Participation in higher education affords low-income students with a pathway out of poverty. The federally funded Upward Bound program aims to improve the college-going rate of low-income and first-generation students. Relevant studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of the program. There is a gap in the research regarding whether some types…

Multi-site randomized controlled trials (RCTs) provide unbiased estimates of the average impact in the study sample. However, their ability to accurately predict the impact for individual sites outside the study sample, to inform local policy decisions, is largely unknown. To extend prior research on this question, we analyzed six multi-site RCTs…

Research has shown that male teachers in early childhood settings play a crucial role in providing male role models, offering diverse perspectives, and helping children develop positive gender-role stereotypes. Therefore, it is crucial for Early Head Start programs to increase the representation of male teachers to ensure that all children can…

This article combines archival research and critical discourse analysis to examine 33 evaluation and report documents that evaluate the effectiveness of the Fulbright Program from 1958-2023. Specifically, the study employs argumentation analysis to understand the underlying ideological strategies used to discursively construct the Fulbright…

Program evaluation is important for assessing the implementation and outcomes of local, state, and federal programs. The Program Evaluation Toolkit provides tools and resources to support individuals responsible for evaluating and monitoring local, state, or federal programs. The toolkit comprises eight modules that cover critical steps in program…

Professional learning for teachers has become a staple in today's education continuous improvement system. Federal programs such as the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge Program (RTTT), Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, Elementary and Secondary Education Act and others have supported funds over the years to account for developing…

Little is known about how the expansion of state pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs affects low-income children with disabilities in Head Start. Using almost 30 years of administrative data of all Head Start programs and a differences-in-differences design, this study tests the possibility that, as state pre-k differentially draws relatively more…

Tiered evidence initiatives are an important federal strategy to incentivize and accelerate the use of rigorous evidence in planning, implementing, and assessing social service investments. The Social Innovation Fund (SIF), a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service, adopted a public-private partnership approach to tiered…

Hoping to spur dramatic school turnaround, the federal government channeled resources to the country's lowest-performing schools through School Improvement Grants (SIG). However, prior research on SIG effectiveness is limited and focuses primarily on student achievement. This study uses a difference-in-differences strategy to estimate program…

Hoping to spur dramatic school turnaround, the federal government channeled resources to the country's lowest-performing schools through School Improvement Grants (SIG). However, prior research on SIG effectiveness is limited and focuses primarily on student achievement. This study uses a difference-in-differences strategy to estimate program…

This study examined the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) One-Stop Center model, which is the local service mechanism for providing employment and training services. It reviewed the processes and service patterns of four program designs that offer an array of services that align with the WIA program's allowable activities. The purpose of the study…

In Djibouti, extreme poverty was 41.9% and relative poverty 79.4% according to the poverty profile elaborated by the national statistical office (DISED) in 2012. Malnutrition remains high in Djibouti, and comparable to Sub-Saharan countries, with 29.7% of children under the age of five chronically malnourished, 29.6% underweight, and over 17.8% of…

Researchers have become increasingly interested in programs' main and interaction effects of two variables (A and B, e.g., two treatment variables or one treatment variable and one moderator) on outcomes. A challenge for estimating main and interaction effects is to eliminate selection bias across A-by-B groups. I introduce Rubin's causal model to…

Universities develop strategic planning documents, and as part of that planning process, logic models are developed for specific programs within the university. This article examines the long-standing pecan program at New Mexico State University and the deficiencies and successes in the evolution of its logic model. The university's agricultural…

The role of compliance assistance in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's overall enforcement strategy has been quite variable over the past decade and a half, increasing in prominence under the Bush administration and now slated for significantly reduced funding under the Obama administration. While theoretical models and anecdotal evidence…