School Goals,Principals, and Achievement

ABSTRACT

Much has been written about the need for schools to engage in activities which promote the academic achievement of students. Two major factors which appear to influence student achievement are an organization's goals and the instructional leadership of the principal. The focus of this study was to investigate whether differences exist between schools which were successful in promoting student achievement and schools which were not successful in promoting student achievement in each of these areas. This paper is based upon a study conducted in an urban school district with a diverse student population. It identified 10 High Achieving Schools and 10 Low Achieving Schools (based upon student gain scores calculated from standardized achievement tests). Data regarding school goals and the instructional leadership of the principal were based upon responses to questionnaires designed to measure staff perceptions of these factors. The findings suggest that no clear differences are evident in the “official” goals selected by schools but differences do appear when the “operative” goals are analyzed. Specifically, the evidence suggests that High Achieving Schools emphasize goals stressing academic excellence to a greater degree than Low Achieving Schools. More important, the evidence from this study also suggests that principals in High Achieving Schools emphasize and engage in activities related to instruction to a much greater degree than principals in Low Achieving Schools. Those activities, which are identified and discussed at length, reinforce the view that a principal's behaviors rather than style are the primary factor in being an instructional leader.     

Conducting Evaluation and Research with and for 'Disaffected' Students: Practical and Methodological Issues

In the late 1990s, the Department for Education and Employment in England set out to motivate and engage teenage students who were said to be 'disaffected' with the traditional school curriculum. Jerry Wellington, Professor of Education at the University of Sheffield, and Pam Cole, research fellow in the University of Sheffield School of Education, were asked to evaluate one of the 21 projects that were set up across the country. The pupils involved were partially disapplied from the National Curriculum in order to follow a work-related scheme set up by two schools, a Chamber of Commerce and a local Learning and Skills Council.
In this article, Jerry Wellington and Pam Cole explore some of the difficulties that accompany evaluation, and particularly a review of the impact of interventions involving so-called 'disaffected' pupils. They describe some of the practical and methodological difficulties faced in such an evaluation, as well as highlighting the positive aspects of the task. They reflect on a range of unforeseen and unpredictable dilemmas that faced them in this work, and note some of the interesting significant strengths that developed from the project. At the end of their article, Jerry Wellington and Pam Cole summarise what they have learned from the evolving methodology of this evaluation and present a case for increased levels of collaboration, between practitioners and researchers and between professionals and pupils, in future projects of this kind.     

Learning about environmental print through picture books

Children construct knowledge about print from what they see in the environment. They also develop early literacy from good children's literature. There are now many books which incorporate environmental print, combining both ecological text and the printed page.