The Maine DOE has initiatives that help AP® teachers share and increase their content and pedagogical knowledge throughout the state. These include mentor groups for new teachers and a new group for AP teachers with three or more years of AP teaching experience, which is being formed this year. The groups use the AP Instructional Planning Reports to discuss areas of strength and weakness across the AP content areas in the state.

As part of Maine's commitment to open and equitable access, the state’s Department of Education has partnered with the College Board, the National Governors Association and the U.S. Department of Education to create a more rigorous and advanced curriculum for all students throughout the state. Through the Advanced Placement Program®, the Advanced Placement Incentive Grant, the Advanced Placement Test Fee Reduction Grant and AP4ALL, there has been a significant increase in the number of Maine students enrolling in AP courses and taking AP Exams. The Maine DOE supports efforts that encourage secondary school educators and administrators to recruit and support those students who may or may not conform to the traditional AP student profile. Like the College Board, the Maine DOE believes that any student willing to accept the challenge of AP course work should be considered for admission to a school’s AP program.

The Maine DOE strongly encourages teachers, administrators, school counselors and AP Coordinators to use the College Board's free online tool, AP Potential™ to identify students who might not self-select an AP course and who are likely to score a 3 or better on a given AP Exam. College Board studies have shown that there is a strong correlation between PSAT/NMSQT® scores and AP Exam results, and they are stronger predictors of students' AP Exam grades than the more traditional signposts such as high school grades, grades in previous same-discipline course work and the number of same-discipline courses a student has taken.

Maine's DOE provides a significant amount of professional development for all Maine AP teachers and administrators, training more than 700 teachers from 70 high schools since 2000 in coaching, mentoring, networking and accessing to online courses and support. Such professional development has produced excellent results for teachers and students. One major effort is the Mentoring Program for new AP Teachers (with zero to two years of AP teaching experience). The Year-End Mentor Meeting last spring served as a working retreat for the mentoring groups to come together and set goals for the following year, identify strategies to stay connected and support each other, and to develop a calendar to identify meetings and professional development activities during the year.

Experienced AP teachers (with three or more years of AP teaching experience) can participate in the Maine DOE’s AP Collaborative Program. Similar to the Mentoring Program, this program organizes meetings for experienced AP teachers to share teaching strategies and resources as well as network with other professionals around the state who teach in the same content area. AP Collaborative Program groups meet at least two times a year and stay connected via the Internet between meetings. The next AP Collaborative Program meeting, Feb. 26 at the Augusta Civic Center, will provide a forum in which teachers can meet in their different content areas, coordinate instructional strategies and materials, and share dinner. Other professional development efforts include content-specific workshops, which focus on the skills and knowledge teachers and students need to be successful in a given content area.

Due to its efforts, Maine now ranks among the states that have experienced the greatest increase in the number of students succeeding on AP Examinations and provides an example of what can happen when broader and more equitable access to college readiness learning opportunities are made available to students in grades 6-12. All AP teachers, non-AP teachers (who are also preparing students for AP), AP Coordinators, administrators and school counselors are encouraged to access the professional development opportunities provided through Maine's DOE Advanced Placement program.

VP Mike Bartini

The next few weeks will be busy in our region, starting with the College Board New England Regional Forum 2009, which will be held Feb. 2-3 at the Sheraton in downtown Boston. We are anticipating about 700 secondary school and college educators, administrators and counselors from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. Attendees will explore public policies, weigh ethical issues, share their best practices, discuss trends in admissions, financing and counseling, and identify ways to stimulate and support student preparation for and success in college.

Among our featured speakers, Carol R. Johnson, superintendent of the nearly 57,000-student Boston Public Schools and cabinet member for Mayor Thomas M. Menino, will discuss at Monday's breakfast why she believes that all children should be considered college bound and given an excellent education that will prepare them for future success. At lunch, award-winning author, musician and lawyer Da Chen will talk about growing up in rural China during the Cultural Revolution, then arriving in America with $30 and a flute. Before his talk, he will perform on the Chinese bamboo flute, on which he is professionally trained. There are numerous other special events and dozens of workshops. For more information or to register, even for a single day, please visit our Web site.

Immediately following the regional forum, NERO will participate in the 2009 Leadership Forum for Massachusetts School Counselors, which will be held Wednesday, Feb. 4, on Beacon Hill. We will spend the day hearing from a number of education professionals — administrators, admissions and financial aid professionals, policymakers, and counselors — about best practices in school counseling, the difference that good school counselors make to students and how to advocate for school counseling.

In March, we're looking forward to the 24th Annual Institute for Experienced AP® Teachers in Norwood, Mass. AP teachers with three or more years' experience teaching an AP course are invited to register for this two-day professional development event and participate in course-specific discussions led by experienced AP instructors. Attendees will learn effective AP instructional practices; discuss strategies for preparing students for AP Exams; identify methods and create plans for promoting critical thinking, critical reading, analysis and problem-solving skills; and engage in dialogue and develop strategies for addressing issues of access and equity in the AP classroom. Click here to register for 24th Annual Institute for Experienced AP Teachers.

I hope to see many of you at one or more of these events.

Click here to see events and workshops in the New England Region.