Effective School Performance Stages at Public Senior High Schools in Indonesia

*) Corresponding Author Abstract: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the stages of effective school performance based on 11 characteristics of effective schools as well as to evaluate the level of correlation between individual characteristics of effective schools and the contribution of the school principal leadership to an effective school. 60 school principals and 105 teachers in 16 schools became sample of the research. The number of teachers took as many as 7 to 10 people for each school. The quantitative data were obtained through a set of instruments on 11 characteristics of effective schools. The data were then analyzed descriptively using frequency, min score, percentage, standard deviation, and inferential statistics (Pearson’s correlation, simple linear regression). Findings showed the stages of effective school performance of Public Senior High Schools in Padang as perceived by the principals and teachers were very high. There was a significant correlation between the professional principal leadership with the realization of 11 characteristics of effective schools. The professional principal leadership contributed as much as 58.5% to the realization of 11 characteristics of effective schools in Public Senior High Schools in Padang while the other percentage was contributed by other variabels not included in this study. The principal leadership was an important factor for the realization of 11 characteristics of effective schools in Public Senior High Schools in Padang.


INTRODUCTION
There have been a number of studies on effective schools which described that an effective school could only materialize under the management of an effective principal (Duignan, 2007;Shahril 2008;Taylor, Pearson, Clark, & Walpole, 2000).A principal is one of the important factors whose role is to be an effective leader in order to create an effective school.Razak (2006) and Taylor et al. (2000) have explained that a school showing improvement means it works to achieve its defined goals under a good and effective principal.Attention on effective schools has been recognized by Sammon, Hillman, & Mortimore (1995).They described that 11 characteristics of effective AL-TA'LIM JOURNAL, 23 (2), 2016, (100-113) (Print ISSN 1410-7546 Online ISSN 2355-7893) Available online at http://journal.tarbiyahiainib.ac.id/index.php/attalimschools: (1) professional principal leadership, (2) vision and mission compiled together, (3) conducive school environment, (4) emphasis on learning, (5) earnest teaching, (6) high expectations of teachers and staff, (7) reward on students' achievement, (8) continuing assessment, (9) rights and responsibilities of students, (10) cooperation between school, parents, and society, and (11) school as a learning organization.Similarly, another study on effective schools, Indra & Hamzah, (2014), from national university of Malaysia also mentioned that the main focus of education was to ensure the school system worked effectively.
Likewise, some studies conducted in Indonesia from Indonesia, (Aminullah, Tripalupi, Dunia, & Erg, 2014;Kunadi, 2013;Rahayuningsih & Rus, 2013), on effective schools have shown some findings which did not differ very much from those in Sammons, (1995).Shahril (2008) also describes 18 characteristics of effective schools: (1) Students have normal and even above average intelligence, Students learn wholeheartedly, (3) Rate of student absence reaches only 1%, (4) Students are responsive to school activities and join extracurricular activities based on interests and talents, (5) Student organization is never free of activities, (6) Receiving various awards related to student activities, either academic or non academic, (7) Students have good relationship with teachers and other staff emphatically, (8) Teachers have eligibility and meet the ratio according to the types and levels of education, (9) Teachers teach enthusiastically, (10) Teachers prepare their teaching well, (11) Teachers master the lesson, (12) Teachers assess students' learning, (13) Students' learning outcomes are evaluated and communicated to the students, (14) Teachers accommodate students' learning difficulties, (15) Teachers develop good relationship with students and other school staff, (16) Teachers are involved in extracurricular or academic activities, (17) School principal has vision to develop school, and (18) Facilities are available such as adequate classrooms for students, practice rooms, prayer room, and meeting room.Harris (2002)  (6) Management Standards, the criteria on planning, implementation, and supervision of educational activities at the unit level of education in district/ municipality, province, and national so that the efficiency and effectiveness of education are obtained; (7) Financial Standards, the criteria on the characteristics and amount of operational costs of an educational unit in one-year term; and (8) Education Assessment Standards, the criteria on mechanism, procedure, and instrument of assessment of learners.These eight standards are the reference for the government to evaluate the stages of school performance in order to realize the minimum criteria of an effective school, as stipulated in the Government Regulation No. 32 year 2013.
To realize an effective school, it is necessary for a school principal to have a strong and professional leadership.Many studies stated that there was a close linkage between an effective leadership and an effective school.Harris (2002 has suggested that there are six characteristics of an effective leadership, they are: school principal putting emphasis on students' academic achievements, creating a conducive working place, regularly assessing students' work, coordinating teaching programs, and demonstrating self as an assistant and support provider to teachers. Another study on an effective school was also done by Razak (2006) at a religious high school in Selangor.The focus of the study was the relationship between school climate and school effectiveness and its implications on learning motivation.In Indonesia, studies on effective schools have also been conducted by researchers and academicians from universities.Those studies were related to teacher performance or satisfaction, evaluation of school principal performance, influence of school organization culture on teacher performance, as well as evaluation of principal performance in relation to school achievement.
A study by Hariri, Monypenny & Prideaux (2014) on Leadership styles and decision-making styles in an Indonesian school context has found that school leaderships have been well researched in many developed countries.However, in Asia, especially in Indonesia, they have not been fully explored yet.In the context of effective schools in West Sumatera, although there are a number of studies on effective schools, there are still a lack of studies on the evaluation of effective schools using the standards and measures set by the experts and government agencies.Studies are yet to further look into details and evaluate to what extent Public Senior High Schools in Padang city meet 11 characteristics of an effective school as proposed by Sammons (1995).The aforementioned opinions of the experts imply that an effective school should be led by a professional leader who has a depth of knowledge about the learning process in the classroom, knows the curriculum very well, and conducts monitoring on student learning progress.
One of various views on the characteristics of an effective school presented by Harris (2002) & Sammons (1995), as well as the concept of an effective school under the Government Regulation No. 32 year 2013, the concept used in this study refers to 11 characteristics of an effective school by .The main concern of this study is evaluating the stages of performance of 11 effective school characteristics of Public Senior High Schools in Padang.The study also finds out the correlation and influence of school principal leaderships with effective school characteristics.

