How Can We Help? Lessons from Federal Dropout Prevention Programs. Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy Research (original) (raw)
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Impacts of Dropout Prevention Programs. Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy Research
directed the evaluation in its early years and helped to lay a solid foundation for its findings. Nancy Adelman of Policy Studies Associates and Steven Murray of RMC Research played important roles in designing and carrying out the implementation analysis, and also provided ideas and input to the impact analysis. At Mathematica, Alan Hershey provided guidance, comments, critical review, and support throughout the process of writing the report. Linda Rosenberg managed the project, organized the conferences and advisory panel meetings, and developed estimates of program costs that we used in Chapter II. John Homrighausen oversaw the huge data collection effort. West Addison developed the data tracking system and programmed the statistical calculations, along with Lauren Beaumont, Catherine Daly, Kainan Tang, and Doug Almond. Laura Berenson edited the report, and Jill Miller oversaw its production.
AEA Randomized Controlled Trials, 2018
The inability to consistently deliver at large scale promising education interventions is an important contributing cause to inequality in the U.S. The research team applies insights from price theory and field-based randomized controlled trials to examine the effect of implementing a promising academic skills development program at large scale before implementing at scale. The project is designed to provide evidence of direct scientific and policy value for attempts to scale up a specific intervention, but also stimulate a much more thorough investigation of social policy scale-up challenges by refining these methods and demonstrating their feasibility and value. The research team examines the challenge of program scale up for a promising intervention studied in Chicago at medium scale in the past-SAGA tutoring. Past work has demonstrated that SAGA's intensive, individualized, during-the-school-day math tutoring can generate very large gains in academic outcomes in a short period, even among students who are many years behind grade level. This study will explicitly explore the extent to which there is a trade-off between effectiveness and scale for this intervention. By taking advantage of the power of random sampling, this study will also allow for observation of the program's effectiveness as if it were running at three-and-a-half times the proposed scale in a subset of the study population. II. RESEARCH QUESTIONS The University of Chicago Education Lab and Crime Lab New York research teams are carrying out a randomized controlled trial during the 2016-17 and 2017-18 academic years to build on previous collaborations with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the New York City Department of Education, and SAGA Innovations that have found that SAGA's intensive, individualized, during-the-school-day tutoring can generate very large gains in academic outcomes in a short period of time, even among students who are many years behind grade level. This research suggests the promise of this approach for improving the academic skills and educational attainment of disadvantaged youth, even once they have reached adolescence. However, to truly affect outcomes at the local and national level, SAGA would have to be rolled out on a much greater scale than researchers have been able to study in Chicago. Yet little is known about how to take promising interventions to scale. This study seeks to build the science of scale-up, by examining the extent to which this individualized tutoring program can be implemented at an even greater scale and by explicitly exploring the trade-offs between effectiveness and scale. The SAGA Innovations program expands on the nationally recognized innovation of highdosage, in-school-day tutoring developed in Match Education's charter school in Boston. The tutoring program meets as a scheduled course, Math Lab, once a day during the normal school day, and is provided in addition to a student's regular math class. Students work two-on-one (two students with one tutor) with the same full-time, professional tutor for the entirety of the school year. The content of the tutoring sessions is aligned with what students are learning in their regular math courses, but is also targeted to address individual gaps in math knowledge. Also
1986
The State-funded Attendance Improvement/Dropout Prevention program and_the City-funded Dropoutyrevention Program distributed over $30 million to the New York City Board of Education in 1985-86. This document is a summary report of an analysis of program implementation in the schools receiving these funds aimed at better understanding of political and organizational requirements for successful implementation. Findings show that policymakers must further consider the realities of the local context when designing program guidelines. Another goal of.the analysis was.to_discern the strengths and weaknesses opf the various programs. This involved examination of types of services_offered, of school.versus community-based organizatioA delivery of these services, and of the larger school context of programs being studied. Findings document that continued program development and general school improvement are needed for dropout prevention. After describing program models, the report_provides policy recommendations in the following areas: (1) targeting; (2)_implementation; and (3) program development. Findings are presented in the following general sections: (1) implementation; (2) staff evaluations of programs; (3) student satisfaction; and (4) dropout prevention and school environment. An appendix provides sampling and interview methods as well as interview forms. (LBW)
Dropout Risk Factors and Exemplary Programs: A Technical Report
National Dropout Prevention Center Network, 2007
Communities In Schools (CIS) is the nation's fifth-largest youth-serving organization and the leading dropout prevention organization, delivering resources to nearly one million students in 3,250 schools across the country. To further their network-wide commitment to evidence-based practice, CIS collaborated with the National Dropout Prevention Center/Network at Clemson University (NDPC/N) to conduct a comprehensive study of the dropout crisis in the United States. Specifically, the intent of the study was to: 1) Identify the risk factors or conditions that significantly increase the likelihood of students dropping out of school; and 2) Identify exemplary, evidence-based programs that address the identified risk factors and conditions.