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Learning Communities for Students in Developmental English
Impact Studies at Merced College and The Community College of Baltimore County
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Published with the National Center for Postsecondary Research
2012. Evan Weissman, Dan Cullinan, Oscar Cerna, Stephanie Safran, and Phoebe Richman with Amanda Grossman.
Two colleges implemented semester-long learning communities linking developmental English with a range of other courses. At Merced, learning communities students earned more developmental English credits and passed more English courses than a control group. At CCBC, there were no meaningful impacts on students’ credit attempts or progress. Neither college’s program had an impact on persistence or on cumulative credits earned.
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More Than a Job
Final Results from the Evaluation of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) Transitional Jobs Program
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2012. Cindy Redcross, Megan Millenky, Timothy Rudd, and Valerie Levshin.
Ex-prisoners who had access to CEO’s transitional jobs program were less likely to be convicted of a crime and reincarcerated. The effects were particularly large for those ex-prisoners who enrolled in the program shortly after release. The recidivism reductions mean that the program is cost-effective — generating more in savings than it cost.
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Sustained Positive Effects on Graduation Rates Produced by New York City’s Small Public High Schools of Choice
Policy Brief
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2012. Howard S. Bloom and Rebecca Unterman.
A 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.
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Alternative Employment Strategies for Hard-to-Employ TANF Recipients
Final Results from a Test of Transitional Jobs and Preemployment Services in Philadelphia
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2011. Erin Jacobs and Dan Bloom.
An evaluation of two different welfare-to-work strategies for long-term welfare recipients finds that: (1) transitional jobs substantially increased employment in the short term, but these effects faded after one year, and (2) it is difficult to engage welfare recipients in extensive preemployment services long enough to improve their employability.
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Working toward Wellness
Telephone Care Management for Medicaid Recipients with Depression, Thirty-Six Months After Random Assignment
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2011. Sue Kim, Allen LeBlanc, Pamela Morris, Greg Simon, and Johanna Walter.
A telephonic care management program increased the use of mental health services by Medicaid recipients with depression while the program was running, but it did not help individuals sustain treatment after the intervention ended. The program did not reduce depression on average, nor did it have any effect on employment outcomes.
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Subsidizing Employment Opportunities for Low-Income Families
A Review of State Employment Programs Created Through the TANF Emergency Fund
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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE)
2011. Mary Farrell, Sam Elkin, Joseph Broadus, and Dan Bloom.
In 2009-2010, states placed more than 250,000 people in subsidized jobs using the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Fund established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This report reviews the experience of the largest subsidized employment initiative in the country since the 1970s.
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Serving Community College Students on Probation
Four-Year Findings from Chaffey College’s Opening Doors Program
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2011. Michael Weiss, Thomas Brock, Colleen Sommo, Timothy Rudd, and Mary Clair Turner.
This program included a “College Success” course and offered enhanced counseling. A change from optional to required services led to increased program participation, and the new program decreased the percentage on academic probation after the two program semesters. Nevertheless, after four years, the program had no discernible effect on academic outcomes.
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Getting Ready for College
An Implementation and Early Impacts Study of Eight Texas Developmental Summer Bridge Programs
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Published by the National Center for Postsecondary Research
2011. Heather D. Wathington, Elisabeth A. Barnett, Evan Weissman, Jedediah Teres, Joshua Pretlow, and Aki Nakanishi, with Matthew Zeidenberg, Madeline Joy Weiss, Alison Black, Claire Mitchell, and John Wachen.
For entering college students with low basic skills, eight intensive summer programs provided accelerated instruction in math, reading, and/or writing; academic support; a “college knowledge” component; and the opportunity to receive a $400 stipend. Early results suggest that participants were more likely to pass entry-level college courses in math and writing.
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Whether and How to Use State Tests to Measure Student Achievement in a Multi-State Randomized Experiment
An Empirical Assessment Based on Four Recent Evaluations
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U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance
2011. Marie-Andrée Somers, Pei Zhu, and Edmond Wong.
This reference report, prepared for the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), uses data from four recent IES-funded experimental design studies that measured student achievement using both state tests and a study-administered test.
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Performance-Based Scholarships
Emerging Findings from a National Demonstration
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2011. Reshma Patel and Lashawn Richburg-Hayes.
This testimony, submitted to the federal Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, summarizes results from performance-based scholarship programs in Louisiana, New Mexico, New York, and Ohio. These scholarships have increased the number of credits college students attempted and earned, increased their rates of full-time enrollment, reduced their loan debt, and had mixed effects on their persistence.
