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For nearly a half century, educational researchers have debated the factors associated with student achievement. Some have argued that such out-of-school factors as students' socio-economic status are predictive of student success. Others contend that the keys to improving student performance lie in a complex of factors inside schools. The authors survey the educational literature on academic achievement and effective schooling to determine what is currently known about the critical factors that appear to shape performance.
The Study in Brief
Since the 1960s, educational researchers have remained divided on the issue of student achievement. One body of research, reflected in the writings of Coleman, Jencks and others has argued that educational achievement correlates more highly with out-of-school factors, such as socio-economic status, than with in-school factors, such as material resources. Another approach, however, has argued that variability in student achievement is a complex puzzle that transcends simple comparisons of home and school factors. Socio-economic explanations for variance in student achievement have been challenged by the findings of more recent research that accounts for such variance in school-level factors. A large body of literature known in educational circles as "school effectiveness research" (SER), or the "effective schools movement," has emerged over the past 30 years. The purpose of this Commentary is to review this research to determine what we know today about the factors that shape student achievement.
Research reveals that eight major characteristics have been widely identified as factors that positively influence student achievement. They include: a focus on student achievement, effective classroom instruction, a shared vision about educational purpose among school staffs, an orderly and secure climate for learning, strong leadership (particularly from principals), a linkage between assessment and curricular practices, high standards and expectations for students and, finally, supportive home-school links.
Taken as a whole, these eight factors provide educational policymakers with useful guidelines to improve student performance and the quality of schooling that young people receive. Although their value is "associative" rather than "predictive" in character, and they cannot be strictly applied as a recipe for results, they serve as sound descriptive indicators of the principal organizational elements essential for good schooling. Research on effective schooling also furnishes important insights for school administrators and policymakers into the complexities of...