About Us

Who We Are

The Greater Birmingham Mathematics Partnership (GBMP) is a consortium of nine school systems in the Birmingham metropolitan area, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham-Southern College, and the Mathematics Education Collaborative (MEC), a Seattle-based non-profit which provides support services to education communities to improve mathematics instruction.

Mission

The primary mission of the GBMP is two-fold: We endeavor to increase the mathematics achievement levels for all middle school students (approximately 22,000) in the school districts served, while, at the same time, narrowing the mathematics achievement differences between diverse student populations. To reach these objectives, the partnership works to increase the effectiveness and leadership capacities of current (approximately 270) and future middle school mathematics teachers within GBMP school systems. GBMP also works to build support for high quality mathematics education programs by uniting stakeholders including teachers, school administrators, institutions of higher education, parents, community and business leaders, and others in the general public. The project fundamentally targets middle school mathematics teachers (current and future), but also will impact 100 fifth grade teachers as well.

Funding

While the beginnings of this project can be traced back to the early 1990’s, in September 2004 the GBMP received a 5-year, 9.96 million dollar grant to fund the project from the National Science Foundation as part of its Math and Science Partnership Program. This major NSF research and development effort supports partnerships to improve K-12 student achievement in mathematics and science.  The NSF funding we receive is specifically targeted toward our project's efforts with middle school grades and some high school follow-up.  It also supports the inclusion of pre-service teachers and higher education faculty in our professional development efforts.  Local monies have been contributed to support the participation of K-4 teachers.  In addition to the local school district partners, GBMP has received support from the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, the Hugh Kaul Foundation, the Robert R. Meyer Foundation, and the Susan Mott Webb Charitable Trust.

Targeted Activities

To accomplish our mission, the GBMP project activities include: (1) offering a series of mathematics content courses and sustained, high-quality professional development (2) developing cadres of mathematics support teams who will provide local leadership at the middle school level both during and beyond the project; (3) redesigning and expanding institutes of higher education (IHE) mathematics content courses; (4) placing pre-service teachers in middle school classrooms that consistently model best practices; (5) developing and seeking state approval for a Middle School Mathematics Certification; (6) offering sessions to prepare school administrators to take a more active role in supporting quality mathematics instruction; (7) working proactively to ensure knowledgeable public support for quality mathematics programs and practices in schools; (8) working to recruit, develop and retain teachers with an emphasis on increasing the diversity of the teacher workforce; and (9) forming and nurturing strong business and education partnerships in support of quality mathematics education.

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