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Breaking the Low-Pay, No-Pay Cycle
Final Evidence from the UK Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) Demonstration
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UK Department for Work and Pensions.
2011. Richard Hendra, James A. Riccio, Richard Dorsett, David H. Greenberg, Genevieve Knight, Joan Phillips, Philip K. Robins, Sandra Vegeris, and Johanna Walter, with Aaron Hill, Kathryn Ray, and Jared Smith.
The British ERA program’s distinctive combination of post-employment advisory support and financial incentives was designed to help low-income individuals who entered work sustain employment and advance in the labor market. It produced short-term earnings gains for two target groups but sustained increases in employment and earnings and positive benefit-cost results for the third target group, long-term unemployed individuals.
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Staying on Track
Early Findings from a Performance-Based Scholarship Program at the University of New Mexico
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2011. Cynthia Miller, Melissa Binder, Vanessa Harris, and Kate Krause.
Low-income freshmen received financial support if they enrolled full time, maintained a “C” average, and received enhanced academic advising. After one year, students attempted and earned more credits, received more financial aid dollars and in some cases reduced their loans, and registered for more credits in the third semester.
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Breaking New Ground
An Impact Study of Career-Focused Learning Communities at Kingsborough Community College
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2011. Mary G. Visher and Jedediah Teres, with Phoebe Richman.
Students took two courses in their major and one on careers associated with their major. Active, collaborative, and interdisciplinary learning was emphasized. No meaningful impacts on educational outcomes were found for the full sample, but recent transfer students saw a modest positive impact on credits earned during the program semester.
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Professional Development for Teachers
What Two Rigorous Studies Tell Us
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2011. Janet Quint.
This synthesis reviews findings from two rigorous, large-scale evaluations — the Professional Development in Reading Study and the Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study. Both interventions had only limited effects on teachers’ knowledge and instruction and no impacts on students’ test scores. The report ends with suggestions about how professional development might be improved to achieve better results.
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The Labor Market After the Great Recession
Implications for Income Support Policy
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2011. Gordon Berlin.
On the eve of the 15th anniversary of federal welfare reform, MDRC President Gordon Berlin describes the implications of the Great Recession and its effects on the labor market for welfare policy and other safety net programs. The speech was given at the 2011 Welfare Research and Evaluation Conference, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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Providing Earnings Supplements to Encourage and Sustain Employment
Lessons from Research and Practice
Policy Brief
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2011. Karin Martinson and Gayle Hamilton.
This 12-page practitioner brief offers lessons for policy and practice from MDRC-conducted random assignment studies of five programs that provided earnings supplements to low-income parents to encourage employment and increase the payoff of low-wage work.
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Unlocking the Gate
What We Know About Improving Developmental Education
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2011. Elizabeth Zachry Rutschow and Emily Schneider.
One of the greatest challenges that community colleges face in their efforts to increase graduation rates is improving the success of students in their developmental, or remedial, education programs. Emphasizing results from experimental and quasi-experimental studies, this literature review identifies the most promising approaches for revising the structure, curriculum, or delivery of developmental education and suggests areas for future innovations in developmental education practice and research.
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Staying on Course
Three-Year Results of the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Evaluation
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2011. Megan Millenky, Dan Bloom, Sara Muller-Ravett, Joseph Broadus.
After three years, participants in National Guard Youth ChalleNGe, an intensive, “quasi-military” residential program for high school dropouts, are more likely than their control group counterparts to have obtained a GED or high school diploma, to have earned college credits, and to be working. Their earnings are also 20 percent higher.
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The Accelerated Benefits Demonstration and Evaluation Project
Impacts on Health and Employment at Twelve Months
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2011. Charles Michalopoulos, David Wittenburg, Dina A. R. Israel, Jennifer Schore, Anne Warren, Aparajita Zutshi, Stephen Freedman, and Lisa Schwartz.
This demonstration tested the effects of earlier access to health care coverage and related services for new Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) beneficiaries. After one year, the program increased health care use, reduced reported unmet medical needs, and modestly improved health and functioning. It also increased job prep and search activities but did not raise employment levels.
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Promoting Full-Time Attendance Among Adults in Community College
Early Impacts from the Performance-Based Scholarship Demonstration in New York
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2011. Lashawn Richburg-Hayes, Colleen Sommo, and Rashida Welbeck.
Low-income adults needing remediation received a scholarship if they maintained at least part-time enrollment and met attendance and grade point average benchmarks. Early results show that the program modestly increased full-time enrollment and, among students who were eligible for summer funding, summer registration.
