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This study tested the relationship between Principal Support of Teacher Psychological Needs (PSTPN) and a need-supportive instructional climate. Evidence on social contagion was used to advance three hypotheses: "PSTP is associated with school differences in student reported autonomy-support, competence-support, and relational-support; A climate of teacher psychological safety mediates the relationship between PSTPN and student reported autonomy-support, competence-support, and relational-support; A climate of organizational commitment mediates the relationship between PSTPN and student reported autonomy-support, competence-support, and relational-support." Hypotheses were tested in a sample of teachers and students from 93 urban schools in a southwestern state of the US.

Oklahoma is one of 16 states electing to use an A-F letter grade as an indicator of school quality. On the surface, letter grades are an attractive policy instrument for school improvement; they are seemingly clear, simple, and easy to interpret. Evidence, however, on the use of letter grades as an instrument to rank and improve schools is scant at best. We address the gap in the literature by using student test scores to evaluate the use of Oklahoma's A-F grades as a school quality indicator. Achievement differences between letter grades were small and in most cases not statistically significant when student and school characteristics were held constant. School grades did not reveal large achievement gaps in the highest ranked schools. Additionally, free/reduced lunch and minority students in D and F schools outperformed peers in A and B schools.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to define student learning capacity and to examine the role of the school principal in nurturing it. Method: The study used cross-sectional data from 3,175 students in 70 schools located in a metropolitan area of a Southwestern city. We tested three hypotheses by following a conventional modeling building process in HLM 7.0: "Hypothesis 1"--Principal Support for Student Psychological Needs (PSSPN) is related to school differences in student-perceived autonomy-support; "Hypothesis 2"--PSSPN is related to school differences in student-perceived competence-support; "Hypothesis 3"--Student-perceived need-support mediates the relationship between PSSPN and grit. Results: Evidence aligns with our initial theorizing about student learning capacity and principal support for student psychological needs. Student-perceived need-support, as a social characteristic of capacity, manifests itself through teacher-student interactions in the learning process. Need-supporting interactions varied significantly across schools, and principals played a critical role in developing an instructional environment that students experienced as nurturing autonomy and competence. Implications: PSSPN highlights the transformative effects that regular principal-teacher social exchanges can have on instructional practices. School principals who interacted with teachers about student psychological needs and need-supporting instructional practices contributed to a learning environment that students experienced as autonomy-supporting and competence-supporting.

Background: Despite devotion of substantial resources and effort to increase parent/school partnerships, gaps remain between policy rhetoric and practice, especially in high-poverty communities. Current research focuses on parent involvement or effects of parent motivational beliefs on parent choice for behavior; however, it does not address the formation of beliefs or social factors that influence parent motivation to become involved. To gain a better understanding of factors that influence parent motivational beliefs, we examined the effects of parent social network, school outreach, and neighborhood health on parent role construction and parent efficacy in an urban school district. Method/Analysis: Survey data were collected from a random sample of 30 fifth-grade parents from 56 elementary schools in a large urban district in the Midwest. Using a partially latent structural regression model, we tested the relationships between school outreach, neighborhood health, parent social network, and parent motivational beliefs. Findings: The theoretical specification of the hypothesized model was observed in the pattern of the relationships among school outreach, neighborhood health, parent network, and parent motivational beliefs. Results: The results of the structural model confirm the association between parent social network and parent motivational beliefs. Combined parent social network and school outreach accounted for 10% of the variance in parent motivational beliefs. Implications for Research and Practice: Results from this study provide a different lens through which to view parent-school partnerships. Understanding parents as social actors whose perceptions are influenced through connections with other parents can help schools facilitate motivational beliefs that lead to effective partnerships.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if collective student trust functions as a resource for urban elementary students. Methods: Data from 1,646 students nested in 56 elementary schools in an urban school district were used to test the hypothesized effect of collective student trust on school identification, self-regulated learning, and math and reading achievement. A model-building process in HLM 6.08 was used to test the three hypotheses. Random-intercepts means-as-outcomes models were used to assess the school-level effects on school identification and self-regulated learning, controlling for free and reduced lunch rate and prior achievement. A one-way ANCOVA with random intercepts was used for math and reading achievement. Free and reduced lunch was specified as a student- and school-level control in order to set a more conservative standard for detecting a trust effect. Results: The hypothesized effects of collective student trust on school identification, self-regulated learning, and achievement were confirmed. A culture of student trust in urban elementary schools partly contributed to identification with school, internal control over learning tasks, and math and reading achievement. Collective trust was the strongest school-level antecedent of positive student beliefs, behavior, and achievement. Implications: With policy debates centering on increased funding, accountability, and teacher and leader evaluation, trust may seem like an unlikely mechanism to ameliorate performance problems in urban schools. Results from this study suggest that policy makers and school leaders should not overlook student trust as a viable social resource for schools and students.

More than a decade after Goddard, Tschannen-Moran, and Hoy (2001) found that collective faculty trust in clients predicts student achievement in urban elementary schools, we sought to identify a plausible link for this relationship. Our purpose in revisiting the trust effect was twofold: (1) to test the main effect of collective faculty trust on student achievement after controlling for free and reduced-price lunch and prior achievement, and (2) to determine if self-regulated learning mediates the collective trust-achievement relationship. Data were collected from 1,039 teachers and 1,648 students in 56 urban elementary schools. Results confirmed the hypothesized main effect of collective faculty trust and the hypothesized mediating effect of self-regulated learning. Mean math and reading achievement were higher in schools with a stronger culture of collective faculty trust. Schools with a stronger culture of trust also had students with more self-regulated learning. (Contains 3 figures and 5 tables.)

