The Growing Recruits for Urban Business (GRUB) is an urban agricultural education program in Lubbock, Texas with a focus on youth development. The mission of the program is to provide at-risk youth with the opportunity to learn technical agricultural skills and leadership skills through the management of a 5.5-acre farm. The purpose of this…

This study adds to the limited literature base on extracurricular debate by using doubly robust inverse probability treatment weighting to estimate the average treatment effect for the treated of preadolescent debate participation on a variety of academic and engagement outcomes among a 10-year longitudinal sample of Baltimore City Public School…

Opportunity Works was a three-year effort led by Jobs for the Future to help opportunity youth--young people ages 16 to 24 who are not in school or meaningfully employed--access postsecondary and career pathways. Based on the Back on Track framework, seven cities across the country undertook collective impact approaches with diverse partners to…

Regular participation in afterschool programs by elementary students in low income communities may lead to improved college and career readiness. This study found that students who had high levels of participation in the LA's BEST afterschool program over three years were five percent less likely to dropout and six percent more likely to complete…

The NYC Justice Corps aims to change the dynamic between justice system-involved young adults and the communities in which they live. At the heart of the program are community benefit projects -- from renovation and restoration projects to educational and arts initiatives -- designed and carried out by Corps members. Community benefit projects…

OrchKids has been offering free, year-round music-based programming to students across Baltimore for 10 years. In school year (SY) 2017-18, its out-of-school-time (OST) program was based in six schools and served over 1,000 children in pre-K through 10th grade. The primary goal of OrchKids is to expose students and their family members to music…

As part of an ongoing, multi-million dollar Wallace Foundation initiative to improve and expand arts learning opportunities for young people, the Wallace Foundation, in partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA), developed the Youth Arts Initiative (YAI) to deliver otherwise inaccessible high-quality arts programs to low-income…

The Expanded Success Initiative (ESI) evaluation was designed with two overlapping and interacting components: (1) a study of the initiative's implementation in the participating high schools; and (2) a study of its impact on student experiences and other outcomes. As the document of record evaluating an important, large-scale initiative, this…

For decades, Baltimore's poorest African American children have been channeled into racially and economically segregated neighborhoods with low-performing schools. Financial constraints and scarce affordable housing in more affluent communities have made it very difficult for poor families to access higher quality educational opportunities for…

Given the potential of afterschool programs to support youth in urban, low-income communities, we examined the role of afterschool classroom ecology in the academic outcomes of Latino and African American youth with and without social-behavioral risk. Using multireporter methods and multilevel analysis, we find that positive classroom ecology…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine youth development outcomes in an Urban Squash program. Methods: A mixed method approach to was employed to address three research questions: 1) to what extent did the Urban Squash program exhibit features of a quality OST program?; 2) what aspects of the Urban Squash program were most valued by…

This publication shares research from site visits conducted to construction pre-apprenticeship programs in Baltimore, Hartford, Milwaukee and Portland (OR). Findings from the site visits, which included interviews and focus groups with pre-apprenticeship program staff, public officials, philanthropic leaders, construction industry leaders and…

This study examined a comprehensive screening model within children attending Head Start programs from urban (n = 232) and rural (n = 231) communities. The Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA; LeBuffe & Naglieri, 1999) was used to measure social-emotional protective factors (i.e., Total Protective Factors [TPF]) and risk factors (i.e.,…

Strengthened the theory of change approach to evaluating a complex social initiative by integrating it with a quasi-experimental comparison group design. Used the approach in an evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Urban Health Initiative. Initial findings support the usefulness of the initiative. (SLD)

Examines the responsiveness of the adult education component in urban family literacy programs in the Midwest. Finds that most of the programs were aware of the concept of responsive, family-centered programs; however, their practices did not support such an approach. (NH)