METHOD
The design of the study is a surveybased research.This type of study, according to (Creswell, Clark, & Garrett, 2008), is a study which can collect data directly from the research subject and then make a generalization of the population.In this survey research, the researcher will use a quantitative approach by using questionnaire as the instrument.

Population and Sample
The population of the study consists of 16 school units of Public Senior High Schools, 60 school leaders comprising 16 school principals and 45 vice principals, and 1.258 teachers in Padang.The whole 16 school units, 16 school principals and 45 vice principals are selected to be the sample (Creswell et al., 2008).On the other hand, a total of 105 teachers are taken as the sample.According to Silverman (2013), taking a sample of 7 to 10 teachers in each school unit has met the criterion of the sample in a study.

Research Instruments
This study uses questionnaire on effective schools following 11 characteristics of an effective school by (Sammons, 1995).The guideline for interview in the study is also developed by the researcher using the available constructs, in order to obtain the expected goals of the study.
The study uses questionnaire as its main instrument while the interview guideline is the supporting instrument.They are used to collect information on the performance of effective schools in Public Senior High Schools in Padang.Part A consists of respondents' background information, and Part B contains statements that measure the implementation of effective schools in Padang.
The questionnaire uses a 5-point Likert scale to show the agreement on every question.Respondents only need to provide a response to every question by circling the provided number.The responses available in each question are as follow: 5 = strongly agree, 4 = agree, 3, less agree, 2 = disagree, and 1 = strongly disagree.The other set of responses are: 5 = always, 4 = often, 3 = sometimes, 2 = rarely, and 1 = never.

