News and information for staff members and the Madison community
Vol. I No. 1 - November 18, 2005
A 2-year, $500,000 grant from the National Governor's Association (NGA) will allow Madison Schools and eight rural districts to expand Advanced Placement (AP) course offerings in the future.
The grant was announced by First Lady Jessica Doyle and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Libby Burmaster during a news conference at East High School in Geeta Reddy's AP Advanced Statistics class. The NGA funded six states for this initiative, with Wisconsin being the only Midwest state selected.
Madison Schools created Project Excel in 2004. It identifies academically promising 8th graders of color and poverty, and focuses on getting students ready for the most challenging high school courses and supporting the students during their high school years.
At the end of the 2004-05 school year, the grade points of the Project Excel students showed great promise and the goal is to steer Project Excel students toward AP classes. Project Excel was a key reason Madison was selected by the Department of Public Instruction to participate in the grant application.
The grant will help the district achieve the goal of increasing the number of students who traditionally have not taken AP classes. At the news conference, MMSD Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Schools Pam Nash told the students, "I'm looking at 27 reasons why this grant is important — you students in this class."
The grant partners include the Wisconsin Advanced Placement Distance Learning Consortium, located at UW-Madison's Center for Education & Work, Wisconsin Virtual School, operated by Cooperative Educational Service Agency (CESA) #9 in Tomahawk. The UW-Extension partners will train faculty to offer AP courses through distance learning.
First Lady Jessica Doyle chats with East HS Advanced Placement (AP) Advanced Statistics teacher Geeta Reddy
Last Updated: Tue Mar 28 12:17:50 2006
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