Purpose: This study examines the influence of principal leadership in high schools on classroom instruction and student achievement through key organizational factors, including professional capaci...

The Influence of Principal Leadership on Classroom Instruction and Student Learning A Study of Mediated Pathways to Learning

An update on adolescent sleep: New evidence informing the perfect storm model.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recognizes insufficient sleep in adolescents as an important public health issue that significantly affects the health and safety, as well as the academic success, of our nation’s middle and high school students. Although a number of factors, including biological changes in sleep associated with puberty, lifestyle choices, and academic demands, negatively affect middle and high school students’ ability to obtain sufficient sleep, the evidence strongly implicates earlier school start times (ie, before 8:30 am) as a key modifiable contributor to insufficient sleep, as well as circadian rhythm disruption, in this population. Furthermore, a substantial body of research has now demonstrated that delaying school start times is an effective countermeasure to chronic sleep loss and has a wide range of potential benefits to students with regard to physical and mental health, safety, and academic achievement. The American Academy of Pediatrics strongly supports the efforts of school districts to optimize sleep in students and urges high schools and middle schools to aim for start times that allow students the opportunity to achieve optimal levels of sleep (8.5–9.5 hours) and to improve physical (eg, reduced obesity risk) and mental (eg, lower rates of depression) health, safety (eg, drowsy driving crashes), academic performance, and quality of life.

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School start times for adolescents

Principals’ instructional leadership may support the degree to which teachers work together to improve instruction, and together leadership and teacher collaboration may contribute to school effectiveness by strengthening collective efficacy beliefs. We found a significant direct effect of leadership on teacher collaboration. Further, leadership and collaboration predicted collective efficacy beliefs. Finally, achievement differences among schools were predicted directly by collective efficacy beliefs and indirectly by instructional leadership and teacher collaboration. These findings suggest that strong instructional leadership can create structures to facilitate teachers’ work in ways that strengthen organizational belief systems, and, in concert, these factors foster student learning.

A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of the Roles of Instructional Leadership, Teacher Collaboration, and Collective Efficacy Beliefs in Support of Student Learning.

Sleep in adolescence: physiology, cognition and mental health

Using survey responses from a national sample of US teachers, this paper provides insight into 2 questions: (1) Do 3 specific attributes of leadership behavior – the sharing of leadership with teachers, the development of trust relationships among professionals, and the provision of support for instructional improvement – affect teachers' work with each other and their classroom practices? and (2) Do the behaviors of school leaders contribute to student achievement? We tie this investigation of school leader behaviors to 2 additional factors that have also received increasing attention in research because they have been shown to be related to student achievement: professional community and the quality of classroom instruction. Our analysis provides an empirical test of the notion that leadership variables are positively related to student learning. It also suggests that both shared and instructionally focused leadership are complementary approaches for improving schools.

How Does Leadership Affect Student Achievement? Results from a National US Survey.

This study was funded primarily by a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, GA. Additional funding was also provided by Teton County School District, Jackson Hole, WY.

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Examining the Impact of Later High School Start Times on the Health and Academic Performance of High School Students: A Multi-Site Study

Key Message: Statistics with Microsoft Excel, Fourth Edition shows readers how to use Microsoft Excel to perform statistical analysis. This step-by-step guide has been updated to cover the new features and new interface of Excel 2007. Key Topics: Getting Started; Entering, Editing, and Recoding Information; Formulas; Frequency Distributions; Descriptive Statistics; Probability Distributions; Testing Hypotheses About One Sample Means; Testing Hypotheses About the Difference Between Two Means; Analysis of Variance; Correlation; Regression; Cross Tabulations; Random Samples MARKET:For a variety of disciplines, including mathematics, the social sciences, and business. This book will be useful for data analysts and all readers who wish to use Excel to record, manipulate, and analyze their data.

Statistics with Microsoft Excel

This study examined the roles and responsibilities of family liaisons working in urban schools with enrollments characterized by high poverty, high mobility, and ethnic diversity. Results indicated...

Beverly Dretzke

Papers

How Does Leadership Affect Student Achievement? Results from a National US Survey.

Examining the Impact of Later High School Start Times on the Health and Academic Performance of High School Students: A Multi-Site Study

Statistics with Microsoft Excel

The Family Liaison Position in High-Poverty, Urban Schools:

What Do K-12 Teachers Think about Including Student Surveys in Their Performance Ratings?.