2001-2004
The creation of the Laying the Foundation materials began in 2001 when Advanced Placement Strategies, Inc., the founding organization of LTF, recognized the need for Pre-AP teacher training and rigorous Pre-AP materials to support the AP Incentive Programs in Texas. By the spring of 2002, the first draft LTF English guides were published and distributed at no cost to English teachers at College Board summer institutes in Arkansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. In the fall of 2002, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) awarded APS a grant to provide three years of LTF English teacher training in eight school districts across Texas, and the Laying the Foundation Training Program was born. Also in 2002, work began on the LTF mathematics guides, and Laying the Foundation, Inc. became a non-profit company working through Advanced Placement Strategies. Creation of the science guides began in 2003. By 2004 draft copies of the science guides and updated English guides were published, and the first End-of-Course exam was administered to Pre-AP English students, grades 6-10, in the APS Incentive Programs and TEA grant districts.
2005-2007
2005 marked a turning point for Laying the Foundation, Inc., when the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation awarded Advanced Placement Strategies a multi-million dollar five-year grant to provide LTF training for all Pre-AP English, math, and science teachers, grades 6-11, in Austin, Houston, Pasadena and Ysleta Independent School Districts. As part of the grant, LTF began creating online resources, including LTF diagnostic activities and tests for teachers to use at their discretion to raise the level of expectation for students in Pre-AP classes. Another component of the MSDF grant provided for the creation of LTF End-of-Course Tests for English, math, and science. Working with Riverside Publishing Company and experienced AP and Pre-AP teachers, LTF created and scored high quality End-of-Course Assessments. In 2007, over 120,000 Texas students participated in the LTF End-of-Course testing. Due to of the success of its AP Incentive Programs and LTF teacher training, Advanced Placement Strategies became the model for the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI), an initiative which seeks to create APS-like companies to replicate the success of APS in other states.
2008
As the incentive programs of Advanced Placement Strategies became more and more successful, APS was inundated with requests to provide LTF training outside of the state of Texas. Although APS was restricted from operating outside of the state of Texas because of a licensing agreement with the College Board, Laying the Foundation, Inc. was under no such restriction. It was determined that LTF should expand its training program nationally, in part to support the organizations receiving National Math and Science Initiative grants. Consequently, on January 1, 2008, Laying the Foundation, Inc. and Advanced Placement Strategies officially began operating independently, and LTF was launched as a national teacher training company. While LTF and APS will always be sister companies and support the same goals, the goal of Laying the Foundation is to become a national training company providing training and resources for English, math, and science teachers from grades 6-12 to support the development of AP programs across the country.
In the spring of 2008, LTF began work with the six nonprofit organizations that received NMSI grants: Arkansas Advanced Initiative for Math and Science (AR), A+ College Ready (AL), Project Opening Doors (CT), Advance Kentucky (KY), Mass Insight (MA), and Virginia Advanced Study Strategies (VA). During a seven-day summer training, LTF trained and certified a cadre of teachers from each of these LTF Affiliate organizations to become LTF trainers and provide training in their states.
2009
Throughout 2009, LTF continued to train teachers and develop a national corps of teacher-trainers and by the end of the year had delivered training in twelve different states. Colleges and universities in several of these states began to offer graduate credit for teachers participating in Laying the Foundation training.
LTF continued to expand and refine products and services and through a grant from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation began to convert LTF’s bank of assessments, lessons, and training materials to xml to allow for delivery of materials in multiple formats. Partnerships were also formed with organizations like Sally Ride Science and the Women of TI to incorporate career awareness as well as gender equity materials into LTF science training. During this time, the Texas Education Agency expanded the list of teacher trainings eligible for reimbursement by the state to include LTF training, in addition to College Board summer institutes.
At the end of 2009, LTF went through a re-branding process that included the roll-out of phase one of a new, more interactive, website.
2010
In 2010 LTF will introduce new online resources including LTF Learning Communities, the Effective Teacher Network, online student assessments, data portals and resources for administrators.