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NSF Fact Sheet

Media contact:

Bill Noxon

(703) 292-8070

wnoxon@nsf.gov

Urban Systemic Programs (USP): Beyond Experiments

USP integrates lessons from two earlier efforts. Urban school systems enroll more than a third of all public school students in the United States. In spite of some progress, a continued disparity exists between the academic performance of these students and that of their suburban counterparts in both science and mathematics. The Urban Systemic Program is an extension of two earlier programs to improve the performance of all students in science and mathematics. One, the Urban Systemic Initiatives (USI), focused on the largest cities with the greatest percentages of minority and underserved students. The other, Comprehensive Partnerships for Mathematics and Science Achievement (CPMSA), served medium-to-large cities with a large minority student population.

USP goals. The Urban Systemic Program aims to extend support to urban school districts that have an established infrastructure for change and have begun implementing system-wide reform. Goals include: enabling urban school districts to continue fostering experimentation; accelerating the rate of change; and producing improvement in student learning for grades K-12 in mathematics, science and technology. School systems also seek to increase the competency and diversity of the science and mathematics instructional workforce, as well as the number of skilled workers entering the technology and information-based economy.

The school districts are encouraged to partner with local two-year and four-year institutions to develop better teaching practices and to embed a research base into their programs. Partnerships formed within NSF's Urban Systemic Initiatives have been instrumental in USI successes. The relationships will continue under USP to:

involve two-year colleges to improve technological education at the high school level;
bring urban school districts and four-year colleges and universities together to train and develop a diverse cadre of science and mathematics teachers;
use graduate students and postdoctoral professionals to expand and deepen K-12 teachers' understanding of their subject matter and knowledge.

For more information, see: http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/EHR/ESR/usp.asp