PMSA-9353608 Memphis City Schools Memphis, TN Jones, Barbara "Memphis Minority Mathematics and Science Achievement Partnership Project" Minority academic performance in mathematics and science is lower in the southeastern United States than any other area. With a total of approximately 105,000 students and 84,000 African American students, the Memphis City School system is one of largest school systems in that region as well as the United States. Promising solutions may be found in national experience and experimentation within the Memphis City School system. However, it is becoming apparent that effective solutions must be comprehensive and ling term. Comprehensive and long term solutions require the mobilization of community wide resources for systemic adoption and the institutionalization of effective programming for the necessary through time effort. This project has three goals: 1) to increase enrollment and success of minority students in mathematics and science courses; 2) to increase minority enrollment in college and entry into mathematics and science courses; and 3) to accomplish replication and institutionalization of effective programming. The project will offer a comprehensive set of activities for student s, teachers, and parents. In its first phase, activities that have been identified as potentially effective will be implemented in a set of schools with 90% minority enrollments and 2/3's of the Memphis City School system's students and teachers. Required community resources will be mobilized through a collaborative led by memphis City School that includes a historically Black college, a comprehensive university, health sciences university, and a nationally unique community base coordinating agency. In its second phase, effective activities will be identified and extended systemwide based on the results of careful and timely monitoring, assessment and analysis. A "bottom up" strategy empowering teachers and school site level staff and a "top down" strategy involving school system, higher education, community representatives, and community political and business leaders will be used to bring about systemic change. ***
