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Featured Publication

Transforming the High School Experience
How New York City’s New Small Schools Are Boosting Student Achievement and Graduation Rates

Taking advantage of lottery-like features in New York City’s high school admissions process, this study provides rigorous evidence that new small public high schools are narrowing the educational attainment gap and markedly improve graduation prospects, particularly for disadvantaged students.

Most Recent K-12 Education Publications

The Implications of Teacher Selection and Teacher Effects in Some Education Experiments

In some experimental evaluations of classroom- or school-level interventions, random assignment is conducted at the student level and the program is delivered at the higher level. This paper clarifies the correct causal interpretation of “program impacts” when this study design is used and discusses the implications and limitations of this research design. A real example is used to demonstrate the paper’s key points.

Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study
After the First Year of Implementation

This report presents first-year results from the Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study, sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences. The professional development programs for seventh-grade math teachers had an impact on one measure of teacher practice but no effects on teachers’ knowledge or student achievement.

New York City’s Changing High School Landscape
High Schools and Their Characteristics, 2002-2008

This report examines the sweeping transformation of New York City’s public high school system — the nation’s largest — during the first decade of the twenty-first century, when nearly 200 new small high schools were created. Two companion reports focus on the role of intermediaries in this reform effort and provide case studies of six schools.
 

Most Recent Higher Education Publications

Learning Communities for Students in Developmental Reading
An Impact Study at Hillsborough Community College

A random assignment study of learning communities that linked a developmental reading course and a “college success” course finds that faculty collaboration and curricular integration increased over time. Overall, the program had no impact on students’ academic success, but evidence suggests that it had some positive effects for the last cohort of students in the study.

Investing in Change
How Much Do Achieving the Dream Colleges Spend — and from What Resources — to Become Data-Driven Institutions?

This report analyzes the experiences of five community colleges that participate in Lumina Foundation’s Achieving the Dream initiative and the investments they made in implementing an institutional improvement process aimed at increasing students’ success. The report examines how, where, and with what resources these colleges supported their reforms, as well as the key activities driving their overall expenditures.

Scaling Up Learning Communities
The Experience of Six Community Colleges

Learning communities, which enroll groups of students together in coordinated classes, are increasingly being used to help developmental-level students succeed. This report on the Learning Communities Demonstration, a large-scale, random assignment evaluation, describes the strategies that six community colleges used and the challenges they faced in scaling up their programs.
 

Most Recent Families & Children Publications

Policies That Strengthen Fatherhood and Family Relationships
What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know?

This working paper, prepared for a conference sponsored by the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, reviews evidence about the effectiveness of two strategies to strengthen family relationships and fathers’ involvement with their children: fatherhood programs aimed at disadvantaged noncustodial fathers and relationship skills programs for parents who are together.

Transitional Jobs
Background, Program Models, and Evaluation Evidence

Transitional jobs programs provide temporary, wage-paying jobs and other services to help individuals who have difficulty succeeding in the regular labor market. In the context of a new federal initiative to support and study these programs, this paper describes what is known about transitional jobs and offers ideas for program design and research.

Alternative Welfare-to-Work Strategies for the Hard-to-Employ
Testing Transitional Jobs and Pre-Employment Services in Philadelphia

Interim results from an evaluation of two different welfare-to-work strategies for long-term welfare recipients show that transitional jobs increase employment and earnings but that it is difficult to successfully engage participants in extensive pre-employment services.


Most Recent Workers & Communities Publications

Benefit-Cost Findings for Three Programs in the Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) Project

This report examines the financial benefits and costs of three different programs in the national Employment Retention and Advancement project, sponsored by the federal Administration for Children and Families, that have increased employment and earnings among current and former welfare recipients.

How Effective Are Different Approaches Aiming to Increase Employment Retention and Advancement?
Final Impacts for Twelve Models

This report presents the final implementation and impact findings for 12 programs in the national Employment Retention and Advancement project, sponsored by the federal Administration for Children and Families. These programs attempted to promote steady work and career advancement for current and former welfare recipients and other low-wage workers, most of whom were single mothers.

Toward Reduced Poverty Across Generations
Early Findings from New York City’s Conditional Cash Transfer Program

Targeted toward low-income families in six high-poverty New York City communities, Opportunity NYC-Family Rewards offers cash payments tied to efforts and achievements in children’s education, family preventive health care practices, and parents’ employment. In its first two years, the program substantially reduced poverty and material hardship and had positive results in improving some education, health-related, and work-related outcomes.


Most Recent Health & Barriers to Employment Publications

Benefit-Cost Findings for Three Programs in the Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) Project


This report examines the financial benefits and costs of three different programs in the national Employment Retention and Advancement project, sponsored by the federal Administration for Children and Families, that have increased employment and earnings among current and former welfare recipients.

How Effective Are Different Approaches Aiming to Increase Employment Retention and Advancement?
Final Impacts for Twelve Models


This report presents the final implementation and impact findings for 12 programs in the national Employment Retention and Advancement project, sponsored by the federal Administration for Children and Families. These programs attempted to promote steady work and career advancement for current and former welfare recipients and other low-wage workers, most of whom were single mothers.

Making the Transition
Interim Results of the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Evaluation


Interim results from a random assignment evaluation of the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program, an intensive, residential program for high school dropouts, show that young people who had access to ChalleNGe were much more likely than those in the control group to have obtained a high school diploma or a General Educational Development certificate. They were also somewhat more likely to be working, in college, or enlisted in the military.


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