The following editorial appeared in the November 8, 2008, edition of the Cincinatti Enquirer.  It has also appeared in newspapers around the state in recent weeks.  The Academy is glad to have the support of students, parents, educators, businesses, government officials, and others around the Commonwealth.  It is when we all work together that opportunities can be created and shared.Too little has been written about Kentucky’s Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science.

The program is both educational gem and economic development tool. Each year it allows 60 of the Commonwealth’s brightest math and science high school students to spend their junior and senior years in a residential program at Western Kentucky University. The goal is to keep native talent in state, both as college students and as high-skilled workers.

It takes courage for 16-year-olds to leave their home and move onto campus, and guts for their parents to let them. But at the end of the two years, the students will have a high school diploma and 60 hours of college credit. Most then enter college as juniors, at age 18.

For the students, it’s the chance to move at an accelerated pace in rigorous courses, something many couldn’t do in high school. When these gifted kids – many from small towns – get the chance to fly, they grab it. In similar established programs across the country, students’ classroom grades and SAT and ACT scores have shot up markedly.

For their parents, it’s two years of free college room, board and tuition. (A similar academy in North Carolina also awards its graduates full scholarships to any state university.)

For the Commonwealth, it’s a grow-our-own incubator for scientists, engineers and mathematicians. At the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, after which the Kentucky program is patterned, 67 percent of alumni have stayed in Texas, a significant retention of state talent.

Kentucky is hoping for the same – and to climb out of its 47th rank for number of in-state scientists and engineers.

Kentucky is one of 15 states to offer such an academy; Kansas will open one next year. While Ohio does not have a similar residential program, its Seniors to Sophomores allows high school students to complete their senior year on a college campus and bank college credit.

Besides the obvious benefits – retaining talent, saving families money, serving gifted kids better – these high school-college partnerships tear down the walls between K-12 and higher education. They require high school and college staffs to collaborate. They help families and educators to look at education as a continuum. And they ease the transition from high school to college.

The academy’s admission season is just starting. We hope lots of talented Kentucky students apply. This program is a winner for everybody.

Dalton Hubble, a senior at the Carol Martin Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science in Kentucky and John Hardin High School, has been selected as a Semifinalist in the 2008 Siemens Competition in Math, Science, and Technology.

Hubble’s research entitled “Fabrication of Poly(2-Hydroxyethyl Methacrylate) by Hot Filament Chemical Vapor Deposition” was conducted this past summer as part of the influential Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s summer research program. The results of his project include implications for improving the tailoring of specialized polymers for a variety of biomedical and tissue engineering applications.

Hubble was one of only three Kentucky students to be honored in the 2008 competition and the first Gatton Academy student to receive recognition.

Gatton Academy director Tim Gott expressed his excitement over Hubble’s accomplishment. “We are very excited to have our first student honored as part of this prestigious competition. Dalton is an outstanding young scholar who will set the standard for student excellence both in and out of the classroom in our program for years to come.”

The Siemens Competition – a signature program of the Siemens Foundation, the national leader in supporting STEM education with contributions surpassing $7 million each year – is the nation’s premier science research competition for high school students. The annual competition, administered by the College Board, awards college scholarships ranging from $1,000 to $100,000 in individual and team categories.

1,893 students registered to enter the Siemens Competition this year with a total of 1,205 projects submitted – this includes an increase of more than 10% in team and individual project submissions and an increase of more than 16 % in the number of registrations. Again surpassing last year’s totals, 311 students from 33 states were named Semifinalists, with 96 students being honored as Regional Finalists. These whiz kids will be called to compete at one of six Regional Competitions held over three consecutive weekends in November. A complete list of semifinalists and regional finalists is available at www.siemensfoundation.org.

The Gatton Academy is proud to announce four members of the Class of 2009 have been honored as National Merit Semifinalists: Rachel A. Bowman, Daniel P. Coffman, Tyce A. Hodges, and Dalton G. Hubble.

Kentucky has 228 high school seniors among the nearly 16,000 semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship Program.

To compete for the 8,200 scholarships awarded by the program, the students must fulfill several requirements to advance to the finalist stage. About 90 percent of the semifinalists are expected to become finalists and about half of them will be awarded scholarships, making them merit scholars.

Winners will be announced in the late spring and summer of next year.