Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1988

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Major

Educational Administration and Supervision

Major Professor

Charles M. Achilles

Committee Members

Patricia A. Beitel, Norma T. Mertz, Frederick P. Venditti

Abstract

Assertions that America's schools cannot make a difference in the performance of low socio-economic children have generated many efforts to identify characteristics of effective schools that can indeed make a difference. Focusing on grade-eight students, this study examined the effectiveness of the Knoxville City Schools (KCS) Proficiency Project to improve pupil performance on basic skills in three inner-city high schools and their feeder middle schools. KCS employed curriculum alignment and administered "high-stakes" criterion-referenced tests in middle school and state mandated proficiency tests in grade nine each year.

Study design was quasi-experimental and ex post facto. The literature review, previous evaluation reports on the Project at grade nine, interviews with the Director, and statistical analyses of test scores were sources of information. Project interventions were compared with generally accepted effective schools charateristics; the Project included most elements of effective schools except strong administrative leadership and school climate. Three teachers (all LA specialists) were assigned one high school and its feeder middle school. Their function, similar to that of second-change facilitators with some elements of peer coaching, was to implement the Project in their respective schools.

Samples were drawn from grade-eight pupils who had pretest and posttest scores in both language arts (LA) and math (M) and who received free or reduced cost lunch. Pupil scores on Basic Skills Tests were compared between samples (.95 confidence level) of target and non-target schools. The Project appeared to be successful in improving grade-eight LA scores, but not M scores.

Application of regression and the Pearson Product Moment Correlation to test scores of the same students at gradeeight and grade-nine levels indicated that performance on the Basic Skills Tests served as a success indicator on the Proficiency Tests. The correlation was moderately high in M and moderately high to high in LA. The Project appeared to be more successful in the high schools than the middle schools. Possible reasons for this occurrence were (1) difficulty of material, (2) misalignment between middle and high school curricula, particularly in M, and (3) the areas of expertise of the Proficiency Teachers.

This study supports the following ideas: (1) central office support is important to school improvement; (2) leadership for change and improvement can be supplied by personnel other than the principal; and (3) school improvement programs are situational.

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