Leadership Practices and Mathematics Pass Rate in Jamaican High Schools

This research was intended to explore the degree to which leadership practices impacted Jamaican schools’ mathematics achievement. More specifically, the researchers examined Jamaica’s high school students’ CSEC mathematics performance in relation to principals’ instructional leadership behaviors as measured by teachers’ perceptions, using Kouzes and Posner (2003) Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI). Data were gathered from 2-4 teachers from 42 high schools in Jamaica. The results indicated that those principals who had high LPI scores also lead schools with higher mathematics pass rates than those principals who had low LPI scores. More specifically, “enabling others to act” was established as the leadership practice most associated with high mathematics performance. Finally, we discovered that the traditional Jamaican high schools were more likely to experience satisfactory mathematics pass rates.