Volume 4 - Issue 1 - DBU Journal of K-12 Educational Research - Page 61

Journal of K-12 Educational Research 59 Introduction The Charter Public School (CPS) system is very controversial in the United States. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People claimed that the CPS movement is doing more harm than good to minority communities, especially for low income students. Yet, Black and Hispanic parents who are low income may prefer to send their children to a charter school rather than to a traditional public school. The 2016 Institute of Education Sciences National Center for Education Statistics (IESNCES) has confirmed this preference for charters. All over the United States, there are 12% more Black minorities and 6% more Hispanic minorities who go to charter schools than traditional public schools. The current study was conducted in response to the growing preference of the lower income Black and Hispanic minorities to study in charter schools and the concern of shortages of the college degree holding workforce in the United States. To date, the country is experiencing an economic upheaval for not having enough minorities attain college degrees. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the fastest growing jobs in the year 2016-2026 are those that need post-secondary education for job entry (Carnevale, Smith, & Strohl, 2010; Krogstad, 2016; Rolen, 2019). In fact, it was projected that there will be a shortage of about three million job candidates because applicants without college degrees cannot fill the demand of the job market (Krogstad, 2016). In a similar vein, the 2016 IESNCES reported that Black and Hispanic minorities are very low in college attainment, while a number of recent studies and articles found connections between the inadequate preparation of Blacks and Hispanics in P-12 and their low college attainment (Prothero, 2017). Summary of Findings and Interpretation of Results The researcher used a questionnaire to collect data focused on academic performance and attendance. Respondents’ levels of attendance were counted as the number of absences based on their reported category of school attendance. The two qualitative questions were based on several research-based factors (Coleman, 1988; Coleman- Tucker, 2014; Holland, 2012; Paulson, 2010; Perez-Felkner, 2015; Prothero, 2017). One interesting assumption is that a college-bound culture can be established in college preparatory schools so that students can be prepared and motivated to go to college. The researcher aimed to identify those experiences that had encouraged and/or prepared graduates to go to college as perceived by the graduates themselves. In addition, the researcher also endeavored to provide voice for these students by discovering connections between levels of students’ academic performance and attendance in relation to their college aspirations. The chi-square test for independence was used to test the relationship between levels of school performance (as shown by students’ GPA) and college aspirations in addition to levels of attendance (as shown by students’ absences) and college aspirations. Results revealed that students’ academic performance as measured by their reported GPA has no connection with Journal of K-12 Educational Research 2020, VOL. 4, ISSUE 1 www.dbu.edu/doctoral/edd CHARTER SCHOOL AND COLLEGE ASPIRATION OF HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES Arlyn Vergara-Unating, EdD