<p> Hispanic English Learners (ELs) in America are at risk of educational failure. Hispanics are the poorest, least-educated US ethnic group, making them subject to the widening educational achievement gap. When ELs are unsuccessful in school, both students and society suffer. As their population rises, many school districts, such as the Great Falls Public Schools (GFPS) (pseudonym), need strategies to improve EL education. High-quality early childhood education increases student achievement. The literature indicates that transformational leadership (TL) is vital for school success. However, TL has been explored neither for EL achievement nor in the preschool setting. This study was needed to address the problem of EL achievement and improve TL theory prediction. This study investigated whether TL practices by preschool directors, as perceived by instructional staff, predicted EL's preschool achievement. Instructional staff (<i>n</i>=146; 130 teachers and 16 master teachers) at Great Falls district's 30 preschool sites completed 194 surveys describing their site leader's TL practices. Both the leadership scores and the preschool ELs' (<i>n</i>=1,390) literacy and mathematics achievement scores were aggregated by preschool site. Regression analyses were performed using SPSS to explore the relationships between preschool directors' TL practices and EL achievement, controlling for prior achievement scores, average student age, and leader characteristics. The results indicated that Setting Directions (<i>R</i><sup>2</sup> =.70, F (6, 22) = 8.53, p<0.01), Developing People (<i>R</i><sup>2</sup> =.70, F (6, 23), p<0.01), and combined TL practices (<i>R</i><sup>2</sup> =.69, F (6, 22) = 8.11, p< .01) had a significant and positive relationship with student mathematics achievement. However, Redesigning the Organization had no significant relationship with student outcomes. In addition, no relationships between TL practices and student literacy outcomes were significant. Future studies should include both student mathematics and literacy outcomes to investigate whether transformational practices have greater impact on mathematics than literacy achievement.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:3688314 |
| Date | 18 April 2015 |
| Creators | Ko, Jade Fantasy |
| Publisher | Northcentral University |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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