Sound research makes a difference only if the leaders who make decisions about policies and programs can use it. MDRC has a three-decade track record of producing materials that communicate to policymakers and practitioners practical lessons about what works — and doesn’t work — in education and social programs.

MDRC’s popular how-to guides present promising practices for designing high school reform efforts, creating employment programs for former prisoners, offering financial work incentives for low-wage workers, developing a responsible fatherhood curriculum, and designing employment programs for welfare recipients and other “hard-to-employ” populations, among other interventions.

Our video series offers brief summaries of the latest MDRC research on promoting work in public housing, on the effects of welfare and earnings supplement programs on adults and their children, and on innovative reforms in K-12 and postsecondary education.

The policy briefs posted on our site explain the implications for policymaking that arise from MDRC’s research on high school reform, welfare-to-work programs, earnings supplements, and training and employment efforts.

MDRC’s Issue Focus pieces and Fast Facts offer new reflections on important issues of the day — answering such questions as: Why has the poverty rate not fallen since the early 1970s? How do we assist students who enter high school with poor academic skills? What’s the right role for education and training in welfare reform? Can employment programs help ex-prisoners successfully reenter society? Why focus on the “hard-to-employ”?