Linking parent and community involvement with student achievement: Comparing principal and teacher perceptions of stakeholder influence

Expanding the sources of leadership in schools has been a reform theme since the mid 1980s. Using exploratory factor analysis and regression, we examine the following questions: (1) How does leadership style affect principals' openness to community involvement? (2) Is a principal's openness to community involvement related to student achievement? And (3) How are participatory and shared school leadership structures related to student learning? We base our analysis on a 2005-6 principal survey (N = 157) and a teacher survey (N = 4,491) from a Wallace Foundation-funded study, Learning from Leadership, augmented by available state 2005-6 math achievement data. Our results show that principals with more diverse leadership teams are more open to community involvement. Also, teachers' perceptions of greater parent involvement are positively associated with student math achievement. The article highlights how principals and teachers can better organize their efforts to involve stakeholders for increasing student achievement.