What Are the Relationships Between Poverty, Attendance, Teacher Evaluations, and High School Graduation Rates?

Abstract

The focus of this study was to examine the relationships among poverty, attendance rates, the New York State's Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) teacher evaluation system, and student achievement. The setting of this study was high schools from New York State's Nassau and Suffolk counties, a suburban region of New York City. The results of this study showed that poverty had a strong negative correlation with graduation rates from the Regents Diploma, accounting for 31.02 percent of the variance. However, the negative impact that poverty had on the graduation rates from the Regents Diploma with Advanced Designation more than doubled. While high school student attendance rates had a weak, but statistically significant, positive correlation with Regents Diploma graduation rates, the positive correlation more than tripled with the Regents Diploma with Advanced Designation graduation rates. The New York State teacher evaluation system did not have the desired effect on student achievement.