Glossary

Ability levels:

The distinction among students, or courses, aptitudes or past academic achievements, or each course's readiness and learning rates. on the basis of the students' learning adaptation to the students' levels of

Core curriculum:

Courses in English, math, science, and social studies that students can choose from in order to fulfill the school district's graduation requirements.

Differentiated courses:

Courses that fulfill the same requirements in the core curriculum but differ in terms of content, quantity and/or intensity of work, or expectations regarding independent work.

Differentiated grouping:

A school's approach to providing instruction to students who have been grouped because of similar learning aptitudes or past academic achievements for the purpose of providing them instruction in core curriculum areas that is geared to their abilities in terms of content, quantity and/or intensity of work, or expectations regarding independent work.

Undifferentiated courses:

Courses that are equivalent in terms of content, quantity and/or intensity of work, or expectations regarding independent work, and are open to students who may have widely differing learning aptitudes or past academic achievements.

Locale

City: A central city of a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA).

Urban fringe: A place within a SMSA of a large or mid-size central city and defined as urban by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

Town: A place not within an SMSA, but with a population greater than or equal to 2,500, and defined as urban by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

Rural: A place with a population less than 2,500 and defined as rural by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

Region

Northeast: Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

Central: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

Southeast: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

West: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, N e w Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

Secondary school:

Regular public schools providing instruction in grades 10-12.

Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS):

An integrated survey of public and private schools, school districts, principals, and teachers conducted during the 1987-88 and 1990-91 school years, and scheduled to be conducted at 3-year intervals. It is a mail survey that collects data on the nation's public and private elementary and secondary teaching force, aspects of teacher supply and demand, teacher workplace conditions, characteristics of' school administrators, and school policies and practices. The 1990-91 SASS surveys of schools and school principals were based on the 9,336 public and 3,279 private schools in the schools samples. From these schools, 56,051 public school teachers and 9,166 private school teachers were selected for the sample of teachers. The sampling frame for the 1990-91 SASS was constructed from the 1988-89 NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) public school universe file, and included over 83,000 public elementary and secondary schools.

Top