School Administrator Assessments of Bullying and State-Mandated Testing

Bully victimization is associated with lower academic performance for individual students; however, less is known about the impact of bullying on the academic performance of the school as a whole. This study examined how retrospective administrator reports of both the prevalence of teasing and bullying (PTB) and the use of evidence-based bullying prevention efforts might be associated with school-wide performance on 11 state-mandated achievement tests. Hierarchical regression analyses conducted at the school level with 301 Virginia high schools found that principal reports of both PTB and bullying prevention efforts were associated with the proportion of students that passed achievement testing. Findings could not be attributed to the proportion of White students in the school, student poverty, school size, or urban location, which were statistically controlled.