| The purpose of the study was to determine whether there were relationships between Texas high school principals' initial level of teacher certification, gender, ethnicity, or years of principal experience and campus scores on state accountability measures, such as overall accountability rating, campus scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) exam, campus completion rates, campus attendance rates, and campus teacher retention rates. The study also examined how principals' self-perceptions of leadership effectiveness were associated with the four principal characteristics mentioned.; Participants included 351 high school principals from school districts across the State of Texas. High schools represented all areas of the state, and included schools of varied sizes and demographic characteristics.; The quantitative study used a causal-comparative approach to describe relationships between the variables. The independent variables, Texas high school principals' initial level of teacher certification, gender, ethnicity, and years of principal experience, were collected through self-reported demographic questions on the survey instrument. One set of dependent variables, the principals' scores of effective leadership, were measured with the eight sections of the Effective Urban School Principal Behaviors (EUSPB) survey. A second set of dependent variables, the campus accountability measures, were collected from the Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) through the Texas Education Agency's (TEA) web-site, with the exception of teacher retention rate, which was self-reported by principals on the demographic portion of the survey instrument. Two separate four-factor Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) tests were conducted to analyze main and interaction effects of the independent variables upon either set of dependent variables. The level of significance to reject the research hypotheses was set at .05.; Results of the analyses showed no significant relationship between any of the independent variables and the principals' scores on the eight sections of the EUSPB survey instrument. Results of the analyses showed no significant relationships between any of the independent variables and the campus's overall accountability rating, campus completion rates, and campus teacher retention rates. However, significant relationships between the principals' ethnicity and both the campus' TAKS scores and attendance rates were shown to exist. |
