Hometown Projects: MDRC’s Work in New York City
Based in New York City since its founding in 1974, MDRC has built a diverse portfolio of research projects focused on improving the lives of poor families throughout the city. Developed in collaboration with state and local agencies, schools, and nonprofits, these projects include random assignment studies of after-school reading programs in two public schools, interventions to help low-income students in community colleges succeed, a transitional jobs program for ex-prisoners, employment programs for adults and youth with disabilities and for welfare recipients with substance abuse problems, and marriage education classes for low-income married couples. MDRC’s newest hometown venture is Mayor Bloomberg’s Opportunity NYC, a conditional cash transfer program to help families break the cycle of intergenerational poverty that was announced in March 2007.
Opportunity NYC
A $50-million public-private venture, Opportunity NYC is an initiative of Mayor Bloomberg’s Center for Economic Opportunity, which was created to implement the recommendations of his second-term Commission on Economic Opportunity, also known as the Poverty Commission. The plan is based on the model of successful conditional cash transfer programs in operation around the world, including in Mexico. MDRC is helping design the initiative (with Seedco) and will lead a random assignment evaluation of the program’s effectiveness.
Targeted to several thousand families in Central and East Harlem in Manhattan, Brownsville and East New York in Brooklyn, and Morris Heights/Mount Hope and East Tremont/Belmont in the Bronx, the pilot program will provide cash incentives to families in three key areas — education, health, and employment and training:
- Education incentives will promote superior attendance and good behavior in school, achievement and improved performance on standardized tests, and parental engagement in children’s education.
- Health incentives will be offered to maintain adequate health coverage for all children and adults in participant households as well as age-appropriate medical and dental visits for each family member.
- Employment and training incentives will promote increased employment and earnings or combining work activities with specific job training activities.
Opening Doors: Kingsborough Community College
MDRC is conducting an ambitious demonstration called Opening Doors designed to help low-income students earn college credentials as the pathway to better jobs and further education. Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, part of the City University of New York (CUNY), is one of six participating colleges. Kingsborough is testing a learning communities model, in which groups of up to 25 freshman are “block scheduled” so that they take at least three of their classes together during their first semester. This approach is designed to emphasize the connections between subjects and increase the extent of interaction between students and faculty and among students. The course curricula for the linked classes are integrated, and faculty are given release time to meet regularly to discuss student progress. In addition, tutors are assigned to each block, and students receive vouchers for the purchase of textbooks.
The research sample includes more than 1,500 students, and early results show that the program increased completion of developmental classes and passing rates on the CUNY writing exam. Kingsborough is developing another learning community model centered on students who pursue one of five occupational clusters. This project is part of a broader learning community demonstration described below.
Learning Communities Evaluation: Queensborough Community College
The National Center on Postsecondary Research is a collaborative venture involving the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College, MDRC, and the University of Virginia. The Center is focusing on interventions that help low-income students succeed in college, including a multisite study of learning communities. Queensborough, another CUNY campus, is one of the participating community colleges. The project targets incoming freshmen and returning students with fewer than 15 credits who have been placed into developmental classes. Interested students are being randomly assigned to the learning communities program, which will include linked classes (with a focus on developmental math), or to a control group, which will register for regular, unlinked classes.
Approximately 1,200 students are expected to enroll in the study between 2007 and 2008. MDRC will track academic outcomes for both groups for five years to see if the program leads to increases in credit accumulation, completion of developmental requirements, graduation, and other outcomes.
The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) Evaluation
Under a federal contract, MDRC is conducting a multisite evaluation of programs for hard-to-employ groups. The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), one of the nation’s largest and most highly regarded employment programs for ex-prisoners, is one of four sites in the project. CEO uses a transitional employment model in which participants are quickly placed in dozens of work crews around the city and are paid daily for their work. Most of the work crews perform maintenance or other work for city or state agencies. Participants receive job coaching and other supports while in their transitional placement and eventually start working with a CEO job developer to find an unsubsidized job. An upfront job readiness class, occupational training, and a fatherhood program supplement the worksite placements and support. The evaluation design involved randomly assigning ex-offenders to be part of the CEO Group, which received CEO’s full program, or to the Resource Room Group, which received a more limited program consisting of job readiness training and some job search assistance. A total of 977 people entered the study in 2004 and 2005. Both groups are being followed for several years using surveys and administrative data and compared on a number of measures, including employment-related outcomes, criminal justice outcomes, and family outcomes. The study will also include a cost analysis.
