Talent Development Produced Substantial Gains in Philadelphia High Schools

Talent Development, a high school reform initiative that seeks to transform the ninth grade, produced substantial and pervasive educational gains for students in very low-performing schools in Philadelphia. In Making Progress Toward Graduation, MDRC found that Talent Development increased school attendance by nine days per year for each student. For a high school with 500 first-time ninth-graders, it helped an additional 125 students pass algebra and an extra 40 students get promoted to tenth grade. There are also indications that positive effects are beginning to extend to eleventh-grade math test scores and to graduation rates.

Between 1998 and 2004, 7 of Philadelphia's 22 nonselective high schools implemented the Talent Development school reform model. MDRC compared changes in student performance before and after Talent Development was implemented with changes in student performance in non-Talent Development schools during the same period. The difference between these changes represents the estimated effect, or "impact," of Talent Development. For first-time ninth-grade students, the model had impacts on academic course credits earned, attendance, and promotion rates. Most notably, Talent Development produced a substantial increase — nearly 25 percentage points — in the proportion of students who earned a credit in algebra, a critical, "gate-keeping" course that is usually required of students both for high school graduation and for admission to college. In addition, attendance rates in the Talent Development schools improved by about 5 percentage points over the non-Talent Development schools — an average increase of about nine extra school days per year for each student. And the rate at which students were promoted from the ninth grade to the tenth in the Talent Development schools rose by 8 percentage points over the non-Talent Development schools.

SOURCE: MDRC calculations from individual students’ school records from the School District of Philadelphia.

NOTES: A two-tailed t-test was applied to the impacts at follow-up. Statistical significance levels are indicated as: *** = 1 percent; ** = 5 percent; * = 10 percent.

Each bar in the graph represents the change from the baseline average for the outcome indicated in Talent Development and non-Talent Development schools. (The baseline average represents the average level for the given outcome in the three years prior to the implementation of Talent Development.) The estimated impact of Talent Development is the difference in deviations from the baseline average between the Talent Development and non-Talent Development schools.

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