The Milwaukee Mathematics Partnership (MMP) began in 2003 with the aim of improving mathematics achievement for the students in the Milwaukee Public Schools and increasing students' success in transitioning to college mathematics. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Public Schools, and the Milwaukee Area Technical College have solidified their continued commitment as core partners to this unique collaboration among a large urban district, a four-year urban university, and a two-year technical college. Student achievement has increased in most grade levels with an accompanying decrease in the gap between state and district proficiency. Evaluations indicate that building school capacity through a math framework and distributed leadership via school learning teams and math teacher leaders is associated with improved student achievement.
Phase II will investigate three specific research topics. The first topic involves continued study of the impact of distributed leadership through varied mathematics teacher leader models on school professional communities and on student achievement. The MMP initiated a no-release time model of teacher leaders and is transitioning to a partial-release time model with funds from the Office of the Wisconsin Governor. A second area of research is the transition of students to post-secondary mathematics. The MMP will study the impact of a new district post-secondary mathematics readiness exam on high school course enrollments and post-secondary placements into remedial and non-remedial courses. The third area is focuses on the development of mathematical knowledge for teaching in preservice teachers, teacher leaders, and classroom teachers and will examine the relationship of this knowledge to teacher leader practice, instructional practice, and student learning.
