Could extra high school math and science courses in the senior year significantly improve chances of earning a college degree, especially among urban public school students whose success in these fields has lagged for decades?

Experts at five Chicago-area universities, in conjunction with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), think so. They've collectively formed the Chicago Transformation Teacher Institutes (CTTI), and the National Science Foundation has awarded them a $5 million, five-year grant to develop an effective program.

Working with CPS, CTTI hopes to motivate math and science teachers from an initial group of 20 CPS high schools that will put a premium on developing innovative instruction.

University of Illinois at Chicago chemistry professor Donald Wink has headed up several successful projects to improve high school science education, and is CTTI’s lead principal investigator.

Wink, along with other top professors with expertise in science and math education at UIC, DePaul University, the Illinois Institute of Technology, Loyola University Chicago and Northwestern University, will create and teach graduate-level courses and workshops to selected Chicago high school instructors. Those instructors will, in turn, become “team leaders,” working with administrators and other teachers on new and inspiring ways to bolster the quality of math and science education.

“We'll offer a program of courses and workshops, but the teachers will be the ones who actually change what the school does,” said Wink.

CTTI professors will work with about 160 top Chicago high school science and math teachers.

“We have to design a process in dialog with the schools,” said Wink. “We'll be listening a lot to the teachers, principals and district leaders about criteria they want to use. For the program to be effective, it needs good school leadership and dedicated teachers.”

Among the program’s goals are annual improvements in standardized test and advanced placement scores of at least 10 percent; development of new advanced placement or capstone courses by CTTI teachers; and getting freshmen college students who graduated from CTTI schools to score grades of "B" or better in college math and science courses.

If the CTTI program succeeds, NSF may adopt it as a national model.

Co-principal investigator Michael Lach, a teacher and officer with CPS’ ‘Teaching + Learning” program, said the NSF grant will help make 12th grade courses a strong bridge from high school to college.

“Few cities have as strong a university-school partnership as Chicago,” said Lach. “This grant is a testament to the power of a whole city working together to advance mathematics and science education.”

Besides Wink, CTTI partner university leaders include John Baldwin, professor emeritus of mathematics and Steven Tozer, professor of  educational policy, both at UIC; Dean Grosshandler, research assistant professor of learning sciences at Northwestern; Norman Lederman, chairman and professor of mathematics and science education at IIT; Carolyn Narasimhan, professor of mathematical sciences at DePaul; and David Slavsky, associate professor of physics and director of the Center for Science and Math Education at Loyola. Stacy Wenzel of Loyola will coordinate the research effort.

“In recent years, DePaul has made a substantial commitment to supporting more science and math students – especially among females and students of color,” said Narasimhan. “DePaul is excited to be a part of the CTTI initiative and we expect it will help us reach our larger science education goals.”

The NSF award is funded under the federal government's economic stimulus plan, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.