Joan Pendergast

Factors That Contribute to Middle School Academic Achievement: Teachers Perceptions of School Climate Joan Pendergast

There continues to be unexplained variance among schools' academic achievement. This study seeks to explain some of that variance by exploring the relationship between school climate and school achievement. Existing research brings attention to sociodemographic variables as predictors of academic achievement without taking school climate into consideration. This correlation study answers questions that address the variance between schools' academic achievement rating when controlling the sociodemographic school level variables. A multiple regression model was used to examine the association with poverty index, minority status, and school climate factor. As the poverty index increased, school academic performance decreased (p .05, r= -.63), when minority status increased school academic performance decreased (p.05,r = -.13), and when school climate factor teachers' perceptions about "expectations of students" increased school academic performance also increased (p.05, r=.32). It was hypothesized that school climate could offset some of the devastating effects of poverty but controlled analysis revealed this was not the case.