How the Pressure to Make Adequate Yearly Progress Drives Instructional Practices: A Case Study

• In Event: Making Difficult Decisions With Data: Does It Improve Student Learning?

Abstract

My paper will explore how the pressure to make AYP drives teachers’ classroom practices at Greene Elementary, a K-5 school in rural Virginia. These pressures often result in instructional practices that are detrimental to some groups of students including a narrowing of the curriculum, the use of scripted curriculum, and efforts to mandate instructional practices. This is similar to what prior research has found in urban schools and illustrates how urban and rural schools face some of the same consequences for failing to make AYP.

Authors

• Amy Orange, George Mason University

• Walter F. Heinecke, University of Virginia