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As all of us know, there is a critical shortage of engineers and technology workers in the United States,
that it's incredibly important to our competitiveness around the world.
And we also know that math is often times the barrier to young kids moving into those directions.
So, improving math education and getting kids excited about mathematics is incredibly important to all of our future.
How many of us have sat in a restaurant, where at the end of the meal someone turned around and said,
"Hey, would you figure the tip on this. I'm just not good with math"?
You never hear them say, "can you read the menu. I'm not good with reading menus."
But yet we'll say that about math, won't we?
I've been in umpteen meetings where an elementary teacher said to me, "you know I'm just not comfortable teaching math."
And I think to myself, "hmm... I wonder how your students are going to feel?
If you're not comfortable, how are they going to feel?
Even in my own family, sitting around the kitchen table, in a cafeteria, sitting around a table of teachers,
it's always been okay to say that math is hard... I never got it.
And this kind of environment is fighting those myths.
We're most grateful for the support of two fine, Nebraska-based, private foundations.
And we're proud that Nebraska's comprehensive research university and Nebraska's largest school district will collaborate on this project.
A $5.5 million grant from the Sherwood Foundation and the Lozzier Foundation to the University of Nebraska Foundation
will strengthen mathematics learning in OPS classrooms, narrow the achievement gaps that exist between different student populations,
and enable research to inform school improvement efforts.
Community partnerships are pretty big at OPS, and I didn't know, starting right off the bat, in my first 2 weeks here,
here's a $5.5 million opportunity to impact math learning at OPS. That's a pretty big, big deal.
Simply stated, the goal of the project is to help students improve their math skills by investing in outstanding math teachers.
The funding will support the newly formed Nebraska Math Omaha Public Schools Teachers Leaders Academy,
which involves a community of mathematic teachers from throughout OPS, who are dedicated to strengthening mathematics teaching and learning in Omaha.
I'm really excited because to this point Nebraska Math has only been able to reach a small number of OPS teachers,
and this new grant is going to provide the opportunity for this to become more widespread and to become more commonplace.
The more of us there are helping reach our students, the more we can spread what we're learning and our knowledge and how it's impacting students.
Many people don't know that UNL research reaches not just in Lincoln, but all over Nebraska.
It's especially exciting for us to talk about one of the academic collaboration that UNL has in the Omaha area,
and we look forward to many, many more collaborations like this.
We created this partnership because we understand the challenges facing K-12 education in the United States, in Nebraska, in Omaha.
I really want to thank the Sherwood Foundation, the Lozzier Foundation, the program officers,
and the generous individuals who care enough about making Omaha a great place to live for all its citizens that they support programs like this one.
We say that we believe all students can learn, but because now we've been thrown in to the gamut,
and I realize that after teaching middle school for 14 years, I thought I knew it all.
And what I've learned is that I only knew a very small tip of the iceberg.
And if I can learn what I've learned, then I know that my students can learn.
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