What Do the Data Tell Alabama's Middle School Principals about Their School Improvement Efforts?

What Do the Data Tell Alabama's Middle School Principals about Their School Improvement Efforts?School improvement, also referred to as school reform, has been at the top of America's educational agenda since 1985, when the National Commission on Excellence in Education published its scathing report, A Nation at Risk. Alabama's middle school principals are clearly deeply and continuously engaged in fostering school improvement (Southern Regional Education Board, 2010). Consistent with Sarason's (1996) and Ravitch's (2010) contentions, the school's culture and climate are often at the heart of what must be improved before performance will improve. As such, improving the culture and climate of schools has been a consistent focus of school improvement. Because leadership is such a key factor in schools, but one that influences indirectly through the shaping of the school culture and climate (Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, & Wahlstrom, 2004; Louis, Leithwood, Wahlstrom, & Anderson, 2010), it also has been a focus of school improvement. Lezotte (2001) found that school safety was one of the most important correlates of effective schools, and this, too, has been a consistent focus of school improvement.However, as Anyon (1997), and countless others, noted:Unfortunately, educational small victories such as the restructuring of a school or the introduction of a new classroom pedagogical technique, no matter how satisfying to the individuals involved, without a strategy to eradicate underlying causes of poverty and racial isolation, cannot add up to large victories...with effects that are sustainable over time. (p. 165)School-related factors have been estimated to account for only 10% to 20% of student achievement (Creemers & Reezight, 1996). An explanation may be that schools are not the only, nor perhaps even the primary, factors in student performance; socio-economic variables may play an even more significant role (Coleman et al., 1966; Jencks et al., 1972; Payne, 2008; Steinberg, 1996; Zoch, 2004). In 2009, the National Academy of Education noted that U.S. students spend approximately 1,150 hours per year in school, yet more than four times that many working hours at home or in their neighborhood. They concluded that most of the inequality in cognitive and performance differences among poverty-level students and their more affluent peers comes from the home and the neighborhood (p. 4).Purpose of the StudyTo examine these issues further, the purpose of this study was to examine recent data on school climate, school safety, and socio-economic variables related to students as they relate to student performance on the eighth grade SAT10 reading and math exams in Alabama's public schools. The primary research question guiding this study was, To what extent do student and teacher perceptions of school climate, students' perceptions of socio-economic variables affecting them, and the percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced price lunch in a school help to predict student performance on standardized exams? This question was based on the theoretical model that student performance is based on a combination of factors, some of which are related to the school, such as school culture, climate, and safety, others of which, primarily socio-economic factors, are related to the student's home and community, and individual factors, such as intelligence and motivation. Only the first two sets of factors were examined in this study, as no reliable data were available on the individual factors.A Brief Look at the Knowledge BaseThe focus of this literature review is on the relationships between student performance on standardized examinations and school climate, school safety, and socio-economic variables related to the student. Although most school reform literature focuses on variables within the school's assumed control, other philosophic approaches look beyond the school for influences on student performance in school, particularly socio-economic influences. …