National Math and Science Initiative

The National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) is a non-profit organization based in Dallas, Texas, that launched in 2007. Its mission is to improve student performance in the subjects of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in the United States. It attempts to do this by scaling up local academic programs to a national level.

In 2005, the National Academies commissioned a report titled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” which asserts that student achievement in the subjects of math and science has declined in the United States, while other countries have increased their student achievement scores in the same subject areas. The report recommended the creation of a non-profit organization to help marshal private sector support to help improve math and science education in the United States. Several authors of the report partnered with Peter O’Donnell Jr. to meet this need, effectively establishing NMSI’s board of directors and committing to bring both the UTeach and NMSI’s College Readiness program (formerly known as NMSI’s Comprehensive AP Program and the Advanced Placement Training and Incentive Program (APTIP)) to scale nationally. ExxonMobil invested $125 million to launch the effort, which was later supplemented by an additional $125 million from corporations, foundations, individual donors and government agencies – creating an effective public-private partnership model that continues to sustain the organization today.

NMSI has expanded three programs to a national scale: NMSI’s College Readiness Program, NMSI’s Laying the Foundation Program, and NMSI's UTeach Expansion Program.

NMSI’s College Readiness Program is a three-year program in which teachers go through rigorous professional development to better prepare themselves and their students for Advanced Placement Exams. The prototype for NMSI’s program, Advanced Placement Strategies (APS) was launched as a public-private partnership in the Dallas area in 1995 by a group of local businessmen committed to education reform. The goal of the APS program was to improve college readiness and encourage STEM studies for underserved Texas public high school students by increasing participation and performance in AP math, science and English courses. Texas schools in their first year of the APS program increased their exam participation by 198 percent.

In the 2008-2009 school year, NMSI replicated the APS program as the Advanced Placement Training and Incentive Program (APTIP) and in its first year, the program increased enrollment in AP courses by nearly 70 percent, including a 122 percent increase among African American and Hispanic students. The number of passing AP math, science, and English exams also increased by 52 percent, which was nine times the national average; for African American and Hispanic students, the increase in passing AP scores was 71.5 percent.

...
Wikipedia