EDUCATIONAL POLICYMAKERS\u27 AND PRACTITIONERS\u27 PERCEPTIONS OF THE FUTURE ROLE OF THE HIGH SCHOOL IN THE STATE OF NEBRASKA

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to determine if there were consensus between educational policymakers and practitioners in their perceptions of the desirability, impact, and implementation of selected reform recommendations designed to affect high schools as reported in Giving Youth A Better Chance: Options for Education, Work, and Service. The following questions were asked: (1) How did Nebraska state legislators, members of the Nebraska State School board, members of the Nebraska State School Boards Association, and local school district administrators perceive the desirability, impact, and implementation of the selected reform recommendations? (2) To what extent was there general agreement of perceptions within and between the surveyed groups as to the selected reform recommendations? (3) Was there sufficient consensus between the surveyed groups to identify priorities of recommendations based on the groups\u27 responses to selected reform recommendations? Procedures. A modification of the Delphi Technique was used. Participants rated their perceptions of the desirability, impact, and implementation of 22 selected recommendations. Data Analysis. Data were analyzed to determine degree of agreement between groups and among subgroups. Statistical treatment of data utilized the t-ratio and Spearman Rank Difference. Findings. (1) Significant differences in perceptions between participant groups were in degree of agreement, not in disagreement of desirability or impact of recommendations. (2) Participant groups perceived dates of implementation of recommendations similarly with one exception. Practitioners perceived age 16 as the age of free choice to join the military as being implemented in 1990; policymakers perceived the recommendation as never being implemented. (3) Agreement of perceptions of recommendation desirability and impact existed among subgroups with one exception. State legislators perceived age 16 as the age of free choice to leave school as undesirable; other subgroups did not. (4) When recommendations were ranked according to mean scores to determine priority of the recommendations, low to moderate correlation between participant groups\u27 perceptions was found