Volume 2 - Issue 1 - DBU Journal of K-12 Educational Research - Page 8

6 Mark A. Ramirez, Ed.D. Performance Gap With the signing of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act on January 8, 2002, school districts were charged with closing the performance gap among all subgroups by requiring districts to disaggregate the data and provide interventions for underachiev- ing subgroups (Linn, 2005). The current study defines the perfor - mance gap as the disparities in STAAR scores between Hispanic students in comparison to the all student group category (Texas Education Agency, 2015a). There is lack of consensus among educational leaders and policymakers on what strategies are the most effective in reducing the performance gap (Jeynes, 2015). A meta-analysis conducted by Jeynes (2015) suggests superinten - dents need a broad and multidisciplinary approach to eliminate the performance gap. Hispanic Students Hispanic students are the largest minority group attending schools in the United States (Camera, 2016), and they account for 52.0% of all students enrolled in Texas public schools (Texas Education Agency, 2014). The Pew Hispanic Center (2009) reports that Hispanic Americans make up the largest percentage of the coun - try’s youngest citizens and are the largest and fastest growing minority group. There continues to be growing concern regarding the academic achievement of Hispanic students (Valencia, 2011). Educators must begin by acknowledging the underachievement of Hispanic students and then set high expectations for the potential of the same students to be academically successful (Murillo et al., 2010). Purpose of Study The purpose of the current sequential explanatory mixed meth- ods research study was to examine the leadership practices and instructional beliefs that effective urban school district superin - tendents have used to influence and increase the achievement of Hispanic students. The study aimed to investigate the possibility that superintendents in K-12 Texas urban school districts, whose Hispanic student population showed academic growth as mea - sured by STAAR results, shared a common set of leadership beliefs and district best practices that impacted the performance gap for Hispanic students. The study utilized the Superintendents’ Leadership Practic - es Survey (SLPS) developed by Dr. Jacqueline Mora (2010) to identify specific leadership practices to increase the academic achievement of Hispanic students. A purposeful sample of 44 superintendents working in Texas urban cities of at least 100,000 residents were invited to participate in this study. Out of the 44 superintendents, 30 of the surveys were returned for a return rate of 68.1%. The performance gap over the past three years for Hispanic students of the participating districts ranged from 12.8% to 13.4%. A Pearson- r correlation coefficient was used to measure the linear relationship between the performance gap comparing Hispanic and White students and the superintendent leadership practices reported in the SLPS. A quantitative approach was used to determine the relationship between superintendent leadership practices and the performance gap for Hispanic students defined in research question 1 (RQ1). A qualitative approach was used for both research question 2 (RQ2) and research question 3 (RQ3). Five superintendents were interviewed to obtain their perspective on the leadership practices used in their school districts to impact Hispanic student achievement. A qualitative analysis was completed using NVivo Pro 11 to identify emerging themes and patterns to connect the qualitative data to the STAAR index 3 performance gap data for Hispanic students. Summary of Findings and Interpretation of Results Research Question 1 (RQ1) Is there a relationship between urban superintendent leadership practices and the performance gap for Hispanic students as mea - sured by the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR)? Quantitative Data The results of the Pearson- r correlation coefficient compar - ing the SLPS average score to the 2015 index 3 score for each corresponding district showed there is not a linear relationship between the two variables. The conclusion was that there was not a linear relationship between the SLPS average and the district index 3 score from the state accountability system. The research - er failed to reject the null hypothesis indicating there was no relationship between urban superintendents’ leadership practices and the performance gap of Hispanic students as measured by STAAR. Based on Cohen’s guidelines, the correlation of -.124 corresponds to a small effect size, suggesting a small negative correlation between the SLPS and the district 3 index score