Theses and Dissertations

Donna N. Shea

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Williams, Frankie K.

Committee Member

Jayroe, Teresa B.

Committee Member

Blendinger, Jack G.

Committee Member

Boggan, Matthew K.

Date of Degree

5-9-2015

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Elementary, Middle, and Secondary Education Administration

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

College

College of Education

Department

Department of Educational Leadership

Abstract

For decades there has been an ongoing push to increase student achievement through large-scale policy reform and yet far too many students in the United States still perform below proficiency levels with achievement gaps according to race and socio-economic status. Choctaw County School District (CCSD) was no different, as low performance, especially in reading/language arts, and achievement gaps according to race and SES were present. To address these issues, CCSD implemented a K-2 promotion/retention policy in 2008 to improve student achievement. The primary purpose of the study was to investigate how a school district’s implementation of a K-2 policy for promotion and retention with specific strategies may have influenced academic achievement in the area of reading/language arts. A mixed method research design was used to conduct the study. A narrative approach was used to provide a response to the first research question. A 1-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with a Sheffe’ post-hoc test was used as the primary means of analysis for the second research question to determine if there were statistically significant differences in the Grade Three Reading/Language Arts MCT2 scores according to the length of time under the policy. A 2-way ANOVA was used as the primary means of analysis for the 3rd-5th research questions to determine whether there were interaction effects between length of time under the policy and gender, race, and/or SES. Analysis of the results from the first research question revealed themes that emerged from studying the leadership change process of the development and implementation of the K-2 promotion retention policy. The emergent themes were aligned to the steps of Kotter’s Change Theory. Statistically significant differences were found between Grade Three Reading/Language Arts MCT2 scores between no time under the implementation of the policy and three years and between 1 year and 3 years under implementation of the policy. Statistically significant differences were found for the main effect of time under policy, gender, race, and SES. However, no statistically significant differences were found for interactions of length of time under the policy and gender, race, or SES.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/17378

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