Low-performing Schools Research Articles

Improving Academic Standard of Low-Performing Adolescents: A Delphi Study

The Indian educational landscape, marked by infrastructure limitations and disparities in educator quality and school types, presents an opportunity for equitable education enhancement. This study employs the Delphi method to identify effective learning strategies for teacher training and policy considerations. Initially, 57 experts provided opinions on strategies for academically low-performing adolescents. Subsequently, 25 experts ranked these strategies’ importance using a Likert scale. In an independent round, 50 new experts with teaching experience shared insights into strategies implemented for low-performing school adolescents. Of 38 proposed strategies short-listed in the first round, experts strongly recommended 21, yet educators implemented only nine. Notably, strategies supported by existing literature and strongly endorsed by experts, such as experiential learning, reading aloud, and independent thinking, remain unimplemented. This absence could impede adolescents’ knowledge and hinder academic success. Integrating evidence-based strategies into the curriculum could enhance low-performing adolescents’ academic performance, career prospects, and life satisfaction.

Investigating Blended Leadership Dynamics: Analysing Transformational, Transactional, Laissez-Faire, and Instructional Approaches in High and Low Achieving Secondary Schools in Ethiopia

This study delves into the leadership practices within secondary schools in the Gedeo Zone, with a specific focus on those achieving high performance. Employing an embedded mixed research design, the study selected four high-performing and eight low-performing schools. Data collection methods encompassed surveys, document analysis, focus group discussions, and interviews, engaging 48 principals, 311 teachers, 6 senior teachers, and 7 supervisors, totaling 372 participants. Statistical analyses including regression, correlation, and independent t-tests, coupled with thematic analysis, were utilized. Both qualitative and quantitative findings indicate notable differences in leadership practices between high-performing and low-performing schools, with principals in high-performing schools demonstrating a blended approach of instructional and transformational leadership styles. Positive correlations emerged between principal effectiveness, employee effort, and satisfaction, linked to the adoption of instructional and transformational leadership styles. Regression analysis suggested that blended leadership styles positively impact academic achievement in high-performing schools but may have adverse effects in low-performing schools due to insufficient implementation of such leadership styles. The study proposes that principals in Gedeo Zone's secondary schools adopt a blended leadership approach, incorporating full-range and instructional models to enhance school performance. Additionally, the education department in the zone is encouraged to arrange workshops integrating full-range and instructional leadership practices. Received: 11 March 2024 / Accepted: 29 October 2024 / Published: 05 November 2024

Assessing Equity and Emotional Wellbeing: A Critical Look at NAPLAN in Australian Schools

The National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is a pivotal educational reform in Australia that aims to assess students' literacy and numeracy skills. Since its introduction in 2008, NAPLAN has sparked significant debate regarding its effectiveness and equity. This paper critically examines the promises and pitfalls of NAPLAN, focusing on its impact on educational equity, the socio-emotional well-being of students, and school management practices. While NAPLAN is designed to address inequalities and improve educational outcomes, research suggests that it may inadvertently exacerbate disparities between schools, particularly affecting students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Furthermore, the high-stakes nature of the test can induce anxiety among students and educators, particularly in low-performing schools. This paper also includes a case study of Croydon Community School, an alternative secondary school in Melbourne, to illustrate the diverse impacts of NAPLAN on student performance, socio-educational advantage, and cultural diversity. In conclusion, while NAPLAN provides valuable data on student performance, it must be complemented by broader assessment practices and policies that prioritize diversity and inclusion to fully address its limitations.

The Impact of Technology Induced Professional Development Model on Coaching and Mentoring of Teachers

The paper assessed the impact of technology-enhanced coaching and mentoring on the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) of teachers. It examined leveraging technology to build mentors’ capacity, support mentees, and improve learning outcomes even with limited resources. The study explored the feasibility and effectiveness of a technology-enhanced training model in promoting CPD for mentors and enhancing teacher competencies in low-performing schools. A cross-sectional survey design was used, with questionnaires collecting data from 500 school improvement support officers (SISOs) in Ghana, selected through quota sampling. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results indicated that technology stimulates teachers’ curiosity, intrinsic motivation, learning quality, and creative thinking. The study also found that technology-induced CPD is cheaper in the long term compared to traditional face-to-face models. However, many teachers face issues with internet connectivity and high data consumption, hindering access to online content despite having smart devices. The study recommends deliberate capacity building for teachers to improve their skills in accessing technology-enhanced CPD. It also suggests collaboration between governments, educational institutions, telecommunication companies, and internet service providers to make internet connectivity accessible and affordable. Exploring zero-rated data for teachers to access relevant content is also recommended. Keywords: Technology, motor learning outcome, teacher professional development, model

External facilitators’ practical work for school improvement: de-professionalising or developing improvement capacity?

