About MDRC
Condliffe is a mixed-methods researcher who leads projects in MDRCs K-12 Education policy area and its Center for Applied Behavioral Science (CABS). Since joining MDRC in 2014, Condliffe’s research has primarily focused on student behavior and social-emotional learning in elementary schools, as well as issues related to students’ and parents’ experiences with school-selection processes. Condliffe is the deputy project director for the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) Impact Evaluation of Multi-Tiered Systems of Support for Behavior. Condliffe oversaw the recruitment and data-collection efforts for this large-scale, school-level randomized controlled trial, and is leading the implementation analysis and reporting. With CABS, Condliffe’s work focuses on understanding barriers that students and parents face when interacting with school systems and on identifying ways to improve those systems to promote positive outcomes for students. She currently serves as project director for the Improving Engagement in Elementary School Selection project, a collaboration with the New York City Department of Education to design and evaluate interventions to support families through the kindergarten application process. She is also a co-principal investigator for MDRC’s partnership with the City University of New York to study the malleable factors that facilitate or impede community college students’ progress toward bachelor’s degrees.
Before her career in education research, Condliffe taught middle school and high school English in New York City. She received her PhD in sociology from Johns Hopkins University, where she was also an IES Predoctoral Training Fellow, and she holds a BA from Bowdoin College and a MA in teaching from Brooklyn College.
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MDRC Publications
Issue FocusJune, 2020Implementation researchers can be good partners to program operators at this difficult time — by being sensitive to the new constraints that programs face, by assessing how learning agendas and evaluation plans need to change, and by helping programs learn from the adaptations they are making in response to the pandemic.
BriefEngagement in New York City’s Kindergarten Application
March, 2019Parents applying to kindergarten today must follow multiple steps. Identifying families who do not apply can help a school system improve its application process and can help it target families who need support. MDRC partnered with the New York City Department of Education to conduct this sort of diagnosis.
BriefChallenges and Opportunities in Summer Programs for Rising Kindergarten Students
May, 2018One focus of the Expanding Children’s Early Learning (ExCEL) Network is the potential value of programs to promote school readiness in the months preceding kindergarten. This brief summarizes lessons learned from a six-week pilot program and consultation with practitioners on three implementation issues — recruitment, attendance, and family involvement.
Issue FocusJanuary, 2018This issue focus discusses the conclusions of a recent MDRC working paper, Project-Based Learning: A Literature Review. The paper found that project-based learning holds promise for improving students’ outcomes but that much remains to be learned about its effectiveness and about how its implementation can be strengthened.
Working PaperA Literature Review
October, 2017Examining the scholarly literature published since a seminal review in 2000, this working paper discusses the principles that underlie project-based learning, how it has been used in K-12 settings, the challenges teachers have confronted in implementing it, and what is known about its effectiveness in improving students’ learning outcomes.
BriefBuilding a School Choice Architecture
June, 2017As school choice systems expand, district enrollment offices are striving to make the choice process accessible and clear for families. This practitioner brief offers lessons for supporting families through the sequence of decisions involved as they engage in the process, search for information, and compare and select schools.
Issue FocusApril, 2017School choice systems can be complex and confusing for low-income families. In the search for solutions, researchers and policymakers may have overlooked lessons from other policy arenas. This issue focus suggests strategies from MDRC’s experience designing and evaluating interventions to support low-income people’s decision making in arenas outside P-12 choice systems.
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Other Publications
Alexander, Karl, and Barbara Falk Condliffe. 2016. "Summer Setback in Baltimore: A Review and Update." Pages 23-34 in Karl Alexander, Sarah Pitcock, and Matthew Boulay (eds.), The Summer Slide: What We Know and Can Do About Summer Learning Loss. New York: Teachers College Press.
Condliffe, Barbara. 2016. “Selecting Summer: How Elementary School Parents Make Choices About Summer Programs.” Pages 146-160 in Karl Alexander, Sarah Pitcock, and Matthew Boulay (eds.), The Summer Slide: What We Know and Can Do About Summer Learning Loss. New York: Teachers College Press.
Condliffe, Barbara F., Melody L. Boyd, and Stefanie DeLuca. 2015. "Stuck in School: How Social Context Shapes School Choice for Inner-City Students." Teachers College Record 117, 3: 1-36.
Plank, Stephen B., and Barbara Falk Condliffe. 2013. "Pressures of the Season: An Examination of Classroom Quality and High-Stakes Accountability." American Educational Research Journal 50, 5: 1152-1182.
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Projects
The Center for Applied Behavioral Science ( CABS ) at MDRC is excited to launch the Applied Behavioral Coalition ( ABC ) project, which partners with nonprofit organizations that serve vulnerable and at-risk populations in the United States. ABC ’s goal is to build each organization’s foundation in behavioral science and human-centered design principles. Leaders, staff...
School choice policies in districts across the country are turning school selection and enrollment — as early as kindergarten — into a complex, multistep process. Families, particularly those with limited resources, may struggle to fully participate in these processes.
Understanding where and why some families face challenges with the application process can...
JoAnn Hsueh, Sharon Huang, Sharon Rowser, Meghan McCormick, Michelle Maier, Rebecca Unterman, Desiree Principe Alderson, Barbara Condliffe, Jocelyn Page, Amena Sengal, Sonia Drohojowska, Ilana Blum, Marissa Strassberger, Marie-Andrée Somers, Noemi Altman, Alexandra Bernardi, Mirjana PralicaWith broad support across the political spectrum, states and localities throughout the country are expanding preschool programs for low-income children. While the public will is strong and the experience to date is encouraging, there is a need for firmer evidence on the most cost-effective ways to produce lasting impacts for children, especially when programs operate...
Rekha Balu, Caitlin Anzelone, Clinton Key, Mary Bambino, Barbara Condliffe, Rebecca Schwartz, Jared Smith, Margaret Hennessy, Xavier AlemañyPolicymakers and administrators are increasingly using evidence about human behavior to improve the design of social services. People — who often rely on intuition instead of reason, make inconsistent choices over time, and can be overloaded by information — are the clients who receive services, the staff who provide them, and the policymakers who create them....
Fred Doolittle, Mark van Dok, Pei Zhu, Barbara Condliffe, Sonia Drohojowska, Emma Alterman, Osvaldo Avila, Jedediah Teres, Hannah PowerToo often, elementary school students lack the behavioral and social skills necessary to focus on academics and achieve in school. Without proper support, teachers inevitably spend far too much time managing their students’ behavior and too little time actually teaching. Multi-Tiered Systems of Support for Behavior ( MTSS -B) is not a specific model but a compilation...