In 2002, Congress reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965), more commonly known today as the No Child Left Behind Act (2002). Many of the initiatives within the act have come under significant scrutiny, not least of which is providing supplemental educational services to students in "failing" schools. The purpose of this multi-site, cross-case study was to examine how supplemental educational services impact students as viewed through the perspectives of elementary school teachers and principals. Elementary school teachers and their principals who currently have, or have had in the recent past, students enrolled in these supplemental services were the targeted populations for this study. Teachers and principals were selected because they have unique and enduring interactions with students and are in a position to assess how programs such as those delivered by supplemental educational service providers affect students. Four schools were selected based on geographic location (reasonable proximity to the researcher), number of participants in supplemental educational services, NCLB designation (the school was designated as in the second year or beyond of improvement), and willingness to participate in the study. When data from the four schools were considered in a cross-case analysis, the following themes emerged: (1) students realized varying outcomes as a result of participating in supplemental educational services, (2) supplemental educational services varied in their perceived quality depending on whether the providers were internal or external, (3) teachers and principals considered communication with supplemental educational service providers as an indicator of their quality, (4) teachers and principals viewed tailoring of supplemental educational services to meet particular student's needs as a hallmark of their quality, (5) teachers and principals recommended using existing school assessments, observation, and attendance as measures of the impact of supplemental educational services, and (6) teachers and principals recommended increased communication, increased individualization of tutoring, certification of tutors, and changes in tutoring schedules as ways to improve supplemental educational services. These results provide policy makers with information that may be helpful in better understanding the impact of supplementary educational services on elementary students and how they might adjust the program to make it more effective. / Ph. D.

This research analyzes the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, and the Florida A+ Plan, in an attempt to understand how people personally responded to the changes that occurred in a school setting as a result of the mandates of standardized testing. The focus will be on the reactions of the administration and the changes the administrative body of a high school was forced to make, and focus will be placed on teachers in regards to teacher focus, instruction, and their view of student perceptions of the testing, before during and after the test is administered. The focus of this research is Roberts High School, an inner-city high school that went from a failing school, with an "F" status for five consecutive years to that of a school with a "D" status-missing the "C" status by a mere five points. This dramatic change happened after the state of Florida took control of the operations of the school, as dictated by state mandates, due to the failing performance of the previous five years. This research is conducted in an attempt to understand what caused the significant gains as cited by the results of the testing, how teachers and administrators responded to and implemented these changes, and to see if the controversial standardized testing that is taking over the nation's schools is meeting the aim of No Child Left Behind-to close the achievement gap.

Cette thèse se compose de trois chapitres indépendants sur les enfants de migrants restés au village en Chine, ainsi que sur les personnes âgées vivant seules en Thaïlande et au Vietnam. Le premier chapitre traite de la manière dont les frais de scolarité dans les zones urbaines affectent la migration des enfants en Chine. Nos résultats suggèrent que des frais plus élevés empêchent les travailleurs migrants d’amener leurs enfants avec eux dans les zones urbaines. Nous trouvons également que les travailleurs migrants dans la situation la plus précaire sont les plus touchés par une augmentation des frais de scolarité. Le deuxième chapitre étudie les répercussions de la migration interne des enfants adultes et de leurs envois de fonds sur l'offre de main-d'œuvre de leurs parents restés en zone rurale au Vietnam. Les résultats montrent que les mères ont tendance à travailler plus si elles ont des enfants migrants, mais à travailler moins lorsqu'elles reçoivent des fonds de leur part. À l'inverse, les pères sont moins touchés par la migration de leurs enfants et par leurs envois de fonds. Le troisième article examine l’impact de la retraite universelle introduite en Thaïlande en 2009 sur le bien-être et l'offre de main-d'œuvre de ses bénéficiaires et de leurs conjoints. Les résultats empiriques montrent que ce régime de retraite ne génère pas d'impact significatif sur la pauvreté ou les dépenses des ménages, mais recevoir une retraite a un impact négatif important sur la participation des bénéficiaires au marché du travail. De plus, les hommes comme les femmes réagissent à la perception d’une retraite par leur conjoint en quittant leur emploi et en restant inactifs. / This dissertation consists of three independent papers on the left-behind children in China and the left-behind elderly in Thailand and Vietnam. The first paper addresses how school fees in urban areas affect child migration in China. Our findings suggest that higher fees deter migrant workers from bringing their children to urban areas, and more vulnerable migrant workers are most affected by an increase in school fees. The second paper investigates the impacts of adult children’s internal migration and remittances on the labor supply responses of the rural left-behind parents in Vietnam. The results show that mothers tend to work more if they have migrant children, and they tend to work less when they receive remittances from their migrant children. Conversely, fathers tend to be less affected by child migration and their remittances. The third paper examines the impacts of the universal social pension introduced in Thailand in 2009 on the well-being and the labor supply responses of the recipients and their spouses. The empirical results show that the social pension scheme does not generate significant impacts on household poverty status or expenditures, but receiving social pensions has a significant negative impact on beneficiaries' own labor market participation. Further, both men and women are found to respond to their spouses' pensions by leaving their jobs and staying inactive.

