Curricular/Instructional Reforms

Brief

What Do We Know and What Are We Learning?

July, 2019

There is growing evidence that alignment between preschool and elementary school can help sustain the learning gains that children make in preschool. A new policy brief examines two large-scale, multiyear projects seeking to build rigorous evidence about the promise of aligning instruction from preschool through third grade.

Report

Findings from a Study of the Career Readiness Internship Program

June, 2019
Elizabeth Zachry Rutschow, Jessica Taketa

Work-based learning opportunities vary widely across colleges and are rarely evaluated. Through the Career Readiness Internship (CRI) program, 33 colleges provided large numbers of low-income students with valuable career-focused internship experiences, and employers generally viewed the program positively. Nevertheless, CRI was difficult to maintain after its grant period ended.

Report

Integrating Workforce and College-Readiness Training into California’s Adult Basic Skills Programs

July, 2019
Elizabeth Zachry Rutschow, Katie Beal, Chase Johnson

New models for adult education that integrate basic skills education with workforce and college-readiness training are catching on across the country. In this report, MDRC examines the development of these programs in California and suggests ways to expand these integrated models in adult basic skills programs across the state.

Men of color bring a variety of strengths and assets to their college experience. However, research to date indicates that three primary hurdles inhibit college completion for many male students of color:

Inadequate social, emotional, and campus support

Insufficient college preparation and academic achievement

Nonacademic barriers to persistence...

Report

Supporting Teachers with the Drive to Write Program

March, 2019

Good writing is an important skill that students are increasingly required to master in high school. But how does a school cultivate good writing? An ambitious new program called Drive to Write is using technology, coaches for teachers, and data on student progress to help answer this question.

Issue Focus

United2Read

March, 2019

Assessment-to-Instruction (A2i) is a data-driven professional support system that helps teachers tailor instruction for each child. When delivered with intensive in-person training, it is effective at improving students’ reading ability. This Issue Focus introduces the evaluation of a delivery model that uses technology to make the system more affordable.

Many high-need students do not learn to read well because they do not receive effective personalized literacy instruction during the early elementary grades. To address this, the data-driven A2 i Professional Support System was designed by and for teachers, and it has shown strong evidence of effectiveness. A2 i technology includes online adaptive assessments of...

Brief

A Case Study of Lorain County Community College’s Comprehensive Student Success Program

December, 2018
Camielle Headlam

In 2014, Lorain County Community College launched Students Accelerating in Learning (SAIL), a comprehensive student success program that is substantially improving persistence and graduation rates among low-income students. This brief describes the steps Lorain took to fund and institutionalize SAIL that are now making it easier to sustain the program.

Working Paper
October, 2018
Michael J. Weiss, Camielle Headlam

This paper reports outcomes for community college students who took modularized, self-paced, computer-assisted, remedial math courses with outcomes of students who took “traditional” (that is, mostly lecture-based) classes. Modularized courses were no more (or less) effective than traditional courses at helping students complete their developmental math requirements.

Pages