The award recognizes exceptional contributions by a Texas community that has implemented successful workforce initiatives. The BET project offers teachers an exciting opportunity to enhance their teaching skills by working with local industries. This experience helps create a better understanding between business and education which will ultimately benefit students who want to enter the local workforce.

The purpose of the BET program is to provide teachers authentic in-service training at an appropriate business or industry. The major goal of the project is to ensure the teachers involved are able to take what they have seen and learned back into their classrooms.

The real value of the experience for the teachers can be best measured by looking at changes in their teaching styles, or their ability to provide students with the relevance of what they are learning in regard to why they need to learn it, and how they can expect to use it in the world of work.

Through their observations of workers performing their duties, teachers identify skills used which should be emphasized in school classrooms, but often are not.