Archive
Learning Communities for Students in Developmental English: Impact Studies at Merced College and The Community College of Baltimore County
Across the United States, community colleges offer millions of students an open-access, low-cost postsecondary education. However, of the students who enroll in community college hoping to earn a credential or transfer to a four-year institution, only about half achieve their goal within six years. For students who enter college needing developmental (remedial) education in reading, writing, or math, this rate is even lower. Learning communities, in which cohorts of students enroll in two or more linked courses together, are often employed to improve these students’ success. In addition to linking courses, learning communities often incorporate other components, such as faculty collaboration, shared assignments and curricula, and connections to student support services.
Merced College in California and The Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) each developed learning communities designed to boost the academic success of their developmental English students. These colleges are two of the six in the National Center for Postsecondary Research’s (NCPR) Learning Communities Demonstration, in which random assignment evaluations are being used to determine the impacts of learning communities on student success. At Merced, learning communities linked developmental English courses with a variety of other courses at the developmental and college levels. At CCBC, learning communities linked developmental English with a range of college-level courses and a weekly one-hour Master Learner session designed to support curricular integration and student learning.
+ Executive Summary (PDF)
+ Full Report (PDF)
Leading by Example: A Case Study of Peer Leader Programs at Two Achieving the Dream Colleges
Leading by Example: A Case Study of Peer Leader Programs at Two Achieving the Dream Colleges
Source: MDRC
This report draws on the experiences of two Massachusetts community colleges that employed academically successful students to serve as peer leaders. The Achieving the Dream initiative supports colleges’ investments in the resources and personnel needed to make desired institution-wide changes. As part of the initiative, Northern Essex Community College has used Supplemental Instruction Leaders, and Bunker Hill Community College has used Peer Mentors in order to strengthen student success and promote institutional improvement efforts.
Both colleges chose to implement peer leader programs in developmental (remedial) and gatekeeper (introductory college-level) courses that have historically been difficult for many students to pass. This report describes recruitment, training, activities, and costs related to developing these peer leader programs as well as how peer leaders worked with students and faculty inside the classroom. Students, peer leaders, faculty, and administrators offered perspectives in focus groups and interviews during the 2010-2011 academic year.
+ Executive Summary (PDF)
+ Full Report (PDF)
More Than a Job: Final Results from the Evaluation of the Center for Employment Opportunities Transitional Jobs Program
More Than a Job: Final Results from the Evaluation of the Center for Employment Opportunities Transitional Jobs Program (PDF)
Source: MDRC
This report presents the final results of the evaluation of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO). CEO is one of four sites in the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project, sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), with additional funding from the U.S. Department of Labor. MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan social and education policy research organization, is leading the evaluation, in collabora- tion with the Urban Institute and other partners.
Based in New York City, CEO is a comprehensive employment program for former prisoners — a population confronting many obstacles to finding and maintaining work. CEO provides temporary, paid jobs and other services in an effort to improve participants’ labor market prospects and reduce the odds that they will return to prison. The study uses a rigorous random assignment design: it compares outcomes for individuals assigned to the program group, who were given access to CEO’s jobs and other services, with the outcomes for those assigned to the control group, who were offered basic job search assistance at CEO along with other services in the community.
The three-year evaluation found that CEO substantially increased employment early in the follow-up period but that the effects faded over time. The initial increase in employment was due to the temporary jobs provided by the program. After the first year, employment and earnings were similar for both the program group and the control group.
CEO significantly reduced recidivism, with the most promising impacts occurring among a sub- group of former prisoners who enrolled shortly after release from prison (the group that the program was designed to serve). Among the subgroup that enrolled within three months after release, program group members were less likely than their control group counterparts to be arrested, convicted of a new crime, and reincarcerated. The program’s impacts on these outcomes represent reductions in recidivism of 16 percent to 22 percent. In general, CEO’s impacts were stronger for those who were more disadvantaged or at higher risk of recidivism when they enrolled in the study.
The evaluation includes a benefit-cost analysis, which shows that CEO’s financial benefits out-weighed its costs under a wide range of assumptions. Financial benefits exceeded the costs for taxpayers, victims, and participants. The majority of CEO’s benefits were the result of reduced criminal justice system expenditures.
