A descriptive study of the effect of traditional and year-round calendars, socio-economic status, and teacher tenure status on student achievement in two rural school systems in Tennessee

This study examined the relationship between student achievement on different academic calendars in mathematics and reading as measured by the Tennessee Comprehensive Examination over a three year period. The sample group consisted of 244 students enrolled in two different school systems utilizing two different academic calendars. All schools involved in the study were classified as high poverty as well as rural and had small enrollments. The variables examined were academic calendar configuration, status of qualification for the National School Lunch Program, and the tenure status of the teachers. Six hypotheses were tested using independent sample t-tests. Analyses showed that significant differences existed between low socio-economic and non-low socioeconomic groups in mathematics and reading. Significant differences of <.05 existed between the groups, which suggested that the entry level scores of low socio-economic students were lower and remained lower than more affluent counter parts over the three year testing period.