Twice elected Governor of West Virginia and currently seating as the President of the College Board, William Gaston Caperton III, or simply Gaston Caperton, has been a proponent of using technological innovations in the classroom. Caperton, a Democrat, has education as the top item in his list of priorities during his tenure as West Virginia’s governor from 1989-1997.

Caperton is a firm believer in the fact that students must be acquainted with technology if they are to be properly educated. In 1990, then Governor Caperton initiated a project to advance Grade K1. Caperton launched a massive drive to educate first graders and get them attuned to technology with his $22 Million Computer effort. The project expanded to include students up to Grade 12. The computer initiative brought in $800 million worth of investments and serviced two-thirds of the whole student population of West Virginia.

Due to Caperton’s relentless effort to include technology-based learning as part of the state’s public school curriculum, he was given the Computerworld Smithsonian Award in 1996.

As governor, he showed his support towards the teaching force by increasing their salaries. He also had 19,000 teachers trained at the Center for Professional Development to supply the state’s demand for teachers.

As president of the College Board, the agency that administers the nationally-recognized SAT and AP tests, Caperton proposed and led the creation of the College Board Schools in 2004. These institutions were designed to prepare underserved middle and high school students to get into college and graduate. With the support of two known pro-education organizations, the Dell Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Caperton’s first two schools were launched in New York’s public school system.

Caperton also made writing an important part of education by including it in the SAT. According to him, good writing should never be an option.

Caperton’s leadership of the College Board has seen more low-income students taking AP courses and more students performing better on SATs.