With Virginia's being fourth in the nation in AP test scores, Paul
Nichols said Friday he was surprised that the request made by the
Southern Virginia Higher Education Center was the leader in getting the
$13.2 million funding to increase AP classes. "We were first in the
nation to be announced as a winner," he gleamed.
But he added, it took a lot of hard work for the local team of
educators  to be successful in convincing investors that rural Virginia
needed the help. Most of those Virginians who passed the AP tests, he
noted, came from Northern Virginia or the richer suburbs of Richmond —
Hanover and Henrico Counties, as well as the Tidewater area. But with
this newly awarded grant, he now sees that his group  will showcase a
model for rural areas around the nation and for that matter, around the
world.
There is still much work to be done, he notes, and it will not be until
the fall of 2008 that AP classes will be offered to Southside,
Southwest  and Richmond students. "Our first priority is to get a staff
on board," Nichols said, adding he is looking for specialists in the
fields of math, science and English. He hopes to have staffing
completed by October 1, after he attends a leadership meeting in
Dallas, Texas in mid-September. Next he wants to form coalitions with
universities to be sure that students get the AP classes they need for
college credits.
"We need an advisory board to give us advice on what students need to
prepare for college. We get comments from students saying 'Nobody ever
taught me how to study for college curriculum.'"
The grant, one of the first from the National Math and Science
Initiative's Advanced Placement training and incentive program, a new
non-profit organization, was established to help the nation maintain
its global leadership. The grants are being funded by Exxon Mobil
Corporation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Michael &
Susan Dell Foundation.
In announcing  the grants last week Governor Tim Kaine said, "We are
committed to accountability in education, and the data-driven approach
of this initiative will help us continue to move from competence to
excellence." And that, Nichols said, is just what he expects to do.