The purpose of this study was to investigate the issues and implementation of high school reform efforts in the 81 career and technology schools in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The specific areas that were examined were those identified in the research as contributing to high school reform efforts of secondary schools. The researcher developed four research questions that guided the study. Pennsylvania Association of Career and Technical Administrators (PACTA) aided the researcher in reaching directors of the 81 career and technology schools in the commonwealth via e-mail. The e-mail asked directors to complete an electronic survey concerning high school reform issues with their sending school districts. Seventy-one of a possible eighty-one directors completed the survey. The results of the completed survey were analyzed using quantitative and qualitative analysis. The statistical outline includes discussions of correlation, central themes found and percentages.
The results of this study indicated that there is an overwhelming lack of communications between career and technology schools and their sending school districts. The researcher also found that comprehensive career and technology schools are more actively engaged in high school reform efforts than shared-time career and technology schools.
By surveying a statistically significant number of career and technology school directors about the reform efforts of their schools, this study provides a clear road map for improvement in the overall high school reform efforts. This road map suggests Pennsylvania policymakers and school administrators need to make collaboration and communication a top priority to ensure that all students are provided the same high quality education regardless, of whether they chose career and technology or traditional academic education.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-03272008-080142 |
| Date | 30 June 2008 |
| Creators | Copeland, Darwin L |
| Contributors | Fred Monaco, Ph.D., Charlene Trovato, Ph.D., Charles Gorman, Ed.D., Sean Hughes, Ph.D. |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-03272008-080142/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
Page generated in 0.0021 seconds