<p> The purpose of this qualitative study was to closely examine the RISE evaluation system and its effectiveness in non-traditional, Montessori schools. The research consisted of a qualitative study interview approach using three administrators, one who did not use the RISE evaluation system, and two who were mandated by their central office to use it; and four teachers, all who were evaluated with the RISE evaluation system. This qualitative study used the theoretical framework&mdash;hermeneutic phenomenology. Interviews with the administrators and teachers were used to collect the data. The interviews were administered in personal offices, coffee shops, and at my personal office. All interviews(except one) were tape recorded and transcribed by me. The transcribed interviews were coded to create an item analysis. </p><p> The main purpose of this study was to determine if the RISE evaluation system would be an effective tool to use in non-traditional classrooms, such as a Montessori classroom. This study was intended to give educators of non-traditional schools and classrooms information about the RISE evaluation system&rsquo;s effectiveness. </p><p> This research contributes to the field by studying the RISE evaluation system&rsquo;s effectiveness in non-traditional classrooms. This study provides a framework for examining the factors for conducting effective evaluations using the RISE evaluation system in non-traditional schools.</p>

<p> In this mixed methods study, the researcher investigated whether or not Missouri school administrators were prepared to meet the creative leadership demands of the 21st century by measuring their creative capacity, creative styles, and their current creative leadership practices. A convenience sample of Missouri K-12 public school administrators and teachers completed the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults, the Creativity Styles Questionnaire &ndash; Revisited and an original Organizational Creativity Survey; two homogenous small focus groups discussed their experiences regarding creativity and creative leadership within school organizations. </p><p> Whereas teachers were statistically significantly more creative than the normed adult population, administrators did not stand out from the normed adult population in this study; the weak sample size and mortality effect suggested that they may have even been less creative than the data suggested. The researcher noted administrator trends toward low risk propensity, high conformity, and a deficit of creative leadership. Findings further suggested that demographic factors and career attributes such as age, gender, school level, job level, job embeddedness, and work experience were not significantly related to creative capacity. Researchers should expand upon these findings with longitudinal mixed-methods studies of larger random samples of administrators. Teachers were a wealthy source of creative performance and leadership while school administrators tended to daily managerial tasks and the political constraints of their positions. The researcher recommends that schools further investigate the creative leadership potential of teacher leaders.</p>

<p> With teacher evaluations, school ratings, and ultimately school funding being linked more and more to student achievement data, U.S. public schools are searching for new and effective ways to boost academic testing scores. This study examined teachers&rsquo; and administrators&rsquo; experiences with and perceptions of merit pay, with the goal of identifying key program components positively impacting student success. With this information, solid and successful merit pay structures could be implemented in schools across the nation. Professional educators from two Midwest states who were involved in performance pay programs participated in the study through both a survey instrument and personal interviews. Surveys were crafted using the review of related literature, then distributed and collected via SurveyMonkey to educators in selected merit pay schools. Likert scale selections and open response inquiries were utilized to assess educator opinions and experiences. Personal interviews were scheduled and conducted within one Arkansas school district. This district employed an innovative merit pay program for educational stakeholders. Experiences, perceived strengths and weaknesses, and results of the merit pay structure were discussed during the interview sessions. Valuable perceptions regarding merit pay structure and implementation were gained. Three important factors of any successful school motivation program emerged. These three components included development of a purpose driven structure, fair measurement of student growth, and educator empowerment. Further research is recommended to determine varied and effective ways to structure programs to sustainably increase student achievement gains.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to examine whether equity for students could be measured in high schools located in a large urban school district using publically accessible quantitative data. The motivation for the study was a seemingly inequitable distribution of resources in the district, which employed Student-Based Budgeting.</p><p> In the 22 high schools studied, no schools were found to be more over-resourced than expected compared to a normal distribution of schools. However, some schools were under-resourced.</p><p> Multiple regression analyses indicated that the variables best predicting student scores on achievement tests in math and reading were two sociodemographic variables: percentage of students in special education (statistically significant for both reading and math) and percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch (statistically significant for reading). After controlling for the sociodemographic variables, the variables used to measure equity were entered into the regression equation. It was found that the higher the nonpersonnel expenditures per student, the lower the students&rsquo; achievement scores. This result was statistically significant for reading scores, and approached statistical significance for math scores. Also, the higher the student-teacher ratio, the students&rsquo; math achievement scores (this result approached statistical significance). The results for the equity variables, taken together, might indicate a profile of larger schools with better achievement scores than smaller schools; correlations among the equity variables showed that the larger schools had higher student-teacher ratios and lower nonpersonnel expenditures per student than smaller schools. Note that smaller schools tend to be poorer than larger schools.</p>

