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. This study identified and explored the actions that a principal in a high performing, urban school that served a historically marginalized population took to facilitate high-quality learning experience for students. This study reviewed documents and interviewed school and district level personnel to learn whether or not the school leader engaged in certain practices. The study found that the school leader engaged in many practices that facilitate a high-quality learning experience including monitoring instruction, assessment and curriculum, as well as maintaining a safe and orderly environment. Recommendations from this study include considering the diversity of students’ backgrounds as a source of strength and not something to be ignored.