CHAPTER ONE ORIENTATION TO THE RESEARCH STUDY 1.1 Introduction The focus on school effectiveness has assumed a pivotal role in educational discourse over the past decade in many countries (Reynolds, Teddlie, Creemers, Scheerens and Townsend, 2000:3). The intense interest in school effectiveness through research and in policy could be seen as an impetus for school improvement. Sammons (2006:4) posits that the interest in school effectiveness research and school improvement is an attempt to raise educational standards. The key concern in this study was to determine how schools can be effective in the competitive arena of education through the measurement of matric results while being unequally positioned due to social circumstances. Christie, Butler …show more content…
1.2.2 Aims of the study This study focused on the investigation of the critical factors that contributed to school effectiveness in a disadvantaged community. The aims of this study were twofold: The first aim was to understand what makes a school in a disadvantaged community effective. The second aim of the study was to develop a model which can be used by ineffective schools to achieve a status of effectiveness. I am of the opinion that research exploring the critical factors contributing to school effectiveness will inform school leaders, teachers and policymakers about the issues impacting on school effectiveness in a disadvantaged community. I am hopeful that the information from this thesis would inform the above stakeholders and result in an increased improvement of academic achievement in disadvantaged communities. 1.3 Research questions In considering the aims of the study, the following research questions were posed: • What are the critical factors contributing to school effectiveness using matric results as the yardstick, in disadvantaged
“The intent behind closing these gaps is to break the connection between race or family income and achievement while at the same time continuing to improve the performance of the top students. ”(28) Gaps between race and wealth have always been issues in schools. Historically, children living in poverty are more likely to score lower on tests than those
Year Round School Many schools have switched to year round schooling. In fact, there are 3,181 schools in the Michigan. With that 10% of those schools are public schools. Also, many schools with year round school have had high test scores and better rates. In year round school kids are showing more success and more understanding.
Despite an increase of education scores in the past decade, the United States still trenches behind many countries. Scores found in the Programme for International Student Assessment, the most popular cross sectional test, finds that the United State ranks thirty-eight out of seventy-one countries in test performances of english, math and science literary. But within the country itself contains a deeper issue. The term “achievement gap” is used to describe the polarity between the academic performances of minorities, such as Black and Hispanics, to those of Asians and White students; which are found to be much lower than the latter. Besides test scores, this achievement gap is most apparent in grades and drop-out rates as well.
Over the past three decades’ educational leadership has been in search of ways to increase student literacy in urban middle schools in the southeast sections of the District of Columbia. The quest to closing achievement gaps in urban school districts have and will always be an on-going issue for educational leadership (Daly & Chrispells, 2008). Findings from research studies suggest that school leadership accounts for fully one quarter of total school effects on pupils, making it second only to classroom instruction among school-based factors affecting student achievement (Leithwood, Louis, Anderson & Wahlstrom, 2004). There are certain challenges that middle school principals face that pertain only to these middle school principals due to
A child is struggling to learn at his/ school. He is more of a visual learner, like learning with pictures and shapes in front of him. His school, however, does not have the power and funding to do such things for him, which leaves him struggling and get bad grades. Now, why does he have to struggle in a school system which can’t even support his learning style?
Research shows that schools such as Fishers High School have high graduation rates due to its curriculum, opportunity and staff of highly regarded teachers, but there 's always a percentage of students getting left behind. It’s something uncontrollable as of now, but who is this group? People with lower social status and more of the minorities than the white majority. Low income students and its correlates, such as lower education, poverty and poor health, ultimately affect our society as a whole. Inequities in wealth distribution, resource distribution and quality of life are increasing in the United States and globally.
Mike Rose, in his excerpt from Why School?, questions the reliability of the educational system and its key focus on economic readiness. He states that schools stress the importance of economics, accountability, and compliance over previously sought over qualities like curiosity, intellect, and courage. Rose argues that education is spread mainly due to economic motivation; money motivates society more than dreams and desires. This economic focus is combined with assessments to calculate the number of students who do poorly in school and weed them out. Rose believes the economic motive merged with this assessment restricts what should be the main focus of school: development.
Martha Peraza SOC 3340 Inequality in Education California State University, Bakersfield Abstract In the United States, there exists a gap in equality for different demographics of students. The factors contributing to educational disadvantages include socioeconomic struggles, gender of students, language or culture, and particularly for the scope of this paper, race.
The injustices in inner city schools push the achievement gap farther apart. The community must act to help narrow the achievement gap, and provide the kids attending these schools to a fair opportunity to succeed. Current education in inner city schools lacks resources needed to push children to achieve at their
and it made me feel like a can make a difference in the world, even if it is only one child at a time. 6. Theory and Knowledge It is evident that the school environment and the educators has a major impact on learners development and their behavior throughout their schooling career, however most theorist agree that there are a lot of external factors and the learners environment that has the most impact on them. Bradbury (2007) links the family environment as well as the environment they find themselves in economically to be of utmost importance in the development of the child.
After school, from 3 to 6 p.m, is a critical period of time in a child’s life. After school programs help keep kids safe and inspire them to learn during that period of time. After school programs are organized programs that youth can participate in outside of a traditional school day. Enrolling children in after school programs would provide them with benefits that unenrolled children would not receive, such as reduce risky behavior and promote physical health. After school programs provide a safe environment for children, while positively impacting their academics, safety, and their future.
Albert Einstein once said, "Everybody is a genius... But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid". Unfortunately, most school systems depict this quote. They judge a significant amount of the population by their ability to answer a few questions. They rate them with letters and numbers, and force students to be represented by these letters and numbers for the rest of their lives.
Why the school system is bad - Arshia Education is very important for everyone and it will only get more important. Schooling is just plain bad. It used to serve a purpose, like the heart in a person 's body, but now it is basically just boring students more and more. Nowadays at the end of the day, we all just want to go home.
The study is anchored on the theory of educational productivity by Herbert J. Walberg. Walberg’s theory tackles about the influences on learning that affects the academic performance of a student. It is an exploration of academic achievement wherein Walberg used a variety of methods on how to identify the factors that affects the academic performance of a student. He analyzed his theory with the help of different theorists and integrated his study with over 3000 studies. In his theory, he classified 11 influential domains of variables, 8 of them were affected by social-emotional influences namely, classroom management, parental support, student-teacher interactions, social-behavioral attributes, motivational-effective attributes, the peer
A child is struggling to learn at his/ school. He is more of a visual learner, like learning with pictures and shapes in front of him. His school, however, does not have the power and funding to do such things for him, which leaves him struggling and get bad grades. Now, why does he have to struggle in a school system which can’t even support his learning style?