The State of Texas implemented the No Pass-No Play Rule within House Bill 72 in the spring semester of 1985. The addition of this section to the state education code was a part of the state's efforts toward educational reform. The perceived rationale implied in House Bill 72 is that extracurricular activities can inspire student motivation and increase student achievement. The No Pass-No Play Rule seems to imply that there is a relationship between student achievement and extracurricular activities, and further implies that a student can be motivated to achieve by the desire to continue to participate in extracurricular activities. The problem of this study was a comparison of academic achievement for high school pupils involved in extracurricular activities and those who did not participate in extracurricular activities under the Texas No Pass-No Play Rule. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of extracurricular activities on the academic achievement of high school students, specifically looking at the years 1983 through 1986, when the No Pass-No Play Rule was implemented. This study was an ex post facto study with data obtained from a cooperating Texas school district. Students were matched on critical variables, and their scores on a …

Test items supplied with seven textbooks approved for use in Computer Science I and II curricula in Texas public schools were categorized by Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. Eating was done by a panel of ten judges selected from a group of participants at a taxonomy workshop. The selection criterion was demonstration of at least 80 percent competency in item classification. Judges received a small stipend for completing the rating task. Of 2020 possible items, 998 were randomly selected for analysis. Equal percentages of items from each text were then randomly assigned to each rater. All statistical analyses were computed using SPSS/PC+ (version 2.1). In both courses, CLD frequencies decreased through the three lower levels. The percentage of questions falling in these levels was approximately 83 percent for both courses. However, the higher-level course contained almost 10 percent more Knowledge level questions than did the lower course. At the higher taxonomic levels, the decline was roughly five percent per level in CS I but erratic in CS II. Analysis by book also revealed wide differences within each course.

This research sought to discover whether minority and economically disadvantaged students are underrepresented in gifted and honors programs. Another goal was to ascertain attitudes of students and teachers currently participating in gifted and honors programs regarding: admission criteria; adequacy of teacher preparation to meet special needs of gifted and honors students; levels of needs satisfaction of gifted and honors students; perceptions of students and teachers about program modification.