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Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study
Findings After the Second Year of Implementation
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U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance
2011. Michael S. Garet, Andrew J. Wayne, Fran Stancavage, James Taylor, Marian Eaton, Kirk Walters, Mengli Song, Seth Brown, Steven Hurlburt, Pei Zhu, Susan Sepanik, and Fred Doolittle
In a study sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences, intensive professional development programs for seventh-grade math teachers were implemented as intended, but teacher turnover limited the average dosage received. The programs had no impact on teacher knowledge or student achievement.
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Scaling Up Is Hard to Do
Progress and Challenges During the First Year of the Achieving the Dream Developmental Education Initiative
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2011. Janet Quint, D. Crystal Byndloss, Herbert Collado, Alissa Gardenhire, Asya Magazinnik, Genevieve Orr, Rashida Welbeck, and Shanna S. Jaggars.
This report examines the Achieving the Dream Developmental Education Initiative, an effort to expand promising developmental education interventions in 15 community colleges. During the 2009-2010 academic year, the colleges made progress and encountered challenges in implementing reform strategies in four key areas: changes in curriculum and instruction, academic and student supports, institutionwide policy changes, and precollege interventions.
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Learning Together
How Families Responded to Education Incentives in New York City’s Conditional Cash Transfer Program
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2011. David Greenberg, Nadine Dechausay, and Carolyn Fraker.
Opportunity NYC-Family Rewards was a conditional cash transfer program that provided payments to low-income families for achieving specific health, education, and employment goals. Drawing on in-depth interviews, this report looks at how families viewed the education incentives, communicated about them with their children, reinforced educational rewards, and advanced their quality of life through the program.
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Supporting Healthy Marriage Toolkit
Resources for Program Operators from the Supporting Healthy Marriage Demonstration and Evaluation
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2011. MDRC.
Developed for sites participating in a federal demonstration and evaluation of relationship and marriage skills programs for low-income married couples, this toolkit offers practical guidance about program design, management, and marketing, among other topics. It may be particularly useful for voluntary programs focusing on family relationships, couples, or fatherhood.
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Career Advancement and Work Support Services on the Job
Implementing the Fort Worth Work Advancement and Support Center Program
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2011. Caroline Schultz and David Seith.
This report examines the design and operation of a program called Project Earn, in Fort Worth, Texas, one of four sites in MDRC’s Work Advancement and Support Center demonstration. The program combined two types of income-building services for low-wage workers — skills training and connection to work supports, such as food stamps, child care subsidies, and tax credits — and delivered them in workplaces in collaboration with employers.
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The Social Security Administration’s Youth Transition Demonstration Projects
Interim Report on the City University of New York’s Project
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U.S. Social Security Administration
2011. Thomas Fraker, Alison Black, Joseph Broadus, Arif Mamun, Michelle Manno, John Martinez, Reanin McRoberts, Anu Rangarajan, and Debbie Reed.
The Youth Transition Demonstration, led by Mathematica Policy Research, MDRC, and TransCen, Inc., is developing and evaluating strategies to help youth with disabilities transition from school to work. Participants in the CUNY project were more likely to have been employed for pay than youth in the control group. However, the project had no impacts on income, expectations, or a composite measure of school enrollment or high school completion.
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The Social Security Administration’s Youth Transition Demonstration Projects
Interim Report on Colorado Youth WINS
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U.S. Social Security Administration
2011. Thomas Fraker, Peter Baird, Alison Black, Arif Mamun, Michelle Manno, John Martinez, Anu Rangarajan, and Debbie Reed.
The Youth Transition Demonstration, led by Mathematica Policy Research, MDRC, and TransCen, Inc., is developing and evaluating strategies to help youth with disabilities transition from school to work. The implementation of the Colorado project deviated from the YTD model, and, while participants were more likely to have used employment services than youth in the control group, the program had no impacts on employment, income, or other measures.
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A Two-Generational Child-Focused Program Enhanced with Employment Services
Eighteen-Month Impacts from the Kansas and Missouri Sites of the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project
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2011. JoAnn Hsueh, Erin Jacobs, and Mary Farrell.
The report offers implementation and early impact findings from a random assignment evaluation of two Early Head Start programs that were enhanced with formalized services to proactively address parents’ employment, educational, and self-sufficiency needs.
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Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) Demonstration
Delivery, Take-Up, and Outcomes of In-Work Training Support for Lone Parents
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UK Department for Work and Pensions.
