Schools Are Given $500,000 Grant
San Diego city schools received a $500,000 grant Thursday to participate in a major national effort to improve the teaching of math, science and technology through fresh classroom approaches.
San Diego will be one of nine school districts nationwide in a 2 1/2-year research project sponsored by the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science, which announced the $4.6-million program in Washington.
The association’s chief education officer said the school-university-industry cooperative venture will come up with a “blueprint for action. . . . It’s not a project to patch up the system we have now but to create the schools of the future,” F. James Rutherford said.
Emphasis will be placed on integrating subject matters traditionally taught separately, and memorization of facts will be downgraded.
San Diego was selected in part because district Supt. Tom Payzant has participated in curriculum planning on several national panels. The other districts selected are in San Francisco; Green and Oglethorpe counties in Georgia; McFarland County in Wisconsin and the San Antonio area.
In San Diego, 20 classroom teachers with differing experience will work with faculty from UC San Diego and San Diego State University during the next 2 1/2 years on a regular basis to develop a model interdisciplinary curriculum.
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