About MDRC
Rosen joined MDRC in 2014 as a research associate specializing in quantitative research. She co-directs the MDRC Center for Effective Career and Technical Education. She focuses on impact evaluation methods, quasi-experimental study designs, and the management of complex administrative data sets. Currently she is leading the impact analysis of Diplomas Now, a school turnaround program designed to help students remain on track and improve graduation rates through whole-school support. That evaluation is funded through the national Investing in Innovation (i3) program. She is also working on developing a variety of projects related to career and technical education. Her other research interests include issues related to high school reform, high school-to-college transitions, and math and science policy. Before joining MDRC, Rosen was an Institute of Education Sciences postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy. She was also formerly a researcher at WestEd. She holds a PhD in Education Policy and Social Analysis from Teachers College, Columbia University, and master’s degrees from Columbia University and Trinity College in Ireland. Her undergraduate degree is from New York University.
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MDRC Publications
ReportCurrent Policy, Prominent Programs, and Evidence
September, 2018This paper reviews the available evidence supporting various types of career and technical education programs, touching on both the amount of evidence available in each area and its level of rigor.
MethodologyJanuary, 2018An important tenet of building reliable evidence is that study findings can be both reproduced and replicated and that the methods and data used stand up under scrutiny. This post in the Reflections on Methodology series outlines several ways to ensure credibility in research design and practice.
Issue FocusThe Case of Career and Technical Education
July, 2017In the complex high school choice process, families may face an additional layer of decisions if they are considering career and technical education programs, which vary widely in their structure, content, and quality. This issue focus emphasizes the importance of providing families with clear information about how to compare them.
BriefAre School Districts Ready to Meet New Federal Goals?
March, 2017This brief, which draws on data from a large survey of secondary school teachers and principals, discusses how existing evaluation and support systems could be better used to realize the vision of teacher improvement now included in federal law under the Every Student Succeeds Act.
ReportInterim Impact Findings from the Investing in Innovation (i3) Evaluation of Diplomas Now
June, 2016The Diplomas Now whole-school reform model, including targeted interventions for students at risk of dropping out, had an impact on the percentage of students with no early warning indicators related to attendance, behavior, or course performance, and had more encouraging results in middle schools than high schools.
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Other Publications
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Projects
Motivated by a desire to address both education and wage disparities, policymakers, educators, employers, and philanthropists have increasingly begun to invest in new models of career and technical education (CTE) that are based on the premise that all students need postsecondary credentials to adapt to an increasingly complex labor market. No...
D. Crystal Byndloss, Rachel Rosen, Sonia Drohojowska, Leigh Parise, Rebecca Unterman, Emma Alterman, Jedediah TeresThe idea for this high school model began in 2010 in New York City when then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a public-private partnership of the New York City Department of Education, the City University of New York, the New York City College of Technology, and IBM to develop a new approach to secondary and postsecondary education....
The transition from high school into postsecondary education and a career has become particularly challenging given today’s complex, fast-moving, and highly technological economy. Even as the national high school graduation rate has improved over the past two decades and many states have raised their graduation requirements, high school graduates without postsecondary...
Apprenticeship programs have been more limited in the United States than they have been in many European countries, both in the numbers of individuals and the number and type of employers who participate in them. Only a few thousand apprenticeship programs are registered with the U.S. Department of Labor and these are mostly in construction...
Career-pathways models designed to prepare high school students for success in college and careers are proliferating in school districts around the country. Each typically includes a sequence of career/technical education courses in a broad career theme such as health or computer science. Some initiatives also offer work-based learning experiences for students, a...
This project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, provides research and evaluation support for the Innovative Professional Development (iPD) Challenge, which seeks to clarify the extent to which changes in school district professional development systems lead to different teacher experiences and measurable improvements in key...
While educators and officials across the United States are struggling with how to raise student achievement and improve graduation rates, very few programs have been shown to work at scale in achieving either goal. In 2010, through the Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund, the U.S. Department of Education selected several promising programs for...