| In an effort to enhance student achievement in reading, many high schools have integrated instructional literacy coaches into the teaching staff to provide support for the English teachers. The purpose of this quantitative, correlational study was to explore the relationship between the self-reported servant leadership practices used by instructional literacy coaches, the perceived level of servant leadership reported by collaborating English teachers, and student achievement. The site for this study was a public school district in Texas. Fifteen instructional literacy coaches and 100 English teachers completed the Servant Leadership Assessment Instrument (SLAI), which provided the instrumentation for this study. The results of the SLAI were examined in relation to student achievement data on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS). No statistically significant correlation was found between instructional literacy coaches' self-reported servant leadership, language arts teachers' perceptions of their literacy coach's servant leadership behaviors and student achievement. However, an exploratory analysis of Hypothesis 2 indicated that, while there was no significant correlation in SLAI scores between instructional literacy coaches and English teachers, there was a difference in servant leadership behaviors self-reported by instructional literacy coaches and teacher-reported servant leadership behaviors and practices of literacy coaches. This research has implications for educational leadership practice, as educators can use insights from this study to explore appropriate models of leadership and reform as they work to improve student achievement. |
