Relationship Between Span of Control and School Performance in Selected High and Low Achieving Public Elementary Schools in Florida

In the research literature on school reform and leadership effectiveness, little has been written on the nature and impact of the governance structure of elementary schools and the appropriateness of these structures in meeting the increasingly high stake accountability demands of public education. The purpose of this study was to examine span of control as one element of school governance and determine whether or not there was a significant relationship with span of control and school performance. The study also examined selected school level variables associated with span of control to determine the relationship and the unique effect of each of these variables to school performance. The study examined two populations of elementary schools chosen from the twelve largest school districts in Florida: all elementary schools that have maintained an "A/B" school grade through Florida's A+ Accountability Plan, over the four-year period from 1998 through 2002, and all elementary schools that failed to earn a grade higher than "D/F" through this same grading system during this same time period. The time period represented the years since the inception of school grading, excluding the 2002-2003 school year for which grades were not available at the time that the study was conducted. Descriptive statistics, bivariate correlation, and multiple regression analysis were utilized in the data analysis. The data was collected using databases constructed and maintained by various divisions of the Florida Department of Education and the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). Results of the study revealed that in the population of high achieving elementary schools, school performance improved as the span of control became narrower, and the relationship between span of control and school performance was statistically significant. In the population of low achieving schools, there was a relationship between span of control and school performance, but the relationship was not statistically significant. The school level variables with the strongest correlation to school performance in both school populations were percentage of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, percentage of minority students, and student mobility each of these variables had a statistically significant inverse relationship with school performance.