Leadership Practices that Affect Student Achievement

Abstract

It is widely accepted that school leadership has both a direct and indirect impact on student achievement. Hitt and Tucker’s (2016) unified leadership framework summarized a decade of work by numerous researchers identifying the five most effective leadership domains that influence student learning. Using that work as a conceptual framework, this qualitative case study analyzed one of the five interdependent leadership domains in an urban elementary school that succeeded in educating traditionally marginalized students and outperformed other schools with similar demographics in the district. Scholars Hitt and Tucker (2016) state that effective leadership practice includes conveying, communicating and implementing a shared vision. This study focused on the mission-driven leadership practices at the district level and the school level that could have influenced the improved academic outcomes for urban students of color. Another focus of this study was achieving equity for marginalized student populations and whether the district designed policies or programs specifically for students of color in order to eliminate achievement gaps. This study found aligned practices and beliefs at both the district and school level. Findings included a shared understanding of goals and daily practices to achieve the goal. There were expectations in place to observe implementation as well as reliable structures to communicate about goals to maintain a focus on priorities. This project also aimed to learn whether these same practices were engaged if there were initiatives in place to attain equitable outcomes when working with specific marginalized populations. This study found consistency throughout the organization of a resistance to focusing on race. This resistance materialized in the form of taking a color-blind approach to instruction. This approach is in direct contrast to practices called for in the literature for meeting the needs of all students, especially students of color. Recommendations include taking courageous steps as a district by engaging transformational and social justice leadership practices to create an organization that is responsive to the needs of students of color.