COLLEGE PARK, MD (September 2004) — A two-day research symposium hosted by the Maryland Institute for Minority Achievement and Urban Education with funding from the National Science Foundation will focus on ways of optimizing mathematics achievement for minority learners.

"Optimizing Mathematical Achievement for All Students" is the theme for the symposium Sept. 23-24. The goal of the event is to "stimulate and encourage a new group of researchers to take a direct and active role in finding solutions to the problems of underachievement," said Martin L. Johnson, Associate Dean for Urban and Minority Education and director of the Institute. "Underachievement continues to be well identified within the minority student population."

Summaries of research from each speaker’s area of expertise will be presented with topics that represent different aspects and complexities of urban schooling. Among the areas to be examined are teachers and teaching, curriculum and curriculum reform, classroom culture and student expectations. The four keynote speakers on the symposium program are Patricia F. Campbell, University of Maryland; Ronald F. Ferguson, Harvard University; Danny B. Martin, University of Illinois; and William Tate, Washington University in St. Louis. (See complete biographies below)

Participants include invited professors and their graduate students from across the nation. They will form working groups to explore current research identifying factors impacting mathematics achievement of minority students; identify the research needed to inform policy-makers, practitioners, and curriculum developer; and develop a research agenda.

The two-day event is being held at the University Inn and Conference Center. Nearly 100 attendees are expected. For more information on the symposium, contact Martin L. Johnson, Associate Dean for Urban and Minority Education, and Director of the Institute. He can be reached at 301.405.2046.

Speakers for the symposium:

Patricia F. Campbell is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Maryland, College of Education. She earned a Ph.D. in mathematics education from Florida State University, an M.S. degree in mathematics from Michigan State University, and a B.S. in mathematics from the College of St. Francis, Joliet, Ill. Her publications and presentations address issues spanning the teaching and learning of elementary mathematics, professional development, and instructional change. A former member of the Board of Directors of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Campbell served as principal investigator for two National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research efforts addressing elementary mathematics reform in urban schools. Her work addressing systemic reform in elementary mathematics with the Baltimore City Public School System was recognized with the Urban Impact Award from The Council of Great City Schools as well as the University of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Public Service. Currently Campbell is the co-principal investigator of two NSF-funded research efforts; one of these research efforts addresses the impact of school-based instructional support on student achievement while the other will examine the relationship between teacher knowledge and student achievement.

Ronald F. Ferguson is a Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he has taught since 1983, and he is a Senior Research Associate at the University’s Wiener Center for Social Policy Research. He has also taught at MIT, Brandeis and Brown Universities. Ferguson’s publications cover issues in education policy, youth development programming, community development, economic consequences of skill disparities, and state and local economic development. His research for the past several years has focused on racial achievement gaps, appearing in publications of the National Research Council, the Brookings Institution, the U.S. Department of Education and the Educational Research Service. He is the creator and director of the Tripod Project for School Improvement that operates in two dozen school districts across six states. Ferguson attended public schools in Cleveland, Ohio, later earning an undergraduate degree from Cornell University and a Ph.D. from MIT, both in economics.

Danny B. Martin is an Associate Professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He assumed this position in fall 2004. Prior to coming to the University of Illinois, Martin was Instructor and Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Contra Costa College for 14 years, where he served as Chair from 2001-2004. He received his Bachelor’s of Science degrees in Mathematics and Physics from Carroll College, his Master’s degree in Mathematics and his Ph.D. in mathematics education from the University of California at Berkeley, the latter completed under the direction of Alan Schoenfeld, John Ogbu, Pedro Noguera, and Emily Van Zee. After receiving his Ph.D., he served as a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow from 1998-2000. Martin has a broad interest in sociocultural and cognitive influences on mathematics learning. However, his primary research interest is equity issues in mathematics education, with a specific focus on qualitative studies of mathematics socialization and the construction of mathematics identities among African American adults and children in classroom and community contexts. Martin is author of the book Mathematics Success and Failure Among African Youth, which details some of his initial findings into these areas. He is currently the Principal Investigator for a three-year National Science Foundation funded project entitled Mathematics Socialization and Identity. Martin is also author of forthcoming articles and book chapters entitled Mathematics Learning and Participation in African American Context: The Co-Construction of Identity in Two Intersecting Realms of Experience and Mathematics Learning as Racialized Experience: African American Parents Speak on the Struggle for Mathematics Literacy, writings that hint at his emerging interest in applying Critical Race Theory (CRT) to the field of mathematics education.

William Tate is Professor and Chair of the Department of Education in the College of Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. He holds additional academic appointments in Applied Statistics and Computation and American Culture Studies. Tate also is co-principal investigator and a research group leader of the St. Louis Center for Inquiry in Science Teaching and Learning (CISTL) funded by the National Science Foundation. Tate is former scholar-in-residence and assistant superintendent–mathematics and science of Dallas Public Schools. He also served as the project director and co-principal investigator of the Urban Systemic Program (USP) funded by the National Science Foundation. His first mathematics teaching position was in the Dallas Independent School District. For 10 years, Tate served on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has authored over 50 scholarly journal articles, book chapters, and reports focused on school mathematics, school science, technology education, and urban school reform. Tate is a co-author of two school mathematics textbook series. He has also served as the co-editor of the American Educational Research Journal (Section: Teaching, Learning, and Human Development).In 1998, he received an Outstanding Scholar Award from the Special Interest Group Research Focus on Black Education of the American Educational Research Association.

In 2000, he received the Early Career Research Award from the American Educational Research Association for his scholarly contributions to mathematics education and urban education. Also, in 2000, he received the Outstanding Scholar Award from the University of Maryland, College of Education. Tate holds a Ph.D. in mathematics education from the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Maryland College of Education. He earned a master's degree in mathematical sciences from the University of Texas-Dallas and a Bachelor of Science degree in economics with a minor in mathematical sciences from Northern Illinois University.

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or contact Deborah Hudson, Assistant Dean for External Relations, at: dmhudson@umd.edu