9812543 Johnston The Michigan Rural Systemic Initiative to Improve Science, Mathematics and Technical Education seeks to organize a consortium of two Native American academies and seventeen isolated, rural school districts throughout Michigan. The consortium will develop an implementation proposal for systemic reform in science, mathematics and technology education, using electronic communications. The goals and objectives of the proposal are to: (1) improve support for the development of a reform agenda for rural schools by forming new regional and statewide collaborations among the rural districts, MSU, NCREL, and other institutions or agencies; (2) to increase community and business involvement in the schools to support the rural agenda in mathematics, science and technology; (3) enhance the understanding of the rural communities and cultures by gathering base-line data from self-studies that examine the contextual variables within the communities and that support the reform agenda; (4) to generate a comprehensive and sustainable implementation plan for systemic reform in mathematics, science, and technology education that transcends levels, and addresses a local and regional vision, seeks a commitment to policy, fiscal and instructional reform, a comparison of programmatic strengths and weaknesses, a secure level of resources to promote change and an expedited reform through state and local policy changes. Ultimately, the students will have more and improved opportunities to engage in learning experiences that reflects challenging and established standards and will exhibit increased levels of achievement on a variety of indicators. This proposal aligns with the Michigan school improvement plan.
