A Study of the Relationships of Teachers' Perceptions of Principals' "effectiveness" and Students' Achievement

This study is being conducted in two very large, urban school districts: One in the New England area and one in the midwest. The 24-item (plus two demographic items), data-gathering instrument was developed during the 2012-13 academic year based on literature dealing with intrinsic motivational criteria and bullies in the workplace. The data-gathering instrument (Teacher Perception Survey) was also developed using teacher resource groups and currently is in its 8th iteration. In some ways this project also replicates Gallup Organization research as presented in Buckingham & Coffman's "First, Break All The Rules: What The World's Greatest Managers Do Differently" In that research it was found that employee opinions (perceptions) could predict lesser or greater unit achievement. Gallup findings also included that the unit manager had a greater impact on unit achievement than did the CEO of the organization. In the school setting, this translates to the principal having a greater impact than the superintendent or school board. During a regular faculty meeting in either February or March 2014 teachers will respond to the survey. A regular faculty meeting is being used rather than a union meeting in order to get a greater number of responses. Results will be tabulated by building. From the building results, principals will be rank ordered from highest to lowest scores. Student achievement data will also be determined and then statistically analyzed with the principal perception data to test the major hypothesis that teacher preceptions of their principals predict student achievement.