The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) ushered in an era of increased accountability. NCLB mandates students must show annual yearly progress (AYP) by gaining at least 1-year academic growth relative to established benchmarks. The majority of students in a large school district that has been rated as Excellent with Distinction are able to meet AYP. One subgroup, adolescent gifted girls, appears to meet minimum AYP goals with ease. However, some argue that institutional emphasis on the AYP metric may lead to lack of challenge, negative attitudes about school, and loss of motivation that hinder students from realizing their full academic potential. Guided by constructivist learning theory, the purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to test if differences in attitudes toward school were observed across a 3 level classification of individual academic progress among 151 adolescent gifted girls. One-way ANOVA was used to document significant differences in attitudes across 5 subscales of the School Attitudes Assessment Survey-Revised (SAAS-R) related to school, teachers, goal-valuation, motivation, and general academic self-perceptions. Girls with less than 1 year's academic progress expressed significantly less positive attitudes across all SAAS-R subscales than did girls in the 2 groups having at least 1 year's academic progress or more. These results support the conclusion that levels of academic performance are linked to attitudes about school among adolescent gifted girls; however, additional research is required to more firmly establish the causal direction of this relationship. The study promotes positive social change by contributing insight into the needs of this subgroup of students. This information will allow school districts, teachers, administrators, and policy makers to create the learning environment and curriculum to enhance academic success. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]