Increased Rigor equals Improved Student Achievement

Schools face great needs and challenges on a daily basis. The problems our schools are met with are complex and warrant the attention of all stakeholders to find the answers. It takes all stakeholders to build a school that values the collaborative nature needed to involve parents, students, and employees equally. Relationship building is no longer just the responsibility of the teacher, but now the school administrators have to be equally responsible for establishing, facilitating, and maintaining relationships with parents. Part of this process begins at the top tier of the education personnel operating structure. School boards of education must outline a vision and mission that drives the organization by setting the climate and culture of inclusion. Once set in motion the philosophy of inclusion will be developed and a plan for involvement will follow suit.

The California public school system has gone through an enormous amount of change in recent years and due to this, has been collecting a huge amount of data. This provides an opportunity to utilize the public access database to investigate how certain points correlate with others. As for the State standardized test, the aggregate school scores were released for the first time in 2015. This fact alone stands to reason why empirical research utilizing this data is very rare or simply difficult to find. Additionally, with the importance of multiple measures for schools and high expectations for students, the measure A-G completion percentage is the only data point that is tracked by the State that can be used in empirical studies.

According to the literature reviewed, a school culture is reflective of the community with which they serve. Any issue that impacts the community at large will impact the school. Research states that school culture when placed in context, is related to everything that happens at a school. Relationships, connectedness, expectations, teaching practices, behavior interventions, and external affects such as education policy, technology, and globalization, are all impactful to students and the culture of a school. Though this is the case, studies have found that negative interactions can be moderated with the positive. Therefore, a positive teacher-student relationship can promote an increase in student achievement. When increased rigor is the expectation, student achievement will improve as well.