The Education Commission of the States proposes to hold a small, invitational conference to explore the role of public policy in facilitating the connection of research to practice in the teaching of science and mathematics. The conference will bring together state and local policymakers with mathematics and science educators and researchers with an end toward developing ongoing avenues of communication aimed at both increasing understanding of each others roles and needs and to enhance their ability to work together to improve both public policy and mathematics and science education. The product of the conference will be a set of proposed approaches/findings that will be distributed to the wider policymaker and mathematics and science educator communities. It is anticipated that these findings will identify topics warranting further exploration that will be addressed in follow-up projects.