More Than a Job: Final Results from the Evaluation of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) Transitional Jobs Program
This report presents the final results of the evaluation of the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO). CEO is one of four sites in the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project, sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), with additional funding from the U.S. Department of Labor. MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan social and education policy research organization, is leading the evaluation, in collaboration with the Urban Institute and other partners.
Based in New York City, CEO is a comprehensive employment program for former prisoners — a population confronting many obstacles to finding and maintaining work. CEO provides temporary, paid jobs and other services in an effort to improve participants’ labor market prospects and reduce the odds that they will return to prison. The study uses a rigorous random assignment design: it compares outcomes for individuals assigned to the program group, who were given access to CEO’s jobs and other services, with the outcomes for those assigned to the control group, who were offered basic job search assistance at CEO along with other services in the community.
The three-year evaluation found that CEO substantially increased employment early in the follow-up period but that the effects faded over time. The initial increase in employment was due to the temporary jobs provided by the program. After the first year, employment and earnings were similar for both the program group and the control group.
+ Executive Summary (PDF)
+ Full Report (PDF)
Top 10 Most Popular MDRC Publications in 2011
In 2011, MDRC published nearly 40 publications on programs affecting low-income Americans in all realms of education and social policy: education from preschool to postsecondary, workforce development, family relationships, youth development, welfare programs, early childhood, health and disability, and more. What follows is a list of our top 10 most popular publications released in 2011….
Serving Community College Students on Probation
Serving Community College Students on Probation
Source: MDRC
Community colleges across the United States face a difficult challenge. On the one hand, they are “open access” institutions, with a mission to serve students from all backgrounds and at varying levels of college readiness. On the other hand, they must uphold high academic standards in order to maintain accreditation and prepare students for employment or transfer to four-year schools. How, then, can community colleges best serve students who want to learn but do not meet minimum academic standards?
Chaffey College, a large community college located about 40 miles east of Los Angeles, began to wrestle with this question early in the twenty-first century. Under the auspices of a national demonstration project called Opening Doors, Chaffey developed a program designed to increase probationary students’ chances of succeeding in college. Chaffey’s program included a “College Success” course, taught by a counselor, which provided basic information on study skills and the requirements of college. As part of the course, students were expected to complete five visits to “Success Centers,” where their assignments, linked to the College Success course, covered skills assessment, learning styles, time management, use of resources, and test preparation.
In 2005, MDRC collaborated with Chaffey College to evaluate the one-semester, voluntary Opening Doors program. In 2006, the program was improved to form the two-semester Enhanced Opening Doors program, in which probationary students were told that they were required to take the College Success course. In MDRC’s evaluation of each program, students were randomly assigned either to a program group that had the opportunity to participate in the program or to a control group that received the college’s standard courses and services. This report presents the outcomes for both groups of students in the Enhanced Opening Doors evaluation for four years after they entered the study.
+ Executive Summary (PDF)
+ Full Report (PDF)
Breaking the Low-Pay, No-Pay Cycle: Final Evidence from the UK Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) Demonstration
This report presents the final results on the implementation, impacts, costs, and economic benefits of the UK Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) programme. ERA’s distinctive combination of post-employment advisory support and financial incentives was designed to help low-income individuals who entered work sustain employment and advance in the labour market. Launched in 2003 in selected Jobcentre Plus offices, ERA targeted three groups: (1) unemployed lone parents receiving Income Support and volunteering for the New Deal for Lone Parents welfare-to-work programme, (2) lone parents working part time and receiving Working Tax Credit, and (3) long-term unemployed people aged 25 or older receiving Jobseeker’s Allowance who were required to participate in the New Deal 25 Plus welfare-to-work programme. The effectiveness of the programme was evaluated using a random assignment research design.
The evaluation found that ERA produced short-term earnings gains for the two lone parent target groups. The early gains resulted from increases in the proportion of participants who worked full time (at least 30 hours per week). However, these effects generally faded after the programme ended, largely because the control group caught up with the ERA group.
More impressive were the results for the long-term unemployed participants (mostly men) in the New Deal 25 Plus target group. For them, ERA produced modest but sustained increases in employment and substantial and sustained increases in earnings. These positive effects emerged after the first year and were still evident at the end of a five-year follow-up period. The earnings gains were accompanied by lasting reductions in benefits receipt. ERA proved cost-effective for this group from the perspectives of the participants themselves, the Government budget, and society as a whole.
