Schools are struggling to meet the accountability demands for increased student achievement associated with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Instructional philosophies and programs characteristics are being affected as schools are forced to view standardized testing results as a single measure of success. The findings of the study lend insight into the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 within the middle school setting for administrators and teachers within the middle school that are attempting to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress demands required by this legislation.
The three middle schools used in the study were recognized as exemplary for their implementation of programming consistent with the essential elements of a middle school (NMSA, 1982). It was important to determine the extent middle school philosophy had taken hold within each of the schools. Use of the essential elements provided a common reference point to for comparison purposes.
Data was collected from a variety of sources that included a review of school programs, PSSA data analysis, and interviews at each school consisting of the principal and a math teacher from each grade level (6, 7, and 8). The data was collected at each school independent of the other sites as to create authentic case study accounts of each schools degree of adaptation in response to the accountability demands for increased student achievement associated with NCLB.
While the schools had realized past success, each school had begun to implement changes to the academic programming aimed to further increase achievement. Strategies being implemented differed slightly among schools, however, in all cases, elements of the middle school had begun to vanish. The amount of change to the programs present was related to the degree of need due to the presence of student subgroups within the school. The school review conducted as part of the Eichhorn Award nomination proved valuable as schools considered elements for change. Middle school leaders faced with similar circumstances in which the demands of increased student achievement have forced variations from their existing middle level program can utilize this study of school adaptation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-12052004-184502 |
| Date | 15 December 2004 |
| Creators | Lutz, Randal Alan |
| Contributors | Dr. Martin Cohen, Dr. Sean Hughes, Dr. Sue Ann Goodwin, Dr. Charles Gorman |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12052004-184502/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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