Performance-based scholarships have two main goals: (1) to give students more money for college; and (2) to provide incentives for academic progress. MDRC launched the Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration in 2008 to evaluate the effectiveness of these scholarships in a diverse set of states, institutions, and low-income student…

One of the original purposes of student financial aid was to ensure fairer access to post-secondary education to those least able to afford it and to those traditionally underrepresented. Various federal and state programs were put in place to achieve this goal, including the federal Pell Grant and state aid programs. Yet policymakers and…

This is the fourth-year report in a five-year evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). This report features analyses of student achievement growth three years after the authors carefully assembled longitudinal study panels of MPCP and Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) students in 2006-07. The general purposes of the evaluation are…

This report focuses on the initial design, implementation and baseline results of the five-year Longitudinal Educational Growth Study (LEGS) of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) being conducted by the School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP). The LEGS will be the first evaluation of the participant effects of the MPCP using…

The final report of a 3 year federally funded project for neurologically handicapped children focuses on accomplishments in the following nine areas: direct and supplementary services for children's services, parent/family participation, assessment of child progress, inservice training for project staff, training for personnel from other programs…

In August 2004, the WVDE asked the Appalachia Educational Laboratory at Edvantia, Inc. to evaluate the demonstration project, in order to meet the evaluation and reporting requirements set forth in the law. According to Fink (1993), baseline evaluation data allow for subsequent analyses of the effect or impact of a program. The purpose of this…

The purpose of this report is to provide descriptive data regarding the test scores of Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) students in grades 4, 8 and 10 in reading, math and science, as reported to the School Choice Demonstration Project 2007-2008. The tables, graphs, and histograms presented in this report provide a snapshot of these…

As part of a Title I demonstration project, sixteen school districts were chosen to change their compensatory education Federal fund allocation procedures by substituting an educational definition of need for the formerly used income definition. The purpose of this report is threefold: (1) to describe the demographic characteristics of the…

This report presents the first post-intervention impacts of the Quantum Opportunity Program (QOP) demonstration. From July 1995 through September 2001, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and the Ford Foundation (Ford) operated a demonstration of QOP designed to help at-risk high-school-age youth graduate from high school and enroll in…

This is the second year report in a five-year evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). This program, which began in 1990, provides government-funded vouchers for low-income children to attend private schools in the City of Milwaukee. The maximum voucher amount in 2007-08 was $6,607, and approximately 20,000 children use a…

This is the third report from the evaluation of the Multicultural Education Program in Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), a major effort to address racial and ethnic diversity in a middle school. Section 1 of the report provides background on the multicultural education movement and the aims of the Pittsburgh program. Section 2 describes the status of the…

The East San Gabriel Valley (California) School to Career Partnership encompassing the eastern sections of Los Angeles County and serving an ethnically diverse population, uses design-based learning (DBL) to teach academic and career skills to at-risk students in small groups. Key features of DBL classroom activities include the following: (1)…

The seven High Schools That Work (HSTW) sites making the most progress in raising student achievement between 1990-1993 are changing the high school system and succeeding with a group of students often considered hopeless. They use the HSTW framework of key practices to improve curriculum and instruction. The specific HSTW goal is to close by…

This study evaluated the New Hope Project, a demonstration program implemented in two inner-city areas in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The project offered low-income people willing to work full time an earnings supplement to raise their incomes above poverty; subsidized health insurance; subsidized child care; and help obtaining jobs. The evaluation…

This report summarizes an analysis of New Hope, a demonstration program designed to improve the lives of low-income people willing to work full time by providing several benefits (an earnings supplement to raise their income above poverty, subsidized health insurance, and subsidized child care) and offering help obtaining jobs. New Hope was…