NMSI Awarded $4.3 Million Contract to Lead PARCC Educator Leader Cadres

DALLAS, June 18, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a highly competitive process, the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) has been unanimously selected to lead the Educator Leader Cadres (ELCs) for the Partnership of Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). PARCC is the 24-state consortium tasked with developing a common set of K-12 English language arts/literacy and mathematics assessments that are aligned to the Common Core State Standards. The goal of the PARCC ELCs is to ensure that teachers in consortium states successfully implement the standards in classrooms and prepare more students for college and careers.

The consortium will allocate $4.3 million of its federal Race to the Top funding to NMSI to use its proven, peer-to-peer training model to provide Common Core-driven, content-focused, and pedagogically-based instruction to the ELC members. NMSI will host face-to-face meetings and webinars for the educators who will become part of communities of practice as they develop expertise on the new standards and direct implementation of the Common Core State Standards in their states. NMSI also will facilitate an open-source learning management system to host online training and lessons that will be open to all teachers and students in PARCC consortium states.

"Common Core State Standards can't increase college readiness unless teachers are ready to increase the level of rigor in their classrooms," said Dave Saba, Executive Vice President of NMSI. "We are honored to work with PARCC state teachers to provide the training and resources they need to succeed."

During the next 29 months, the 600 state representatives will attend meetings that will cover in-depth knowledge of Common Core State Standards, adult learning to create expert trainers, online learning theory, development of lessons and resources for teachers, and training on PARCC assessments. The PARCC assessments for K-12 grades will build a pathway to college and career readiness by the end of high school, mark students' progress toward that goal beginning in third grade, and provide teachers with timely information to guide instruction.

Through its teacher training division, Laying the Foundation, NMSI specializes in professional development for educators and has trained more than 36,000 teachers in this capacity. The organization, which has already developed Common Core State Standards resources and training for teachers, will train more than 10,000 teachers in 2012 alone.

About NMSI:  NMSI is an agent of change launched in 2007 by leaders in business, education and science to improve student achievement in math and science across the American public school system. NMSI brings best practices to the education sector by replicating programs on a national scale that have more than 10 years of positive results. These proven programs include the Advanced Placement Training and Incentive Program (APTIP), which equips high student students to succeed in AP math, science, and English courses; the UTeach program to train math and science majors in universities to become teachers, and Laying the Foundation, which provides comprehensive teacher training for middle school and high school students to succeed in Pre-AP and AP math, science, and English courses.

For more information, visit www.nationalmathandscience.org.

Contact: Rena Pederson, NMSI Communications Director
              (214) 665-2523, rpederson@nationalmathandscience.org

SOURCE National Math and Science Initiative