MARYLAND BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE FOR EDUCATION

MBRT is a founding partner in the Ready At Five Partnership, which is committed to ensuring that all Maryland children, birth through five, are prepared to enter school ready to learn.

ACHIEVE is a not-for-profit organization created in 1996 by America's governors and corporate leaders to provide advice and assistance to states on education reform. Achieve's particular focus is on helping states strengthen their academic expectations for students by benchmarking their standards against those of the highest performing nations, and on promoting cross-state collaboration on curriculum, assessment, and accountability issues.

The BRT is an association of CEOs committed to improving public policy.

ECS helps state leaders identify, develop and implement public policy for education that addresses current and future needs of a learning society.

An animated, interactive testing and learning site.  Compare your math and science performance against students worldwide.  And access learning tools and links to help you "get smarter."

MHEC is the State of Maryland's higher education coordinating board responsible for establishing statewide policies for Maryland public and private colleges and universities and for-profit career schools. MHEC also administers state financial aid programs that affect students on a statewide basis.

MMP's mission is to develop and support high-quality, sustainable youth mentoring programs in Maryland.

MSDE provides leadership, support, and accountability for effective systems of public education, library services, and rehabilitation services.

MSDE releases its report card featuring information on all of the state's nearly 1,400 elementary, middle and high schools at www.mdreportcard.org.

Career Connections is Maryland's comprehensive school-to-careers system which supports school reform, workforce preparation, and economic development.

MABE is a private, non-profit organization to which all school boards in the state voluntarily belong.

The National PTA is the largest volunteer child advocacy organization in the United States. A not-for-profit association of parents, educators, students, and other citizens active in their schools and communities, PTA is a leader in reminding our nation of its obligations to children. PTA has nearly 6.5 million members working in 26,000 local chapters in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and in the Department of Defense schools in the Pacific and Europe.

Maryland has conducted an inventory of technology resources in Maryland public schools as part of the State Plan for Technology in Education. These statewide inventories, which are completed every two years by each school, have measured progress toward specified targets in key areas, such as access to equipment and networks, availability of technical support, and level of teacher knowledge and skills.

Since 1999, the PT3 initiative of the U.S. Department of Education has awarded over 400 grants to education consortia to prepare technology-proficient educators for 21st century schools.

Public Agenda is a nonpartisan, nonprofit public opinion research and citizen education organization based in New York City.

The Baltimore Sun has developed and invested in a multi-faceted, five-year initiative to improve the reading skills of children.   Reading By 9 is a comprehensive community service program that seeks to inspire a measurable increase in the percentage of 9-year-olds who are able to read at, or above, third grade level.

This site provides schools with the technological capability to analyze their own test data, research best practices, and prescribe and implement solutions.

This site is the largest, most comprehensive, and most rigorous international study of schools and students, providing data on half a million students from 41 countries.

The USDE's mission:  Strengthen the Federal commitment to assuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual; Supplement and complement the efforts of states, the local school systems and other instrumentalities of the states, the private sector, public and private nonprofit educational research institutions, community-based organizations, parents, and students to improve the quality of education; Encourage the increased involvement of the public, parents, and students in Federal education programs; Promote improvements in the quality and usefulness of education through Federally supported research, evaluation, and sharing of information; Improve the coordination of Federal education programs; Improve the management of Federal education activities; and Increase the accountability of Federal education programs to the President, the Congress, and the public.