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to test the validity of using collective trust as a social indicator of instructional capacity. Design/methodology/approach: A hypothesized model was advanced for the empirical investigation. Collective trust was specified as a latent construct with observable indicators being principal trust in faculty (PTF), faculty trust in principal (FTP), faculty trust in colleagues (FTC), and faculty trust in students (FTS). It was hypothesized that enabling school structure is directly related to the latent collective trust construct and collective trust is directly related to school performance. Data were collected in the spring of 2010/11 from teachers and students in 85 schools in an urban school district in a southwestern state. A partially latent structural regression model was tested in AMOS 7.0. Findings: Results of the measurement model support the theoretical relationship among faculty trust in principal, faculty trust in colleagues, faculty trust in students, and principal trust in faculty. Both directional hypotheses were supported: enabling school structure had a strong, direct effect on a culture collective trust and collective trust had a strong, direct effect on school performance. Research limitations/implications: The sample consisted of schools in one urban district in the southwestern part of the USA, and collective trust only operationalized the social dimension of instructional capacity. Practical implications: Regular and consistent measures of collective trust have the potential to improve how administrators at site and district levels manage the implementation of improvement strategies designed to build capacity. Originality/value: Many theoretical discussions treat trust as a constitutive property of capacity building, but few studies have empirically tested a "priori" models that specify relationships among structures and processes aligned with instructional capacity, collective trust, and school performance. (Contains 5 tables and 5 figures.)

This study investigated the effects of formalized and centralized school structures on 2 emergent concepts in the study of school reform, trust, and collaboration. Trust and collaboration were examined from the perspective of parents, as opposed to internal school agents such as teachers or students. Three hierarchical multiple regressions identified the effects of an enabling school structure on parent-school trust, parent-principal trust, and parent collaboration. The results suggest that rules and formal control structures can be applied in ways that foster a culture supportive of parent trust and collaboration. Further, such structures mitigate the negative influence of nonmanipulable contextual conditions. (Contains 6 tables.)

Background: Education has much in common with professions that are using positive psychology and positive organizational scholarship to transform practice, yet the science behind peak human and group functioning has been slow to displace deficit-based framing of reform policies and improvement strategies in education. Purpose of the Study: This study used self-determination theory to identify a general type of instructional environment that has positive consequences for learning outcomes. We hypothesized that a self-regulatory climate is related to school-level differences in student reading growth and that student perceptions of autonomy-supportive instruction are related to student differences in reading growth. Setting: Data were collected during the 2013-2014 school year from a city school system, located in a metropolitan area of about 900,000 residents, that serves approximately 42,000 students in 88 school sites. During the 2013-2014 school year, 80% of the students qualified for free or reduced-priced lunch (FRL); 26% were Black, 27% White, 30% Hispanic, 6% Native American, 9% multiracial, and 1% Asian. For this study, data come from students and teachers at all 51 elementary schools in the school system that have a 5th grade. Data Analysis: Hypotheses were tested using a three-level linear growth analysis in HLM 7.0. The first step was to estimate the average reading growth for fifth-grade students using an unconditional growth model. The second step was to test a controlled-effects growth model, with FRL and racial/ethnic minority status included as student controls and FRL rate and percentage of White students enrolled in the school as school-level controls; self-regulatory climate was entered as a school-level predictor in this model. The final step was to add student-perceived autonomy-supportive instruction as a student-level explanatory variable. Findings: Results showed that students in schools with self-regulatory climates achieved a higher reading growth rate than other students. Similar results were found with autonomy-supportive instruction: Students who experienced classroom instruction as autonomy-supportive had higher average reading growth than other students. Conclusions: The aim of positive education is to develop a body of scientific evidence capable of explaining sources of exceptional teaching and learning. Self-regulatory climate and autonomy-supportive instruction appear to be two positive school conditions that enable students to flourish.

Purpose: We set out in this study to establish a foundation for a line of inquiry around teacher trust in district administration by (1) describing the role of trust in capacity building, (2) conceptualizing trust in district administration, (3) developing a scale to measure teacher trust in district administration, and (4) testing the relationship between district trust and teacher commitment. Method: Teachers were the unit of analysis. Data were collected from a sample of teachers in one urban school district. Construct validity was assessed by examining content, structural, and convergent validity of the scale. A fully latent structural equation model was used to test the relationship between teacher trust in district administration and teacher commitment. Results: This study makes a strong case for developing a line of research on teacher trust in district administration. It establishes a good measure to use in future research, and it provides initial evidence showing that teacher beliefs are sensitive to the actions of district administrators. Implications: A valid and reliable measure can be used by researchers to study systematically the formation and effects of teacher trust in district administration. Accurate information on district trust also allows central office leaders to formatively assess the capacity of the school system to accomplish reform objectives at scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study aimed to determine whether collective student trust functions can be a resource for urban elementary students. The study is undertaken through the collection of data from 1,646 students in 56 elementary schools in an urban school district and the development of model-building process to evaluate the hypotheses raised in the study. The results of the study confirm the hypotheses raised on school identification, educational achievement, and self-regulated learning.