Anne Arundel County schools Superintendent Eric J. Smith has been elected chairman of the College Board, continuing his emergence as a national figure in the education community.

Smith, who has been a member of the nonprofit organization's board of trustees since 2000, becomes only the second schools superintendent to hold the two-year unpaid post.

Traditionally, the board has been led by post-secondary education officials.

The College Board, a membership association of more than 4,200 schools and colleges, administers the SAT college entrance exam and created the Advanced Placement Program.

As chairman of the board, which is made up of 31 members from the high school and university communities, Smith will preside over quarterly meetings and work closely with the College Board president, Gaston Caperton.

Caperton, a former governor of West Virginia, said he was excited about Smith's selection.

"He is certainly one of the most respected superintendents of schools in the United States," Caperton said.

"He has earned that reputation because ... his mission is totally compatible with what we're trying to do at the College Board."

Smith, who joined the ranks of former first lady Barbara Bush and Education Secretary Rod Paige in winning the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education in September, said he's looking forward to working on one of the College Board's latest initiatives: providing more support programs for students taking college-level classes in high school.

He hopes to bring the benefits home to Anne Arundel County, where he has started a project to get high schools to offer more AP classes.

"I think that it's a kind of push and pull," Smith said. "I'm very interested in providing service to the College Board. I'm also very interested in increasing the number of students [in Anne Arundel County] participating in college course work."

Boston schools Superintendent Tom Payzant, a former chairman of the College Board's board of trustees, said he nominated Smith because of Smith's record of helping to increase AP participation among minority and poor students while head of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., school system.