Using the 2012 North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions Survey data, school demographic information, and school's urban-centric locale census designation, hierarchical linear modeling was conducted to examine the relationship between locale and teachers' perceptions of school leadership as a working condition and explore any variance in the…

This case study examines the relationship between school-based performing arts participation and academic identity development for African American male high school students. Participants addressed how their engagement in a school-based performing arts program influenced their academic achievement and school experiences. The researcher used…

A growing body of research points to the ways in which principals influence teachers, classrooms, and, ultimately, student achievement. New Leaders aims to prepare transformational school leaders by partnering with districts and charter schools to offer rigorous, research-based training for aspiring principals. The Aspiring Principals program is…

These appendixes provide supplemental detail about the analyses and findings presented in Preparing School Leaders for Success: Evaluation of New Leaders' Aspiring Principals Program, 20120-2017 (Gates et al., 2019). This material will be of interest to technically oriented readers who seek more information about the information presented in the…

Decades of research have showcased the inequitable exclusion of Black students in urban middle schools via out-of-school suspensions. Black students exhibit the highest rates of suspensions when compared to their White peers according to the 2013-2014 Office of Civil Rights database. Urban middle school teachers are typically placed in high-stress…

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is a framework that has been employed in schools in order to promote not only improved behavioral outcomes but academic outcomes as well. PBIS has three core elements: use of a three-tiered prevention model, application of evidence-based practices, and creation of systems to support and sustain…

Most populous school districts operate using a bureaucratic hierarchical organizational structure developed primarily for industry, a system structure that has remained intact for a century despite evolving from a manufacturing to a knowledge-based economy. Although strong for efficiency, this system structure is resistant to change and promotes…

A teacher's sense of self-efficacy may have significant influence on the pedagogical decisions in the classroom. An elementary school teacher's sense of self-efficacy in teaching science may negatively influence student achievement in science. Negative beliefs concerning science or the ability to teach and promote student learning in science may…

Background: Schools are important sites for interventions to prevent childhood obesity. This study examines how variables measuring the socioeconomic and racial composition of schools and counties affect the likelihood of obesity among third to fifth grade children. Methods: Body mass index data were collected from third to fifth grade public…

To improve teacher retention, many scholars have set out to identify which teacher working conditions influence teachers' decisions to remain in the profession or stay in a particular school or district. School leadership has been identified as one of the most important working conditions affecting teachers' decisions to remain in a school.…

Randomized experiments are often considered the strongest designs to study the impact of educational interventions. Perhaps the most prevalent class of designs used in large scale education experiments is the cluster randomized design in which entire schools are assigned to treatments. In cluster randomized trials (CRTs) that assign schools to…

Many studies have documented small negative relationships between teacher absences and student achievement. The purpose of our research was to explore relationships between teacher absences and student achievement in a large urban school district in the southeastern United States. The work emerged from a question directed to the Accountability…

The school accountability movement has led to a marked increase in the use of standardized test scores to measure school and teacher productivity, yet little is known about the correlation between test score gains and improvements in long-term outcomes. In the first chapter of my dissertation, I study the impact of a school choice policy in…

We examined the relationship between dispositional (trait) aggression and administrative reports of school aggression among 100 adolescent male participants from an urban middle school. Aggression was fairly common among the sample; 58 boys had a record of school aggression, and many of those were repeat offenders. Our hypothesis that those higher…