Back in 1992, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded grants to five curriculum development teams and charged them with the task of starting over. Five years later, each of the development teams had produced an innovative and "integrated" curriculum. All represented notable departures from the commonly encountered, calculus-driven high…

For decades teacher leadership has been widely promoted by policy makers and education leaders as a prime strategy for improving the educational enterprise. As practitioners of exemplary teaching, as innovators of pedagogy and curriculum, and as promoters of high-quality instruction for all students, teacher leaders are uniquely positioned to…

The Appalachian Math Science Partnership (AMSP) is a project within NSF's (National Science Foundation's) Math Science Partnerships (MSP) initiative. Funded at $23 million over five years, the AMSP involved 51 school districts and nine higher education institutions in Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. The AMSP faced two significant challenges in…

The papers presented in this paper accompany a core report about the Appalachian Math Science Partnership (AMSP) entitled "The Appalachian Math Science Partnership: A Multi-State Umbrella Partnership Promoting Local Mathematics and Science Reform Report." Each of them focuses on an especially effective strategy or component of the AMSP umbrella…

Inverness Research has served as the external evaluation group for the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession (CSTP) since its inception in 2003. As evaluators, Inverness conceptualizes projects as investments in improvement, and it examines the returns on those investments. The direct services of projects and their immediate outcomes…

This paper defines the concept of "improvement infrastructure" and "educational capital" for education, and it uses the case of the National Writing Project to develop an extended, data-based illustration of the design and generativeness of an improvement infrastructure. Since 1983 there have been multiple "waves" of educational reform that have…

This is a presentation made by the author to the staff of the members of the United States House of Representatives who are part of the STEM Caucus (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education Caucus). The briefing was held in the Rayburn Office Building in Washington, DC on July 27, 2007. Also presenting were Harold Pratt and Dr.…

The purpose of this report is two-fold. First, it is intended to describe the work and progress of the "MARS Toolkit for Change" project. Toward that end the report provides documentation and portrayal of the project from an outside perspective. The second and primary purpose of the report is to illuminate the lessons learned about the overall…

This brief draws upon the five-year evaluation study of the San Diego Urban Systemic Project (USP) that Inverness Research Associates conducted from 2001 to 2006. The intended audiences for this brief are those interested in investing in, supporting, or designing initiatives that aim to improve math and science education in large urban districts.…

Beginning in September, 2001 when the Portland Public Schools received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Urban Systemic Program (USP) initiative, the district focused, accelerated and strengthened its efforts to improve mathematics and science education K-12. Since its inception the authors at Inverness Research…

In the 1990s, the nation's educational focus turned to troubled schools in the nation's poorest cities. Under the leadership of Luther Williams, then Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Urban Systemic Initiative was created to improve the teaching and learning of science and mathematics. Recognizing that high-needs…

Through their visits and conversations with students, teachers, and administrators involved in the Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative (ARSI) over the past decade, the people at Inverness Research Associates came to believe that ARSI served as an important leadership capacity-building effort for improving mathematics and science education in…

The mission of the Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative (ARSI) was to build a long-term capacity that would improve the educational structures of the rural communities it served. The major strategy ARSI used to create improvement communities across Appalachia was to identify, embrace and educate individual teachers, who became ARSI Teacher…

Many of the people who live in Knott County today are direct descendants of the early settlers of the region. Today the people of Knott County share an identity that is grounded in the place they and their ancestors called home. Perhaps the public endeavor in which the influence of place is most evident is education. In Knott County education has…

In Kentucky, one of the six participating Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative (ARSI) states, the Teacher Partner concept soon gave rise to the Regional Teacher Partners (RTPs). This complementary project, known as the "Master Teacher Project," was designed after the Teacher Partner model but with one key difference. This paper describes the…