While teaching students to perform on standardized tests has become the norm nationwide, it has done little to give American students an edge over their peers.

In fact, many education professionals think the pervasive focus on standardize testing has actually been a setback for our children, especially when it comes to essential skills like problem solving.

The new project-based learning program being implemented at Winterboro High School is working to make up those shortfalls.

The Talladega County School System unveiled the program to people from across the state and elsewhere this week, showing off what has been the culmination of years of planning and work.

Project-based learning puts students working together to plan out, study and execute different projects. The classes combine different subjects, so the teens can see how things like math, science and history relate to each other and how they might be applied in real-world situations.

That goes way beyond the current school model and gives students the tools not just to gather information, but to use it in furthering their education.

What’s more, this teaching model also helps prepare students for professional careers and the working world — giving them a much-needed advantage in an ever-more-competitive job market.

As much as a boon to their education as project-based learning is, the students have to do their part. The program is set up something like a corporate work environment, and students who have discipline or other problems lose privileges at school, so participants are developing a good work ethic at the same time they are receiving their education.

That approach is already paying off for Winterboro High School, which is reporting discipline problems have been greatly reduced since last year.

The success of this program, which receives funding from grants and locally, is due to the hard work by school and system officials and through the creative merging of technology and curriculum.

That focus on technology only make sense in a world where students carry phones with more computing power than what NASA used to put a man on the moon.

Through project-based learning, students here are getting a 21st-century education while many of their peers in other parts of the country are in classrooms that use an education model decades out of date.

We hope to see more schools in the area offer similar options for their students.