This qualitative phenomenological study aimed to understand the influence of principal leadership styles, including their character and behavioral traits, on new teacher motivation and retention in urban K-12 public schools. Specifically, this study examined the similarities and differences regarding what principals and novice teachers perceived…

This study examined the relationship between psychological empowerment and three demographic variables of secondary educators in an urban public school in the State of Michigan. Psychological empowerment is traced historically from a concept in the business industry that focuses on customer service to a set of processes and sub-dimensions that…

This demonstration brief provides teaching and learning stories from districts and schools implementing PBIS with an integrated systems focus and is organized across the following areas: (a) the context of the school/district, (b) the changes made in the systems, (c) the impact of the changes made in the systems, and (d) next steps to improve the…

School safety is a key feature of the learning environment. Research suggests if students perceive their environment as unsafe they will face a myriad of possible detrimental consequences. Using qualitative interviews, we explore the factors most consistently identified by students as important in their feelings of safety. We examine whether the…

Init2Winit, a gamified mobile application designed to increase students' alignment knowledge between college, career, and salary expectations has been beta-tested in midwestern urban and rural U.S. high schools (age 14-18). Students earn different points in the game when their educational expectations and expected annual income are matched with…

This study examined the role of select intrapersonal and microsystem factors in high school adolescents' academic achievement. A combination of factors, derived from an ecological framework, were hypothesized to be unique in their ability to explain greater proportions of variance in academic achievement in adolescents. Participants included 379…

Background/Context: All organizations face turnover in their workforce; however, in schools high turnover can interfere with the effectiveness and efficiency of the school. While past research has examined school-related factors linked to teacher turnover, few studies have examined how external contextual factors are related to teacher turnover.…

This study examined rural-nonrural differences in postsecondary educational expectations and the attainment of expectations for grade 10 students attending rural and nonrural high schools in the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest region and how these differences compare with rural-nonrural differences in the rest of the nation. For…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the 7th grade reading performance among a random sample of urban public school academies (charter schools) in Wayne County, Michigan, compared with a random sample of traditional urban public schools within the same geographic area. This study was conducted using the fall 2012 Michigan…

Novice special educators (those in their first 3 years) consistently report their workloads are unmanageable. Yet, it is not clear whether their perceptions of workload manageability contribute to outcomes of concern such as emotional exhaustion (a component of burnout) or intentions to continue teaching in their schools and districts. This pilot…

This is the Mackinac Center's fourth school report card and covers elementary and middle schools. A similar report card was published in 2013, and this edition includes two years' worth of new data. A unique characteristic of this report card is that takes into consideration the "context" of a school when assessing its performance.…

This study explored the association between social media use, loneliness, and academic achievement in high school students and identified the demographic characteristics associated with these three elements. This study also aimed to identify the percentage of variance in loneliness accounted for by social media use and GPA. Participants were 345…

The search for an answer to the question of the achievement gap between Black and other minority students and their White counterparts has been pervasive. This study, however, reframes the question not by using the White student as a frame of reference against which to make the comparison but by using the Black student himself. Therefore, relying…

Prior research shows that rural students' education expectations and aspirations, as well as their postsecondary enrollment and persistence rates, tend to be lower than those of nonrural students. However, much of that prior research may not apply to today's students because it uses old data or focuses on individual states or purposive samples.…

A total of 102 school counselors who worked in predominantly African American urban schools in Michigan were surveyed to ascertain how frequently they engaged in school counseling activities as conceptualized by the American School Counseling Association. Additionally, this exploratory study sought to determine whether there were differences in…