Health Education in Charter Schools: A National Study

<p>The purpose of this study was to assess the quantity and content of health education that is being taught in U.S. charter high schools. An additional purpose was to identify factors that are associated with teaching health education in charter high schools. Two theories, the Transtheoretical Model and the Health Belief Model were used to evaluate current status of health education in charter high schools.</p><p>A 24-item survey instrument was developed and distributed to a national random sample of 750 charter high schools across the United States. A directory of charter schools was obtained from the National Charter School Directory, managed by the Center for Education Reform. Schools from the thirty nine states with charter schools in 2009 and the District of Columbia were included in the random sample of schools. Schools at the high school grade level were included in the random sample. The survey was addressed to the attention of the person responsible for teaching health education or the school leader. A four-wave mailing process was used in an attempt to increase the response rate. The final response rate was 44%, with 300 of the 680 potential surveys returned.</p><p>The majority of respondents (81%) were in the maintenance stage and had been teaching health education for more than a year. The respondents can be described asCaucasian (74.7%), female (51.3%), bachelor’s degree trained (82.3%), and having 5 or less years of teaching experience (35.7%). Less than a third of respondents (29.7%) identified themselves as health teachers and the majority (64.7%) had been with the current charter school less than 5 years. A little over one third (38.3%) of those teaching health education reported being licensed or certified to teach health education.The majority of the charter schools had been open for ten years or less (66.3%), were located in an urban setting (49.4%), and identified their type of school as “core knowledge” (40.6%). Approximately two thirds of the charter schools reported having a state, district, or charter law requirement to teach health education.</p><p>Health education was reported as being most likely to be taught in ninth grade (66.9%) compared to twelfth grade (44.1%). The health topics most likely to be taught were physical activity and fitness (60.5%), body systems (45.8%), and alcohol/other drug use prevention (43.9%). Health education topics least likely to be taught were first aid/CPR (13.4%) and health care services (13.1%). Schools in states where charter school laws received a state rank of C, on a scale of A-F, by the Center of Education Reform, were most likely to invest time in teaching health education topics. The proportion of charter schools teaching the specific health skills identified in the National Health Education Standards was high, ranging from 62.7% to 86.1%. Approximately one third of respondents (34%) reported having no perceived barriers to teaching health education. When reported, lack of financial resources was the most common perceived barrier (26.7%). Only 1.7% of respondents identified no benefits to teaching health education, while more than half of the respondents selected at least four benefits from the survey item choices.</p><p>These findings suggest that charter schools are teaching health education and that schools with a district, state, or charter law health education policy are more likely to teach health education. Health and school professionals should still work with individual charter schools in developing sound health education curricula as this study did not measure the quality of the health education being taught, academic performance of students enrolled in health education courses and professional preparation and advancement of those teaching health education in charter schools.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Health Education

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Toledo

Year dc:date

2012

Author dc:creator

• Ambrosetti, Lisa Marie

Contributors dc:contributor

• Jordan, Timothy

• Education
• Health Education

Statement dc:rights

• unrestricted
• This thesis or dissertation is protected by copyright: all rights reserved. It may not be copied or redistributed beyond the terms of applicable copyright laws.

Language dc:language

English

Repository record dc:identifier

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1341515373

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:etd.ohiolink.edu:toledo1341515373