<p> During the past 50 years, the landscape of education shifted from a rank order model to a system where all students are expected to achieve at a minimum level. This led to reforms in the way schools operate and teachers teach. One change to teaching is the use of data to inform instructional practices and student groupings. The need for teachers to increase their data use and change their instruction has prompted the need for professional development practices to be more effective. Coaching has been shown to be an effective professional development strategy to help teachers transfer new skills into their practice. This mixed-methods study examined one urban school district&rsquo;s two-year attempt to implement a data informed decision-making model of instruction in 20 schools through the use of instructional coaches. The study used two data sets&mdash;archival literacy benchmark scores and coach surveys&mdash;to identify a purposive selection of interview participants. The interviews were conducted to determine what structures and factors increased the implementation of the data informed decision-making initiative. Findings indicate professional development and leadership structures were needed for successful implementation of the data initiative. Results of this study showed the factors of trust, focus, coach-principal relationship, and assessment literacy contributed to the coaches&rsquo; ability to implement the data initiative successfully. </p>

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between effective school characteristics and student achievement after the first year of implementing a school improvement project. The intent of this study was to analyze what occurred in terms of processes and products and to compare changes in school characteristics and student changes achievement in the treatment schools in the control schools. The study posed the following questions: 1. Was there a difference in the treatment group and in the control group in changes in effective school characteristics: environment, goals, leadership, expectations, time-on-task, monitoring student progress, and home/school relations? 2. Was the treatment group more successful than the control group based on student achievement of the basic skills? 3. What was the relationship between effective school characteristics and student achievement? The study encompassed the use of an experimental design and employed techniques of ethnographic studies. Each group, treatment and control, consisted of three schools that were matched on socio-economic status and on student achievement. Six principals, 150 teachers, and 2,228 students were involved in the study. The treatment consisted of leadership training on effective school characteristics, the development and implementation of a school-based improvement plan, and staff development. The Connecticut · School Effectiveness Questionnaire, the California Achievement Test, and observed behavior were used as measurement tools. Data collected on thirty-five variables were subjected to t-tests, correlations, and factor analysis. The results of the study appear to warrant the following conclusions: 1. The DeKalb County school-based model was successful in improving effective school characteristics in the treatment group. The treatment was highly related to each of the following effective school characteristics: environment, goals, leadership, expectations, time-on task, monitoring student progress, and home/school relations. This finding was verified by observed behavior. The control group did not show significant ii improvement in any of the seven effective school characteristics. 2. There was no significant relationship between the treatment and student achievement gains in mathematics and in reading when gains were disaggregated by individual students. 3. There was a significant relationship between achievement gains in reading and in mathematics in the treatment group when gains were aggregated. 4. There was a moderately significant relationship between mathematics gain and reading gain. 5. The treatment group was successful in improving the achievement of students in each quartile. The control group was successful scores of students in quartiles, but was not in improving the first, successful the achievement second, and third in improving the achievement of students in the fourth quartile. 6. There was no significant relationship between student achievement and each of the following characteristics: environment, goals, leadership, expectations, time-on task, monitoring student progress, and home/school relations. 7. The characteristics impacted the most during the first year of implementation were leadership, time-on-task, monitoring student progress, and goals. 8. The pretest characteristics that showed high relationships with each of the posttest characteristics iii were environment, expectations, and home/ school relations. 9. A high relationship was evidenced between pretest achievement and posttest achievement in mathematics and in reading. Reading achievement was also related to mathematics achievement. 10. When socio-economic status, sex, and grade were controlled, no significant relationship existed with any of the other thirty-two variables used in this study.

