In the current era of accountability for achievement, school principals play the pivotal role of instructional leader. In a high-stakes testing environment, leadership preparation programs in universities and school districts need to be positively related to academic outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between school leadership preparation programs and student achievement in urban settings. Because leadership is contingent on the setting, school contextual factors and their impact on student achievement framed this study. Regression techniques were employed to construct a conceptual model with predictors of criterion and norm-referenced student achievement scores. Confirming previous research findings, student poverty, teacher experience, and previous achievement were the strongest predictors and accounted for a significant amount of variance in student achievement; however, university and district preparation programs were not significant predictors. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are discussed.

When researchers are focused on improving teaching-and-learning domains that match the school district’s strategic plan, not only focusing on their own research agenda, they yield powerful results that can be useful for guiding processes of improving student learning.

The authors write about evaluation, testing, and research and their relation to policy, planning, and program in the Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS)