Date of Award

January 2013

Degree Type

Open Access Dissertation

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

First Advisor

Charles S. Hausman

Department Affiliation

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

Abstract

Educational leadership and its effects on student achievement have been topics of increasing interest over the past four decades. This quantitative study researched the effects of the duties and responsibilities of high school principals on ACT scores and graduation rates. Independent variables include socioeconomic status and five of the seven standards from the Principal Professional Growth and Effectiveness System (PPGES): Instructional Leadership, School Climate, Human Resources Management, Organizational Management, and Communication and Community Relations. Teacher responses for the 2011 Kentucky TELL Survey on the school level were utilized to rate the effectiveness of high school principals on each of the selected standards. Data regarding test scores, graduation rates, and percentages of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch (socioeconomic status) for each high school were retrieved from the website of the Kentucky Department of Education. Linear regressions were calculated in order to identify relationships between the independent variables and student outcomes. This study found that five of the six variables proved significant in explaining variances of student outcomes with PPGES standard five, Communication and Community Relations, possessing the strongest predictive ability on student achievement for schools of differing socioeconomic levels.

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