THE PARTNERSHIP, WITH
SIGNIFICANT ENGAGEMENT OF MATHEMATICS, SCIENCE, AND ENGINEERING FACULTY — Projects are designed and implemented by partnerships that unite
administrators, teachers, and guidance counselors in participating K-12 core
partner organizations and disciplinary faculty in mathematics, science, and/or
engineering, education faculty, and administrators in higher education core
partner organizations. The substantial
involvement of disciplinary faculty in mathematics, science, and/or engineering
in these projects distinguishes the MSP program from others seeking to improve
K-12 student outcomes in mathematics and science. Unsuccessful
proposals did not present sufficient evidence of true partnerships between K-12
and higher education in the proposed project.
Unsuccessful proposals did not sufficiently describe the ways and the
degree to which disciplinary faculty from departments of mathematics, science, and/or
engineering would participate in the programmatic work of the Partnership,
especially in the proposed work with in-service teachers and/or pre-service
students. Proposals did not present
sufficient commitments or recruitment strategies to demonstrate that the
Partnership had a cadre of disciplinary faculty adequate to support the
proposed scope of work.
TEACHER QUALITY, QUANTITY
AND DIVERSITY — Enhancing the
quality, quantity and diversity of the K-12 mathematics and science teacher
workforce is one of the three inter-related issues that the MSP program seeks
to address. Unsuccessful proposals did not
provide sufficiently persuasive approaches to the recruitment of qualified
individuals to the profession, to increasing the diversity of the K-12 teaching
force, and to the strengthening of their mathematics and/or science content
knowledge and related pedagogical methods and skills, such that the
instructional workforce could implement and support challenging courses and
curricula for all students in the K-12 core districts. Descriptions of the pre-service and
professional development curricula were not sufficient to inspire confidence in
the enhanced quality (i.e., depth of content and pedagogical proficiency) of
the instructional workforce. Commitments
and incentives to ensure the participation of teachers and their retention in
the partner districts were not evident.
The proposal did not contain evidence that pre-service students and
in-service teachers would be committed to and engaged in experiences of
sufficient duration to instill the mathematical and scientific competence and
confidence needed to engage all students in challenging curricula. In some instances, project goals were not
clearly supported or motivated by relevant teacher workforce data.
CHALLENGING COURSES AND
CURRICULA — Ensuring that
all students have access to, are prepared for, and are encouraged to
participate and succeed in challenging and advanced mathematics and science
courses is one of the three inter-related issues that the MSP program seeks to
address.
Unsuccessful proposals did not adequately describe the current status of
availability and participation in challenging curricula and advanced courses
that would meet the needs of all students in attaining higher levels of
achievement in science and mathematics.
Specific details were not presented to describe the curricular/course
improvements expected to result from the partnership effort, with linkages to
quantitative outcomes that would show increased participation and success in
challenging curricula and advanced coursework by all students -- those
traditionally underserved, as well as those who have demonstrated talent in
mathematics and science.
INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE AND
SUSTAINABILITY — A key feature of the MSP program is the commitment to inclusive and
coordinated K-20 institutional change at both the college/university and the
school district levels necessary to sustain the partnership effort beyond the
funding period. Unsuccessful proposals did not provide evidence of well-defined
institutional changes in organizational/institutional policies and practices
that portend a high probability of improved mathematics and science learning
and teaching within core partners.
Incentives and policies for recruitment and sustained involvement of
college/university disciplinary faculty in K-12 education, teacher education,
and professional development were not evident.
Commitment to policies and practices that
sustain environments in which teachers, guidance counselors and administrators
utilize an evidence-based approach, and that recognize and reward exemplary
contributions to mathematics and science learning and teaching was not
provided.
EVIDENCE-BASED DESIGN AND OUTCOMES — Developing
evidence-based outcomes that contribute to the understanding of how students
effectively learn mathematics and science is one of the three inter-related
issues that the MSP program seeks to address. The MSP program supports innovative
partnership-driven projects developed to improve K-12 student achievement in
mathematics and science. Unsuccessful proposals did not
provide compelling project designs that portend evidence-based contributions to
the learning and teaching knowledge base.
They did not present strategies for determining what works (or does not
work), under what circumstances, and for whom, in order to inform greater
understanding of how students effectively learn mathematics and science so that
successful approaches can be broadly disseminated and emulated in educational practice. The research base upon which project design
was built and/or the results of prior work (i.e., lessons learned) relevant to
the conceptualization of the project plan were not sufficiently provided,
explicated and/or convincing. In the
case of proposals where Partners had a substantial history of prior work,
clarity of the “value added” by virtue of the new project was expected but was
not, in many cases, explicated in the proposal. In addition, unsuccessful proposals
lacked sufficiently ambitious -- yet reasonable -- quantitative outcomes and
annual benchmarks that, when compared with baseline data, showed improved
student achievement, progress towards closing the achievement gap, increased
numbers of students participating and succeeding in challenging curricula
and/or advanced coursework, increased numbers of pre-service candidates,
enhanced quality of the instructional workforce, and increased diversity in the
teaching force.
PROJECT
EVALUATION — The MSP solicitation
calls for an evaluation plan that will guide the annual assessment of project
progress and will measure the impact of the work described in the action plan. Unsuccessful proposals did not articulate
strong evaluation plans to document and measure ALL of the critical aspects of
the proposed project. Prominent among
the omissions was an insufficient description of how teacher quality --
especially growth in teachers’ content knowledge and classroom practice --
would be assessed. Strategies for
assessing annual progress in institutional change for BOTH higher education and
K-12 within the Partnership itself were also lacking. Further, indications of how formative evaluation would guide
Partnership decision-making, as well as the types of data that the Partnership
would need to collect to inform mid-course project corrections and/or
modifications, were not adequately presented.
INNOVATION AND
CREATIVITY — The MSP
seeks to contribute to the Nation's capacity to
engage in and understand large-scale education innovation. All projects incorporate a depth and quality
of creative, strategic actions that extend beyond commonplace approaches to
improve K-12 mathematics and science education. Unsuccessful
proposals did not articulate innovative approaches of sufficient degree beyond
the commonplace in effecting student achievement through one or more of the
five defining/key features of the MSP:
innovative partnership-driven project design and proposed
implementation; enhanced teacher quality, quantity, and diversity; challenging
curricula and advanced coursework; the development of evidence-based outcomes
that contribute to better understanding of how students effectively learn
mathematics and science; and inclusive, coordinated K-20 institutional change
at both the college/university and local school district levels.