Stark County Math and Science Partnership

Stark County Educational Service Center, North Canton OH

Investigators

Abstract

This project is proposed by a partnership that includes the Stark County Educational Service Center; seventeen school districts (Alliance City, Canton City, Canton Local, Plain Local, Fairless Local, Jackson Local, Lake Local, Louisville City Local, Marlington Local, Massillon City, Minerva Local, North Canton City, Northwest, Osnaburg Local, Perry Local, Sandy Valley Local and Tuslaw Local ); the East Regional Professional Development Center; Stark Education Partnership (a business and community organization); and five institutions of higher education located in Stark County ( Malone College, Walsh University, Kent State University-Stark Campus, Mount Union College and Stark State College of Technology). The partnership focuses on raising student achievement and reducing the achievement gap in mathematics and science at 44 middle and high schools in Stark County, OH, and is designed to impact over 40,000 students and approximately 650 middle and high school math and science pre-service and in-service teachers. The hallmarks of the Stark County Math and Science Partnership (SCMSP) are the development of urban centers linked to reducing the achievement gap, increasing inquiry and real world problem solving teaching skills, and collaboration and networking among secondary teachers and college content and methods faculty. Four Urban centers will be created to address performance disparity in districts with the largest minority populations and largest achievement gaps: Alliance City, Canton City Massillon /city and Plain Local. These centers will be located in the high schools of these districts and will have aspects of both professional development schools and lab schools with college faculty, preservice teachers, coursework, seminars, field experiences and practice teaching on-site. While these urban centers will provide concentrated support to four districts, all 17 districts will participate in the Lead Teachers, Study Group, Peer-Coaching, Summer institutes, and Industry Internships components of this endeavor in order to increase inquiry and real work problem-solving in mathematics and science classrooms.