CAMS came into being in 2003, when the National Science Foundation awarded the Consortium’s partners a Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program grant to enhance middle school mathematics and science education in four New Jersey school districts and to serve as a model for similar efforts nationwide.

The School District Partners.
Each of the four participating New Jersey school districts— Elizabeth, Hillside, Linden, and Rahway—is urban and diverse, and serves students in grades K-12. Collectively, these four districts have an enrollment of more than 33,000 students, of whom almost 7,700 are enrolled in grades 6 through 8 across a total of 18 schools. Two of these four districts have been Merck Institute for Science Education (MISE) partners since its inception in 1993.

Kean University.
Located in Union, N.J., Kean serves 13,000 full-time and part-time students, 56% of whom are women and 34% from underrepresented groups. Founded in 1855, Kean currently graduates the largest number of teachers in the state. Kean is involved in improving teacher preparation programs for mathematics and science, and has instituted a variety of programs to recruit and prepare candidates for careers as mathematics and science teachers. Many of these programs serve as the basis of key elements of CAMS.

Merck Institute for Science Education.
New Jersey-headquartered, research-based pharmaceutical company Merck & Co., Inc. has a history of supporting public education through contributions, grants, and gifts. In 1993, Merck adopted a more focused strategy for such support by creating MISE, which is now in its second decade. The goal of MISE is to raise student interest, participation, and performance in science, so that all children can meet national and state standards.

Educational Testing Service (ETS).
ETS develops, administers, scores, and analyzes results from more than 12 million tests and other assessment tools in nearly 200 countries. For CAMS, ETS helps teachers use classroom-based formative assessments and works with the school districts to develop a system to measure student progress.