AbstractThis article explores external facilitation for school improvement; more specifically, it examines the practical work of external facilitators. It is based on a Swedish case in which facilitators at the Swedish National Agency for Education support low-performing schools. The article aims to develop knowledge about how external facilitators in their practical work both promote and prevent developed understanding and improvement capacity. Based on observations and documents, facilitators’ endeavours and critical situations in their work to support school improvement are identified. The findings show five different endeavours to promote development of understanding and improvement capacity. However, they also show how taking ownership, simplification, and model focus, three of five identified recurring critical situations, prevent such development. The conclusion is that there are several aspects for external facilitators to balance to promote school improvement and turn around low-performing schools. When planning for external facilitation, it is important to consider how the facilitators’ practical work can be adapted to the local contexts of those who are facilitated in order to promote their ownership of the processes. Without balance and adaptation, external facilitation can lead to deprofessionalisation instead of development of improvement capacity.

We’re all just looking at the stars; how behavioral economics helps us understand the barriers to education programming in Tanzania

PurposeWe’re all just looking at the stars; how behavioral economics helps us understand the barriers to education programming in Tanzania.Design/methodology/approachThis article uses a qualitative approach to explore the behaviorally normed barriers to quality classroom instruction that contribute towards low learning outcomes. Themed text analysis was applied to qualitative secondary data from seventeen classroom observations and teacher interviews collected from low-performing schools in rural Tanzania.FindingsIt was found that teachers in poor-performing schools in Tanzania were focused on the delivery of curriculum and pedagogy, with a misplaced belief that their pupils were performing adequately. The study found no evidence of teacher resistance to change; instead, the teachers were content and often happy to implement the reading program, believing that teaching phonics-based instruction improved their teaching approach. Teachers sought confirmation of their quality instructional practice from convenient yet inaccurate sources that did not include effective pupil assessment.Research limitations/implicationsAs a result of the chosen research approach, findings may lack generalizability.Practical implicationsWhile existing models of teacher change rely on logic and reason for decision-making, this paper provides evidence that teacher models of change are much more complex and irrational, aligned more closely with insights from behavioral economics (BE). Additionally, this paper justifies that traditional research frameworks that study what works provide an incomplete picture to support effective program improvement.Originality/valueThe application of behavioral economics to research and education programming focused on reducing the restraining forces rather than pushing incentives and other program components.

Principal Support for Teacher Vitality: An Empirical Analysis in Low-Performing Schools

This article draws on a teacher survey (n = 789) to examine the relationship between teacher vitality and two conversational approaches—transformative leadership conversation and controlling conversation. The analyses use latent structural equation modelling. The sample is restricted to teachers in schools with an accountability rating of “low performing” so that principal/teacher conversations can be examined in schools that potentially have the most to gain from strong teacher vitality. Results indicate that the use of transformative leadership conversation had a direct positive relationship with teacher vitality (β = .26) and an indirect relationship (β = .22) with it through teacher need satisfaction. Controlling conversation had a negative relationship with teacher vitality, but it did not have a statistically significant relationship with need satisfaction.

Depending on the kindness of strangers: the affective dimension of inspection visits to low-performing schools in Chile

ABSTRACT School inspections constitute a common instrument of Performance-Based Accountability (PBA) policies but are rarely studied beyond its effects on practices and results. This paper examines inspection from an affective perspective through a qualitative case study of three low-performing schools in Chile, exploring to what extent the emotions and relationship between inspectors and school leaders encourage school actors to make sense of performance feedback received during inspections visit between 2016 and 2019. Results suggest that the affective and cognitive responses to performance evaluation of schools, together with the emotional and relational aspects of the inspection visit, influence the extent to which school leaders made sense of and translated the recommendations offered by inspectors into their improvement strategy, identifying kindness as a main affective force mediating sensemaking from school actors. Finally, we discuss the implications of employing the affective dimension as a novel way of understanding processes of policymaking in education.

