Community health indicators predicting adolescent academic achievement.

Abstract: Throughout the literature investigating adolescent academic achievement, little or no attention has been focused on indicators of community health as factors that share variance with academic achievement. The purpose of this study was to conduct exploratory analyses using indicators of community health to investigate adolescent academic achievement. This study employed hierarchical linear multiple regression to explain variations in adolescent academic achievement as measured by standardized tests for two different school years. The unit of analyses was the school district with the standardized test results of 8th grade students as academic achievement. The first model of the school district for school year 1997-98 accounted for almost 58% of the variance in adolescent academic achievement. This model was replicated on a different school year and it accounted for almost 63% of the variance in adolescent academic achievement. These strong models hold great promise for future investigations of adolescent academic achievement using indicators of community health and other community contextual variables. Key Words: Adolescents, Community Health Indicators, Academic Achievement The perception that the public education system has failed to meet academic standards has demanded the attention of numerous practitioners, policy makers, and parents for the major portion of the 1900's, but especially the last 50 years (Bracey, 1995). This attention has focused on diverse issues including the equality of education opportunity for all students (Coleman et al., 1966), racial matters (Fisher, 1990; Kozol, 1991; Mayer, 1991; Orfield & Yun, 1999), funding adequacy (Hanushek, 1978, 1986, 1989; Payne & Biddle, 1999), the economic future of the nation (The National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), national standards for all students (Ravitch, 1983), and most recently a national movement toward state standards and school level accountability. Educational opportunities for children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, will expose children to the reality that they can achieve and positively impact the economic base of their communities when they are successful academically (Hammond, 2001). When discussing these diverse issues, community health topics are always mentioned or identified. However, these inquiries failed to consider indicators of community health as explanatory factors in poor academic achievement. Communities face serious health issues impacting economic and safety concerns that affect the educational development of students as well (Hammond, 2001). These indicators of community health have recently been used as indicators of the community social disorganization theory. In recent reports (Baker, McGee, Mitchell, & Stiff, in press; Baker, Robinson, Danner, & Neukrug, 2000; Brooks-- Gunn, Duncan, Klebanov, & Sealand, 1993; Coll et al., 1996; Duncan, Brooks-Gunn, & Klebanov, 1994; Mayer, 1991; Sampson, 1997), a new impetus has been formed for using the community social disorganization theory to investigate community structural factors affecting developmental outcomes to include cognitive development, juvenile delinquency, teenage pregnancies, and low birth weights, all of which may have reciprocal influences. Sampson cited recent research that extended these structural factors to include population, housing density, percent of single-parent homes, family disruption, and urbanization (Sampson, 1989). Sampson (1997) postulated that communities characterized by high rates of crime and delinquency are also plagued by high rates of teenage pregnancy, low birth weights, and other factors detrimental to child development. Sampson (1997) concluded his argument with "not only does much delinquency emerge early in the life course and remain relatively stable over time; there is also an empirical connection between the health- and developmental-related problems of children and rates of adult crime" (p. …