Gear Up

Research

Gear Up In September 2000, Western Michigan University's College of Education received a $14.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) discretionary grant program, to fund the Midwest Educational Reform Consortium (MERC) GEAR UP Learning Centers. Combined with funding from mutual partners, the total funding for the GEAR UP Learning Centers exceeds $30 million. GEAR UP's mission is "to significantly increase the number of low income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in post-secondary education."

MERC is a three-state, integrated and collaborative partnership between Western Michigan University's Merze Tate Center for Research on School Reform, Bowling Green State University's Center for Innovative and Transformative Education and Partnerships for Community Action (CITE), and the University of Illinois at Chicago's Small Schools Workshop; and their partners - school districts, community-based organizations, business, foundations, and state and local governmental agencies. MERC's primary mission is to support restructuring schools into smaller, academically accelerated learning communities; and to reform educator preparation programs to support improved academic achievement for all children.

The strength of this multi-state and multi-institutional partnership is that it expands all partners' choices. MERC enables each GEAR UP partners to draw on the expertise of three universities in partnership with communities that run the gamut of high poverty contexts; from rural to suburban through medium and large urban districts. While each site has its unique local character and issues, many of the problems, concerns and root causes of the achievement gap are similar across sites. MERC allows the GEAR UP partners to optimize resources and avoid unnecessary duplication. Each of the GEAR UP partners will focus on the specific strengths and needs at its individual schools, with access to insights, experiences and resources from the other GEAR UP partners.

The MERC/GEAR UP Learning Centers are focused on 5 main goals:

GOAL I : Restructure schools to provide a systemic approach to extensive professional development for teachers, improved student learning and achievement, and stronger family/student support that will increase the percentage of students attending and completing post-secondary education.
GOAL II: Improve Professional Development opportunities for teachers in order to transform the educational delivery system, improve academic achievement and increase the percentage of students attending and completing post-secondary education.
GOAL III: Increase student learning and academic achievement for children who have been placed at risk as a result of factors such as income, sex, race and/or ethnicity to a level that will enable them to attain equal access to educational outcomes and compete successfully in post secondary education.
GOAL IV: Improve student/family support to establish a family atmosphere, a more intimate learning community and broad-based community involvement to increase academic achievement and the number of students going on to post secondary education
GOAL V: Provide assessment, research and reinvestment that is on-going and comprehensive to ensure that the activities employed in the project contribute to improved academic achievement and increased post-secondary education.

Student teacher The MERC/GEAR UP Learning Center initiative integrates several highly successful and nationally recognized school reform projects with the needs of schools, social service agencies and families in the selected communities. This initiative offers a multi-dimensional approach to transforming low-achieving, high-poverty schools into high-achieving and self-sustaining GEAR UP Learning Centers. GEAR UP Learning Centers are designed to provide students with choices in their education and in their futures, through accelerating student learning and by establishing culturally responsive teaching practices designed to enhance social and academic preparation for college.

This intervention will be accomplished through accelerating student learning and by establishing culturally responsive teaching practices designed to enhance social and academic preparation for college. Traditionally, children of poverty have had future decisions structured for them based upon minimal access to college preparatory and courses emphasizing higher order thinking skills.

In addition, the socialization experiences and information needed to negotiate the college application process are not afforded these children. The discrepancy in the access to high level knowledge and skills masks the process of translating the social and cultural differences of children of poverty into educational disadvantages (Boykin 2000). The GEAR UP Learning Centers provide and support academic options for children of poverty and cultivate student aspirations. Students along with their families will learn that they have choices and will be prepared to exercise those choices with regard to attending college, vocational school, or entering the world of work.

Western Michigan University will be working with middle and high schools in Battle Creek and Bangor. For further information contact , GEAR UP Director or , GEAR UP Associate Director, at (269) 387-6865.

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