Sonoma State University education professors will work closely with their colleagues from Humboldt State University to lead a nearly $1 million effort to enhance the science, mathematics and history training of more than 12,000 high school students in 16 school districts throughout six northwestern California counties.
Called the Redwood Area Academic Literacy Initiative, the project teams the two universities with Konocti Unified School District to promote and develop specific content and teaching approaches in the three disciplines by working with 120 teachers in the region. The RAALI project will bring teams of teachers together for summer institutes, educational development efforts and research activities.
According to SSU Education Professor Karen Grady, RAALI, though focused on teachers, seeks ultimately to strengthen students' academic achievement in science, mathematics and history.
The four-year project has received $994,032 in federal funds through the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. It is one of eight initiatives chosen this year by the California Postsecondary Education Commission for the act's Improving Teacher Quality State Grants Program.
Grady said RAALI will offer professional mentoring, new teacher training, innovative collaborations and online communications. Results of research on the program's effectiveness will be shared locally and, through conferences and in publications, more widely.
Co-directing the RAALI project with Grady are project director Jeffrey White and Lower Lake Union High School mathematics teacher Dan Simard in the Konocti Unified School District.
Assisting White and Grady in developing the grant proposal were HSU Associate Dean of Professional Studies Chris Hopper, Assistant Professor of English Nikola Hobbel, and Julie Van Sickle and Andreana Ososki of the HSU-based Redwood Science Project.
In early 2004, CPEC awarded more than $900,000 to support the Northcoast Mathematics and Science Initiative, a similar project designed by White, Hopper and Phyllis Chinn, an HSU mathematics professor.
Through NMSI, a team of educators from HSU, College of the Redwoods, the Sonoma County North Coast Beginning Teacher Project and local schools is boosting the recruitment and training of new teachers to help alleviate a statewide shortage of teachers in mathematics and science.
For further information, visit http://www.humboldt.edu/~rsp.
