Educators, what trends do see in education toward teaching, learning climates etc.?

Since NCLB, the state mandates that part of the professional development necessary to renew our certificates and maintain our highly qualified status be related to special education, regardless of what subject or level we teach. Professional development offered by our district focuses almost exclusively on using the school intranet, online grading program, email, and Rayalco (the attendance and student records software program). Non-tenured teachers are required to attend monthly development meetings. All other professional development is the individual teacher's responsibility to seek out. Providing a period in the day for common planning among teachers was a big priority several years ago, but the time allotted has been whittled down more and more, and often used by administration to schedule faculty and department meetings. The Internet has provided the means to vastly improve the communications in our school community. The school has succeeded in increasing involvement in PTO, booster groups, parent attendance at school events, and awareness of upcoming testing and school news. State mandated testing has had significant influence on the curricula in English, math, science and social studies, as well as the elective areas. Considerable effort goes into identifying students with marginal passing scores on previous tests and placing them in special test preparation homerooms in their junior year. Some students take extended math and English, which cuts back on the number of electives they can take. While test scores have risen, emphasis on the standardized tests has certainly cut into time for other methods of learning.