THE STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT / THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK / ALBANY, NY 12234 NYS Mathematics Science Partnership Program Curriculum, Instruction and Instructional Technology Team 320 Education Building Tel. (518) 474-5922 Fax (518) 473-4884 E-mail:  emscmsp@mail.nysed.gov                                    http://emsc32.nysed.gov/ciai/mst.html

New York State Mathematics Science Partnership Program

Program Update 1-01 January, 2005
Program Updates will be issued as needed to keep all projects current with programmatic and fiscal issues. Please feel free to share these with additional partners and personnel as needed. All Updates will be posted to our State website http://emsc32.nysed.gov/ciai/mst.html for future reference.

Project Abstracts
Descriptions of projects have been received from the majority of the projects. If there are any corrections or additions required, please let us know. These will be posted to the website so that interested parties can begin communication across projects. Because of the interest indicated by the US Department of Education in what states are doing in this critical area, the abstracts will help to promote and encourage continued support for this program. Individuals or organizations may contact you with interest in particular aspects of your project. The NYSED encourages you to accommodate these requests for information as much as possible.

Directory
A directory of primary partnership contacts has been developed from the information supplied by projects.  If corrections are needed, please let us know. The Curriculum, Instruction and Instructional Technology Team responsible for the NYS MSP Program has assigned staff to act as Stateÿlevel contacts regarding content-related issues or concerns. These staff will be your first point of contact for content information in implementing your program. While staff is limited in providing on-site technical assistance, they may be in contact with you to arrange a possible future visit as opportunities arise.

Programmatic
Due to the late awarding of MSP grants the requirement for a minimum of 60 hours of professional development will need to be adjusted. The first cycle of the grant was actually intended to be 10 months and 12-month cycles for years 2 and 3. Please note that the documented professional development planned for the first year of your project should reflect a minimum of 30 hours. Also as a reminder, please review the Statement of Assurances submitted with your proposals that indicate specific local project obligations as we begin implementing the MSP projects.  As individual projects finalize their professional development activities please alert the SED as far in advance of these events as possible. Our intent is to establish a 12-month calendar for Statewide planning purposes which will be posted on the MSP website.

Fiscal
Some projects have already contacted us with some budget concerns. The main concern relates to the length of the first year (10 months) and their ability to fully expend the awarded funds. The question was raised whether unexpended funds could be "rolled over" into the next year's budget. Fiscal contacts for each project should analyze their budgets as submitted and approved to determine what funds may not be spent by June 30, 2005. Please forward this figure to me at esuhr@mail.nysed.gov

as soon as possible. After consulting with our grants finance unit we will make a determination. Generally this action is not possible when grants are multi-year as is the case. Prior to the end of the first grant period we will be requesting new budgets for the second year to ensure a seamless continuation of funding. It may be possible to increase this second year budget with unspent funds from the first year.

Evaluation
Evaluation of individual projects is a critical component of this program. Determining effectiveness and validity of your program as it impacts teachers and their students is at the forefront of this effort. As part of the federal NCLB Title II B Mathematics Science Partnership Program, directives indicate that individual projects will be providing annual reports directly to the US Department of Education. To ensure consistency and reliable data collection all projects have identified personnel or organizations to collect and locally monitor this data collection responsibility. To this end, a firm commitment of participating teachers is critical. Because of the variation in research designs in each of the projects it is imperative that projects be able to track a consistent cohort of participants over the three years of the grant program. Also to the extent possible, the students impacted by these participating teachers need to be identified.

While individual projects may have identified ways to accomplish this, NYSED is soliciting the services of a Statewide Program Evaluator that will monitor the evaluation components of the projects. Their role will be to provide limited technical assistance to local evaluation efforts to determine if the interventions proposed have an impact on the participants content knowledge and its effect on student performance in the subject area targeted by the project. We strongly suggest that when this vendor is identified, that formal contacts be established between your evaluation component and the Program Evaluator to ensure consistency in your design. The NYSED will be facilitating this process.

You can get a feel for the expectations of the State wide program evaluation by viewing the Request for Proposal posted at
http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/compcontracts/mspeval04-031cover.html