Date of Award

Fall 12-1-2017

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational Leadership

Abstract

Workforce projections indicate that a majority of jobs to be created in the U.S. economy will require some form of postsecondary education (Cappelli, 2015; Carnevale, Smith, & Strohl, 2010). At the same time, colleges and universities are being held accountable for completion and graduation of their students (The Commission, 2014) and secondary schools are being graded under changing accountability systems (Center for Education Policy, 2008; Dee & Jacobs, 2011, Figlio & Ladd, 2008). This study looked at the longer-term implications of high school accountability grades, A–F, and the impact on student transfer, associate’s degree completion, and time to associate’s degree among Twenty-First Century Scholars students who attended Ivy Tech Community College, Indiana’s community college system. There were statistically significant differences in long-term education outcomes, earning associate’s degrees in 11 elapsed terms from the first fall term of enrollment and in transferring out with or without a degree during the same time-period, based on the accountability grade of the high school from which the students came, using two separate chi square tests for independence. However, among graduates, there was no statistically significant difference in the time it took students to complete associate’s degrees between students from A- and F-rated high schools, using an independent samples t-test.

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