About MDRC
Unterman joined MDRC in 2006 and is a research associate in the K-12 Education Policy Area. Currently, she serves as a lead investigator on a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded study of Small Schools of Choice (SSC) in New York City; an Institute of Education Sciences (IES)-funded study of the effect of Boston Public Schools’ prekindergarten program on students’ academic achievement in kindergarten, first, second, and third grade; an IES-funded study of Career and Technology Education programs in New York City; and an evaluation of Success Academy Charter Schools. As part of the SSC project, she has identified naturally occurring lotteries in New York City’s high school application process algorithm and used them to estimate the effect of winning a lottery for an SSC and enrolling in one. As a member of this project team, she has coauthored a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management and three widely disseminated MDRC publications (one of which was awarded the “Best Policy Brief/Paper in 2013” distinction by the Society for Research on Adolescence). She began her work at MDRC as a coauthor of two IES-funded reports on academically oriented after-school programs and was an impact analyst on the national evaluation of Reading First. Finally, she has been involved in the development of an intervention targeting low-income young people who typically apply to less competitive colleges than would be the most appropriate match for them. Unterman holds a doctorate in quantitative policy analysis in education and a master’s in education policy and management from Harvard University. She holds a BA from Northwestern University. Before graduate school, she worked as a social studies teacher in a Chicago public school.
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MDRC Publications
Issue FocusJune, 2023This issue focus traces the 25-year history of the Urban Assembly, an independent nonprofit that provides support services to public high schools in New York City. MDRC is conducting a study of Urban Assembly’s school support model.
ReportA Framework for School Improvement and a Review of the Evidence
June, 2023This report reviews 13 evaluations of comprehensive high school reform efforts, identifies the features of the models evaluated, and categorizes them to create a reform framework that can be generally applied. It also compiles information on prevalent features of reform models that have proven promising for improving student outcomes.
ReportLessons from CTE-Dedicated High Schools
January, 2023This report from the Research Alliance for New York City Schools and MDRC examines the impact of 37 CTE-dedicated high schools in New York City on a range of outcomes, including academic engagement, high school graduation, and college enrollment.
BriefLeveraging Naturally Occurring Lotteries to Examine a District-Wide Rollout of Instructional Alignment Across Pre-K and Kindergarten
April, 2022This study investigates whether naturally occurring lotteries, which approximate random assignment, can be used to evaluate the long-term effects of instructional alignment—standards, curricula, and assessments that build on one another from pre-K to elementary school—on children in Boston Public Schools. It concludes that they can.
Issue FocusA Synthesis of Post-Program Effects in Higher Education
March, 2021Some education programs’ early positive effects disappear over time, while other programs have unanticipated positive long-term effects. This Issue Focus introduces The Higher Education Randomized Controlled Trials, an examination of program effects after a postsecondary education program ends, using a database drawn from 31 MDRC projects, sampling 67,400 students.
Working PaperOctober, 2019This paper analyzes variation in the medium-term effects of the oversubscribed Boston Public Schools prekindergarten program. Prekindergarten gains persisted if kids applied to and won a seat in a higher-quality elementary school.
BriefA First Look at Effects on Postsecondary Persistence and Labor Market Outcomes
April, 2019Four years after scheduled graduation, students from small high schools of choice, which have nonselective admissions and serve many disadvantaged students, were more likely to be enrolled in postsecondary education and to be participating in “productive activity” (being in college, being employed, or both) than their control group counterparts.
MethodologyJuly, 2018In the second of two posts on the research opportunities presented by school choice systems, Reflections on Methodology discusses a few issues common to lottery-based analyses — constrained statistical power, imperfect compliance, and restricted generalizability.
MethodologyFebruary, 2018The proliferation of school choice systems offers researchers opportunities to study the effects of education reforms on a large scale, rigorously but relatively quickly. In the first of two posts on the subject, Reflections on Methodology discusses how to ensure that a school assignment process is truly random.
ReportAugust, 2017Success Academy is a rapidly expanding charter school network in New York City. In this paper, MDRC uses lotteries for the seven Success Academy schools operating during the 2010-2011 school year to estimate the difference in students’ academic achievement caused by Success Academy.
ReportA Study of the Implementation and Impacts of New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program
April, 2017This report examines the impacts of the nation’s largest summer youth jobs program — New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) — on young people’s education, employment, and earnings. The analysis uses an experimental design based on SYEP’s randomized lottery application system. The report also describes SYEP’s implementation and participants’ experiences.
ReportAn Evaluation of SEED DC
June, 2016The nation’s first public, urban, college-prep boarding school emphasizes academic excellence and personal development. A six-year evaluation using SEED’s admission lotteries found that SEED DC raised lottery winners’ test scores but did not increase the on-time graduation rate or reduce teen pregnancy or involvement in the criminal justice system.
BriefThe Effects of New York City’s Small High Schools of Choice on Postsecondary Enrollment
October, 2014New data from a rigorous study confirm that New York City’s small public high schools, which have nonselective admissions and serve many disadvantaged students, increase rates of graduation and college attendance for a wide range of groups, including students of color.
Working PaperOctober, 2014The city’s small, academically nonselective high schools have substantially improved graduation rates for disadvantaged students. This report demonstrates that, because more of their students graduate and do so within four years, the schools have lower costs per graduate than the schools their study counterparts attended.
ReportNew Findings About the Effectiveness and Operation of Small Public High Schools of Choice in New York City
August, 2013New data from a rigorous study confirm that New York City’s small public high schools, which have nonselective admissions and serve many disadvantaged students, have substantially improved rates of graduation with Regents diplomas. This report also describes what principals and teachers at these schools believe accounts for their success.
