This quantitative study investigated the impact of leadership behaviors and additional factors on teacher morale across seven schools from three Arkansas school districts. The study utilized the "Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI)" and "Purdue Teacher Opinionaire (PTO)" as measurement tools to explore various leadership…

This report looks at student achievement levels in Arkansas school districts disaggregated by district poverty and by the district's performance relative to other districts. We estimated district performance statistics by subject and grade level (4, 8, and 11-12) for longitudinal student cohorts, using statistical models that adjusted for district…

The fear of violence among students and teachers is straining the learning environment in many schools. This paper presents findings of a study that investigated school district characteristics in relation to the level of principals' expressed needs for school-violence prevention programs. The district characteristics included finance, size,…

While education is an important legal function of state government, a major portion of school facility funding is still at the local level, and the quality of school buildings varies across most states. This paper addresses how rural school facilities are financed. It provides an overview of school facilities funding in the United States as…

In 1994 Arkansas's school-finance system was declared unconstitutional. A compromise plan was drawn up during the following year to appease both the state legislature and the governor. This paper discusses the confusing and contradictory aspects of three pieces of the state's school-finance legislation: Act 916, Act 917, and the Biennial…

This chapter examines the main challenges that rural school districts face in school facilities funding and illustrates these problems with a case study of Arkansas. Most rural school districts serve only a small number of students, which tends to limit the funds available for construction or renovation. In addition, rural districts are likely to…

This policy brief presents findings from Southwest Educational Development Laboratory research on resource allocation in 1,504 independent school districts in Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas. Using 5 years' data from the federal Common Core of Data and the Census Bureau along with 3 years of student performance data from each state…