Since the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was passed in 2001, museum educators have faced new challenges in designing programming that incorporates state standards of education while remaining faithful to the integrity of the museum’s collection and mission. Some museums have created programs that address these educational standards and can be used in school classrooms. This project is a case study of how one Virginia museum, Preservation Virginia, created a classroom program that addresses the state mandated Standards of Learning (SOLs). The report of this project includes discussion of the current debates that surround NCLB and its relationship to museum education. It also describes the five lesson plans included in the John Marshall House Trunk and explains why additions to those lesson plans have recently been created in order to incorporate inquiry-based teaching methods endorsed within museum education literature.

By grounding my work in this series of four essays in literary theory, but telling stories to which almost anyone can relate I hope to begin making the connection between sometimes heady academics and everyday working-class Americans. Only when learners understand their circumstances and the need for education, can they begin to take control of what they learn and how they employ that knowledge.

As part of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act the federal government has added the requirement that all schools receiving Title I funds must have "highly qualified teachers" in every classroom. The term "highly qualified teacher" comes from the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. What exactly is a "highly qualified" teacher? This part of the law is widely debated throughout the fifty states, but most agree that a teacher's subject-matter knowledge and experience result in increased student achievement.(Ansell& McCase, 2003) Some states have made progress in meeting the "highly qualified" requirement of NCLB. However, most states have merely established the criteria for determining if a teacher is highly qualified (Keller, 2003). The Education Trust has called for clarification from the Department of Education on the guidelines for the teacher quality provision of the law. Ten states have put into law all the requirements of the federal law, 22 have done some work toward that goal, and 18 states still have a long way to go (Keller). With so many states still grappling with compliance to the law, this study may well give policy makers in those states options that are being used in other states to consider. In addition, the study focuses on middle school and the possible impact these requirements will have on staffing of middle schools. Policy makers would do well to look at this aspect closely since middle school is often where education "loses" many students to dropping out. Also, the middle school is where the greatest number of non-certified teachers are working and where the greatest percentage (44%) of teachers are teaching without even a minor in the subject they teach (Ingersoll, 2002).

Since the passage of No Child Left Behind, the output of education has been measured through student achievement on standardized tests. School ratings, student graduation, teacher jobs and school charters are all tied to these tests. This study analyzes the extent to which math and science public high school teachers in New Orleans focus on critical thinking and creativity, skills needed to be successful in the future. Through a framework of Richard Paul’s model of critical thinking and Theresa Amabile’s social psychology of creativity, this study evaluates support for critical thinking and creativity through classroom observations, analysis of instructional materials and teacher interviews. Findings indicate that teachers at academically selective schools are more likely to support critical thinking and creativity in their classrooms than teachers at open enrollment schools. Classroom tests of participating teachers mainly focus on assessing basic knowledge and skills, not critical thinking and creativity.

