends its empowering, egalitarian management style--known as the HP Way--to education, sometimes lending employees to work full-time on programs such as the East Side Academy, a San Jose-based institution that tries to keep at-risk students in school.

"School districts do not have the resources or the processes in place that allow them to keep up with the pace of technological change," says Bess Stephens, HP's manager of corporate K-12 education relations. "We try to share with them our business practices, providing training for staff, taking them through our quality improvement systems, and helping them set strategic goals and implementation plans."

Another HP effort is developing tools that measure academic improvement, a yawning gap that has yet to be filled. When new programs are started, Stephens says, "we get lots of anecdotal feedback that teachers are improving in their [technology] skills and students are more excited," but hard evidence is rare. "Measurement is challenging and must be viewed from a long-term perspective," she adds. "Test scores are not the only indicator."

Although technology companies are not noted for their ability to cooperate, many participate in joint educational activities like NetDay or Challenge 2000, an effort by the San Jose-based Joint Venture Silicon Valley to usher in an "educational renaissance" there.

Challenge 2000 asks K-12 schools to team with business and the larger community in developing blueprints for school improvement that can be measured. The teams must include at least one high school, one middle school, and one elementary school, plus a wide range of community partners.

"Our model is very different from a grant," says Tim Cuneo, the initiative's senior executive director. "We are not telling schools how to do their work. We are saying, 'Analyze why students are not performing, what you need to strengthen the delivery system, and put together a model to achieve it. Then present that to us.'"

Joint Venture will invest about $1.2 million in each of the approved "renaissance teams" over a three-year period. Among the projects funded is the River Alliance, which involves five science magnet schools in an environmental science project focused on the nearby Guadalupe River. Other projects tackle literacy and math skills among multicultural student populations.

Challenge 2000's structure clearly reflects Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial culture, but some educators aren't sure it's the right model for them. "Joint Venture Silicon Valley is very heavy-handed in making schools fit into the mold they want," says Barnes of the Santa Clara Unified School District. "If somebody doesn't fit their rigid model, they don't get money."

Santa Clara spent about $100,000 and a year and a half in an ultimately unsuccessful effort "trying to jump through all their hoops," he says. "We won't apply again. We figure we could have taken that money and accomplished a lot of what we wanted to do. It will take us a little longer, but we'll do it."

And that's the essential conflict between the education and technology models for getting things done. Education is a slow-moving process of incremental, consensus-based change. But technology companies change course on a dime, continuously upgrading products for shorter and shorter life cycles. Corporate executives grow impatient with the snail's pace of education and the many groups that must be mollified, while educators are wary of being dictated to on their own turf.

Symbiotic relationship

Despite their seemingly incompatible methods, the two worlds have overwhelming incentives to work together. But a successful relationship means recognizing each other as equal partners, not simply donors and recipients.

With President Clinton's reelection has come renewed emphasis on getting technology into the schools, says Linda Roberts, director of the U.S. Education Department's Office of Educational Technology. Corporations are a key part of that effort. In fact, while Clinton asked for $2 billion to fund a "jump-start" program to acquire hardware and software and train teachers in their use, accompanying corporate investment is pegged at $10 billion, she says.

But "it's not just equipment the schools need," Roberts adds. "It's partners. It's getting people to come into the classroom and talk to the kids. It's providing knowledge, technical expertise, and hand-holding. It's listening to problems at local school board meetings."

Most teachers have little experience in a corporate workplace, and they welcome participation from employees who will speak to students about their work and act as mentors. "The most valuable commodity for a teacher is time," says Cathy Stokes, a resource teacher at DeVargas Elementary School in San Jose. "Often we get technology, but teachers don't use it because they haven't had the time to explore. Industry doesn't realize what it means to handle a third-grade class all day."

Adds Roberts: "One of the biggest mistakes in technology initiatives is not factoring in enough time for teachers. No business would make an investment in hardware and then tell employees to take one Sunday and learn how to use it."

Stokes calls on the corporate world to come into her classroom and help her learn how to use technology and devise lesson plans that incorporate it. In turn, she says, educators "have to be willing to relinquish a little more control, to allow students a little more room to experiment."

Teachers also appreciate the opportunity that some companies extend for them to work during the summer. "I learned a tremendous amount from Motorola's teachers-in-industry program," says Caryn Jannasch, who teaches at Porter Middle School in Austin, Texas. And she brings that experience back to her classroom, arranging projects that teach students about taking responsibility, working independently, managing their time effectively, and meeting deadlines.

Corporations, on the other hand, must have the patience to realize goals are achieved by different means in the education arena. George Iwaszek, Intel's New Mexico K-12 manager, learned that lesson four years ago, when he first approached local high schools. "I tried to have an effective meeting the way we run one inside Intel," he recalls, but it didn't go over well. "Now we go in and talk about how can we work together on curriculum projects," he says. "I thought we could apply business principles to education and found out I couldn't."

Partnerships between schools and technology companies are like cooperative learning projects in which students have to learn not only what their goals are, but how to get along with each other in order to achieve them. To date the grade would have to be "incomplete; try harder."

-- Karen Southwick is senior executive editor of Upside magazine in San Mateo, Calif.