How School Administrators Promote High Performance within High-Poverty Schools - Case Study Example

Education How School Administrators promote high performance within High-Poverty Schools Educators in high-poverty schools have long known that it is critical to provide safe and school environments. Students who are in high-poverty schools usually have a lot of problems, whether it is financial or social problems. Hence, they tend to perform poorly in academics than those who are in other schools. However, when these students get a chance to experience comprehensive support from educators who mitigate the destructive forces in the lives of these students, the likelihood for them to succeed improves greatly. Nonetheless, improving the school learning environments allows the school administrators to create a learning environment that requires more than the usual disciplinary measures. It requires the administrators and teachers to work together, implement incentive programs and work on promoting better parental involvement. Statement of the Problem This study is focusing on administrators’ role in schools and how they can promote high student performance within schools rated by Texas Education Agency as high-poverty schools. To examine how administrators in high poverty schools can improve the performance of students, I analyzed the data from 3rd grade students from Idea Carver Academy in San Antonio, Texas. I also carried out an interview from three people from three different constituencies within the school and collected information from existing literature on how administrators promote high performance within high poverty schools. I reviewed the data from Idea Carver Academy on 3rd grade student math score tests in comparison to the math test scores for students in other grades, campuses and state schools. The data collected from the interviews and existing literature was enough to show that implementation of incentive programs, better parental involvement and good team leadership between the administrators and staff members in school improved the students’ performance. Literature Review Efforts to improve student performance in high-poverty schools are highly reliant on quality leadership (Gorton & Alston, 2011). Hence, school administrators are always tasked with the work of ensuring that there is not only a collective vision of improvement in all areas, but student learning results to high performance. Topor et al., (2010) examined the effect of parental involvement on academic performance of their children using two methods. The first method was the standardized achievement test score technique. In the second method, the teachers reported on the academic performance of the students using the rating scales (Topor et al., 2010). To know the real crisis that affects American public schools in regard to performance, Berliner and Glass (2014) discovered that it all depends on the myths that schools administrators have. For example, there are those believe they need to work on implementing incentive programs that would increase the test scores. Others focus on promoting the relationship between teachers and administrators (Berliner and Glass, 2014). In other cases, principals using incentive programs where teachers had access to more training and implementation of educator preparation programs was effective in boosting school performance (Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association, 2015). According to the National Association of Elementary School (2015), the administrators deliberately employ various strategies in schools to ensure that there is an improvement in teaching strategies among the teachers. This is one of the techniques they use to promote good team leadership between themselves and teachers. In most cases, school administrators also implement good study programs which keep standardized testing in check and ones that focus on student learning (Kranzler & Floyd, 2013). Evidence from Moos’ book on page 61 also reveals that the only way that school administrators create school environment that support high performance is when they do not have conflicting interests with students or teachers. Additionally, increasing their influence of students and parents on each other, fosters a strong relationship between parents and children (Moos, 2014). School administrators working in high-performing schools which are also high-poverty schools have always known one secret. They know how important it is for school administrators to support teachers and implement incentive programs. This is what authors such as Kyle (2011) believes that it leads to some high-poverty schools performing so well. Educators know that parental involvement is important to a child, something that most attest to as a positive influence on student’s eventual academic success (Kyle, 2011). In shaping the student’s performance strategies, school administrators not only focus on better parental involvement, but all other aspects of daily life in schools (Gunderson, et al., 2012). Myers (2014) revealed that the power vested on school administrators, such as the principals’ influenced the performance outcomes of students in schools and the level of engagement they had with the other staff members at school. Research Format I made use of the existing data from literature and interview questionnaires to investigate how school administrators who work in high-poverty schools promote high academic performance in students. The predicted variables of the study focused on determining three themes as strategies that school administrators could use to improve school performance among students. These included the three themes that focused on school administrators’ implementation of incentive programs to boost performance, advocating for better parental involvement and promotion of good team leadership between teachers and administrators in schools. Six open-ended questionnaires were necessary as a tool for gathering the primary data for this study. There were three participants. It was observed that each of these participants answered two questionnaires each which took around 10-20 minutes. The participants were each identified from different constituencies within the school. The interviewees were from Idea Carver Academy, a title 1 Charter school in San Antonio Texas. The first participant was the Vice Principal. The second interviewee was