Date of Award

January 2022

Degree Type

Open Access Thesis

Document Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Public Administration (MPA)

Department

Government

First Advisor

Anne M. Cizmar

Department Affiliation

Government

Abstract

The evolution of the public education system to include more career and life readiness skills should be a central matter of focus to education policymakers across the United States by improving the planning, implementation, and evaluation of Career and Technical Education programs. This is because improving the societal standard of living relies on proper Community Development, through the framework of developing the potential quality of America’s most vital human capital, its students entering the workforce. In its current state Career and Technical Education is an important but underdeveloped program set to accomplish building student skills in work ethics and administrative skills, without the focus and resources to accomplish these well for the majority of students. Community and Leadership Development in students through the evaluation of the federal Career and Technical Education legislation, the Perkins V and its renditions, and the logic models of those programs that are highly successful, reveal a crucial need to improve programs throughout all of the U.S. public education system.

The data from the logic models of 9 award winning school CTE programs showed commonalities that less successful programs could strive for to have better results, and improving the potential of their students community development. The overall data of the three consecutive years of award winning CTE programs indicated that nearly 50% of all students served in those award winning programs were low income that successfully increased their standard of living through opportunities such as high percentiles of post-secondary education and workforce industry recognized credentials earned. Many of the schools were institutions with a higher student CTE curriculum focus. This project evaluated the American program of Career and Technical Education derived from the Perkins V legislation and found that the replication of high quality logic models of the programs at award winning schools and the increase in technology and data infrastructure metrics to study for better evaluation would best serve American students and increase the potential for success in the nation’s rapidly transforming economy.

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