In this report, the authors present the results of a long-term tracking study that follows 1,177 students who applied to enter 1 of 13 oversubscribed Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) middle schools through a 5th or 6th grade admissions lottery in 2008 or 2009. Those students are now old enough to have attended college for at least two years. This…

Recess periods often lack the structure needed to support physical activity and positive social development (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation 2010). The Playworks program places full-time coaches in low-income schools to provide opportunities for organized play during recess and throughout the school day. Playworks activities are designed to engage…

High school students from disadvantaged high schools in Toronto were invited to take two surveys, about three weeks apart. Half of the students taking the first survey were also shown a 3 minute video about the benefits of post secondary education (PSE) and invited to try out a financial-aid calculator. Most students' perceived returns to PSE were…

National achievement data show that elementary school students in the United States, particularly those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, have weak math skills (National Center for Education Statistics 2009). In fact, data show that, even before they enter elementary school, children from disadvantaged backgrounds are behind their more…

Since 2002, New York City has closed more than 20 underperforming public high schools, opened more than 200 new secondary schools, and introduced a centralized high school admissions process in which approximately 80,000 students a year indicate their school preferences from a wide-ranging choice of programs. At the heart of these reforms lie 123…

One way to improve struggling schools' access to effective teachers is to use selective transfer incentives. Such incentives offer bonuses for the highest-performing teachers to move into schools serving the most disadvantaged students. In this report, we provide evidence from a randomized experiment that tested whether such a policy intervention…

The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is a rapidly expanding network of public charter schools whose mission is to improve the education of low-income children. As of the 2012-2013 school year, 125 KIPP schools are in operation in 20 different states and the District of Columbia (DC). Ultimately, KIPP's goal is to prepare students to enroll and…

This report addresses the following four questions by reporting on the impacts of Head Start on children and families during the children's preschool, kindergarten, and 1st grade years: (1) What difference does Head Start make to key outcomes of development and learning (and in particular, the multiple domains of school readiness) for low-income…

The purpose of this large-scale, national study is to determine whether some early elementary school math curricula are more effective than others at improving student math achievement, thereby providing educators with information that may be useful for making adequate yearly progress (AYP). This report presents results from the first cohort of…

A variety of preschool curricula is available and in widespread use, however, there is a lack of evidence from rigorous evaluations regarding the effects of these curricula on children's school readiness. The lack of such information is important as early childhood center-based programs have been a major, sometimes the sole, component of a number…

This evaluation of the services and short-term impact of the 1987/88 Career Beginnings (CB) program found an increase in the average rate of college attendance of participants in the year following high school graduation. Career Beginnings targets urban high school juniors from low-income families who demonstrate average academic performance and…