The purpose of this study was to examine district climate and explore its relationship to school climate. It also explored the relationships of these factors to student achievement in districts with low- and high-poverty elementary schools. Instruments used included the School Climate Index and the District Climate Index.;This was a quantitative correlational study that examined the possible relationships between district climate, school climate and student achievement on the 2007 Standards of Learning assessments for grades 3, 4, and 5 English (reading, research and literature) and mathematics in 25 low- and 44 high-poverty elementary schools in 36 Virginia districts. A Pearson r was used to determine the relationship between the constructs and was computed with a significance level of p < .01. The Independent-Samples t Test procedure compared the means for school climate and district climate in low- and high-poverty schools and the means for mean scale scores on SOL assessments in low- and high-poverty schools.;Significant relationships were found between district climate and school climate and between the constructs of district climate and school climate in all schools and in high-poverty schools. No significant relationships were found between district climate and student achievement; however, relationships were found between school climate and student achievement and the constructs of school climate and student achievement.

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The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between student perceptions of the educational environment of selected schools and the level of student achievement.;The Commonwealth of Virginia was selected as the site for this research because of its convenience to the research teams and because of the diversity of its population patterns.;A 5 percent random sample of Virginia public elementary schools was chosen for inclusion in the study. Fourth grade students in each school completed a school environment questionnaire. Demographic data and standardized test scores were obtained for each student participating in the study.;It was hypothesized that there is no relationship between the level of student achievement and student perception of school climate after controlling for the effects of student ability, socio-economic status, race, and sex.;It was concluded that student perception of school climate was significantly related to student achievement. The climate factors Student Perception of Academic Futility, Student Perception of Future Educational Attainment, and Student Perception of Prospects for Academic Success were highly correlated with student achievement.;Future studies should combine individual climate, achievement, and demographic data on a school unit basis for the purpose of investigating differences between schools of contrasting climates and dissimilar student body composition.

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Purpose. This research examined the relationship between stress and job satisfaction of elementary school principals. The purpose of the study was to determine if the situational variables, socioeconomic level of students and student enrollment, and the demographic variables, sex, age, and experience, influenced the stress-job satisfaction of the principal.;Method. A random sample of 100 elementary school principals in the Commonwealth of Virginia completed the Administrative Stress Index and the Index of Job Satisfaction. Results from 87 percent mail return were subjected to regression analysis.;Findings and Conclusions. There was a negative relationship (r = -.25) between stress and job satisfaction of elementary school principals. Based on the findings of this study, stress will tend to reduce the job satisfaction of elementary school principals regardless of socioeconomic level of students, student enrollment or sex of the principal, and for principals 40+ years of age or with 6+ years of experience. There was no relationship between stress and job satisfaction for principals under 40 or those with 1-5 years of experience. In addition, job satisfaction was significantly greater for principals who are females.;Job satisfaction for this sample was predicted using the following regression weights for those variables which significantly influenced the stress-job satisfaction relationship: Overall satisfaction = 71.82, Female = 3.78, Age 40+ = 19.26, Stress for 40+ = -9.36. Using these increments, expected job satisfaction was calculated for four groups of elementary school principals: Males < 40 = 71.82 (out of a possible 90), Females < 40 = 75.60, Males 40+ = 70.58, Females 40+ = 74.36. Both males and females 40+ years of age experience a reduction in job satisfaction for stress. Implications for future research were discussed.

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the instructional leadership behaviors of the superintendent during an era of educational reform in Virginia. Specifically, the study sought to determine what behaviors of the superintendent contributed to improvement in student achievement on the Standards of Learning assessment. Superintendent instructional behaviors were explored in relation to the five points of the conceptual framework drawn from the literature and professional standards of the superintendency: (1) The leadership style for the superintendent must be collaborative and exercised between teachers, administrators and other constituents; (2) Superintendents must be able to articulate a clear vision for educational improvement that is drawn from collaborative relationships with constituents; (3) Superintendents must have an understanding of curriculum and instruction that allows them to diagnose local educational need as well as discern possibilities for educational improvement; (4) Superintendents must be able to implement and monitor change processes as a means of ensuring improved student achievement; and (5) All leadership is shaped by the contexts in which it occurs---historical, community and organizational. The data collected was accomplished using semi-structured interviews of eight selected superintendents and principals of school divisions of no more than 5000 students. Principals also completed the Superintendent as Instructional Leader Survey (SILS). Results were presented in narrative form and analyzed for common themes and language congruent with the conceptual framework. The themes and language were compared with the areas of the conceptual framework looking for similarities and differences. The instructional behaviors of participating superintendents in this study could be used in practice by superintendents seeking to respond to student achievement reform initiatives as well as in training programs for superintendents.

