We present experimental evidence on the impact of a multi-faceted program that integrates technology-aided instruction, teacher training and coaching, community ownership, and free primary education. Our setting is three districts in rural Zambia, where we randomly assigned the program across 30 treatment and 33 control schools. The results show…

The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of a universal classroom-based social-emotional learning (SEL) program for first grade students. Forty classrooms from 13 elementary schools across 3 states participated in the trial. Teachers in classrooms randomly assigned to the implementation condition were provided with free access to…

Increasingly, parents of young children need postsecondary credentials to compete in the labor market and meet basic family needs. This study uses a quasi-experimental design to examine the effects of Career"Advance," a two-generation education intervention that offers postsecondary career training in healthcare for parents paired with…

Attending high-quality early childhood care and education (ECCE) is associated with higher cognitive and social-emotional skills, especially for children growing up in poverty, but access to high-quality ECCE is limited. This study capitalizes on the random assignment design of the Head Start Impact Study to better understand whether the…

Recent studies of charter school effectiveness have questioned whether charter school networks can produce a lasting impact on students' long-term outcomes. Our study is the first to examine this issue at the network of Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) schools, which primarily serve disadvantaged students of color and constitute the nation's…

This study examined two widely available light-touch, writing-based mindset interventions: one that targeted students' purpose for learning and one that aimed to increase students' growth mindset. In order to examine the potential mechanisms underlying previously reported effects of mindset interventions, we analyzed these interventions' effects…

Despite substantial cross-national interest in remedial programming as a way to support low-achieving students, evidence of its effectiveness is rare, particularly in low-income and/or crisis-affected contexts. In this article, we present experimental evidence of the impact of a remedial tutoring program on academic outcomes from a two-level…

This multiyear scale-up effectiveness study of Open Court Reading (OCR) involved approximately 4,500 students and more than 1,000 teachers per year in Grades K-5 from 49 elementary schools in seven districts across the country. Using a school-level cluster randomized trial design, we assessed the implementation and effectiveness of Open Court…

Parental text messaging interventions are growing in popularity to encourage at-home reading, school-attendance, and other educational behaviors. These interventions, which often combine multiple components, frequently demonstrate varying amounts of effectiveness, and researchers often cannot determine how individual components work alone or in…

This study investigates the effects and feasibility of an intervention for first-grade students at risk for reading difficulties or disabilities (RD). The intervention was provided by general education classroom teachers and consisted of 15 min whole-class comprehension lessons (Tier 1) and 30 min Tier 2 intervention sessions in word reading,…

This study examined the effectiveness of the intensive implementation of a multicomponent reading intervention ("Voyager Passport") with 306 fourth-grade students with severe reading difficulties. Students with reading comprehension achievement below the 15th percentile in the fall of fourth grade were randomly assigned to the intensive…

This article examines the effect of Teach For America (TFA) on the distribution of student achievement in elementary school. It extends previous research by estimating quantile treatment effects (QTE) to examine how student achievement in TFA and non-TFA classrooms differs across the broader distribution of student achievement. It also updates…

A college degree is often viewed as a key step toward better employment and higher earnings. Many community college students, however, never graduate and cannot reap the financial benefits associated with a college degree. Although existing research suggests that financial aid interventions can modestly improve students' short-term academic…

By 2013, all 50 states and the District of Columbia had adopted college- and career-ready standards in English language arts and mathematics, placing a greater emphasis on argument writing to prepare students for life after high school. Solving the specific problem of how to help teachers teach to new standards for argument writing as well as the…

Community colleges play a vital role in higher education, enrolling more than one in every three postsecondary students. While their market share has grown over the past 50 years, students' success rates remain low. Consequently, community college stakeholders are searching with mounting urgency for strategies that increase rates of success. We…