Anticipated Outcomes and Potential Impacts

This project seeks the following three primary outcomes: (1) an increase in standardized test scores; (2) an increase in overall academic performance; and (3) an increase between pre- and post- tests performance on a specialized exam for participants in the program. We also expect several secondary outcomes. We expect that students from this program will go on to college at higher rates than their peers. Also, we expect more of these students to choose careers in math and science than their peers do. After the conclusion of this project, students will be motivated to learn, and they will have a better sense of themselves and their capabilities. The participants and their parents will have set goals for excellence and they will have an increased awareness of technology in the learning process. This project also seeks to enable parents and the community to be a part of the children's educational process. Furthermore, the community will benefit by having a computer lab whereby they will have access to the Internet and Benedict College. This project will give participants, parents, and the community access to information.

To curtail the academic failure of African-American children, Benedict College proposes a strategy of increasing educational excellence through increasing mathematical skills of middle school students and providing educational information to the entire community. Throughout the course of this project, we will evaluate the effectiveness of our strategy.

In evaluating the program, we will ask several questions:

• Are students' standardized test scores increasing?
• Are students' grades improving?
• Are parents playing a greater role in the education of their children?
• Are community residents accessing information electronically?
• Are the educational centers providing useful information and programs for the residents?

The Center of Excellence for Community Development and faculty members from the academic departments, including the Education Department at the College, will be the internal evaluator of the project. The Center will design both quantitative and qualitative instruments to answer these questions. In addition to the student, parent and community resident outcome evaluations, the Center will also conduct an evaluation of the project from its inception and throughout the duration of the project. Dr. Joyce Buxton, Richland School District I, will serve as the external evaluator of the project. Both Federal and matching funds are being requested in the budget for the evaluation of the project. The overall evaluation plan is detailed in Appendix D.

Evaluation data will be collected and used to address the evaluation questions stated above. Quantitative data from the students' performance on standardized tests and nine-week evaluation reports will be collected by the school counselors and provided to the evaluators with the consent of parents or guardians. Initially, test scores and performance in math courses will be collected on all prospective participants and used as baseline data.

Therefore, pre- and post-tests will be used to measure skill improvements in mathematics. A score of 80% will be considered as mastery. Both the internal and external evaluators will compile the data separately and compare the data to non-participants within the same target population and throughout the State. Statistically, significant mean score differences from pre-to post-tests will be considered evidence of skills improvement. Pre- and post-changes in attitudes toward mathematics, confidence in mathematical skills, career choices, and educational aspirations will be measured through questionnaires developed by the staff. Pre- and post-tests comparisons of scores on a standardized career interest inventory will measure shifts in career interests.

Data related to the questions of parental and community involvement will be collected from sign-in logbooks and student/parent surveys. These surveys will be designed to assess the role parents are playing in the overall education of their children and answer the questions: Are community residents accessing information electronically? Are the educational centers providing useful information and programs for the residents?

Each program activity (workshops, seminar sessions, adult computer literacy classes, and the After School Tutorial) will be evaluated by the use of short questionnaires. These questionnaires, giving immediate feedback on the extent to which the program activity is meeting its stated objectives, will be extremely useful in the evaluation of the M.A.T.H.E. Project. A program activity will be considered as meeting its objectives if 90% of the program participants give an average rating of 4 (five-point scale) to the activity. The program evaluation should prove to be an invaluable research instrument in determining program strengths and weaknesses in the M.A.T.H.E. Project.

The Population of Students. We estimate over 900 students will be served in this project. Currently, at the pilot site in Aiken, 300 seventh through twelfth graders participate in the Enrichment Program. Of these, 150 students participate in the After School Tutorial Program and The Saturday Academy during the academic year. We estimate a similar population base of students will participate in the program within the other two sites. An implementation schedule for the project is given in Appendix E.