BriefJanuary, 2012A rigorous study that takes advantage of lottery-like features in New York City’s high school admissions process demonstrates that new small public high schools that are open to students of all academic backgrounds have substantial impacts on rates of graduation with Regents diplomas for every disadvantaged subgroup of students that was examined.
ReportHow New York City’s New Small Schools Are Boosting Student Achievement and Graduation Rates
June, 2010Taking advantage of lottery-like features in New York City’s high school admissions process, this study provides rigorous evidence that new small public high schools are narrowing the educational attainment gap and markedly improve graduation prospects, particularly for disadvantaged students.
ReportHigh Schools and Their Characteristics, 2002-2008
February, 2010This report examines the sweeping transformation of New York City’s public high school system — the nation’s largest — during the first decade of the twenty-first century, when nearly 200 new small high schools were created. Two companion reports focus on the role of intermediaries in this reform effort and provide case studies of six schools.
ReportSeptember, 2009This report presents two-year implementation and impact findings on two supplemental academic instruction approaches developed for after-school settings – one for math and one for reading. It addresses whether one-year impacts are different in the second year of program operations and whether students benefit from being offered two years of enhanced after-school academic instruction.
ReportFindings After the First Year of Implementation
June, 2008This report presents one-year implementation and impact findings on two supplemental academic instruction approaches developed for after-school settings — one for math and one for reading. Compared with regular after-school programming, the supplemental math program had impacts on student SAT 10 test scores and the supplemental reading program did not — although the reading program had some effect on reading fluency.
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Other Publications
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Projects
Amid modest increases in high school graduation rates for all students, disparities still exist for important student groups, such as students of color and students from low-income families. In response to this equity issue, there has been a growth in third-party “school support” organizations like Urban Assembly . Since 1997, Urban Assembly has supported New York City...
Rebecca Unterman, Kelly Granito, Jedediah J. Teres, Emma Alterman, Faith Lewis, Matthew MacFarlane, Barbara Condliffe, Sonia Drohojowska, Crystal Nuñez, Byeonghyeon SoXQ Institute was founded in 2015 with the goal of “re-thinking the high school experience” so that all students get the preparation they need for college and careers and grow to the fullest as civic participants, critical readers, proactive problem solvers, original thinkers, generous collaborators, and learners for life.
XQ funds the design and...
Rachel Rosen, D. Crystal Byndloss, Sonia Drohojowska, Leigh Parise, Rebecca Unterman, Emma Alterman, Jedediah J. Teres, Michelle DixonThe 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 result was P- TECH High School...
JoAnn Hsueh, Sharon Huang, Meghan McCormick, Michelle Maier, Rebecca Unterman, Desiree Principe Alderson, Barbara Condliffe, Amena Sengal, Sonia Drohojowska, Ilana Blum, Marissa Strassberger, Marie-Andrée Somers, Noemi Altman, Alexandra Bernardi, Mirjana Pralica, Mervett Hefyan, Jálynn Castleman-Smith, Mallory Undestad, Samantha Xia, Emily Davies, Sharon Rowser, Amy Taub, Samuel MavesWith 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...
Success Academy is a prominent charter network in New York City with schools located in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. Across 32 elementary, middle, and high schools in 2014, Success Academy served roughly 9,000 students. In 2014, among the 2,255 students who were age-eligible to take the New York State achievement test, 94 percent were proficient in math...
This MDRC study assesses the academic and labor market impacts of New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program ( SYEP ), the nation’s largest summer jobs program for young people.
The federal government has greatly reduced its funding for summer job programs. These programs, however, have attracted increased attention in light of the unprecedented increase...
Economic and labor-market changes over the past three decades have dramatically reduced the availability of well-paying jobs for workers without postsecondary education. And yet one in four high school freshmen do not graduate in four years, and many who do complete high school are poorly prepared for college. These trends are particularly pronounced in urban areas and...
The New York City public school system is the largest in the United States, with over 1,200 schools and more than 1.1 million students enrolled each year. For more than a decade, it has also been the site of an unprecedented investment in high school reform. Beginning in 2002 and with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other philanthropies, the...
Kate Gualtieri, Dan Bloom, Melissa Boynton, William Corrin, Fred Doolittle, John Martinez, Louisa Treskon, Jean Grossman, Leigh Parise, Marie-Andrée Somers, Michelle S. Manno, Rebecca Unterman, Megan Millenky, Rashida Welbeck, Mary BambinoThe Social Innovation Fund ( SIF ) , an initiative enacted under the Edward Kennedy Serve America Act, targets millions of dollars in public-private funds to expand effective solutions across three issue areas: economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth development and school support.
Fred Doolittle, D. Crystal Byndloss, Marie-Andrée Somers, Michelle Ware, Rebecca Unterman, Yana KusayevaTo remain globally competitive and to advance economic opportunity for all its residents, the United States must dramatically increase the number of low-income students who enroll in and graduate from college. Despite the broad political consensus on this point — and a significant investment of resources by public and private funders — efforts to restructure high...
The Reading First Program, established under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, represents one of the most direct and intensive efforts by the federal government to influence instructional practice and student achievement in low-performing schools. Reading First is predicated on research findings that high-quality reading instruction in the primary grades...
Many low-income children in the early grades need after-school care. And many of these children score well below their more advantaged peers on standardized tests of reading and math. The confluence of these circumstances suggests that it may be possible to strengthen the academic component of after-school programs (now often confined to providing help with homework)...