In today’s economy, more than ever before, graduating from high school and obtaining a postsecondary credential are the keys to better economic opportunity. MDRC began its research on education in 1991 in response to discouraging evaluation findings from “second chance” programs intended to help high school dropouts do better in the labor market. Given MDRC’s history of studying initiatives for low-income adolescents, our first studies focused on school-based reforms in secondary schools and evaluated programs and policies designed to help students graduate from high school equipped to make successful transitions to college and the labor market. But our education portfolio today ranges from pre-K to postsecondary, including studies of school-based interventions in elementary schools; school district-wide reforms; and after-school and preschool programs — as well as innovative programs to help low-income students overcome obstacles to success in community college.

Community Colleges

Community colleges are a critical resource for low-income individuals striving to improve their prospects in the labor market and in life. MDRC’s work focuses on initiatives designed to help community college students stay in school and succeed. In the Opening Doors demonstration, MDRC is working with six colleges to test the effects of enhanced student services, instructional reforms, and performance-based scholarships. The early results from two of these programs are promising — one in Brooklyn, New York, that personalized the college experience through small learning communities and the other, in the New Orleans area, that offered performance-based scholarships and enhanced counseling.

MDRC is participating in the new National Postsecondary Research Center, in partnership with the Community College Research Center at Columbia University Teachers College and the University of Virginia, to evaluate programs employed by two- and four-year institutions to reduce barriers to higher education and increase college completion rates. A multicollege Learning Communities Demonstration is one of two major studies that will be conducted under the center. The other is a study of Dual Enrollment programs in Florida, in which high school juniors and seniors can take courses at the local community college.

In Achieving the Dream, MDRC is collaborating with a group of national organizations and funders on an initiative to improve student success in 58 colleges in nine states. MDRC is evaluating the Dreamkeepers Emergency Financial Aid initiative, an emergency scholarship program for community college and tribal college students, and is developing the Student Support Partnership Integrating Resources and Education (SSPIRE) to help a group of colleges in California effectively integrate traditional student support services with intensive academic instruction and supports.

High School Reform

Dropout rates at American high schools remain stubbornly high — estimated at 29 percent nationally and even higher for African-American and Hispanic students. In fact, 46 percent of African-American students and 39 percent of Hispanic students attend high schools where graduation is no better than a 50-50 proposition. And too many high school students who do manage to graduate aren’t ready for the worlds of work and college.

MDRC has examined three prominent comprehensive high school reform interventions that have had some measure of success in improving student outcomes: Career Academies, First Things First, and Talent Development. These reform models use small learning communities to reorganize all or part of large urban high schools and provide a thematic framework for the high school curriculum. MDRC’s report, Meeting Five Critical Challenges of High School Reform, which synthesized findings and lessons from our studies of the three programs, found that structural changes and instructional improvement are the twin pillars of successful high school reforms.

The Evaluation of Adolescent Literacy Intervention Strategies is testing promising “catch-up” literacy programs for students who enter the ninth grade reading behind grade level. MDRC’s evaluation of Project GRAD, an ambitious model that serves high schools as well as the elementary and middle schools that feed into them, also sheds important light on the strategies and challenges of comprehensive reform.

MDRC is seeking to further the state of knowledge about high school reform through dialogue with other members of the research community, policymakers, funders, and practitioners. Since January 2004, MDRC has held two high school reform conferences, and in 2005, MDRC joined The National High School Center, which acts as a central source of information and expertise on high school improvement.

Elementary School Reform

Though disparities in academic outcomes become most visible as students enter and proceed through high school, they begin much earlier in students’ lives. Identifying strategies that narrow the achievement gap is a key objective of MDRC’s work in the elementary grades. In conjunction with lead contractor Abt Associates, MDRC is evaluating Reading First, the federal grant program that targets funding to underperforming schools to finance the adoption and operation of scientifically-based reading programs. The Professional Development in Reading Study, conducted in partnership with the American Institutes for Research, is studying the effectiveness of intensive professional development strategies and coaching of second-grade teachers to improve reading instruction. The Professional Development in Math Study, also in partnership with the American Institutes for Research, is testing a similar approach focused on seventh-grade math teachers to raise student achievement and strengthen both teachers’ content and pedagogical content knowledge in the domain of rational numbers.

MDRC’s earlier study of the Accelerated Schools Project was one of the first external impact evaluations of a major elementary school reform initiative, now in place in over 1,000 schools across the country, and marked a methodological advance in the evaluation of whole-school reform initiatives.

School District Reform

School districts are increasingly implementing district-wide reforms to initiate and sustain school improvement. The final report of MDRC’s evaluation of a reform strategy developed by the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative (BASRC) will be published later in 2006. The Instructional Leadership Study, planned in collaboration with the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh, will examine the impact of efforts to improve instructional leadership among school principals and their supervisors. Our first examination of district-wide reform efforts, Foundations for Success, studied successful strategies that managed both to raise student achievement and shrink racial and economic disparities in achievement levels.

After-School Programs

MDRC is helping to fill important gaps in what is known about the role that skills instruction — and schools themselves — can play in after-school programs in economically disadvantaged communities. Two MDRC studies — one under way, the other recently completed — explore the links between after-school programs and K-12 education. The Evaluation of Academic Instruction in After-School Programs is testing structured reading and math programs with strong teacher training and support as a substitute for homework help, the usual after-school academic offering. The evaluation of Extended-Service Schools, conducted with Public/Private Ventures, examined after-school programs located in public school settings.

Early Education

Low-income children too often begin school without the basic behavioral, emotional, and cognitive skills that they need to thrive academically — putting them at an immediate disadvantage and contributing to the large gap that develops in school achievement between low-income children and their more affluent peers. MDRC has just launched the Foundations of Learning Project in Newark, New Jersey, to identify and test a promising preschool approach to improve low-income children’s emotional, behavioral, and academic readiness upon school entry. MDRC will test a model aimed at reducing children’s challenging behaviors that includes teacher training in behavioral management strategies, combined with mental health consultation.

For more information about MDRC’s education research, visit our K-12 Education, Higher Education, and Families and Children home pages.