National Math and Science Initiative

[From Philanthropy News Digest] The National Math and Science Initiative has announced that its Advanced Placement Training and Incentive Program helped boost the number of students who passed the AP tests in math, English, and science by 98 percent between 2008 and 2010.

The NMSI program is designed to increase teacher effectiveness and student achievement. During the 2009-10 school year there was an 84.6 percent increase in the number of students who passed AP exams at the seventy-five first-year APTIP schools — more than eleven times the national increase of 7.5 percent, and an improvement from the 52 percent increase recorded by the first cohort of sixty-five schools in 2008-09. The results from schools that participated both years were significantly better than the national two-year increase of 13.6 percent.

In addition, there was a 107.3 percent increase in math, science and English AP exams passed by African-American and Hispanic students during 2009-10 and a 91.5 percent increase in exams passed by female students. The first cohort of schools reported a 154.6 percent increase in passing math, science, and English scores in two years among African-Americans and Hispanics, which is almost six times the national two-year increase of 27.7 percent. Among female students attending the first cohort of schools, a 116.4 percent increase in passing math and science scores in two years was reported, which is almost thirteen times the national two-year increase of 9.2 percent.

This year, APTIP will be implemented in more than two hundred and twenty public high schools across six states — Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Virginia — and is expected to reach three hundred and fifty schools by the fall of 2012.