New York City Urban Systemic Program (USP) in Science, Mathematics and Technology Education

New York City Board Of Education, Brooklyn NY

Investigators

Abstract

ABSTRACT New York City Board of Education By-Borough Prototype Implementation Model Building Standards Based Educational Environments as Models of Systemic Reform in Mathematics and Science ESR-00-85062 The overarching goal of this effort is to provide the professional development and support to district and school teams that will build their capacity to develop Standards Based Educational Environments and become models for systemic reform in Mathematics and Science. This one-year grant award provides limited resources to the New York City Board of Education (NYCBoE), in collaboration with the City University of New York (CUNY), for a scalable reform model in one of New York City's five boroughs. The NYCBoE Borough of Queens is a set of districts that are representative of the entire set of forty districts and serves approximately one-fourth of the entire student population. Each district within the Borough of Queens will have six (6) elementary, four (4) middle and two (2) high schools engaged in the prototype model. This will result in 84 schools that will serve as models and mentors for other schools in future years. The prototype borough model will include: Borough-wide professional development activities, individual district specific activities, and school specific activities. Schools will have teams trained to provide professional development on mathematics and science standards, implementation of standards-based curricula and standards based assessment; Meaningful Action Research on Teacher Practice developed to track the progress of instructional reform; Formation of study groups and learning communities as one professional development strategy; The use of New Standards Performance Standards Applied Learning in Mathematics, Science and Technology curricula; Engagement of colleges and universities to supply support in improving the "content" knowledge of teachers and in increasing the number of "certified teachers;" Collaboration with colleges and universities towards changing the Mathematics and Science Teacher Education Curricula to include the use of the New York City Customized versions of the New Standards Performance Standards in Mathematics and Science; Preference for teachers of model schools for participation in professional development with outside science-rich institutions; and Development of standards based field trip activities in cooperation with science-rich institutions. Through a one-year grant, NYCBoE will engage in forging the necessary elements and demonstrating the efficacy of the "by-borough" model while building the capacity of the borough to move to full scale within the borough. Further, the learnings from this prototype will be refined to assist the other four boroughs in moving towards full implementation of reform efforts leading to improved student achievement in mathematics and science for all students. The NYCBoE will also continue citywide endeavors, which are not funded through this grant, for district teams from all the boroughs, in the sustained effort to support standards-based mathematics learning across the entire system.