We propose the creation of the M.A.T.H.E. Project between Benedict College and three community school districts in South Carolina to increase underrepresented minority students' interest in math. To date, no other college or university (HBCU) in the State of South Carolina is providing this type of program to underserved minority communities. We believe that Benedict College is in the best position to serve these communities given our success in educating and graduating a student population from these and similar minority communities.

This project is innovative in three ways. First, we will provide a comprehensive math enrichment program to these sites through telecommunications technology. Second, this project is targeted to middle school students in both inner city (Aiken) and rural (Lower Richland and Bamberg I School Districts) underserved minority communities. Most programs are targeted at high school students. And third, this project provides all the residents of the community access to information via the latest technology.

At the end of the third year of this project, Benedict College will design a replicable model that can be used between any institution of higher learning and elementary, middle, or high school throughout the country. We will be in a position to discuss the benefits of the comprehensive strategy and each of its components on African-American student performance. Furthermore, we will be able to provide long-term strategies for providing predominately minority communities access to electronic technology.

Access to technology is key for communities to successfully move into the next millennium. Benedict College is prepared to make technology easily accessible to all students, their parents, and the extended Benedict College community. The goal is to create an informational system of resources and tools (both physical and virtual) geared to assist, strengthen, and advance mathematical understanding, initiate collaborative learning and teaching, and facilitate access to digital information via Internet (a glossary of terms is provided in Appendix D).

Interoperability. Currently, there are over 50 existing compressed video distance education projects involving K-12 school districts and state-supported higher education institutions in South Carolina. Each of these state projects uses Broadband Exchange Lines and BVCS technology, which they receive at reduced rates. In order to interface with the existing State compressed video network, it is necessary to connect T- 3 circuits (minimum) from each of the Local Access Transport Areas (LATAs) within the state to Benedict College. These are circuits provided by the local telephone company and an interchange carrier combining local and long distance service because of statewide use.

As a private institution, this project will, therefore, enable Benedict College to utilize the existing Carolina State Fast Packet backbone and develop telecommunications networks with underserved communities throughout the State. Currently, there are no compressed video distance education classes being delivered from or to a private college to a state higher-education institution or K-12 school district. This would be the first such application in the State.

Scalability. Once the total network and infrastructure have been put in place, it will provide Benedict College uninterrupted accesses to teleconferencing services such as Fast Packet Services and Multi-point Video Conferencing Service. The Broadband Exchange Lines and BVCS will allow Benedict to interact with Multi-point conferencing between two or more locations throughout the State of South Carolina, therefore, allowing us to add additional community sites.

Applicant Qualifications and Ability to Serve as a Model. Benedict College is well positioned to serve as a model for this project. Our qualifications are discussed in Appendix G. This project will be housed within the Center of Excellence for Community Development under the direction of Dr. Larry Lowe (Organizational Chart - Appendix H). The Benedict College computer center staff, the Library Information Systems staff, and Dr. Lowe all have significant experience in distance learning technology. The distance learning network facility will be housed in the Learning Resources Center at Benedict College. Benedict College is providing matching funds for the installation and maintenance of the distance learning facility to this area in order to prepare it for use in this project.

Budget, Implementation, and Timetable. The budget, implementation, and schedule timetables are provided in the Appendix E.

Sustainability. The College is committed to providing institutional support to the continuation of this project. As noted in the budget, the College is supporting most of the personnel as its match to the project. In this proposal, we are requesting funds to primari1y provide the hardware and network for the project. We will seek additional funds from other sources once this project period ends in order to maintain the on-going programs and expand to other community sites.

Partners. Over the past two years, community leaders across the State have played a significant role in forming the structure of this initiative. At the onset of this initiative, representatives from Benedict College met with key representatives from the sites to discuss the parameters of this project and to obtain their support. Letters of support from community partners are included in the Appendix.

