Expanding the 5Es from Chicago to Illinois: How the 5E's Relationship to Student Outcomes Varies by Content
Author: Gordon, Molly
Date: 2016-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Organizational Climate,Educational Environment,Educational Practices,School Effectiveness,Public Schools,Public School Teachers,Teacher Attitudes,Student Attitudes,Teacher Surveys,Student Surveys,Outcomes of Education,Elementary Secondary Education,Item Response Theory,Measures (Individuals),Educational Improvement,Urban Schools,Enrollment,Disadvantaged Schools,Lunch Programs,Poverty,Low Income Students,Attendance,Achievement Tests,Scores,Equal Education,Predictive Validity

Why are some schools able to thrive and produce strong student outcomes, while others struggle? To answer this question, researchers have surveyed teachers and students in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) since the 1990s, asking them about their schools' organizational climate and practices. From these data, researchers at the Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR) concluded that five essential supports of the schools' organization facilitate engaging instruction and learning: effective leadership, collaborative teachers, involved families, supportive environments, and ambitious instruction. Schools strong in these practice domains were much more likely than schools weak in these areas to see improvements in student outcomes, including attendance and learning gains. Research on school climate and school organization, including that of CCSR, influenced Illinois legislators in 2011 to mandate the collection of data on teacher and student perceptions of schools' instructional environments to provide feedback to principals. Illinois took measures of essential supports tested and refined in one context (CPS) and required its administration statewide. Using this statewide data, the authors address two overarching research questions: (1) How does strength and weakness on the five essential supports vary according to urbanicity, enrollment size of school, and socioeconomic characteristics of school communities?; and (2) Are the five essential supports related to student outcomes including attendance rates, test scores, and graduation rates? Surveys measuring the essential supports were administered to students and teachers in nearly all public schools in Illinois in the spring of 2013. Students in grades 6-12 and all full-time classroom teachers in public schools in Illinois were eligible to take the survey. Survey data were collected via the web. Cross-sectional survey data were linked to official data on school and community demographics and student outcomes, aggregated at the school level. The &quot;5Essential &quot;survey items are submitted to Rasch measurement models to create 22 different measures, which in turn are averaged to constitute the five essential supports. This study had two goals. First, to document disparities in essential supports across schools in the entire state. The authors show that students in rural schools and socioeconomically disadvantaged schools are less likely to experience strong essential supports. The fact that students attending socioeconomically disadvantaged schools have much less access to the essential supports raises substantial equity concerns. Indeed, these students may be most in need of schools that are especially strong. It is important to note that locational inequalities are strongest in ambitious instruction, the essential that is theorized to have the most direct influence on student outcomes. The second goal was to examine the predictive validity of the &quot;5Essential&quot; survey outside of Chicago. Overall, the essential supports have positive albeit small associations with student outcomes. However, some of these associations, particularly test score growth in elementary schools, are sizable when they are compared to the associations between student outcomes and socioeconomic disadvantage. One figure and 2 tables are appended.