Cleveland’s MC²STEM High School, whose new classrooms on the Cleveland State University campus were created through a partnership among CSU, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and the KeyBank Foundation, received special recognition during the State of the Union address delivered Tuesday, January 28, by President Barack Obama.

During a segment of the speech dedicated to education, the White House’s official “enhanced livestream” of the address flashed a slide declaring that America needs more schools like MC²STEM.

“Teachers and principals in schools from Tennessee to Washington, D.C., are making big strides in preparing students with the skills for the new economy: problem solving, critical thinking, science, technology, engineering, math,” President Obama said. “Now, some of this change is hard. It requires everything from more challenging curriculums and more demanding parents to better support for teachers and new ways to measure how well our kids think – not how well they can fill in a bubble on a test. But it is worth it, and it is working.”

The MC²STEM slide highlighted the school’s workshops with NASA tutors, mentoring with GE Lighting engineers and demanding internships with local businesses. The award-winning school specializes in science, technology, engineering and math.

You can watch the entire State of the Union at the link below (the MC²STEM slide appears at the 27:13 mark):

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sotu

In November 2013, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson joined officials from CSU, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and the KeyBank Foundation to celebrate the grand opening of the MC²STEM High School in Rhodes Tower West on the CSU campus, home to 140 MC²STEM juniors and seniors. Built with a $1.25 million donation from the KeyBank Foundation, the facilities include renovated classrooms and a state-of-the-art fabrication laboratory where students use the latest technology to create three-dimensional objects based on their own designs.