College Board Awarded Nearly $3 Million Grant for STEM Work

Feb. 2012

Programs and Services

The College Board has been awarded a grant worth nearly $3 million as part of the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) effort.

The College Board was recognized for its cutting-edge Student Success in AP® Biology: Expanding the STEM College Readiness of High-Need Students (SSAP-Bio) project. SSAP-Bio is an innovative approach to support the educational success of high-need students by enabling Advanced Placement Program® (AP) Biology students to succeed in rigorous science course work through direct, actionable feedback that research shows to be effective in changing student outcomes.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also is supporting this work with $260,000 in matching funds.

"I and all of my colleagues at the College Board are tremendously proud to have been chosen by the Department of Education as a recipient of such a prestigious grant," said College Board President Gaston Caperton. "Innovation has been a hallmark of the United States since the days of Benjamin Franklin, and must continue to be as we move into a 21st-century economy based on knowledge and technology."

The College Board's three official partners for the development phase of the program are Hillsborough County (Fla.) Public Schools; Northside Independent School District in San Antonio; and the North East Florida Educational Consortium (NEFEC). These exciting partnerships will enable SSAP-Bio to serve an estimated 3,000 students during the grant period. Building on the early outcomes of this project, the College Board will be able to extend the program to the more than 172,500 AP Biology students nationwide, as well as implement the model in other STEM and humanities subject areas.

The Department of Education noted that "this year's competition required applicants to submit proposals focused on one of five absolute priorities, including two new priorities aimed at promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and increasing achievement and high school graduation rates in rural schools. The remaining three priorities focused on supporting effective teachers and principals, implementing high standards and high-quality assessments, and turning around persistently low-performing schools."

With the College Board's mission of connecting all students to college success and opportunity in mind, SSAP-Bio will develop, pilot and evaluate new interim assessments that generate technology-enabled student- and classroom-level feedback reports and links to instructional materials that will help students overcome areas of struggle. The ultimate goal is to produce measurable increases in the rates at which high-need students succeed on the AP Biology Exam, earning scores that research demonstrates are closely aligned with improvements in college outcomes for all students — regardless of race, ethnicity or income level.

The SSAP-Bio student- and classroom-level feedback reports build on an innovative system of formative and interim assessments and professional development that enables teachers to identify the most challenging areas of AP Biology content and tailor classroom instruction to their unique student populations.

The combined value of the College Board’s in-kind contribution of $453,522 and the Gates Foundation’s contribution of $260,000 amounts to $713,522, or a 23.8 percent match on the grant amount. The Department of Education is funding $2,998,095, or 76.2 percent of the total project.