Data Analysis
The quantitative findings are analyzed by using descriptive, inferential, and regression statistics.The descriptive analysis is used to analyze the respondent profiles whereas the stage of implementation of effective schools in Public Senior High Schools in Padang uses frequency, minimum score, percentage, and standard deviation.The interpretation of minimum scores is determined by the scale employed by (Ahmad Ahmad (2002) as shown in the table 1 below:  Meanwhile, Pearson's correlation is used to analyze the research hypothesis which is to find out the relationship between participative leadership practices of school principals and the 11 effective school characteristics.The regression analysis enter is used to analyze the contribution of professional principal leadership to the effective schools in Padang.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
The study first tests the validity and reliability of the instruments.A total of 76 instrument items on effective schools are grouped into 11 effective school characteristics.The test results are then analyzed by Correlate Bivariate analysis with a significant level of 95%.The instruments are found to be valid and reliable.The correlation value of each item to the total score is r count (0.613 to0.687) > r table (0.195).
The validity and reliability tests of the instruments are also done with Corrected Item-total Correlation and Cronbach's Alpha.The correlation value of items with total score (r) is bigger than (0.30) shows that the instrument items have high validity.The Alpha coefficient value, which closes to 1.00, shows that the items are very reliable.The value of 0.60 is the minimum reliability index for such an instrument (Konting,1990).
The test results of instruments with Corrected Item-total Correlation analysis and Cronbach's Alpha can be seen in the following table 3. Table 3 shows the summary of the correlation values of the items and the total score (Corrected Item-total Correlation )and the values of Alpha coeffient.The analysis results show that the correlation values of an item and the total score are above 0.30.This means that the items have high validity (Booth et al., 2003).The Cronbach's Alpha values of the instruments reach above 0.60.It can be concluded that the items are highly reliable as (Creswell et al., 2008) suggests that if the alpha values are between 0.60 to 0.80, then they are accepted.If they are above 0.80, it means they are good.In line with this, (Konting, 1990) explains that the value ofCronbach's Alphaof above 0.60 is often seen as the level of confidence in a study.
Further, the testing of the instruments on 11 effective school characteristics, with a total of 76 items, is done by Exploratory Factor Analysis.The analysis shows that the instruments are valid and reliable.The value of factor of each item and indicator is above 0.5, as can be seen in table 4 below.
The analysis results in table 4 depict that the obtained values of MSA (Measure of Sampling Adequacy) of the instrument items from11 effective school characteristics are above0.5,and also the values of rotated component metric are above 0.5, which show that the instruments are valid and form specific factors of the 11 characteristics.Meanwhile, the values of KMO and Bartlett's Test of more than 0.5 mean that the KMO can be continued.The values of Cronbach's Alpha are >0.7 which indicated that the instruments are reliable.The summary of data analysis can be viewed in table 5 below.(1995).Harris (2002) described that there were 11 factors closely related to an effective school.The research instruments consisting of 76 items are developed by the construct of effective school Sammon, Hillman, & Mortimore (1995).Further, to find out to what extent the instrument items are functioned as a single factor of each effective school characteristic, it is necessary to test the instruments with Confirmatory factor analysis.
The analysis result of construct 1 with 14 item shows that the component matrix value has formed a single factor, with 4 invalid items.Likewise, construct 6 with 5 items has also formed a single factor, with 1 invalid item.Constructs 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 have all formed a single factor, with no invalid items.The results mean that all constructs are within the MSA values, with all above 0.5.The results can further be seen in table 6 below.In terms of the minimum scores of the implementation stages of effective schools in Padang, the figures show very high values (min=4.33).Out of the 11 effective school characteristics proposed by (Sammon et al., 1995), findings show that 7 out of 11 are very high, while 4 are high.The results are available in table 7 below.In addition, the average percentage of respondent performance for these 11 characteristics is 87 %, as can be seen in table8.The figure highlights, in the respondents' view, the stages of effective school performance in Public Senior High School in Padang have reached the good category.Table 8 also depicts significant relationships between 11 characteristics and effective schools based on the perceptions of principals and vice principals.Pearson's analysis results portray a significant correlation at high stage (r=.789 and sig.= .000<.05) between professional leadership and effective schools.Similar results are also shown between vision and mission compiled together and effective schools (r=.743 and sig.=.000<.05),conducive school environment and effective schools (r=.809 and sig.=.000<.05),emphasis on learning and effective schools(r=.824 and sig.=.000<.05),earnest teaching and effective schools are high (r=.745and sig.=.000<.05),high expectation of teachers and staff and effective schools (r=.775and sig.=.000<.05),reward on student achievement and effective schools (r=.765 and sig.=.000<.05),continuing assessment and effective schools (r=.769and sig.=.000<.05),and school as a learning organization and effective schools (r=.704and sig.=.000<.05).Correlations at fair stage include student rights and responsibilities (r=.695 and sig.=.000<.05)and cooperation between school, parents and society (r=.663 and sig.=.000<.05).
