The Center for Innovative and Transformative Education (CITE) and Partnerships for Community Action (PCA) at Bowling Green State University, the Merze Tate Center for Research on School Reform at Western Michigan University, and the Small Schools Workshop at the University of Illinois at Chicago, three university-based agencies that provide research-based assistance to public schools in the region, agree to cooperate as the Midwest Education Reform Consortium (MERC). The three agencies have agreed to apply for federal funding together as a partnership in order to enhance our work with schools that serve children of poverty in the Great Lakes region. The primary focus of MERC is to restructure pk-12 schools and reform teacher education to help them better serve the academic needs of children of poverty.

The broader purposes for the consortium include:
* sharing experiences in the work of assisting schools and children of poverty through conferences, publishing, and on-line dialogue;
* bringing new resources into the region to support educational reform for schools serving children of poverty, specifically through school restructuring and enhancement of teacher education.

Throughout what was formerly called the Rustbelt, public schools and school districts are struggling with issues of accountability, achievement, standards, assessment, and equitable funding. As educators within public universities in the region, we identify a special responsibility to look at the link between the shifting economic conditions in our cities and the status of our public schools. Our overarching aims are to learn from each other, to offer mutual assistance based upon our experience working for educational change, and to capitalize upon the specialized knowledge that each agency brings to this partnership.

Initially we plan to apply for a federal grant to support school reform work through the Gear-Up program, for small clusters of public schools in Toledo, Battle Creek, Bangor, and Chicago area. This five-year grant would provide direct services over a long continuum to students in schools in which our efforts are already concentrated. In addition, the consortium would provide sustained professional development for teachers and parent and community involvement. Such a collaboration would create a setting for shared research and development by the partners in this consortium, as well as promoting cross-fertilization and professional exchanges among teachers serving children of poverty in these districts.

The co-chairs of the working committee are Joseph Kretovics, Senior Research Professor at WMU; William Armaline, Director of the Center for Innovative and Transformative Education at BGSU, and Susan Klonsky, Development Officer at the Small Schools Workshop at UIC. WMU will as fiscal agent for the GEAR UP Proposal.

BGSU is a founding member of the Midwest Educational Reform Consortium (MERC), a three-state, integrated and collaborative partnership which culls the best practices from previous work in school reform programs to create GEAR-UP Learning Centers to address the systemic gaps causing severe educational and performance needs of high poverty students. In five school districts ranging from small rural to large urban, MERC will work with the following needs: As high as 92.7% of students are on free and reduced lunch (IL); only 38.1% of students pass Math and only 22.4% passing Reading on junior high proficiency tests (MI); hundreds of expulsions and suspencions per year (IL); only 5.4% of students passing high school proficiency in writing (Battle Creek, MI); and only 6% of entering ninth graders will complete post-secondary education (OH).

After establishing benchmarks based upon a gap analysis, MERC will mobilize partnership resources to restructure schools; improve professional development opportunities for teachers, administrators, and staff; and provide parents and students with the knowledge, financial support, and academic enrichment needed for post-secondary education.

Through intensive partnership intervention, MERC intends to increase students’ achievement scores, on-time graduation rates, and the percentage of students attending and completing post-secondary education. MERC also intends to engender sustainable improvement of the educational delivery system, student learning and achievement broadly defined, and family and community involvement in the educational system.