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.
