Title: What Makes a School Successful? The Five Factor Theory of Effective Schools | InformED
Headings: What Makes a School Successful? The Five Factor Theory of Effective Schools
What Makes a School Successful? The Five Factor Theory of Effective Schools
About Marianne Stenger

Content: What Makes a School Successful? The Five Factor Theory of Effective Schools | InformED
What Makes a School Successful? The Five Factor Theory of Effective Schools
By Marianne Stenger
March 27th, 2013 Other
When choosing a school, the first thing that anyone wants to know is whether or not it provides students with an effective learning environment. By looking at results such as state test scores, student performance, retention and graduation rates, you can get a fairly clear picture of how well a school is doing its job. But when you look beyond all the numbers, what really contributes to a school’s success? Research carried out by David Miller Sadker and Karen R. Zittleman for McGraw-Hill Higher Education identified a common set of characteristics that effective schools seemed to share. This now often referred to as the “ five factor theory .” The five characteristics they identified were quality leadership, high expectations of students and teachers, ongoing screening of student performance and development, goals and direction, and safety and security for students. According to Sadker and Zittleman, these factors promote student achievement and improve the quality of education provided by a school. Another study carried out by Harvard researchers came up with a somewhat different set of factors that determined a school’s effectiveness.