Evaluation of the Personal Roads to Individual Development and Employment (PRIDE) Program
The PRIDE program, operated by the New York City Human Resources Administration from 1999-2004, served public assistance recipients whose employability is limited by physical or mental health problems (the program has since been replaced by a new initiative called WeCARE that builds on the PRIDE experience). PRIDE provided a range of employment services and other supports, all tailored to the participants’ disabilities and health conditions. MDRC is studying PRIDE as part of a federal contract to evaluate programs designed to improve employment stability and wage growth for low-income populations.
Approximately 3,000 people are participating in this study, which began in late 2001. Individuals were randomly assigned to the PRIDE group or to a control group that was not required to participate in any employment activities and was not eligible for PRIDE. Early results indicate that PRIDE generated increases in employment and reductions in public assistance payments, although most participants did not work or leave welfare during the first two years after study entry.
Substance Abuse Case Management Evaluation
The same federal contract that supports the PRIDE evaluation also supports the ongoing evaluation of New York City’s Substance Abuse Case Management (SACM) initiative. The SACM program was designed and implemented to address the challenge of substance-abusing welfare recipients. The program’s goals are to increase participation and retention in substance abuse treatment by providing intensive case management to substance-abusing recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and General Assistance/Safety Net benefits, to link participants to employment services, and to improve substance abuse treatment outcomes, job placement, and job retention.
MDRC is conducting a multifaceted evaluation of the SACM program in partnership with the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. The evaluation includes an implementation analysis, which will study the way the program operates; an impact analysis, which will assess what difference the program makes relative to the system that preceded it (in which clients with substance abuse problems were referred to substance abuse treatment and received limited case management services); and a benefit-cost analysis. Results are expected later in 2007.
Evaluation of Academic Instruction for After-School Programs
The U.S. Department of Education has contracted with MDRC to examine new models of academic instruction in after-school programs. This study 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.
Harcourt School Publishers was selected to adapt and extend their existing in-school math program for use in after-school programs, while the Success for All Foundation was chosen to develop reading program materials. These materials were implemented in a randomized study, in which half of the students are receiving the enhanced academic instruction and half are participating in regular after-school services.
Fifty after-school centers around the country were selected to test either the reading or math program. In New York, two after-school centers housed within public schools (PS 106 and PS 138) are implementing the reading curriculum for students who were performing below grade level. These programs received at no cost the materials to implement the reading curricula, as well as professional development for instructors, on-site implementation support, and technical assistance.
The Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM) Project
Funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM) is a multisite, random assignment test of programs that provide instruction and support to improve relationship skills among low-income married couples. Programs will also include case management to help low-income couples address barriers to healthy marriage and extended marriage activities to engage couples in the program and reinforce the curriculum. The SHM project is motivated by research demonstrating that both married adults themselves and children raised by married parents do better on a host of family and child well-being outcomes. Low-income couples face greater challenges to building and maintaining healthy marriages, however.
University Behavioral Associates (UBA), a subsidiary of Montefiore Medical Center, will run the Bronx site for the SHM project. UBA, the dominant provider and manager of behavioral health care in the Bronx, has considerable experience in providing case management services to low-income individuals. The proposed SHM program in the Bronx will combine relationship education, case management to help cope with stressors, and a focus on work and parenting to support couples in their maintenance of healthy marriages.
CUNY Site in the Youth Transition Demonstration
The U.S. Social Security Administration is funding Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., MDRC, and other partners to develop and evaluate youth transition demonstration projects, which are intended to help young people with disabilities make the transition from school to work. By waiving certain disability program rules and offering services to youth who are either receiving disability benefits or at risk of receiving them, these projects are expected to encourage youth to work and/or continue their education. The multisite random assignment evaluation will produce empirical evidence on the impacts of the waivers and services on employment and earnings, receipt of benefits, and other outcomes for youth with disabilities.
The City University of New York’s John F. Kennedy, Jr. Institute for Worker Education is leading a site for the project, based at two CUNY campuses in the Bronx. The program provides person-centered planning, benefits counseling, vocational skills development, recreational activities, self-determination sessions, and parent-peer mentoring in weekly group workshops, along with the opportunity to participate in summer work experiences. The project targets 18-year-old students and their families.
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