Online teaching, gender differences and education outcomes: Evidence from Chinese urban high schools during the COVID-19

We examine the short- and medium-term impacts of online teaching during COVID-19 on the academic performance of high school freshmen, employing unique data from three high schools of different academic performance levels in Zhejiang Province, China. We find that relative to the cohort not affected by COVID-19 and experiencing no online teaching in their freshman year, online teaching had short-term negative effects on Chinese performance in the high-performing school and math performance in the mid-performing school but no significant effects on other tests and in the low-performing school. The negative effects disappeared eight months after students returned to traditional classroom teaching, and students in the high-performing school indeed experienced a significant positive effect in math performance. Moreover, following online teaching, girls in key classes in the high-performing school performed better in math in both the short and medium term, significantly narrowing the math performance gap with their male classmates, while boys in the low-performing school experienced significant declines in both Chinese and math in the medium term.

TIMSS vs. PISA: what can they tell us about student success?—a comparison of Swedish and Norwegian TIMSS and PISA 2015 results with a focus on school factors

This paper explores the measurement capabilities of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in assessing school factors that influence student performance. We specifically focus on the 2015 assessments of the science performance of eighth graders in Sweden and Norway. This was the latest year when the two assessments were conducted in the same year and science was the major subject area in the PISA assessment, which was essential for maximizing the assessments’ comparability. Using multilevel models, the study identifies common and unique factors across the assessments and investigates the factors that influence student performance at different proficiency levels. The findings highlight the importance of school-level factors, which are significant in both assessments. Moreover, both assessments provide information on overlapping sets of factors that have varying influence on the performance of students with different proficiency levels. Overall, there are limited common factors between TIMSS and PISA. School factors vary between low-performing and high-performing schools, with differing significance in Norway and Sweden. The results indicate that TIMSS and PISA assessments offer complementary information, particularly for low-performing schools. Our findings suggest that different school types may benefit or suffer from distinct school factors. The findings are relevant for both educational professionals and policy-makers.

Assessment of Variance in Learning Competencies among Seven Elementary Schools: Implications for NAT Results and Academic Performance

Understanding the variance in learning competencies among elementary schools is crucial for informing teaching practices and educational policies. Preserving national standards while supplementing them with a comprehensive framework, including 21st-century learning skills, supports students' holistic development. This study aims to identify key factors influencing academic performance, informing targeted interventions to ensure a high-quality education for all students. This research analyzes Grade Six students' learning competencies in Baclayon District for the School Years 2013-2014 and 2014-2015, focusing on NAT results in Filipino. Seven elementary schools participated, and statistical analysis assesses the correlation between teaching materials, methods, and language used in teaching and students' academic performance in Filipino. The study analyzes the performance of Grade Six students in the National Achievement Test (NAT) in Filipino over two school years across seven elementary schools in Baclayon District. Significant differences between students' proficiency in Filipino and their NAT results were found in most schools, indicating a decline in performance from 2013-2014 to 2014-2015. However, no significant variances in learning competencies were observed across schools and years, despite variations in mean scores. The mean scores decreased across all low-performing schools in Baclayon District in the School Year 2014-2015, with six out of seven schools scoring below the 75% passing rate. This decline highlights the need for curriculum review and teacher training, particularly in comprehension and critical thinking. Targeted interventions are urgently required to address the decline in academic outcomes, especially in the Filipino subject.

Relationship between selected teaching cultures and student academic achievement in secondary schools in Nakuru County, Kenya

The aim of this study was to find out the relationship between selected teaching cultures and academic achievement in the KCSE examination in secondary schools in Nakuru County, Kenya. This study was guided by the theories of educational productivity and organisational culture. The study adopted the descriptive survey design. The target population was comprised of all KCSE 2021 candidates and all principals of secondary schools in the county. The study used an outlier approach and a multistage sampling technique. The sample size consisted of 2214 students and 80 principals of schools. The study found a positive relationship between teaching culture and student academic performance in both low and high-performing Kenyan schools. Low-performing schools show a moderately positive correlation (r = 0.450, p = 0.006), while high-performing schools exhibit a notably strong positive correlation (r = 0.846, p = 0.000). This suggests that the impact of teaching culture on student academic achievement is more pronounced in high-performing schools. In public secondary schools, the correlation is moderately positive (r = 0.458), and in private secondary schools, it's a stronger positive correlation (r = 0.724), with both being statistically significant at the 0.05 level. The study recommends that the school management should consider organising in-service training sessions to equip the teachers with appropriate skills on how to effectively embrace teaching cultures, consider putting stringent measures to ensure the emplacement of student disciplinary cultures and consider investing in student motivation cultures that enhance student academic achievement.

