Since No Child Left Behind was enacted, school districts have felt forced to focus on testing. Almost every curriculum decision is based on raising test scores. Under pressure to raise test scores, teachers are encouraged to implement strategies in their classrooms to prepare their students for the PSSA. No Child Left Behind has left school…

Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) data from one rural school system covering four groups of children for a consecutive three year period was used to study the impact of transient students entering the school system. The analysis compared native children (those on roll since the first year) with transient children added to or deleted…

This general achievement trends profile includes information that the Center on Education Policy (CEP) and the Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO) obtained from states from fall 2008 through April 2009. Included herein are: (1) Bullet points summarizing key findings about achievement trends in that state at three performance…

A long standing debate among policymakers as well as researchers is whether and how funding affects the quality of education. Often missing from the discussion is information about the costs of providing education at the school level and below, yet such information could impart a better indication of the linkages between outcomes and resources…

This monograph provides a comprehensive, concise, and current overview of the law-- specifically, legislation, regulations, and published court/administrative decisions--relating to gifted education for K-12 students. For students whose legal rights are based solely on their gifted status, the law largely boils down to (a) varying state statutes…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) asks that states "restructure" schools that fail for six years running to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) toward full proficiency on the part of all students by the year 2014. Although restructuring efforts by most states have been modest, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 2002, directed the School District…

As a Teaching Artist (TA) for the past 12 years, the author has visited hundreds of schools in western Pennsylvania. She has had an opportunity to work with many talented and dedicated classroom teachers, arts teachers and administrators who all share an enthusiasm for making the arts central to quality education. The teachers and administrators…

Each year, Pennsylvania students participate in testing as part of the Pennsylvania assessment program. Students in grades 5, 8, and 11 take tests in reading and math while those in grades 6, 9 and 11 are assessed in writing. These tests serve as an important measure of student achievement for the state's accountability system. Results from these…