Mission:
To improve math education in our nation's public schools.

Background:
Founded in 2004 by a group of business leaders, educators, and mathematicians, Math for America operates two fellowship programs that recruit, train, and retain outstanding secondary school mathematics teachers to work in New York City. There are now 111 fellows in the two programs, and MfA plans to expand both to a total of 340 fellows by 2011. The success of MfA's pilot programs generated a national initiative resulting in bipartisan legislation in Congress that proposes the creation of the Math Science Teaching Corps, which, if enacted, would ultimately involve 20 percent of U.S. secondary public school math and science teachers.

Outstanding Web Features:
The Math for America Web site provides details of the Newton Fellowship Program, which focuses on the shortage of adequately qualified math teachers in public secondary schools, and the Newton Master Teacher Fellowships, a $50,000, four-year program for outstanding math teachers in grades 6-12 of public schools. The site also contains resources for teaching math — activities, lesson plans, skills practice and worksheets, virtual manipulatives, games and challenges, technology-specific sites, and more; information about awards and grants; and links to math-related podcasts, articles and reports on education research and policy, and the MfA newsletter.