Browsing by Author "Blowe, Eleanor Hearst"

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    Career and Technical Education: Academic Achievement and Graduation Rates of Students in the Commonwealth of Virginia
    Blowe, Eleanor Hearst; Price, Ted S. (SAGE Publications, 2012-07-23)
    The No Child Left Behind legislation was signed into law to ensure children in the United States receive quality education and learn the skills needed to be successful. Career and technical education (CTE) is not mentioned in the legislation, which suggests that more CTE courses may be dropped from high school master schedules, which makes the topic a concern for educational leaders. The purpose of this study was to investigate the academic performance of CTE completers and non-CTE completers in the Commonwealth of Virginia on the standards of learning English reading and mathematics assessments as well as cohort graduation rates. Findings indicate that statistically ( p < .05), CTE completers had higher mathematics and Grade 11 English reading pass rates as well as higher cohort graduation rates than those of non-CTE completers.
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    The Impact of Career and Technical Education (CTE) on Student Academic Achievement and Graduation Rates in the Commonwealth of Virginia
    White, David Owen (Virginia Tech, 2015-07-27)
    The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 required that states set clear standards for what all students should learn, and hold schools accountable for student progress in the areas of language arts, reading, and mathematics to assess their abilities (USDOE, 2002). However, while NCLB emphasizes the core academic subjects (i.e., English, reading/language arts, mathematics science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and geography), it neglected to address Career and Technical Education (CTE) (i.e., agriculture; business and information technology; family and consumer sciences; marketing; health and medical sciences; technology; or trade and industry) in any part of the legislation. The purpose of this study was to compare the academic performance of CTE completers and non-CTE completers in the Commonwealth of Virginia on the Standards of Learning (SOL) Reading and mathematics assessments, and graduation rates. This study was modeled after and was an extension of a previous study by Blowe (2011), and represented a quantitative, quasi-experimental, correlational evaluation of ex post facto data to determine the effects of being a CTE completer on student academic success in high school. The findings show that the mean pass rate for CTE completers was higher than the mean pass rate for non-CTE completers for both the EOC Reading and EOC Algebra II SOLs, and that the mean graduation rate for CTE completers was higher than the mean graduation rate for non-CTE completers for each of the graduation cohorts years included in the study. An additional finding was the discovery of reporting discrepancies in division-reported data published by the VDOE. The findings in this study provided the researcher with valuable insight into the potential role of CTE in an improving schools model, including the utilization of a rigorous CTE curriculum as a strategy for improving SOL scores and graduation rates for all students. Additionally, this information may prove beneficial to educational and legislative leaders in developing policies governing CTE curriculum throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia.
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    The Impact of Career and Technical Education on the Academic Achievement and Graduation Rates of Students in the Commonwealth of Virginia
    Blowe, Eleanor Hearst (Virginia Tech, 2011-11-02)
    In 2002, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation (U.S. Department of Education, 2002) was signed into law to help children in the United States receive quality education and learn the basic skills needed to be successful (Chadd & Drage, 2006). The central focus of this legislation is the core academic subjects, which are identified in the legislation as English, reading or language arts, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history and geography. Career and technical education (CTE) is not specifically mentioned in the legislation, which suggests that NCLB and the high-stakes testing associated with the accountability benchmarks could impact the future of CTE. Even though the primary expectation of high-stakes testing is to increase academic achievement in specific areas, many worthwhile school programs could suffer from unintended consequences of this high-stakes testing initiative. One of the strategies that many school districts are using to improve student performance in the core subject areas mentioned in the NCLB legislation is to devote more instructional time to the tested content subjects, such as reading, mathematics, social studies and science. Hence, the development of an unintended consequence of narrowing the curriculum offered to secondary students. As a result more CTE courses may be dropped from high school master schedules, which make the topic of specific concern for educational leaders (Gordon et al., 2007). School administrators and school leaders are concerned about school accreditation and student performance on state mandated tests. Therefore, examining career and technical education student performance on Virginia's Standards of Learning assessments and the graduation rates of CTE students would help to determine the impact of CTE enrollment on student achievement. As such, the impact of CTE on high-stakes testing in the Commonwealth of Virginia was the impetus for this topic of study. This purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the academic performance of CTE completers and non-CTE completers in the Commonwealth of Virginia on the Standards of Learning English and mathematics assessments, as well as cohort graduation rates. This quantitative study used descriptive statistics, such as mean and standard deviation, to determine if their pass rates and graduation rates differ during the 2008, 2009 and 2010 school years. A t-test was used to determine if they differ significantly from each other. Findings indicate that statistically (p<.05), CTE completers had higher mathematics and Grade 11 English reading pass rates from those of non-CTE completers. The CTE completers in this study also demonstrated higher cohort graduation rates. It appears that a concentration of career and technical education makes a positive impact the pass rates of students on the Standards of Learning assessments and cohort graduation rates.
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    Principal Leadership Practices Influence on Teacher Retention in Urban, Hard-to-Staff Schools
    Barnett, Felicia Foster (Virginia Tech, 2017-05-03)
    Teacher retention is a growing issue that plagues schools across America (Grissom, 2011). Consequently, urban high poverty, high minority schools face even greater challenges as they expect to lose approximately 50% of their teachers within their first five years on the job. According to Grissom (2011), school working conditions explain both teacher turnover and teacher satisfaction, and principal effectiveness has a significant positive impact on teacher retention, especially in disadvantaged schools. The purpose of this study was to examine leadership practices teachers and principals perceive to influence teacher retention in urban, high- poverty, high- minority schools. A basic qualitative research design was employed to gain an in-depth understanding of teachers' and principals' perceptions of how school climate and culture, instructional leadership, school mission and vision, and teacher development impact teacher retention in urban, hard- to- staff schools. Data collection included individual and focus group interview data from five principals and 17 teachers with longevity in urban, high-poverty, high-minority schools in Southeastern Virginia. An analysis of the data indicated that administrative support, principal-teacher relationships, shared leadership, clear expectations and instructional leadership are essential to teacher retention in urban, hard-to-staff schools. The results of this study may impact the recruitment and development of school leaders by both districts and school leadership programs.