Community colleges are a crucial channel for achieving postsecondary education success, especially for minority and nontraditionally aged students. Nonetheless, community colleges are inadequate to meeting national goals for postsecondary educational attainment. Most notably, the lack of a strong guidance of academic interventions stifles a student’s preparation to transfer to four-year institutions as well as to attain an associate’s degree. The majority of research concerning community colleges rarely addresses the issues of low degree attainment rates from rigorous guidance of academic interventions by student status difference, including race/ethnicity, age, first-generation status, motivation, and academic preparation. First, few community colleges and associations have proposed and implemented designed guidance for students. As such, evaluating the impact of guidance plans in community colleges provides us with a better understanding of student success at these schools. Second, previous studies used samples collected from a single community college, city, or state, which make generalizability difficult to attain. Third, researchers have paid little attention to how the variation across community colleges differs across the nation in terms of the mission and purpose of the institutions as well as the students who attend these colleges. This variation may influence students’ academic curriculum and exposure to academic advising, which in turn may impact their success. Fourth, even though minority and nontraditional students are overrepresented at two-year intuitions, few studies investigate whether the impact of academic interventions in community colleges differs by race/ethnic and age. Building upon the literature on student development in higher education, in this dissertation, I examined how academic interventions (i.e., academic advising and faculty–student interactions) promote student success after controlling for potential confounding factors at both the student and institution level. Employing propensity-scored based techniques, I compared student success (a) among Black, Latino, and White students, and (b) between traditionally aged students (18–21 years of age), and nontraditionally aged students (24 years of age and older). Using data from the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:04/09) and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), I employed doubly robust estimation to provide better estimates of academic advising and formal faculty–student interactions on student success. I measured students’ successes by determining whether students attained an associate’s degree or whether they transferred to a four-year institution. To accomplish these tasks, I first used a multinomial logit model to estimate the propensity scores of receiving academic advising and faculty–student interactions. I then created a sample weight based on the inverse of the propensity score. I used multinomial logit regression model, weighted by the inverse of the propensity score, to estimate the effects of academic advising and faculty–student interactions. Finally, I examined the conditional effects of academic advising and faculty–student interactions by students’ race, age, first-generation status, motivation, and academic preparation. The findings indicate that both academic advising and formal faculty–student interactions benefit student success at community colleges. Specifically, academic advising increases student success of transferring to a four-year institution, but African American students benefit less from academic advising than their White peers. Academic advising positively influences both Hispanic students and White students in terms of their upward transfer to a four-year institution. In addition to academic advising, formal faculty–student interactions improve student success regarding both upward transfers and attainment of associate degrees. The positive impact of formal faculty–student interactions is consistent across students’ race, age, first-generation status, motivation, and academic preparation. This dissertation contributes to the existing literature on community colleges in two ways. First, my dissertation seeks to better inform policy makers in designing academic interventions that can improve student development in community colleges, especially for minority and nontraditional students. Second, my dissertation contributes to the research literature on higher education by providing improved estimates that have stronger internal and external validity than estimates from past studies on the effects of academic interventions in community colleges.

The acquisition of early childhood literacy skills is a predictor of academic success in elementary education. In a local school district, 22% of children entering kindergarten were assessed as having a gap in their reading readiness skills (RRS) based on their pre-K scores on the Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning (DIAL-4). The average kindergarten beginning-year difference on the Reading Baseline Inventory (RBI) between the students with a gap and students without a gap was 15 out of 100 points. The purpose of this quantitative research was to examine the change between fall and spring RBI scores of kindergarten students who entered school with a gap and those who entered without a gap to determine if the gap was closed by the end of the school year. The framework for this study was Vygotsky's constructivist theory of how children construct knowledge based on their early experiences. From a census sample of 118 students, 26 students were classified as having a gap in their DIAL-4 readiness scores. Fall pretest and spring posttest RBI scores served as the dependent variable. Within group t tests revealed the group identified as having a reading readiness gap increased their average RBI reading performance by 47% while the group identified as not having a gap increased by 26%, t(26) = -11.47, p < .001. However, the between groups t test comparing the groups' RBI difference scores was also significant, t(116) = -3.12, p = .002, indicating a closed but still significant gap (6.8 points) remaining. A white paper presents the results of the study and will contribute to positive social change by providing school leaders with evidence based practical suggestions to better serve their students. By working to close the reading gap early it will help ensure students have a better chance to reach their full potential for academic success.