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2006 |
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The Challenge of Supporting Change
Elementary Student Achievement and the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative’s Focal Strategy
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2006. Kristin E. Porter and Jason C. Snipes.
The Bay Area School Reform Collaborative’s focal strategy, a system-wide reform that coaches district and school leaders, supports evidence-based decision-making, and promotes networking within and among schools, has no strong association with changes in elementary student achievement.
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Emerging Evidence on Improving High School Student Achievement and Graduation Rates
The Effects of Four Popular Improvement Programs
Policy Brief
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National High School Center.
2006. Corinne M. Herlihy and Janet Quint.
This research brief, published by the National High School Center, draws on findings from four studies by MDRC that shed light on both the nature of the problems found in low-performing high schools and on the effectiveness of promising interventions that attempt to address those problems.
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Staying in Work and Moving Up
Evidence from the UK Employment Retention and Advancement Demonstration
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UK Department for Work and Pensions.
2006. Lesley Hoggart, Verity Campbell-Barr, Kathryn Ray, and Sandra Vegeris.
This study for the UK Department for Work and Pensions explores the attitudes of a sample of participants in the UK Employment Retention and Advancement program. This rare employment study on low-paid workers in the United Kingdom offers a foundation for understanding the receptivity of low-paid workers to programs that help them remain employed and advance.
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The Core Analytics of Randomized Experiments for Social Research
Working Paper
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2006. Howard S. Bloom.
This MDRC research methodology working paper examines the core analytic elements of randomized experiments for social research. Its goal is to provide a compact discussion of the design and analysis of randomized experiments for measuring the impact of social or educational interventions.
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The Employment Retention and Advancement Project
Results from the Texas ERA Site
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2006. Karin Martinson and Richard Hendra.
An evaluation of a job placement, retention, and advancement program for individuals receiving welfare showed some effects — but not consistent or large effects — on employment and retention outcomes during the first two years of follow-up.
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A Whole ’Nother World
Students Navigating Community College
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2006. Alissa Gardenhire-Crooks, Herbert Collado, and Barbara Ray.
For this study, MDRC interviewed students at two colleges that are part of the Opening Doors Demonstration, a program to help community college students remain in school and succeed. The students spoke about their experiences on and off campus and the factors that help or hinder their progress in school.
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Employment-Focused Programs for Ex-Prisoners
What Have We Learned, What Are We Learning, and Where Should We Go from Here?
Working Paper
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2006. Dan Bloom.
Each year, the more than 600,000 people released from prison face numerous obstacles to successful reentry into society, starting with the challenge of finding stable work. What does existing research say about the effectiveness of work-focused programs for ex-prisoners?
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MDRC's Evaluation of Project GRAD
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Project Graduation Really Achieves Dreams (GRAD) is an ambitious education reform initiative that targets high schools and the elementary and middle schools that feed into them. Findings from MDRC’s evaluation of Project GRAD in several urban school districts can be found in two reports — one focused on elementary schools and the other on high schools.
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Jobs-Plus: A Promising Strategy
Presented Before the Subcommittee on Federalism and the Census, House Committee on Government Reform
Congressional Testimony
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2006. James A. Riccio.
MDRC’s study of Jobs-Plus, an employment program for public housing residents, offered the first hard evidence that a work-focused intervention based in public housing can effectively boost residents’ earnings and promote their self-sufficiency. Congress may wish to consider introducing Jobs-Plus in additional housing developments across the country.
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Paying for Persistence
Early Results of a Louisiana Scholarship Program for Low-Income Parents Attending Community College
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2006. Thomas Brock and Lashawn Richburg-Hayes
Funded by state welfare dollars, two community colleges in the New Orleans area offered performance-based scholarships and enhanced counseling to low-income parents, as part of MDRC’s Opening Doors demonstration. These early findings show the program had significant positive effects on academic achievement and rates of retention.
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Meeting Five Critical Challenges of High School Reform
Lessons from Research on Three Reform Models
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2006. Janet Quint.
Recent MDRC evaluations of three high school reform models — Career Academies, First Things First, and Talent Development — offer hope that comprehensive programs can improve low-performing high schools. This research synthesis for policymakers and practitioners offers practical lessons for creating personalized learning environments, helping struggling freshmen, improving instruction, preparing students for the world beyond high school, and stimulating change in overstressed high schools.
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The Power of Work
The Center for Employment Opportunities
Comprehensive Prisoner Reentry Program
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2006. The Center for Employment Opportunities and MDRC.
