The partnership that has been formed with the City of Philadelphia will attempt to create a national model for systemic change in science, mathematics, and technology education in the public school system of a very large city. The partnership will be working very closely with the school district as it attempts to put into place a project which will result in improved student achievement in science and mathematics for all students. In particular the planning will include the identification of special needs of urban students and the programmatic features which will address these special needs; benchmarks and five-year project outcomes that will demonstrate measurable impact on all schools, students, and teachers; and a process whereby the Urban Systemic Initiatives (USI) will become institutionalized by the school district, individual schools, and educational partners in Philadelphia. In addition, the governance structure and management plan for such a project will be developed as will ongoing networking of key stakeholders to the project.