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of administrative discipline procedure, teacher/student relationship, student achievement, student attendance, and student conduct on the decision by students of Stephens County High School to drop out of school. Results indicated that teacher/student relationship does influence the decision to drop out. Further, these teachers are more likely to be female. Administrative discipline procedure can affect the decision to drop out. While student achievement does not directly affect but plays an important role in decision making to drop out, attendance will hinder the motive to continue. Student conduct had no effect on the decision to drop out. Gender, race, and socioeconomic status were confounded in the results.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which the perceptions of trained instructional evaluators' ratings relate to those of student evaluators in assessing the classroom performance of high school teacher. Methods and Procedures The sample utilized for this study consisted of 30 classroom teachers, 30 trained instructional evaluators, and 120 students from a population that was selected from a metropolitan high school in which the staff and student body represented a diverse make-up. Results The results of this study were statistically insignificant because there were demographic differences, perceptual differences and affective differences among the classroom teachers, trained instructional evaluators and student evaluators. Therefore, data indicated that there was no significant relationship between the ratings by trained instructional evaluators and student evaluators on the classroom performance of high school teachers. Conclusions and Recommendations 1. Ratings of students could be utilized by teachers as feedback for classroom instruction. 2. Trained instructional evaluators may need to observe classroom teachers for a full class period rather than a 15-minute period of observation. 3. Design an Instructional Improvement Council to include teachers and students to explore areas of students' concerns at the affective level. 4. Provide informative sessions for classroom teachers to discuss the teaching tasks on the Georgia Teacher Observation Instrument.

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of the instructional assistant principal in a large metropolitan Atlanta school system, with an ultimate purpose of devising a uniform job description for the system. The sample consisted of twenty-three principals, twenty-two instructional assistant principals, and fifty-eight teachers. They were given a questionnaire consisting of twenty-six job tasks and asked to specify the degree of responsibility which the instructional assistant principal in their school exercised and the degree of responsibility he should exercise in the performance of the task. The findings indicated that principals, teachers, and instructional assistant principals have similar perceptions of what the instructional assistant principal does and should do. Of the twenty-six items on the questionnaire, twenty-five were included in the resultant job description, and these included tasks in budgeting, evaluation, supervision of students, orienting faculty and staff to the school, working with the master schedule, producing the school handbook, coordinating testing, disseminating information about test results, disseminating information about current trends in education, preparing documentations for inspections and reviews, and planning for parent meetings.

This study examined whether or not the school's mean reading score could be explained by the teachers' perceptions of the principals' supervisory behaviors and teachers' characteristics and whether each student's reading score can be explained more by the principals' supervisory behaviors or by the students' perceptions of the fifth grade class climate or by the student's selected biographic variables in a large metropolitan school system. Ten elementary schools were selected by experts in the instructional department of a large metropolitan school system. Nine of the selected schools were Project Achievement Schools in which the students scored below the national norms on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS). The students and teachers samples consisted of one hundred and seventy-eight regular classroom teachers and four hundred and twenty-five fifth grade students. The instruments used were the Student Perceptions Questionnaire extracted from the Teacher Performance Assessment Instrument developed by the State Department of Education and the Instructional Supervisory/Behavior Questionnaire developed by Dr. Ganga Persaud. The student achievement test used was the 1985 Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (Level 10) mean reading scores of individual students and mean school reading score for each of the selected schools. In a regression analysis of the data, teachers’ degree qualifications, experiences, and perceptions of principals’ supervisory behaviors, in that order, predict the school mean reading score. The principals’ supervisory behaviors correlated inversely with the mean reading score of the school. The overall variance, however, is small - approximately 7 percent. In a regression analysis of the data, students' perceptions of the class climate and the principals' supervisory behaviors, in that order, predict students' reading scores. The relationships are inverse for both variables with reading scores indicating consistency between the teachers and students' perceptions. The selected biographic variables make smaller but insignificant contributions to the students' reading scores. The overall variance, however, predicted for all variables is small just over 15 percent. The results support the Edmonds' and Lezotte's Schools for low achievers. Support was not found for the Coleman studies that socio-economic and environmental variables were more important than the school variables for student achievement. This was probably due to the bias of the sample in favor of low socio-economic status (SES).