Likewise, the perceptions of teachers also generally show significant relationships between 11 characteristics and effective schools.In conclusion, all 11 effective school characteristics are the factors that correlate significantly.Strong and professional principal leadership highly influences the preparation of school vision and mission, the realization of conducive school environment, and the emphasis on learning process.This is similar to (Bouchamma, 2012) that practicing strong and professional principal leadership can help formulate the school vision and mission with other school elements.Further, a principal should demonstrate sufficient concern on conducive school environment which enables students to learn comfortably, which is one important factor in the realization of an effective school.The above results are also in line with the findings in (Sammon et al., 1995); (Harris, 2002); and (Hariri et al., 2014).The better the control of 11 effective school characteristics, the better the school quality.
The results of multiple linear regressions with Stepwise method show that the 11 characteristics as the independent variables influence the effective school as the dependent variable.This method does not consider the independent variables which do not have a significant influence on the dependent variable.The full results are shown in table 10 below.Table 11 above describes the total analysis results of F test, which tells the contribution value of each construct to the effective school.The total contribution value is 99.7 % with details on the contribution of each construct are available in table 11.As described, construct 4contributes as much as 72%, and construct8 with83.8% (or an increase of 11.8 %).The combination of construct 4, construct 8, and construct1 makes a total of 90.0 % (or an addition ofconstruct1 with6.2% on the contribution).The combination of constructs 4, 8, 1, and 11 has 93.7% of contribution (or adding 3.7% from construct11).The combination of constructs 4, 8, 1, 11, and 6 contributes as much as 95.8 % (or adding 2.1% from construct 6).The combination of constructs 4, 8, 1, 11, 6 and 3 makes a total of 96.9 % (or additional 1.1% from construct 3).The combination of constructs 4, 8, 1, 11, 6, 3, and 7 has 98.0 % contribution value (or additional 1.1% from construct 7).The combination of constructs 4,8,1,11,6,3,7, and 10 contributes to 98.6 % of value (or getting an addition of 0.7% from construct 10).The combination of constructs 4,8,1,11,6,3,7,10, and 2 contributes to 99.2 % (or having an addition of 0.6% from construct 2).The combination of constructs 4,8,1,11,6,3,7,10,2,and 5 has 99.6 % of contribution value (or adding 0.4% value fromconstruct5).
The combination of constructs 4, 8, 1, 11, 6, 3, 7, 10, 2, 5, and 9 contributes as much as 99.7 % (or having an addition of 0.1% from construct 9).The figure of 99.7 % is the total contribution of all 11 effective school characteristics while the rest 0.3 % is made up of other factors.
From above table 11, the findings show that the biggest contribution for an effective school comes from the leadership factor which emphasizes on the learning (construct 4).A school is considered effective if the focus is on good learning.In other words, the principal leadership with the orientation of instructional leadership is the main factor to determine the effective school performance.The principal leadership with the emphasis on learning has contributed to the realization of an effective school as much as 72 %.The second biggest contributing factor is the principal leadership with continuing assessment (construct 8) with 11.8 %.To support these results, (Taylor et al., 2000) state that an effective school is any school that keeps monitoring student progress and achievement.Further, studies also found that effective schools always conducted their continuing assessments on their students' achievement (Harris, 2002).The third largest contribution is direct principal leadership with 6.2 %.Other eight constructs contributing to an effective school are below 4 %.
The least factor to contribute is constructing on student rights and responsibilities.An effective school provides its students with chances to play their roles in the school system and to share responsibilities in the learning process (Izham & Hussin, 2009).Giving the students confidence on their own roles and responsibilities is necessary in increasing the student self-concept.Therefore, good service and communication are needed to build the school leadership with students.There is positive impact on the student behaviors and achievement when the students are given responsibilities.These responsibilities imply that the school has enough confidence on student capability (Sammon et al., 1995).Likewise, the same impact is also obtained from constructs such as school as a learning organization, teachers and staff expectation, conducive school environment, reward on student achievement, principal leadership, cooperation between parent and society, and vision and mission compiled together, as well as earnest teaching (Sammon et al., 1995) Because the correlation between principal leadership practice and construct 9 is at the fair stage, it needs to be upgraded to the high stage.The same consideration is also applied to construct the cooperation between school, parents, and society.