2011. Richard Hendra, Kathryn Ray, Sandra Vegeris, Debra Hevenstone, and Maria Hudson.
This report presents new findings from Britain’s Employment Advancement and Retention demonstration, which tested the effectiveness of a program to improve the labor market prospects of low-paid workers and unemployed people. The report assesses whether coaching by advisers and financial incentives encouraged single-parent participants to take and complete training courses and whether training had an impact on their advancement in the labor market.
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Designing and Analyzing Studies That Randomize Schools to Estimate Intervention Effects on Student Academic Outcomes Without Classroom-Level Information
Working Paper
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2011. Pei Zhu, Robin Jacob, Howard Bloom, and Zeyu Xu.
This paper provides practical guidance for researchers who are designing and analyzing studies that randomize schools — which comprise three levels of clustering (students in classrooms in schools) — to measure intervention effects on student academic outcomes when information on the middle level (classrooms) is missing.
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Opening Doors to Student Success
A Synthesis of Findings from an Evaluation at Six Community Colleges
Policy Brief
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2011. Susan Scrivener and Erin Coghlan.
MDRC’s Opening Doors Demonstration, launched in 2003 with six community colleges, provides some of the first rigorous evidence that a range of interventions can improve educational outcomes for community college students. This 12-page policy brief describes the strategies tested, discusses the results, and offers suggestions to policymakers and practitioners for moving forward.
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The Social Security Administration's Youth Transition Demonstration Projects
Interim Report on Transition WORKS
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U.S. Social Security Administration
2011. Thomas Fraker, Alison Black, Arif Mamun, Michelle Manno, John Martinez, Bonnie O’Day, Meghan O’Toole, Anu Rangarajan, and Debbie Reed.
The Youth Transition Demonstration, led by Mathematica Policy Research, MDRC, and TransCen, Inc., is developing and evaluating strategies to help youth with disabilities transition from school to work. While participants in the Erie County, NY, site were more likely to participate in self-sufficiency services, the program has had no impact on employment or school completion in its first year.
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Can Low-Income Single Parents Move Up in the Labor Market?
Findings from the Employment Retention and Advancement Project
Policy Brief
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2011. Cynthia Miller, Victoria Deitch, and Aaron Hill.
This 12-page practitioner brief examines the work, education, and training patterns of single parents in the national Employment Retention and Advancement Project, which evaluated strategies to promote employment stability among low-income workers. The findings support other research in underscoring the importance of changing jobs and of access to “good” jobs as strategies to help low-wage workers advance.
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Paths to Advancement for Single Parents
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2010. Cynthia Miller, Victoria Deitch, and Aaron Hill.
This report from the national Employment Retention and Advancement Project examines the 27,000 single parents who participated in the studied programs to understand the characteristics of those who successfully advanced in the labor market.
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Background Characteristics and Patterns of Employment, Earnings, and Public Assistance Receipt of Adults in Two-Parent Families
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2010. Sonya Williams and Stephen Freedman.
This report from the national Employment Retention and Advancement Project demonstrates that low-income single-parent and two-parent families have a roughly equivalent need for services to support employment retention and advancement and that this need does not differ substantially between men and women in two-parent families.
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Learning Communities for Students in Developmental Math
Impact Studies at Queensborough and Houston Community Colleges
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Published with the National Center for Postsecondary Research
2011. Evan Weissman, Kristin F. Butcher, Emily Schneider, Jedediah Teres, Herbert Collado, and David Greenberg with Rashida Welbeck.
Learning communities, which co-enroll small groups of students into linked courses, are a popular strategy for helping developmental students at community colleges succeed. This report examines the impacts of one-semester learning communities for developmental math students at Queensborough Community College and Houston Community College. At both colleges, students in learning communities attempted and passed their developmental math class at higher rates than students in a control group. However, this impact generally did not translate into increased cumulative progress in math by the end of two or three semesters.
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Turning the Tide
Five Years of Achieving the Dream in Community Colleges
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2011. Elizabeth Zachry Rutschow, Lashawn Richburg-Hayes, Thomas Brock, Genevieve Orr, Oscar Cerna, Dan Cullinan, Monica Reid Kerrigan, Davis Jenkins, Susan Gooden, and Kasey Martin.
This interim report examines the experiences of the first 26 colleges to join the ambitious Achieving the Dream initiative. Launched by Lumina Foundation for Education in 2004, Achieving the Dream helps community colleges collect and analyze student performance data in order to build a “culture of evidence,” enabling the colleges to use that knowledge to develop programs to increase students’ academic success.
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2012
