Local Systemic Change
through Teacher Enhancement

In 1995, the National Science Foundation (NSF) initiated the Local Systemic Change through Teacher Enhancement program. The initiative’s primary goal was to improve instruction in science, mathematics, and technology through teacher professional development within whole schools or school districts. NSF funded the first cohort of Local Systemic Change (LSC) projects in 1995, and an additional cohort of projects each year, for a total of 88 projects funded by 2002.

NSF’s solicitation for the LSC initiative indicated the Foundation’s interest from the outset in providing a framework for collecting data from LSC projects to evaluate their efforts. The goal of the evaluation activities was not only to assess individual projects, but also to aggregate data across projects to glean broader insights about the design, quality, and impact of the LSCs. NSF contracted with Horizon Research, Inc. (HRI) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina to develop a data collection framework, to provide technical assistance in implementing evaluation activities, and to prepare cross-site analyses of evaluation results.