Since at least the enactment of No Child Left Behind in 2002, standardized test scores have served as the primary measures of public school effectiveness. Yet, such scores fail to measure the ultimate goal of education: maximizing happiness. This exploratory analysis assesses nation level associations between test scores and happiness, controlling…

A number of studies have examined the impact of school accountability policies, including No Child Left Behind (NCLB), on student achievement. However, there is relatively little evidence on how school accountability reforms and NCLB, in particular, have influenced education policies and practices. This study examines the effects of NCLB on…

Research on academic achievement has demonstrated the important role that teachers play in improving student outcomes and has also revealed wide variation in teachers' qualifications and experiences across schools. Schools serving low-income students in urban areas, for example, have fewer well-qualified teachers than schools in nonurban settings…

Educational progress has been moving in the right direction for several years in Alabama. Now, with the implementation of Alabama's own Plan 2020, an even higher level of accountability for students, teachers, administrators, support systems, and schools/school systems, Alabama is poised to experience unprecedented growth. Add to that, the Alabama…

The internet continues to provide new and interesting solutions to age-old problems; this paper explores how education could benefit from online solutions. The history of public education in the U.S. is fractured at best, based on a system reliant on state and local control. As new legislation came into place to meet the needs of civil rights…

This article presents the state education finance and governance profile of Mississippi. Mississippians compose 0.95% of the total U.S. population, and the average density of the state is 60.7 people per square mile. In terms of education finance, the property tax is the sole form of local revenue for public education in Mississippi. In 1997, the…

Results from national reading assessments reveal that millions of young people leave high school without the advanced reading and writing skills required for career and college success. Young adults who lack reading and writing proficiency will likely be relegated to the ranks of unskilled workers in a world where literacy is an absolute…

After eight years of implementing the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and other school reforms, how much progress have states, school districts, and schools made in raising achievement for students from all backgrounds and closing achievement gaps based on race, ethnicity, income, and gender? To help answer this question, the Center on…

This article draws on research from Texas and Chicago to examine whether highstakes testing enables low-income and racial minority students to acquire cultural capital. While students' performance on state or district tests rose after the implementation of high-stakes testing and accountability policies in Texas and Chicago in the 1990s, several…

The 2009 edition of the "Digest of Education Statistics" is the 45th in a series of publications initiated in 1962. The "Digest" has been issued annually except for combined editions for the years 1977-78, 1983-84, and 1985-86. Its primary purpose is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field…

Growing concern about the quality of public education in the United States has driven numerous educational reform efforts across the last three decades. These reforms include increased accountability as exemplified by various requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the introduction of new curriculum and instructional methods in…

This study examined the relationship between high-stakes testing pressure and student achievement across 25 states. Standardized portfolios were created for each study state. Each portfolio contained a range of documents that told the "story" of accountability implementation and impact in that state. Using the "law of comparative…

The purpose of this paper is to explore questions about the effects of Head Start. Among these questions are the following: What is Head Start? What are the short-term and long-term effects of Head Start education? Does Head Start meet the expectations of No Child Left Behind (NCLB)? The methodology used to answer the research questions was a…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 propelled high stakes testing to an unprecedented level of significance. Decisions based on the results of such mandated assessments is flawed in that the tests are not an accurate measure of actual knowledge and neglect to address environmental, socio-cultural, and economic factors influencing student…

The September report on the 36th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools did not go into the finer demographic distinctions that most polls explore. In this article, the author takes a closer look at the data to analyze how various subgroups of the population view the parties' and candidates' stances…