Funded by the National Science Foundation, the IMPlementation Center for the Interactive Mathematics Program (IMP™) has the following three main functions:

• To serve as an implementation center to support schools and districts that are using the IMP curriculum
• As a professional-development center for IMP regional directors and teacher leaders
• As a networking center to support the existing regional centers and to help establish other IMP professional-development centers around the country

As an implementation center, it provides print materials such as evaluation data, articles, reports, and information packets about IMP to interested parents, teachers, schools, districts, state offices, systemic initiative groups, and other educational organizations. The center also maintains a national list of regional centers and suggests whom interested educators might contract with to support effective implementation.

IMP's publisher, Key Curriculum Press™, provides a toll-free number to help facilitate interaction. Key Curriculum Press also maintains this Web site for IMP staff to answer questions and for IMP teachers to share ideas.

The national IMP center provides professional-development opportunities for the directors of the IMP regional centers and for the teacher-leaders who will be providing the inservice to classroom teachers around the country. The California IMP site has been offering a similar experience for IMP teacher-leaders in the form of a three-day conference each year. The IMPlementation Center expands on this idea and offers an annual conference for teacher-leaders to help develop the skills required to effectively address the many challenges associated with assuming a leadership role in educational reform.

Key Curriculum Press continues to offer an IMP Users Group meeting at NCTM's annual conferences, bringing together IMP teachers, administrators, teacher-leaders, and directors as well as educators interested in learning about IMP. The IMPlementation Center works closely with Key Curriculum Press in planning these meetings and in helping support IMP educators who are making presentations and offering workshops at local, state, and national conferences.

As a networking center, the national site supports the existing regional centers and help develop new regional centers. It collects and disseminates information and activities about the centers to each other. The center maintains and distributes a national calendar of inservice programs for teachers and administrators involved in the IMP program. The center staff develops and distributes a model professional-development program based on eight days of inservice for each of the four years of the IMP curriculum. Regional centers are encouraged to modify and adapt the inservice program to meet the needs of their schools and communities.

The new national center will be one of five satellites of the Central Site in Ithaca, N.Y., which was funded by NSF to provide implementation support for five NSF-funded, standards-based high school curriculum projects.

Besides IMP, these initiatives include Core-Plus Mathematics Project, MATH Connections (Connecticut), Applications/ Reform in Secondary Education (ARISE), and Systemic Initiative in Montana Mathematics and Science (SIMMS). Each project has a satellite site similar to IMP's national center, and the goal of all sites is to work jointly and individually to improve secondary mathematics education through the implementation of comprehensive, standards-based curricula.