Betsy DeVos visits Purdue Polytechnic High School, sees project-based learning in action
Arika Herron, Indianapolis Star
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was greeted at Purdue Polytechnic High School's maker space by the smell of sawdust, the sound of power tools and more than a dozen safety goggle-wearing students with heads bent over half-built catapults.
DeVos, stopping by the Purdue University-sponsored charter school in downtown Indianapolis, stepped around discarded lengths of PVC pipe and two-by-fours to watch as a team of students building a T-shirt cannon discussed the location and creation of pilot holes.
The busy, noisy classroom is exactly the unconventional sort of learning experience that DeVos said she's looking for on her third annual back-to-school tour. And it was what Frank Brogan, the department's assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, saw when he visited Purdue Polytechnic on the same tour just last year.
"I've heard about this school for a couple of years now and have wanted to visit," she said, "and in the context of the ... 'back to school tour' and visiting a wide variety of schools that are meeting students' needs in many different ways, this one was really high on that list."
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