According to (Sammon et al., 1995), the cooperation between school, parents, and society will raise the school quality.And in this case, the participation of parents and society within the School Committee, established in the academic year of 2014/2015, to support the school program is no longer available.This is because the city government has implemented free educational programs for high school education.Thus, any payment incurred for the schools, paid by parents and surrounding community, has been stopped and assumed by the government through these free programs.The programs are funded fully by the regional development budget.Then, the programs have constrained the school principals to further elaborate their school programs.The schools are no longer flexible in formulating and implementing the school programs, and also lose their creativity and innovation skills in managing the school changes.Therefore, these ineffective effects of free government programs should be reviewed for future plans.
In terms of the reward on student achievement, schools should make clear and firm rules and disciplines.Effective schools are schools with clear and fair disciplinary rules (Pashiardis et al., 2011).They also add that schools with such rules will be able to create an effective and order learning process.
The next construct, the implementation of earnest teaching, should also be of the school's concern.A professional principal is one who well demonstrates his/her roles and functions for the whole school management.A principal should not focus only on routine school administration, but also on the implementation of learning in classrooms, with firm monitoring.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION
From the results on the stages of performance of 11 effective school characteristics in Public Senior High Schools in Padang, it can be concluded that: In terms of the principals and vice principals responses, the model instruments have the construct validity and can be used as a good predictor on the stages of effective school performance in Public Senior High School in Padang.
The descriptive analysis of minimum scores shows that the respondents strongly agree that Public Senior High Schools in Padang are in the effective school category, with very high minimum scores.Seven out of 11 constructs are in very high stage, and 4 constructs are high.The respondents strongly agree that Public Senior High School in Padang is led by professional principals.The total percentage of performance stage achieves 87%, which means that the respondents strongly agree that the schools have reached the stages of effective school performance as what (Sammon et al., 1995) has defined.In summary, the school vision and mission have been compiled together, with conducive environments that provide safety and comfort towards the students.The principals and teachers have given more attention on the school academic improvement and good control on the wholehearted learning implementation.The same attention is also provided towards continuing assessment by the teachers.
Other four constructs, at the high stages, are high expectations of the schools towards student achievement, student rights and responsibilities, cooperation between school, parents, and the effort to make school a learning organization.Nevertheless, in general, the respondents state that Public Senior High School in Padang are in the effective school category.These findings are in line with the views of Husein ( 2008); Robinson et al (2008); and Sharifa (2012) that state that there is a correlation between professional principal leadership and 11 effective school characteristics.
In addition, Pearson's correlation analysis shows that there is a significant correlation between professional principal leadership and effective school characteristics.It means the better the leadership practices of a principal, the more easily effective school characteristics materialized.
To add more, the results of simple regression analysis show that there is a significant influence of principal leadership to effective schools.It can be seen from 50% contribution of constructs 2 and 3: vision and mission compiled together and conducive school environment.The findings are in accordance with Padang government's policy which focuses more on the school program formulation and conducive school environment.In order to realize conducive school environment, the city government through the Environmental Impact Controlling Agency has promoted the Adiwiyata Mandiri program for all senior high schools in Padang.Schools that successfully meet the defined criteria will be awarded the Adiwiyata award.
, which contain 76 indicators, show that 71 indicators have been theoretically and empirically tested while 5 indicators are failed.The tests used are validity and reliability tests and also instrument testing with Confirmatory factor analysis.Construct 1professional leadership has 14 indicators with 4 failed indicators.Vision & mission compiled together has 8 indicators, Conducive school environment has 5 indicators, Emphasis on learning with 9 indicators, Earnest teaching with 7 indicators, High expectation of teachers & staff has 6 indicators, with one failed, Reward on student achievement has 6 indicators, Continuing assessment has 7 indicators, Student rights & responsibilities has 5 indicators, Cooperation between school, parents & society with 5 indicators, and School as a learning organization with 4 indicators.

Table 1 .
The Interpretation of Minimum Scores

Table 2 .
The Category of Performance Level

Table 3 .
Corrected Item-Total Correlation Analysis and Cronbach's Alpha

Table 5 .
Summary of Factor Analysis Test with

Table 6 .
Summary of Single Factor Analysis Results with Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Table 7 .
Achievement of Minimum Scores of 11 Effective School Characteristics

Table 8 .
Frequency of Distribution of 11 Effective School Characteristics in Padang

Table 9 .
Stage of Correlation of 11 effective school characteristics

Table 10 .
Anova of Independent Variables and Dependent Variable