Promoting Rigorous Outcomes in Mathematics and Science Education (PROM/SE)
is a five-year effort by a joint partnership between Michigan State University
(MSU) and five consortia of school districts in Michigan and Ohio. The
consortia includes three Intermediate School Districts in Michigan, Ingham,
Calhoun, and St. Clair County, and two consortia in Ohio, the High AIMS
Consortium and the SMART Consortium. The sixty-nine districts represent
the broad range of social, economic, and cultural characteristics found
in the United States as a whole being situated in large urban cities (Cleveland
and Cincinnati) and their suburbs, in medium size cities with large minority
populations such as Lansing, and in very rural areas such as those in
St. Clair and Calhoun Counties.
The Partnership utilizes a unique
combination of research and practice. Detailed data from all students
and teachers using instruments from the Third International Mathematics
and Science Study (TIMMS) is gathered. On the basis of these data Action
Teams of mathematicians, scientists, teacher educators and K-12 personnel
collaborate to develop more focused and challenging content standards,
align standards with instructional materials and improve mathematics and
science teaching. Evidence-based and content focused professional development
improves the subject matter knowledge of over 4,500 teachers of mathematics
and science. Associates for mathematics and for science are fully prepared
and engaged in the complex work of helping undertake substantial reform
in all 715 schools. The mathematics and science opportunities for approximately
400,000 students improve and tracking disappears in all schools by 2006.
800 preservice students participate and MSU reforms the preparation of
future teachers through revision of preservice education courses and programs.
Partner sites mirror the diversity of the nation as a whole and
the prototype is exportable and replicable on a larger scale.
|