MISSOULA – Only 48 percent of Montana students are ready for college mathematics, and only 30 percent are prepared for higher education science, according to 2009 ACT test data reported by the state Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education.

 

To address this issue, the state university system will host a meeting of the Montana Math and Science Teacher Initiative on Monday, Aug. 2, at the Carroll College Campus Center in Helena .

 

Free and open to the public, the event will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is titled “Statewide Transformation in STEM Education.” (STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.)

 

Featured speakers from 10 to 11 a.m. will include Gov. Brian Schweitzer, Montana State University President Waded Cruzado, University of Montana President George M. Dennison, Carroll College Dean Paula McNutt, and Howard Gobstein, a Washington D.C.-based official with the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.

 

“One goal of this meeting is to brainstorm ideas about how we can enhance mathematics and science education across Big Sky Country,” Schweitzer said. “We also want to educate people about the important work that has already been done.”

 

A 2005 federal report titled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” from the National Academies outlined the critical nature for improved math and science education to the success of the United States. Montana responded to this challenge by forming the Montana Math and Science Teacher Initiative in October 2008.

 

MMSTI galvanizes K-20 administrators and policymakers to recruit, train, place and retain math and science teachers in the rural western United States. The organization also works to raise awareness of the importance of math and science education, to improve teacher professional development in those areas, to recruit students from STEM disciplines to become teachers and to continually assess improvement efforts.

 

Gobstein will give a lecture titled “The Importance of STEM Education and MMSTI” at 10:30 a.m. He is the executive officer and vice president of APLU’s Office of Research, Innovation and STEM Education. He also co-directs the Science and Mathematics Teacher Imperative, a national APLU effort to transform middle and high school STEM education by preparing a new generation of world-class science and math teachers.

 

A full conference schedule is online (pdf).