DALLAS (AP) — When 15-year-old Jose Chavez tells friends that he's going to summer school and taking math, he quickly adds a disclaimer.
"No, I didn't flunk," says Jose, who makes good grades as a sophomore at Skyline High School in Dallas.
He's one of about 3,600 bright middle and high school students enrolled in the Texas Prefreshman Engineering Program, also known as TexPREP, at 35 college and university campuses across the state this summer. It's a four-year summer commitment.
The Prefreshman Engineering Program, which started in Texas in 1979, expanded over the years to include programs in Colorado, New Mexico, New Jersey and New York.
ADVERTISEMENT
The program is one of several initiatives aimed at getting more women and minorities into math and science-related careers, said Irving McPhail, executive vice president of The National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering.
"The fact that we're still posting less than 12 percent of baccalaureate degrees in engineering to underrepresented minority groups represents a major problem to American competitiveness," he said.
A 2008 survey of former TexPREP participants found that 84 percent graduated from college, where nearly half majored in science, math or engineering.
Jose, who wants to be a computer programmer or mechanical engineer someday, is studying algebraic structures and physics for seven weeks this summer at one of the newest TexPREP sites, the University of North Texas at Dallas.
"It's better to be learning instead of sitting at home doing nothing," Jose said.
Like Jose, some of these students are the first in their family to ever set foot on a college campus. In addition to the rigorous math-based coursework and exams, there are hands-on projects, field trips and guest speakers.
"Things aren't just boring like a normal everyday class," said Isaiah Johnson, 14, of Lancaster, who is in his second TexPREP summer. "This prepares you for college. It takes you on adventures."
Any high-achieving student can apply to the program. Since its founding, 81 percent of TexPREP students have been members of minority groups and 38 percent came from economically disadvantaged families. About 98 percent do not have to pay to attend.
Experts say too few minorities are making it through the higher education pipeline with degrees in science, technology, engineering or math fields. Without that education, they can't step into demanding and often lucrative careers in those areas.
"It's not because they don't have the innate ability," said Raul A. Reyna, TexPREP's executive director. "It's because they weren't prepared well."
Thirty years ago, Prefreshman Engineering Program founder Manual P. Berriozabal said he visited practically every high school in San Antonio to talk up his new program. Backed by an initial grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, he began with about 50 students that first summer.
"Historically, we've been importing our scientists and engineers from other countries," said Berriozabal, a math professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio who was executive director of the program till 2004. "Why are we not training our own students for these jobs?"
Rosendo Cantu, 40, a principal engineer at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said PREP was influential in helping him select engineering as a career.
"In the eighth-grade, for some reason I thought if I was good in math I had to become an accountant," Cantu said. "In my family we didn't have anyone who studied engineering. It was an eye-opener, in terms of attending PREP."
Both Cantu and his twin brother earned bachelor's degrees in engineering from Texas A&M University and master's degrees from St. Mary's University. They credit PREP with helping to pave the way.
"The program was phenomenal," Cantu said. "We got a chance to meet all kinds of people from across the city. The program expanded our knowledge base, it covered new material, like logic that we weren't exposed to. It was over and beyond what's typically covered in middle school years."
This summer, he and his brother each have children in the TexPREP program.
About half of PREP's students are female. Alumna Nicole Y. Orozco, 25, an aerospace engineer for the Boeing Company in Houston who works on international space station projects, said it was because of PREP that she excelled.
Reyna predicts dire consequences if more women and underrepresented minorities in the U.S. don't get training in the engineering, high-tech and science professions.
"The next generation is key to everything; the infrastructure that's going to support the economy and everything else," Reyna said.