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Multiple School-level Inputs and Student Achievement in Science in Urban Georgia High Schools

This article focuses on the relationships between eight school-level educational inputs and a measure of student achievement in science as the output. Data were accessed from the Georgia Department of Education’s website. Additional quantitative data were collected through interviews with and records from school-level administrators. The study included 28 urban high schools within three metropolitan school districts in the State of Georgia. The data were analyzed using a combination of parametric and non-parametric methods. There was a significant negative relationship between the percentage of economically disadvantaged students (PEDS) and performance in the science section of the Georgia High School Graduation Test (GHSGT). Principal longevity, as a leadership dimension, also showed a significant positive relationship to GHSGT. Although the positive relationships between the numbers of science labs per week and professional development for science teachers and student performance on the GHSGT were not statistically significant at the stringent 0.006 α-level, their effect sizes indicated positive practical significance. Concordancy-discordancy analyses using the Somers’ d method indicate that 53.5% of the sample schools were discordant. Eight schools performed better than expected given their percentage of economically disadvantaged students (PEDS) values, indicating that other factors beyond student economic status may also contribute to science achievement as measured by the GHSGT.