The project is proposed by a partnership formed between Indiana University-Bloomington and nine urban school corporations, (the Indiana Initiative Mathematics Consortium.). There are a total of 126 elementary schools (57 Title I), 36 middle schools and 24 high schools in the districts serving over 115,000 students. There are two major foci (i) providing comprehensive professional development for leadership cadres of teachers and principals; and (ii) insuring that all IMI districts will derive permanent benefit from a major overhaul of the preservice preparation of elementary and high school teachers by the university. Specifically the partnership is to establish linkages between IU's preservice program and IMI districts to enhance the ability of the districts to both attract and retain qualified mathematics teachers.
One component of the project is the identification of a leadership cadre (390 elementary and 60 middle grades teachers) to effectively pilot a mathematics curriculum, selected by the partners for its alignment with state academic mathematics standards, in order to improve student achievement. The project will use student performance data on the state ISTEP assessment examinations as a major measure of the effectiveness of the elementary pilot project. A second component is the high school plan with the identification of a leadership cadre of 90 high school mathematics teachers and 30 eighth grade mathematics teachers. These teachers are to pilot selected units in their classrooms in order that the current curriculum is better aligned with state standards and ISTEP.
