Thursday, June 12, 2008

Bay State gets $13M grant for AP education

By Mass High Tech Staff

On Wednesday, MIT hosted the launch of a Mass Insight Education and Research Institute program, created through a $13.2 million National Math and Science Initiative grant, to increase Advanced Placement participation and college readiness for high school students. 

This September, 650 students from 10 public high schools in Massachusetts will enroll in AP math, science and English classes to prepare for the AP exams. The ten schools include: Chelsea High School, Malden High School, Marlborough High School, Milton High School, North High School (Worcester), Northampton High School, John D. O’Bryant School of Math and Science (Boston), Revere High School, Springfield Central High School and Springfield Renaissance High School.

Massachusetts is one of six states to receive the NMSI grant, which will expand the five-year program to 93 schools, adding about 9,000 more students enrolled in AP and pre-AP classes.

The program was implemented successfully in Texas, where a study reports that African-American and Hispanic students who scored a three or higher on at least one AP exam were four times as likely to graduate from college within six years.

Currently, Massachusetts scores below the national average in the number of African American and Hispanic students passing the AP tests. The program calls for almost half of all Commonwealth juniors and seniors in public high school to have access to AP classes.

NMSI is funded by a consortium of industrial and technology-related organizations, including Exxon Mobil Corp., the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, and has received in-kind assistance from IBM Corp. and Perot Systems.