+ Summary (PDF)
+ Full Report (PDF)
Unlocking the Gate: What We Know About Improving Developmental Education
Unlocking the Gate: What We Know About Improving Developmental Education
Source: MDRC
One of the greatest challenges that community colleges face in their efforts to increase graduation rates is improving the success of students in their developmental, or remedial, education programs — the courses that students without adequate academic preparation must take before they can enroll in courses for college credit. Emphasizing results from experimental and quasi-experimental studies, this literature review identifies the most promising approaches for revising the structure, curriculum, or delivery of developmental education and suggests areas for future innovations in developmental education practice and research. This analysis focuses on four different types of interventions for improving students’ progress through remedial education and into college-level courses, including (1) strategies that help students avoid developmental education by shoring up their skills before they enter college; (2) interventions that accelerate students’ progress through developmental education by shortening the timing or content of their courses; (3) programs that provide contextualized basic skills together with occupational or college-content coursework; and (4) programs that enhance the supports for developmental-level learners, such as advising or tutoring.
While research on best practices in developmental education abounds, little rigorous research exists to demonstrate the effects of these reforms on students’ achievement. Programs that show the greatest benefits with relatively rigorous documentation either mainstream developmental students into college-level courses with additional supports, provide modularized or compressed courses to allow remedial students to more quickly complete their developmental work, or offer contextualized remedial education within occupational and vocational programs. These strategies show the most promise for educators and policymakers who must act now, but they should also continue to receive attention from researchers. Many of the strategies have not yet been evaluated using more rigorous and reliable research methods, and/or early promising results have not been replicated in other settings.
This literature review also notes several promising reforms that merit further study: technology-aided approaches, improved alignment between secondary and postsecondary education, and curricular redesign that reconsiders the key skills that academically underprepared students will need in their careers. Finally, it flags two generic issues — placement assessments and faculty support — that will likely need to be addressed for community colleges to see large-scale changes in their developmental-level students’ achievement.
+ Executive Summary (PDF)
+ Full Report (PDF)
Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study: Findings After the Second Year of Implementation
Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study: Findings After the Second Year of Implementation
Source: MDRC
This study examines the impact of intensive mathematics professional development (PD) on teachers’ knowledge and teaching skills for seventh-grade mathematics in rational number topics, such as fractions, decimals, percent, ratio, and proportion. The intensive PD studied includes over 100 hours of support in the form of summer institutes, seminars, and in-school coaching. Schools in 12 districts participating in the study were randomly assigned to receive the intensive PD activities or only the PD activities normally provided by the district. All seventh-grade teachers teaching at least one regular seventh-grade mathematics class within the treatment schools were offered the intensive PD during the first year of implementation. In six of the districts, the intensive PD was provided to eligible seventh-grade teachers in the study schools for a second year.
Findings after two years of implementation include:
- The intensive PD was implemented as intended, but teacher turnover limited the average dosage received. On average, the treatment teachers in the second-year impact sample received 68 percent of the full intended dosage. Because some teachers left the study schools and others entered as the study progressed, not all teachers had the opportunity to experience the full dose of PD.
- There was no evidence that the intensive PD resulted in improved teacher knowledge. There were no significant impacts on teachers, scores on a specially constructed teacher knowledge test or on either of the subscores. On average, about 75 percent of teachers in both the treatment and the control groups correctly answered test items that were of average difficulty for the test instrument.
- There was no evidence that the intensive PD had led to improvements in student achievement in rational numbers knowledge. Students taught by teachers in the intensive PD group and students taught by teachers in the control group performed similarly on a rational numbers test.
+ Executive Summary (PDF)
+ Full Report (PDF)
Staying on Track: Early Findings from a Performance-Based Scholarship Program at the University of New Mexico
Staying on Track: Early Findings from a Performance-Based Scholarship Program at the University of New Mexico
Source: MDRC
Although a growing number of individuals are enrolling in college in response to the increasing payoff to higher education, more than a third of them never finish. College completion rates are especially disappointing for low-income students, in many cases because they tend to enter college underprepared academically but also because they have more difficulty covering the costs of attendance. This report presents early results from a program at the University of New Mexico (UNM) that increases the financial support available to low-income entering students who enroll for a minimum number of credits and maintain a minimum grade point average. The program, called VISTA (Vision Inspired Scholarship Through Academic Achievement), is one of nine scholarship programs being tested across the country as part of the national Performance-Based Scholarship Demonstration. The demonstration is testing several types of performance-based scholarships in order to identify promising strategies to increase college persistence and completion among low-income students.
