No description available.

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of Tech Prep to student enrollment and retention in a California community college. Tech Prep was conceived by Dale Parnell as an articulated high school/community college program focusing on the neglected majority or the middle-quartile of high school students. This study included a review of high school Tech Prep student data for 1997–1998 and 1998–1999. These students were tracked from the high school program through the community college program. The data generated from this review indicated that 1,947 high school students enrolled in the Tech Prep program during this time period, with 1,437 completing the high school requirements, 420 of these students enrolled in the community college within a two year timeframe, and 51 completed the community college Tech Prep course, thereby receiving community college credit for the high school Tech Prep course(s). Student perceptions and self reported attitudes were obtained through surveys of a random sample of those high school Tech Prep students who continued their education at community college. Findings indicated that lack of information about program opportunities is the key to loss of student continuity. Interviews were conducted of fifteen of the surveyed students, resulting in validation of this contention. An evaluation of the student data, surveys and interviews revealed that there was no definitive relationship of enrollment and retention of high school Tech Prep student through the community college Tech Prep program. The resulting findings revealed that the community college Tech Prep programs require significant and appropriate changes in communicating program information in order to positively impact enrollment and retention of the target population. Recommendations were also made for future studies.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the leadership decision making process associated with pursuing innovative educational programs. The study investigated the experiences of leaders involved in pursuing Tech Prep Demonstration Project grants at two early-innovator California community colleges. A qualitative investigation was conducted utilizing descriptive case study methodologies. The researcher conducted focused interviews with individuals in leadership positions at the time the decision to pursue a Tech Prep Demonstration Project grant was made at these two community colleges. The study was guided by a data-analysis spiral. The data analysis spiral enabled the researcher to organize and examine large amounts of data in a systematic fashion. The study found that the decision-making process was facilitated by eight factors: (a) Environmental scanning by a designated person or by middle management; (b) preexisting intersegmental long term relationships with key individuals outside their institution; (c) prior knowledge of a related innovation; (d) personal and professional experience and frustration with a lack of educational options for K-12 students; (e) educational values that aligned with the innovation being pursued; (f) preexisting structures that allowed leaders to expand existing programming rather than to initiate new programming; (g) early reservations and challenges; and (h) post decision-making issues. These factors each played a large part in defining whether an environment in which innovations are considered exists in certain community colleges, as well as in K-12 schools. The community college leaders who took part in this decision making process had a great deal of professional experience to build upon. They used that experience to form relationships with K-12 leaders, who became their partners in educational reform. These partnerships were made possible because the colleges possessed sufficient organizational slack, and utilized that slack to pursue innovative programming. An earlier federal policy, the Tech Prep component of the 1990 Carl Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act, may have had limited success in meeting its own goals, but produced the strong intersegmental relationships that the TPDP was built upon. In addition, the study confirmed the decision-making stages described by Rogers (2003) and defined a sixth stage, the "resolution stage," in which decision makers step back and take time to reflect on the innovation itself and the process used to make the decision to implement or not implement the innovation, as well as correcting early assumptions that proved to be false. The resolution stage provided leaders with time to step back and reflect on their original goals and on the progress of the innovation in order to make course corrections as necessary.