ABSTRACT

Disciplinary incidents at U.S. public middle- and high-schools are a public policy concern. Although businesses popularly give credence to leaders’ subjective intelligence, principals’ reports of their schools’ strengths and weaknesses are questioned. To determine whether principals’ reports carry legitimacy as indicators of student offenses, the current study utilized a nationally representative survey of principals who reported on their sense of the institution and the number of disciplinary incidents in the past year (N = 1,872; replication cohort, N = 1,833). Findings showed that the more institutional shortcomings a principal endorsed, the higher total number of incidents occurred, even after controlling for institutional strength and several indicators of school crime. These findings have policy and intervention implications for improving student outcomes, and so would be of interest to funding agencies, school administrators, teachers, and parents.

摘要

美国公立中学和高中的纪律事件是公共政策关注的问题。尽管企业普遍信任领导者的主观情报，但校长关于其学校优缺点的报告受到质疑。为了确定校长的报告是否具有合法性，可以作为学生违法行为的指标，本研究采用了全国代表性的校长调查，这些校长报告了他们在过去一年中对机构的了解和纪律事件的数量（N = 1,872；复制队列，ñ= 1,833）。调查结果显示，即使在控制了机构实力和一些学校犯罪指标之后，校长认可的机构缺陷越多，发生的事件总数就越高。这些发现对提高学生的学习成绩具有政策和干预意义，因此资助机构，学校管理人员，教师和家长也会对此感兴趣。