Community Involvement. Key representatives (parents, students, church members, and school district representatives) of several communities participated in informal (brainstorming session) and formal (PowerPoint presentation) sessions to assess their needs and to discuss their involvement in the development and implementation of this project. Each community identified better education, exposure to technology, and good role models as essential needs for all children and especially for the middle and high school. A survey related to the availability and use of computers and information technology was given to all those in attendance at these sessions (survey instrument in Appendix I). Consistently, the survey identified that the students, parents, and members of each of the three target sites had a limited access to and knowledge of computers and the Internet.

Support for end users. Rising African-American seventh graders and students from grades eight through twelve will be a part of this project. Although publicity about the program will cover the entire counties, students within the school districts within the counties will be especially encouraged to participate. From those who express an interest in the program by applying, the project director will select students in each site to participate. Based on student participation at the Aiken site, it is expected that well over 900 hundred students will be participating in the overall project. Site coordinators, along with mentors, will monitor the students' progress in the program. The counselors will be responsible for providing student class grades to the coordinators. The coordinators will work with counselors within the school districts to obtain standardized test scores of each child.

Privacy. Privacy will not be a major issue for this project. No confidential information on the students will be sent via computer. Data records and logs will be sent monthly to the project director. The director will keep these records in a locked cabinet in his office.

The location of the experimental sites is shown on a map in Appendix M. As can be seen from the tables in Appendix C in South Carolina, African-American families live very different lives than White families. This project will seek to reduce some of these disparities by reducing the disparities in computer access and educational achievement between African-Americans and

White students, thereby reducing the gap between White and African-American academic success. Parity in education should bring us closer in parity of economic outcomes. For example, in Aiken County, the per capita income of Whites is $14,938, while African-American per capita income is only $7,453. Blacks age 25 years and over are twice as likely as Whites to have completed less than a 9th grade education. Not only are these trends true in Aiken County, but this same education and economic disparity exists in Lower Richland and the Bamberg communities as well. By focusing on education and educational attainment, Benedict College hopes to have an impact on reducing the economic gap between African-Americans and Whites within underserved communities across the State of South Carolina.

Documentation. This comprehensive educational effort is targeted towards students, parents, and community residents. All aspects of this effort will be well documented, and some of the information will be placed on the M.A.T.H.E. Web page. Three individuals will be obtaining and maintaining documentation on the project: project director, site coordinator, and evaluator. The site coordinator will maintain logs of who is using the facilities and for which program component. The site coordinator will also work with the project director to obtain student achievement data on each participant in the program. The project evaluator will maintain documentation for conducting the student outcome and process evaluation. The monitoring of project's operations and procedures will be accomplished through workshop sessions, Advisory Team meetings, and written monthly reports. Meetings with the teaching and other staff members will determine correctness of curriculum implementation. Feedback will be given to all staff members regarding their performance. Attendance, achievement, and participation of students in the program will be constantly monitored.

Dissemination Plan. One of the most significant components of the M.A.T.H.E. project is the dissemination of the project's results to public, state, and national officials.

The M.A.T.H.E. Project will adopt a newsletter format of dissemination. In addition to the newsletter, information regarding the status and progress of the project will also be listed on the project's Web page. Graphs and tables of overall performance by students, parents, and others and evaluation of the project's activities will be maintained. The cost effectiveness of the evaluation and dissemination plan can be realized in a number of ways. Pre- and post-tests that will be administered are already being used as assessment instruments by the school districts at no cost to the students who take these tests. The survey questionnaires to be used in assessing the effectiveness of this project will be easy and cost effective to generate and distribute. Volunteer workers, school counselors, and student assistants will be used to distribute, collect, and record the results of these surveys.

The goals of the project's dissemination plan will be to: (a) provide on-going information about the effectiveness of the project's goals in providing access to information through the use of technology; (b) provide information about the effectiveness of the project's goal of increasing the overall performance level of underserved minorities in math skills; (c) provide on-going information about the involvement of parents and other community members in the education and cultural enrichment of their children; and (d) provide on-going information about the students' change in attitude about career choices.