Student Achievement

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has challenged educational leadersto develop effective strategies to increase the academic achievement ofall learners. At the center of this reform is the school principal. Thisstudy explored the relationship between creating professional learningcommunities in public high schools and student achievement. The purposeof this study was to measure, compare, and contrast the perceptions ofhigh school principal's regarding the degree to which their school haddeveloped learning communities based on Peter Senge's fivedisciplines. Descriptive and ex post facto research was conducted togather quantitative data through the use of the Learning OrganizationSurvey. A sample of 100 high school principals was used to develop anequal sized stratified random sample based on student performance of theHigh School Proficiency Assessment. Results indicated a statisticallysignificant difference on 36 out of the 40 questions surveyed. Theseresults further indicated a significant difference between high- andlow- achieving principals regarding the disciplines of personal mastery,mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinkingbetween., This study describes how to integrate these findings into astrategic plan for principals to establish learning communities based onSenge's five disciplines. This research study contributes to socialchange by providing principals with possible strategies to implementwithin their schools to increase the achievement levels of all students.