Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Request for Information for Bright Spots in Middle Years Math
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The following is excerpted from the Bright Spots RFI: http://k12education.gatesfoundation.org/bright-spots-rfi/
Overview of Our K-12 Strategy
Guided by the belief that all lives have equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s K-12 Education program aims to significantly increase the number of Black, Latino, and low-income students who earn a high school diploma, enroll in a postsecondary institution, and are on track in their first year to earn a credential with labor-market value. We know that opportunity and support are particularly lacking for Black, Latino, and low-income students in the current public education system, and we believe that our communities and our economy will be strongest when all students have the opportunity to achieve their full potential. Learn more about our K-12 strategy here.
About Our Research & Development Math Strategy
As part of our ongoing effort to support innovation in K-12 education, we are developing a focused research and development (R&D) program to support Black, Latino, and low-income students. One of our first projects is aimed at the achievement of high levels of performance in middle years mathematics (approximately grades 3-9). This R&D program aims to develop, test, and create mechanisms to support the use of a set of specific teaching and learning approaches that drive faster and deeper learning in mathematics, enabling Black, Latino, and low-income students to be fully prepared to be successful by 9th grade.
We are looking for “breakthrough” approaches, which we believe can support students to consistently:
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1. Gain substantially more than a year of learning growth in a single year, enabling those that are behind to accelerate their progress towards grade level standards
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2. Demonstrate levels of student engagement and motivation in mathematics that show promise in driving significantly higher levels of knowledge and application, and/or
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3. Achieve high levels of proficiency on summative grade-level assessments
Our ultimate goal is to dramatically improve middle years math instruction, so that every Black, Latino, and low-income student deeply knows, is able to use, and enjoys math by the time they are in high school.
To begin building our middle years math R&D program we are issuing a request for information [“RFI”] that seeks to identify approaches that already have begun to show significant promise in supporting Black, Latino, and low-income students to achieve high performance in mathematics and/or approaches that support grades 3-12 teachers of
mathematics.
Responses due May 18, 2018, by 5:00pm PDT
Contact Email: BrightSpotsMath@gatesfoundation.org