The New York City P-TECH 9-14 schools are an educational model that ties together the secondary, higher education, and workforce systems to improve outcomes across domains. The distinguishing feature of the model is a partnership among a high school, a community college, and one or more employer partners that focuses on preparing students for both…

This study examines the impacts of two AmeriCorps programs, Minnesota Reading Corps and Wisconsin Reading Corps, where AmeriCorps volunteers provide literacy tutoring to at-risk kindergarten through third-grade (K-3) students utilizing a response-to-intervention framework. This evaluation replicates a prior randomized controlled trial evaluation…

Many talented students in under-resourced schools do not reach their full potential. Research shows that by sixth grade, children born into poverty have likely spent 6,000 fewer hours learning than their middle-class counterparts. Higher Achievement, an intensive summer and after-school program, aims to close that learning gap. It offers…

Most community college students are referred to developmental education courses to build basic skills. These students often struggle in these courses and college more broadly. CUNY Start is a prematriculation program for students assessed as having significant remedial needs. CUNY Start students delay matriculation for one semester and receive…

Developed by the National Writing Project (NWP), the College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP) seeks to improve students' argument writing by building teachers' understanding of and skill in teaching source-based argument writing. The program features intensive professional development, skill-based instructional resources, and…

While the United States has made strides in increasing college access among low-income students, college completion has remained low. Graduation rates are particularly low at the nation's community colleges, which enroll a disproportionate percentage of low-income and nontraditional college students. Seeking to address this problem, in 2014 three…

The College Board sought to reduce barriers in the college application process by minimizing information aggregation costs, encouraging a broad application portfolio, and providing an impetus to start the search process. Some students were offered additional encouragements, such as text message reminders or college application fee waivers. In a…

This report presents the findings from an external evaluation of Project COMPASS, an effort by Wake Technical Community College to redesign community college online courses to improve outcomes, particularly for students of color. The evaluation used a randomized controlled trial in which students were randomly assigned to course sections taught by…

In 2016, McREL and the University of Southern California (USC) were awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund (Award Number U411C150011) to develop a translation of the identity-based motivation (IBM) in vivo program "Pathways to Success" to a digital platform to deliver IBM to middle and…

Senior year of high school can be a pivotal time in a young person's life. For some, it is the last step on the path to college and work. For others, finding stable employment or attending university after high school is far from guaranteed. Urban Alliance, headquartered in Washington, DC, helps students at risk of becoming disconnected from work…

In 2014, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) awarded $107 million in four-year grants to 24 applicants for the Youth CareerConnect (YCC) program, a high school-based program that blended academic and career-focused learning to better prepare students for both college and careers in high-growth industries that often rely on foreign workers. The…

To improve the reading comprehension outcomes of children in high-poverty schools, policymakers need to identify reading interventions that show promise of effectiveness at scale. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a low-cost and large-scale summer reading intervention that provided comprehension lessons at the end of the school year and…

Young people have been hit especially hard by changes in the labor market over the past decades. Unemployment among 16- to 24-year-olds increased the most of any age group during the recent recession, and remains more than double that among older adults. The unemployment rate is especially high for young people without high school diplomas.…

The purpose of this report is to present the results of a two-year randomized control trial evaluation of the SPARK literacy program. SPARK is an early grade literacy program developed by Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee. In 2010, SPARK was awarded an Investing in Innovation (i3) Department of Education grant to further develop the…

"INSPIRE" is an Investing in Innovation (i3) development grant funded by the Office of Innovation and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. "INSPIRE" provides an innovative integrated K-12 STEM pipeline approach focused on STEM course content and instructional redesign. The INSPIRE model was implemented in Cabarrus County…