Page 68 - Volume 4 - Issue 1 - DBU Journal of K-12 Educational Research

66 principals range between 15-30% in most school districts (Béteille et al., 2012). The turnover rates are higher for charter schools. Campbell and Gross (2008) discovered that almost 30% of charter school principals led their campuses for two years or less in comparison to 16% of traditional public-school leaders. Battle and Gruber (2010) report 29% of charter school principals left their previous school in comparison to 21% of TPS principals according to 2008-2009 PFS of the 2007-2008 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). The problem addressed in the current study was the disproportionate charter school principal retention rate and the impact it has on student achievement. Charter schools are a growing educational entity, but there is limited research on the topic of charter school principal impact. Charter schools have been studied from various perspectives, but one topic that remains under-studied is charter school leadership (Cravens, Goldring, & Penaloza, 2011). There is little known regarding the alignment of leadership practices by charter principals and school improvement. Purpose and Research Questions The purpose of the current study was to determine the impact of charter school principal tenure and retention on students scoring at the Approaches grade level and higher on the 2018 State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) examination in Grades 3-5 mathematics and reading. To get a better appreciation of the relationship between charter school principal longevity and student achievement, the researcher focused on the central question: What is the nature of the relationship between a Texas charter school principal’s length of time in a school, principal’s overall experience, and student academic achievement as evidenced by 2018 STAAR scores in mathematics and reading for Grades 3-5? Method The current study used a purposive sample of 168 participants using data from the 2017-2018 Texas Academic Performance Report (TAPR) obtained from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) website. Information collected was specifically limited to third through fifth grade charter school campuses located in the five largest regions in the state of Texas, which are located in and around Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. These regions account for approximately 70% of all charter schools in the state. The dependent/outcome variables for the current study consisted of scores from the 2018 STAAR as reported by the 2017-2018 TAPR. STAAR is an annual assessment for students attending public schools in the state of Texas. The assessment is aligned to the Texas Essentials of Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), the state’s curriculum standards. Performance levels for students participating in STAAR include: Did Not Meet Grade Level, Approaches Grade Level, Meets Grade Level, and Masters Grade Level. Data for the independent/predictor variables, which consisted of principal average years of experience and principal average years of experience with a school district were acquired through the TEA database for the 2017-2018 school year. The mean years of experience of principals in the current study is 3.6 years ( SD = 3.34), the mean years of experience of principals with the district is 2.8 years ( SD = 2.67). Results and Findings In the preliminary analysis, the researcher used IBM SPSS to test the assumptions of multiple regression, which included: independence of observation, normality, linearity, homoscedasticity, and absence of multicollinearity. Independence of observation was met because data were entered for each campus individually, representing no overlapping data. Normality was assessed using skewness and kurtosis. The linear relationship between dependent and independent variables was assessed through visual examination of a scatter plot. Homoscedasticity was calculated through Levene’s statistic. Variance Inflation Factor was used to assess multicollinearity. No violations were found. To examine the research questions, a multiple linear regression was conducted to assess if the independent variables: charter school principal experience and retention predict the dependent variables: 2018 reading and mathematics STAAR scores in third, fourth, and fifth grades. The variables were evaluated by what they add to Roy Watts, EdD