About MDRC
Corrin came to MDRC in 2004 and has been leading experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations of reforms and interventions at the secondary school level. He is currently leading a national evaluation of Academic Language Interventions. In addition, he is leading an implementation study and the evaluation design phase of the CareerWise Colorado apprenticeship-program model. Corrin led a national evaluation of Communities In Schools’ whole-school and targeted services that seek to reduce dropout rates and increase the school persistence of young people, and directed the national experimental evaluation of the Diplomas Now secondary school reform program. He has also led two random assignment evaluations of adolescent literacy interventions. He directed the Evaluation of the Content Literacy Continuum, a literacy-across-the-curriculum framework for high school reform, and the Enhanced Reading Opportunities Study, an evaluation of supplemental reading classes for ninth-graders. In addition, Corrin has participated in MDRC’s work on college-readiness programs in high schools, and leads MDRC’s K-12 Education Policy Area. He formerly served as director of research, evaluation, and assessment for Evanston Township District 202 in Illinois and taught social studies at an alternative high school in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg public school system. He received his PhD in sociology from Northwestern University.
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MDRC Publications
ReportAugust, 2022Academic language skills are critical for reading and understanding content for all students, and particularly for English learners and students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. This study investigated WordGen Elementary, a program designed to improve fourth- and fifth-grade students’ ability to understand and communicate academic language and their general reading skill.
Issue FocusNovember, 2021Slingshot Memphis invited MDRC to assess its efforts to strengthen antipoverty organizations that work directly with Memphis families and individuals. This issue focus describes MDRC’s findings and presents suggestions it offered Slingshot to improve its processes, which may be useful to larger human services field.
Issue FocusPast Successes, Enduring Challenges, and Future Considerations
January, 2020Focusing on NYC’s small high schools of choice, this reflection on MDRC’s recent high school reform research considers responses to five challenges: creating personalized, orderly learning environments; assisting students with poor academic skills; improving instructional content and practice; preparing students for the future; and stimulating change in overstressed high schools.
ReportFinal Findings from the Communities In Schools Random Assignment Evaluation
April, 2017Communities In Schools (CIS) works to integrate a variety of support services for students to keep them on a path to graduation. This randomized controlled trial assessed the effects of one component of the CIS model — case management for high-risk students.
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.
ReportChanging School Practices During the Second Year of Diplomas Now
May, 2015Diplomas Now, a partnership of three national organizations, aims to increase graduation rates in high-risk schools, targeting support to students who need it most. This second report finds that Diplomas Now schools are differentiating themselves from comparable schools in their implementation of structural and instructional reforms.
ReportImplementation and Interim Impact Findings from the Communities In Schools Evaluation
April, 2015Services to help students stay in school are often fragmented. In this program, school-based coordinators identify students at risk, work with them to assess their needs, connect them with school and community supports, and monitor their progress. Case-managed students received more services than others, but early impact findings are inconclusive.
ReportThe First Year of Implementing Diplomas Now
August, 2014Three national organizations formed Diplomas Now in an effort to transform urban secondary schools so fewer students drop out. This report introduces Diplomas Now and the associated evaluation, shares first-year implementation fidelity findings, and discusses collaboration among the Diplomas Now partners and between those partners and schools.
ReportReport on Program Impacts, Program Fidelity, and Contrast
December, 2012The Content Literacy Continuum combines whole-school and targeted approaches to supporting student literacy and content learning, using instructional routines and learning strategies. This report describes implementation and impact findings from a random assignment study involving 33 high schools in nine school districts.
ReportAn Exploratory Study of College Readiness Partnership Programs in Texas
May, 2012College readiness partnership programs bring together colleges and K-12 institutions to reduce the number of students who need remedial courses when they get to college. This report examines 37 partnerships in Texas to identify key characteristics of the programs, as well as benefits and challenges associated with their implementation and sustainability.
ReportThe Impact of Supplemental Literacy Courses for Struggling Ninth-Grade Readers
July, 2010Over the course of ninth grade, two supplemental literacy courses modestly improved students’ reading comprehension skills and helped them perform better academically in their course work. However, these benefits did not persist in the following school year, when students were no longer receiving the supplemental support.
ReportNovember, 2008This report presents findings from the second year of the Enhanced Reading Opportunities (ERO) study, a demonstration and random assignment evaluation of two supplemental literacy programs — Reading Apprenticeship Academic Literacy and Xtreme Reading — that aim to improve the reading comprehension skills and school performance of struggling ninth-grade readers.
ReportJanuary, 2008This report presents early findings from a demonstration and random assignment evaluation of two supplemental literacy programs that aim to improve the reading comprehension skills and school performance of struggling ninth-grade readers. On average, the programs produced a positive, statistically significant impact on reading comprehension among students.
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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...
William Corrin, Barbara Condliffe, Marie-Andrée Somers, Susan Sepanik, Shelley Rappaport, Margaret Hennessy, Hannah Power, Elizabeth Ederer, Julia WalshMDRC , in collaboration with RAND Corporation, Digital Promise, Westat, and Public Strategies, is conducting a large-scale, national evaluation project, the ReSolve Math Study, funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.
The coronavirus pandemic led to substantial unfinished learning in math, exacerbating longstanding equity...
Frieda Molina, Rachel Rosen, Sonia Drohojowska, William Corrin, Erika B. Lewy, Hannah Dalporto, Elizabeth Zachry Rutschow.field-name-body .label-above { display: none; }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...
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 and trades. This situation...
While English language learners and disadvantaged native English speakers may have sufficient skills to engage in everyday conversation, many struggle with academic language, the more formal language typically used in school. In recent years, educators have linked lack of proficiency in academic language to concerns about students’ literacy and have hypothesized that...
Every day, 7,000 students drop out of school. Among Latinos and African-Americans, the dropout rate is nearly 50 percent. Communities In Schools ( CIS ) works with low-income K-12 students in the nation’s poorest-performing schools. It seeks to reduce dropout rates through preventive support services like short-term counseling or annual health screenings for the entire...
Low-performing high schools, particularly those serving low-income communities and students of color, are often characterized by high absentee and course failure rates, substantial dropout rates, and — even for graduates — inadequate preparation for postsecondary education and the labor market. As many as one-half to three-quarters of ninth-graders in low-performing...
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.
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 expansion and further...
Roughly half of college students and close to 60 percent of community college students do not earn a college credential within six years, leaving them with poor labor market prospects in an economy that increasingly demands a credential in order to find a job. Raising the proportion of high school students who are college-ready when they matriculate could significantly...
The problems of urban middle and high schools are rooted in the inadequate preparation that too many students receive in elementary schools, and these problems become most visible in the ninth grade, when students encounter more demanding coursework and tougher requirements for grade-level promotion. In troubled high schools, a large percentage of ninth-grade students...
Low-performing high schools, particularly those serving low-income communities and students of color, are often characterized by high absentee and course failure rates, substantial dropout rates, and — even for graduates — inadequate preparation for postsecondary education and the labor market. While the stage is often set for these problems in elementary and middle...