a teacher specializing in mathematics and lastly, the other was a parent. Research Findings In this study, I investigated whether school administrators had the power to improve students’ performance if they promoted better parental involvement, encouraged good team relationships between themselves and teachers and implemented good incentive programs. The academic performance for students doing mathematics in Idea Carver Academy is in Table 1. First, the responses from the interview provide evidence that implementation of incentive programs, good team relationship between school administrators and teachers and better parental involvement were positively related to high student performance. In other words, the interview with Mr. Stilder proved that students at Idea Carver Academy improved their academic performance when they were more involved with their parents in tutoring programs and other school programs. Second this study offers insight into the techniques that school administrators may use to promote strong working relationships with teachers in their schools. The responses obtained from the math teacher and the principal show that the two different groups were more effective at getting students to perform well when they were working as an item. a) The responses I got from the Vice Principal, Mr. Stilder outlined the theme of good team relationship with teachers. “ I feel that if we do not build a solid relationship with teachers, I cannot expect them to be fully committed to the students. Allowing teachers to participate in making the team of teachers stronger thus feeling involved in campus planning; truly allows teachers to be heard…” (Mr. Stilder, 2015). b) The responses I obtained from the parent outlined the theme of good incentive programs and better parents involvement noted as follows: “I feel that many parents like me, would benefit from a math crash course in other to help our kids with what they are learning in school.” “My child’s school has an incentive program for learning math facts. …I think the idea behind the math rock concert is good because it helps with student achievement.” c) The responses from the interventionist were as follows: “Students genuinely want to be successful however they get embarrassed to ask questions for clarification.” The findings from this study substantiate earlier assumptions that school administrators can boost student performance by using simpler strategies such as getting parents get more involved in the lives of their children, good incentives and good team relationship between them and teachers. Figure 1: Table showing the Academic Performance Report for Idea public Carver Academy for Mathematics (STAAR %) Grade Level Years State (%) District (%) Campus (%) Grade 3 2014 71 81 82 2013 70 62 49 Grade 4 2014 71 73 63 2013 69 51 58 Grade 5 2014 88 94 98 2013 88 84 87 2014 78 83 81 All Grades 2013 79 80 64 Source: (Texas Academic Performance Report, 2014) The table in figure 1 shows that students in Carver Academy excelled in Mathematics despite being students from low social economic classes. As noted from the interviewees’ responses where they said there was use of tutoring services for both students and parents, advisory time and Saturday school incentives, it is evident from this report that they were helpful in making the third grade students perform. From the table, the students’ percentage improved from 70% in year 2013 to 71% in year 2014. Research Implications The analyzed interviewees were different people with different roles to play in the lives of students. This has a positive inference on future parents because it will show them what motivates students to perform well. From this study, future parents are likely to see that joint team efforts between them, students and teachers is the key to boosting student academic performance. The data in the study was also collected from one school. Future studies should aim at using different techniques to collect data with the aim of collecting more information about other high poverty schools and if they were also recording high academic performance among the students. This study is effective in proving that high-poverty schools are also ready from the beginning to educate students and lead them to successful careers. Given that most families with children in schools like Idea Carver Academy did not go to school and most of them would want their children to perform when there is an opportunity, this study serves as their guide on subjects that students perform well. References Berliner, D., & Glass, G. (2014). 50 myths and lies that threaten Americas public schools: The real crisis in education. New York: Teachers College Press. Gorton, R., & Alston, J. A. (2011). School Leadership and Administration (9th edition). New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Gunderson, E., Ramirez, G., Levine, S., & Beilock, S. (2012). The role of parents and teachers in the development of gender-related math attitudes. Journal on sex roles, 66, 153–166. Kranzler, J., & Floyd, R. (2013). Assessing intelligence in children and adolescents: A practical guide. New York: Guilford Press. Kyle, D. (2011). Families’ goals, school involvement, and children’s academic achievement: A follow-up study thirteen years later. The school community journal, 21(2), 9-217. Moos, L. (2014). School boards in the governance process. Berlin: Springer Science & Business. Mr. Stilder, personal communication, (2015). Interview Questions. Retrieved from Class discussions Myers, E. (2014). Transformational school principal leadership behavior and its impact on school climate. Current Issues in Education, 17(3), 1-14. National Association of Elementary School. (2015, March 11). What great principals do differently. Retrieved from http://www.naesp.org/blog/what-great-principals-do-differently Texas Education Agency. (2014). 2013-14 Texas academic performance report. TEA Division of Performance Reporting, 1-13. Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association. (2015, March 4). Principal surveys to evaluate Texas educator preparation programs (2015). Retrieved from http://tea.texas.gov/interiorpage_wide.aspx?id=25769820488 Topor. , Keane, S., Shelton, T., & Calkinsb, S. (2010). Parent involvement and student academic performance: A multiple meditational analysis. Journal of Prevention Intervention Community, 38(3), 183-197. Read More