The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) serves nearly 2,000 reentering prisoners a year with a structured program of pre-employment training, immediate short-term transitional work, and job placement services. This report, written jointly by CEO and MDRC, describes how the CEO program operates. Results from a random assignment evaluation by MDRC are expected next year.
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Closing the Aspirations-Attainment Gap
Implications for High School Reform
A Commentary from Chicago
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2006. Melissa Roderick.
In this paper, prepared for MDRC’s 2005 high school reform conference, Melissa Roderick, Co-Director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research, contends that the primary goal of high school reform should be to close the gap between the high aspirations of minority and low-income public high school students — most of whom want to go to college — and the low numbers who graduate with the skills they need.
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Making Random Assignment Happen
Evidence from the UK Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) Demonstration
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UK Department for Work and Pensions.
2006. Robert Walker, Lesley Hoggart, and Gayle Hamilton, with Susan Blank.
The largest ever random assignment test of a social policy in Britain is being applied in a demonstration of the Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) program. This report, written by MDRC and British colleagues as part of a consortium of social policy research firms and produced for the UK Department for Work and Pensions, examines how well random assignment worked.
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A New Approach to Low-Wage Workers and Employers
Launching the Work Advancement and Support Center Demonstration
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2006. Jacquelyn Anderson, Linda Yuriko Kato, and James A. Riccio, with Susan Blank.
The Work Advancement and Support Center demonstration tests an innovative approach to fostering employment retention, career advancement, and increased take-up of work supports for a broad range of low-earners, including reemployed dislocated workers. This report examines start-up experiences in the first two sites: Dayton, Ohio, and San Diego, California.
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Charting a Path to Graduation
The Effect of Project GRAD on Elementary School
Student Outcomes in Four Urban Districts
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2006. Jason C. Snipes, Glee Ivory Holton, and Fred Doolittle.
This report describes the effects of Project GRAD, an ambitious education reform that targets high schools and the elementary and middle schools that feed into them, on student test scores in elementary schools in Houston, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; Columbus, Ohio; and Newark, New Jersey.
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Striving for Student Success
The Effect of Project GRAD on High School Student Outcomes in Three Urban School Districts
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2006. Jason C. Snipes, Glee Ivory Holton, Fred Doolittle, and Laura Sztejnberg.
This report describes the effects of Project GRAD, an ambitious education reform that targets high schools and the elementary and middle schools that feed into them, on a variety of student outcomes in high schools in Houston, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; and Columbus, Ohio.
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The Employment Retention and Advancement Project
Results from the South Carolina ERA Site
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2005. Susan Scrivener, Gilda Azurdia, and Jocelyn Page.
An MDRC evaluation of Moving Up, a program in South Carolina that aimed to help former welfare recipients obtain jobs, work more steadily, and move up in the labor market, found that the program had little effect on employment rates, earnings, employment retention, or advancement.
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The Search for Progress
Elementary Student Achievement and the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative's Focal Strategy
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2006. Kristin E. Porter, Jason C. Snipes, and Jean Eisberg.
The Bay Area School Reform Collaborative’s strategy seeks to raise student achievement in six elementary school districts in the San Francisco Bay Area by coaching supervisors, principals, and teachers, instituting evidence-based decision making, and promoting sharing of experiences among schools. During the first two years of implementation, MDRC found no strong, pervasive association with student achievement.
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Doing What Counts
Design Principles for a Study on Teacher Incentives
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2006. Jason C. Snipes, Janet C. Quint, Shelley Rappaport, and Lynne Steuerle Schofield.
This paper, produced by MDRC and the Laboratory for Student Success at Temple University, describes design principles for a study about the use of incentives to recruit and retain high-quality teachers for underperforming schools.
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Food Stamp Caseload Dynamics
A Study in Four Big Cities
A Technical Report
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2005. Lashawn Richburg-Hayes and Isaac Kwakye
This technical report describes food stamp caseload dynamics between January 1993 and December 2001 in Cuyahoga County, Ohio; Los Angeles, California; Miami-Dade County, Florida; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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Student Context, Student Attitudes and Behavior, and Academic Achievement
An Exploratory Analysis
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2006. Theresa M. Akey
This analysis of data collected in MDRC’s evaluation of the First Things First reform initiative confirms that high school students’ engagement in school and perceptions of their own academic competence influence their mathematics achievement. The study also suggests that perceived academic competence may be more influential than engagement in boosting achievement in both mathematics and reading.
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2008