In January 2002, President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind legislation into law. The law established new standards of accountability for individual students, schools, and school systems. Because of No Child Left Behind, the penalties for schools with poor academic performance in our country are the loss of reputation, student enrollment, and financial support. The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a difference in standardized test scores in reading and math between fourth-grade students in Title I schools and those in NonTitle I schools. The study focused on the following subgroups: gender, economically disadvantaged students, and students with disabilities. The data were gathered from an analysis of standardized test scores in reading and math of fourth-grade students in 172 elementary schools located in 21 East Tennessee school systems. The data were collected from the 2002-2003 Terra Nova Standardized Assessment Test scores. The Terra Nova test is a standardized test used to evaluate academic progress in the state of Tennessee. In summary, there were some differences between Title I and NonTitle I fourth-grade students in the subject areas of reading and math. Significant differences were noted within the subcategory of gender in both reading and math. Significant differences were also noted within the subcategory of students with disabilities in the content area of math. No significant differences were found in reading for students with disabilities. There were no significant differences between Title I and NonTitle I schools in reading and math within the subcategory of economically disadvantaged students.

The Institute of Medicine's report in 2000, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, highlighted the seriousness of medical errors in the U.S. health care system. The unintentional retention of foreign objects in surgical patients is one of those errors. At the time of this study, there was no standardized counting policy and process across operating rooms in the United States. The purpose of this project was to develop a best practice educational counting program to help prevent the unintentional retention of foreign objects in surgical patients. The Logic Model was used to guide the design of the educational program and expected learning outcomes. A draft of the educational program was distributed to 10 perioperative stakeholders for an initial formative review. Changes were incorporated into the program and it was distributed to 6 perioperative experts for an additional summative assessment and content validation utilizing the AGREE II Instrument. The overall quality evaluation of the educational program was 85%, indicating that it was of high quality. Four of the respondents recommended the educational program for implementation without any changes and 2 recommended it for implementation with some minor modifications related to rewording of one question in the pretest-posttest. There were no recommended modifications in the content of the educational program. As a result, the project was recommended for adoption as a best practices-based educational program to prevent the unintentional retention of foreign objects in surgical patients. The study promotes positive social change by providing suggestions to improve the provision of safe care to surgical patients and decrease health care costs.

This study examines the perceptions of foreign language elementary school (FLES) teachers under current federal education legislation, specifically the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. The study data was collected during the fall of 2008, while Congress continued to debate the reauthorization of NCLB and just prior to the U.S. presidential election. The study gives voice a traditionally under-researched group of teachers, elementary school foreign language teachers. Inner-city public FLES teachers at Murray Language Academy, a Chicago (Illinois, U.S.A.) Public School (CPS), shared their beliefs about working under NCLB in order to document the perceived impact of NCLB on their early foreign language curriculum and their own behavior. The study also provides a review of current literature illuminating NCLB's impact on FLES programs and FLES teacher behavior in the U.S. As a case study, the research included structured interviews and classroom observations which were designed and analyzed with the following research questions in mind: 1. What do CPS elementary school foreign language teachers believe about No Child Left Behind's impact on their curriculum? 2. What do CPS elementary school foreign language teachers believe about No Child Left Behind's impact on their own behavior? The interviews were analyzed using the constant comparative method (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) to methodically identify patterns in the ways in which FLES teachers are influenced by NCLB. To further enrich the study, classroom observations were conducted. The study participants did not note any reduction in FLES programming due to NCLB, however, the study uncovered two recurring critical issues for Murray FLES teachers in the climate of NCLB. The two recurring critical issues revealed by the study's participants are: (a) FLES teachers in CPS believe they face increased challenges in integrating students from NCLB failed schools into their language curriculum and (b) FLES teachers in CPS perceive increased workloads and increased use of school resources, including greater interaction with the school's special education staff, as a result of mainstreaming students with cognitive and behavioral disabilities into FLES programs under NCLB.