The Effects of School Accountability on Teachers in Public and Private Schools: Evidence from Chile

Abstract This paper estimates the effects of a school accountability policy on year-to-year teacher mobility in publicly and privately managed low-performing schools in Chile. As school ranking depends on the institution's relative position according to a set of variables and their corresponding thresholds, we use a multivariate regression discontinuity design to evaluate the impact of the policy on teacher mobility. Our findings reveal that teachers are generally more likely to leave low-performing schools, although this result varies by type of management. Teachers in public schools tend to transfer to other schools within the system, and those who do so are more likely to be working in two or more schools. Meanwhile, teachers in private schools are comparatively more likely to exit the system altogether, with mobility concentrated among low-productivity teachers. Despite these differences, the introduction of accountability did not induce new hires at either type of school.

‘Failing to progress’ or not being supported to make progress? Examining variability in reading

Background: By Grade 4, learners should be able to read fluently and comprehend reading materials at their grade level. However, many learners in Africa, particularly in the Namibian context, seem to go through the primary phase with poor reading skills.Aim: This article examines the overall reading growth of Grade 5 learners, and then disaggregates performance according to grade age level and older Grade 5 learners in intervention and control schools.Setting: Data for this study were collected from four low performing schools in the Zambezi Region of north-eastern Namibia.Methods: Data are drawn from a quasi-experimental study in which teachers in intervention schools were provided with ongoing support over 4 months to enhance their content and pedagogical knowledge about reading, with the ultimate goal of improving Grade 5 learners’ reading outcomes.Results: While reading scores were generally low across the schools, differential effects in terms of age clearly emerged. Significant differences emerged between grade-appropriate age groups (10 and 11-year-olds) and older learners (12–16-year-olds) in all the assessments, with older learners, expected to be cognitively more mature, showing the least progress. The results also showed better progress across age groups in intervention schools than in control schools.Conclusion: The findings indicate that explicit reading instructional practices can lead to significant gains in reading even among learners showing low reading scores in poor schooling contexts.Contribution: This study contributes to the knowledge of the factors that influence reading progress and learning among children in low-performing schools in low socioeconomic contexts.

Trends in arts education in United States public schools from 1988–2018

There is scant evidence on the level of arts education available in U.S. public schools and how this has changed over time. In this paper, I present new evidence on broad trends in arts education in U.S. public schools from 1988 through 2018 using nationally representative data from the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and the National Teachers and Principals Survey (NTPS) and administrative data from North Carolina. Both the SASS/NTPS and North Carolina data cover several school years after the Every Student Succeeds Act was passed in 2015, which may have impacted arts education. I first calculate the percentage of full-time teachers whose main teaching assignment is in the arts. In the aggregate, about 5.5% of public school teachers are arts teachers, and this has been stable for decades. There are substantial regional differences that have also changed little. I also find substantial and persistent differences by school characteristics: Schools with higher percentages of both Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) and low-income students consistently have a lower percentage of full-time arts teachers than other schools. I also examine of school-level and student-level trends in arts access using administrative data from North Carolina from 1998–2013. I find narrowing gaps in the presence of licensed art teachers between low-performing schools and other schools, and high-BIPOC schools and other schools. I also assess access to the arts at the student level from 2007–2018. I find narrowing gaps in arts enrollment between White students and Black and Hispanic students, consistent with the school-level trends I report. This descriptive evidence from both national and North Carolina data improves our understanding of how arts have been prioritized by schools in recent decades and highlights gaps in access students have had to the arts over time.

Leading organisational learning in disadvantaged, low-performing Chilean schools: adaptation and innovation in times of disruption

ABSTRACT The crisis caused by COVID-19 disrupted education worldwide and intensified the difficulties faced by disadvantaged and low-performing schools, with school leaders playing a key role in developing capacity for organisational learning to face this challenge. Through a qualitative case study, this article explores how leaders of three Chilean schools, with support from external ministry advisors, developed adaptations and innovation in response to the disruption to ensure educational continuity, employing the perspective of absorptive capacity to identify, assimilate, and take advantage of information from external agents. Findings suggest that, during the pandemic, schools faced complex problems related with the disadvantage of their communities and their proposed solutions to these problems were mediated by their internal organisational conditions, the characteristics of external support agents and their interaction. The study discusses how school leaders can develop capacity for organisational learning with support from external agents to lead in disruptive times. Likewise, absorptive capacity provides a framework that facilitates the understanding of the factors that influence the opportunities for generating such adaptive solutions in disadvantaged and low-performing schools, while highlighting the importance of considering schools as part of an ecosystem that can enhance their capacity for improvement.

