Contact our nearest regional office to learn how your schools can become part of America's Choice.		For Immediate Release Contact: Julie Karant (202) 955-9450 x320, jkarant@commworksllc.com America's Choice Chosen for Math Professional Development Impact Study After highly competitive bidding, the American Institute for Research has chosen America's Choice as part of a groundbreaking, large-scale study of the impact of professional development on the teaching of rational numbers, fractions, decimals, percentages, and proportions to 7th grade students. The National Center for Education Evaluation, part of the U.S. Department of Education's Institute for Education Sciences, has commissioned the study. During the 2007 pilot phase, America's Choice will provide teacher professional development and coaching in eight schools across two districts, then in eight districts for the full study in 2008. America's Choice professional development will support the use of the Glencoe-McGraw Hill and Connected Mathematics textbooks and will be customized to fit the current curriculum practices of the teachers in the study, with the goal of building their understanding of both mathematical concepts and pedagogical approaches. Each teacher in the full study must commit to attending a three-day summer institute, followed by five day-long seminars offered during the school year, and 10 days of coaching support at each school after each of the five seminars. This study will be one of the first to measure the impact of professional development by examining outcome data to see if teacher knowledge and instructional practices have strengthened, and to gauge how their practices have affected student test scores. In addition to providing rigorous, scientifically based research, this study will allow America's Choice to develop relationships with the participating districts and receive valuable feedback on America's Choice materials, and methods.