Connecting the university to inner-city secondary school mathematics

Primus: Problems, Resources, and Issues in Mathematics Undergraduate Studies, Jun 2002 by Case, Robert

c. From 1994-7, the emphasis shifted to the Boston schools themselves, and the project began to establish dynamic calculus courses in those high schools which up to that time had no calculus offering whatever (an NSF grant assisted in this).

This emphasis on the schools came to be seen as the true center of the project. Everything else was evaluated in relation to how well it related to the public schools and their mathematics "pipeline".

d. Beginning in 1996, a summer precalculus component was added to support the changes in the schools by preparing more rising seniors from these schools to take calculus in their school the following fall. This program has continued each summer since 1996.

As the program evolved over the years, the following characteristics have emerged:

1. More and more stress was placed on the equal access of city students to a strong mathematics curriculum in their schools -expanding the capacity of the schools themselves became the focus; instead of having a few students taking a special course on a university campus, the emphasis shifted to assisting the schools in setting up and offering their own calculus course, so that all students would have access in their regular curriculum.

2. Boston high school teachers came to play an increasingly integral role in all facets of the project, with University faculty collaborating and supporting. Ownership is clearly with the high schools and the teachers.

3. Continuity with college became more explicit. The importance of the student absorbing not only the curriculum, but through it the strategies and personal skills making for success both in college admission and in persistence in college, has become central. Also - more peripherally, but importantly - the new approaches to calculus at the University and in the schools offer an opportunity to have an ongoing laboratory for new methods, topics, ideas, applications, and technology - in short, for a thorough introduction of reform calculus - which produces a cross-fertilization between high school and college, affecting mathematics teaching in both environments.

STARTING ON CAMPUS, 1992-4

In 1992, two members of the faculty of Northeastern University's Department of Mathematics received a small planning grant from the SUMMA program of the Mathematical Association of America, and they became acquainted with several programs nationally, including the College Preparatory Mathematics Program, involving the University of Illinois-Chicago and the public schools there. Then, in the Spring of 1992, under the auspices of the Northeastern University Comprehensive Regional Center for Minorities (an NSF-funded Center) and in cooperation with the Massachusetts PreEngineering Program (MassPEP), whose goal is to increase the representation of minorities in science and engineering, a course to prepare students for calculus was offered on campus two afternoons a week, from 2:30 to 5:00 PM, for nineteen area high school juniors. These students, almost all African-- American, Hispanic, and/or new immigrants or their children, were from a variety of area schools including the so-called "exam schools" in Boston (Latin School, Latin Academy and O'Bryant High School of Mathematics and Science; in these schools, an entrance examination is used in determining admission). The other high schools, those not requiring an examination for entrance, are known as "district schools". The start-up funding for these afternoon classes, including course-release costs for the college instructor as well as payment for the Boston teachers who were Associates and the college students who acted as Mentors, came through a program of Gil Lopez (National Association of Precollege Directors) at Columbia University as well as through the Northeastern University Regional Center for Minorities.