Management Discourse Analysis of High- and Low-Efficacy Schools: A Comparative Study of Factors Influencing School Performance

Offering an efficient, egalitarian, and quality education is an agreed-upon goal in society that aims to guarantee upwards social mobility. For this reason, the objectives of this article are to determine how Andalusian primary schools with high and low efficiency rate their own performance, and to study in depth the factors that favour or hinder academic performance in these schools. To this end, 50 interviews were conducted with school management teams based on the ESCALA test scores. Analysis of the informants’ discourse on educational performance shows that high-performing schools are evaluated in terms of learning standards, while low-performing schools are compared with other schools that are considered similar. It is concluded that low-performing schools perform much more poorly than high-performing schools, failing to provide quality and equal education to the whole school population and perpetuating social divides. Additionally, both types of schools overlook intrinsic factors that have a negative impact on academic performance. It is necessary for them to adopt a self-critical attitude that allows them to identify room for improvement and demand necessary support.

Teachers Are Not Lemons: An Examination of Spillover Effects When Teachers Transfer Away From Turnaround Schools

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, whole-school reforms will continue to be a prominent strategy for improving student outcomes in low-performing schools. As reform models have proliferated, so has research evaluating the impact in reform schools. However, previous evaluations have rarely examined unintended spillover effects in nonreform schools. With data from Tennessee, this study uses difference-in-differences models to estimate spillover effects from teachers who transfer when their school begins implementing turnaround reforms. Results show that teachers who transfer tend to be less effective than teachers who stay, and they tend to move into nearby schools that are themselves low-performing. However, after transferring, these teachers produce modest positive spillover effects on student test scores in nonreform schools, which is likely explained by improvements in their effectiveness. Moreover, I find that working with more effective peers is a likely mechanism to explain improved teacher effectiveness after they transfer. Overall, this study draws attention to the need for future educational policy evaluations that quantify both intended and unintended spillover effects.

Matthew Effect and Achievement Gap in Rwandan Basic Education

Education is considered a vital cog in a country’s economic engine in terms of training, research and development. Accordingly, a formal education system remains a mode of rationing opportunities, differentiation and the allocation of individuals into various positions within a society’s social stratification structure. Certainly, the obtainment of educational credentials has been linked to occupational, trajectory, income, and attendant life chances. In light of this, the achievement gap remains an important issue since an education provided in a more equal and equitable manner could be an important tool to bridge the gap between the rich and poor citizens within a country. This study aimed to ascertain the Matthew effect and its contribution to students’ academic achievement gap in the basic education schools of Rwanda. The study was guided by descriptive and correlational research design, stratified and systematic random sampling as well as purposive sampling were used to select 350 participants, including 51.4% males and 48.6% females, mostly aged 30 to 40 years. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through questionnaire and interviews. The collected data were descriptively analysed using IBM-SPSS 21. The study established that socio-economically disadvantaged students mostly enrol in under-resourced and low-performing schools i.e. public and government-aided schools. Furthermore, the study identified that private and international school students outperform their counterparts enrolled in public or government-aided schools. Moreover, a significant (p-value .011) low degree of positive correlation (r= .159) was established between the students’ academic achievement and their parents’ socio-economic category. In conclusion, the Rwandan aim of ensuring access to quality, equitable and effective education for all is facing a bleak foreseeable future due to the existing academic achievement gap influenced by the Matthew effect. Recommendations were therefore formulated with a view to eradicating the Matthew effect in the basic education schools of Rwanda.

The effects of performance-based school closure and restart on student performance

We study the effects of closing and restarting low-performing schools as charter schools in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Using matched difference-in-differences identification with students in Louisiana, we estimate effects for the students who attended the treated schools at the time of treatment. We find positive and precise effects of closure/restart on elementary/middle school test scores, but no clear effects on high school graduation or college entry in New Orleans. However, in Baton Rouge high schools, the interventions reduced high school graduation by 11–15 percentage points. We also provide evidence about how and why these effects emerge. The variation in test score effects within and across cities is positively related to the increase in school value-added that treated students experienced and negatively related to student age/grade and the extent of student disruption. The effects of school closure and restart therefore depend, predictably, on policy design and implementation. This work builds on prior closure/restart research and helps explain the positive effects of the post-Katrina school reforms in New Orleans.