There is wide agreement that the well-paying jobs of the future will require postsecondary credentials. But for many students attending community college, developmental (or remedial) classes in reading, composition, and/or mathematics--the courses that students often must complete before they can enroll in courses that confer credit toward a…

More than 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and around 700,000 are released from prison each year. Those who are released face daunting obstacles as they seek to reenter their communities, and rates of recidivism are high. Many experts believe that stable employment is critical to a successful transition from prison to the…

The expense of attending college is one factor that may explain why low-income students often drop out of school. In California, despite generous state aid and relatively low fees at community colleges, many low-income students still have substantial college-related costs that they cannot cover. To compound matters, federal support for students…

During the past decade, New York City undertook a district-wide high school reform that is perhaps unprecedented in its scope, scale, and pace. Between fall 2002 and fall 2008, the school district closed 23 large failing high schools (with graduation rates below 45 percent), opened 216 new small high schools (with different missions, structures,…

Improving the success of academically underprepared students who are in need of developmental (or remedial) education is a key challenge facing community colleges today. Many of these students enter college with little awareness of these institutions' expectations or a clear model for how to make effective decisions about their academic careers.…

Distressed urban neighborhoods face challenges on multiple fronts, but most efforts to confront these problems work in isolation of one another. The New Communities Program (NCP) is an exception, helping selected Chicago neighborhoods develop partnerships to address challenges involving employment, education, housing, and safety in a…

The budget for the U.S. Department of Labor for Fiscal Year 2010 includes a total of $45 million to support and study transitional jobs. This paper describes the origins of the transitional jobs models that are operating today, reviews the evidence on the effectiveness of this approach and other subsidized employment models, and offers some…

First implemented in 1987, Success for All (SFA) is one of the best-known and most thoroughly evaluated school reform models. It combines three basic elements: (1) Reading instruction that emphasizes phonics for beginning readers and comprehension for students at all levels, and that is characterized by a highly structured curriculum, an emphasis…

More than 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and around 700,000 are released from prison each year. Those who are released face daunting obstacles as they seek to reenter their communities, and rates of recidivism are high. Many experts believe that stable employment is critical to a successful transition from prison to the…

Although a growing number of individuals are enrolling in college in response to the increasing payoff to higher education, more than a third of them never finish. College completion rates are especially disappointing for low-income students, in many cases because they tend to enter college underprepared academically but also because they have…

Low-income preschool children face many risks to their social-emotional development that can affect their school experience and social outcomes for years to come. Although there are some promising approaches to improving young children's social-emotional competence, the evidence base is limited, particularly on the effectiveness of these…

In 2004, Lumina Foundation for Education launched "Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count," a national initiative aimed at improving success among community college students, particularly low-income students and students of color. Now encompassing more than 130 institutions in 24 states and the District of Columbia, Achieving the…

MDRC launched the Opening Doors demonstration to test four distinct interventions that were designed to help more students persist in community college and accomplish their academic and personal goals. This report describes the impacts of a performance-based scholarship program with a counseling component on academic success and persistence among…

Many adult students struggle to finance their educations, often contending with work and child care expenses in addition to the extra cost of remedial courses. Moreover, there is little need-based grant aid to help. This report presents early findings from an evaluation of a program in New York City targeted to low-income adults (ages 22 to 35)…

In 2004, Lumina Foundation for Education launched "Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count," a national initiative aimed at improving success among community college students, particularly low-income students and students of color. Now encompassing more than 130 institutions in 24 states and the District of Columbia, Achieving the…