Dr. E.O. Wilson

The 21st century is destined to be the century of the environment.

Dr. E.O. Wilson, the distinguished naturalist and Harvard professor, delivers a sober yet powerful message to the attendees during the opening plenary session:

"Biodiversity, which took over three-and-a-half billion years to evolve, is being eroded away at an accelerating rate by human activity. The loss is going to inflict a heavy price in security, wealth, and in spirit if it is not met as a major challenge of humanity. I think the 21st century is destined to be the century of the environment. The immediate future is usefully conceived as a kind of bottleneck of continuing rapid population growth and rising per capita consumption. Science and technology, combined with a lack of self understanding and a Paleolithic obstinacy that has led us to our present ruinous environmental practices, have brought us to where we are today. Now, science and technology combined with foresight and moral courage, both based on a more enlightened ethic, has to see us through that bottleneck and out, hopefully by the end of the century. It's not gloom and doom altogether. It just requires intelligence, education, and will."

Biology and environmental science teachers, in particular, were thrilled with the opportunity to meet and shake the hand of an icon. Many asked for multiple signed copies of The future of life to bring back home a gift for fellow teachers, students, or family members.

Taylor Branch

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian, Taylor Branch, is the author of the acclaimed trilogy of books, collectively called America in the King Years, which chronicles the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and the history of the American civil rights movement.

"The kids that stood up to fire hoses and police dogs in Birmingham in the spring of 1963 changed the direction of my life's interest"

"These children acted as modern founders just like the founding fathers. What they did is they confronted systems of hierarchy and subjugation and found and asked questions and made the witness that changed the world toward equal citizenship. They changed the world the same way that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson did. As teachers, I believe it's your job to prepare every student to become a modern founder, since you never know when your time is going to come to be tested in a crisis of citizenship for your country. For these were kids, some only six, but they saw themselves as equal souls and equal shareholders in America."

Dr. Lorraine Monroe

Dr. Lorraine Monroe, Founder of the Lorraine Monroe Leadership Institute, was the founding principal of the renowned Frederick Douglass Academy in Central Harlem.

In a speech, that was as funny as it was exciting, Dr. Monroe shared thoughts and methods about education and her experiences establishing the Frederick Douglass Academy.

"Good school is about proving that when I train you, you will succeed. It's not about where you are from. You create scholars, they are not born. Talk at their level and above, and make them reach.

"All kids are Advanced Placement in some aspect of their lives and it's up to us to find where it is and cultivate it.

"I've come up with this definition of what I think that a great school should do: The purpose of a great school is to teach the kids to read, write, think, compute, speak well, love the arts, and behave in socially accepted ways in order to become economically independent contributing members of society."

Gaston Caperton

College Board President Gaston Caperton thanked the attendees for their commitment to excellence and equity in education. In 2006, 1.3 million students took 2.3 million exams -a larger and more diverse group of students than ever before.

"Because of the commitment that so many of you have made to the students of your schools, districts, and states, you have achieved the greatest results of any year in AP's 50-year history. This spring, a larger and more diverse group of students than ever before succeeded in a college-level learning experience in an AP course in high school.

"In an era where, frequently, we are reminded of the failures of education, you here today, deserve praise and acclaim for the miracles that you are working. You are a rising tide that lifts all boats as you prepare more students than ever for the rigorous and stimulating academic experience that students find in their AP courses. AP, and we say this proudly but humbly, is the golden standard in education, and you are succeeding in democratizing access to that standard."

Trevor Packer

The Executive Director of the Advanced Placement Program discusses the AP Course Audit.

For more information on the AP Course Audit, visit:

http://apcentral.collegeboard.com

Trevor Packer opened the 2006 Annual Conference by announcing some major changes that the College Board is planning for the years ahead in order to support schools and teachers in the tremendous work they are doing in expanding the quality and equity of the AP Program.

In addition to the implementation of the AP Course Audit, work has begun on the Redesigning of the AP Science and AP History courses and exams; AP Chinese and AP Japanese Exams will be the first offered as Internet based Exams within the AP Program; scrambled multiple-choice sections for the two AP Calculus Exams and the AP U.S. History Exam this year will relieve AP Coordinators who are struggling with space, as students taking these exams will be allowed to sit close to each other. A relief for the AP Coordinators comes also in the guarantee that the AP Exams shipment arrival date will be one full week before the school's first week of AP Exam administration.