VISTA provides low-income entering freshmen with up to $1,000 in financial aid per semester for four semesters, in addition to any standard financial aid they receive. The funds are paid directly to the student in three installments each semester and are conditional on full-time enrollment and a “C” or better average. VISTA also provides students with enhanced academic advising, requiring them to meet at least twice during the semester with a designated VISTA advisor.
The effects of VISTA are being assessed using a randomized control trial, in which over 1,000 low-income students who entered UNM in the fall of 2008 and the fall of 2009 were assigned at random to either the VISTA group, whose members are eligible for the program, or a control group, whose members are eligible only for standard financial aid and counseling. The evaluation is tracking these students’ college performance for four years — that is, during the two years (four semesters) of the program and for two years after the scholarship ends. Early findings, through one year, indicate that although VISTA had no effects on credits or grades during the first semester, effects did emerge after that point:
- VISTA encouraged students to attempt and earn more credits. Students in the VISTA group were substantially more likely than those in the control group to attempt 15 or more credits in the second semester, the minimum needed for VISTA. As a result, they were 8.8 percentage points more likely to have earned 30 or more credits by the end of their first year, increasing the likelihood that they would be on track for an on-time graduation.
- VISTA led to a net increase in financial aid dollars and allowed some students to reduce their reliance on loans. Students in the VISTA group received, on average, $900 more in aid than those in the control group, and were about 6 percentage points less likely to have loans.
- Although VISTA did not affect overall enrollment rates for the third semester, it did result in students registering for more credits. About 78 percent of students in the study returned to UNM to register for classes in their third semester. Enrollment rates were similar for students in both the VISTA and control groups. However, VISTA students were much more likely to have enrolled for at least 15 credits.
+ Full Report (PDF)
The Labor Market After the Great Recession: Implications for Income Support Policy
The Labor Market After the Great Recession: Implications for Income Support Policy
Source: MDRC
Remarks given at the 2011 Welfare Research and Evaluation Conference, sponsored by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Gordon Berlin)
As the trends in employment, earnings, labor force participation, and idleness presented by the previous speakers — Tim Smeeding, Becky Blank, and Harry Holzer — demonstrate, the labor market is undergoing transformative change with profound implications for income support policy. I want to focus my remarks on four that are particularly relevant to the people attending this conference:
- In the 1990s, when work was plentiful, the United States reengineered its safety net from a system that supported people when they did not work to one that supports them when they do. But, in the aftermath of the Great Recession, we are entering an extended period in which there is not likely to be enough work, a development that has important implications for the redesign and reauthorization of the 1996 welfare reform law.
- Eventually, there is going to be enough work, but much of it will be low-skill, low-wage work, leaving many families in poverty. This will put new pressure on the Earned Income Tax Credit and other pillars of the work support system.
- The fate of so-called “middle-skill” jobs is critical to any hope of upward mobility as a route out of poverty: Will there be enough middle-skill jobs? What fraction of the low-income population will be able to qualify for these jobs? How effective are training and post-placement programs in helping people access and succeed in these jobs?
- The labor market plight of men is crucial to any long-run solution to family poverty. Men’s employment and earnings have been hardest hit both by this recession and by long-run labor market trends. But unlike for women with children, there is no system of support to help men adjust; we will need to build one.
+ Full Document (PDF)
Providing Earnings Supplements to Encourage and Sustain Employment: Lessons from Research and Practice
Providing Earnings Supplements to Encourage and Sustain Employment: Lessons from Research and Practice
Source: MDRC
Three decades of mostly stagnant wages have made it difficult for many low-income parents to support their families — even parents who work full time and receive work supports, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), food stamps, and child care and transportation assistance. Because many families struggle financially despite available work supports, almost all states and localities have implemented programs or enacted policies that provide an additional supplement to individuals’ earnings. These provide a monetary payment to working individuals, usually on a monthly basis, to supplement their earnings and raise their income. Typically targeted to low-income parents who are unemployed and provided when they start working, earnings supplements are designed to encourage employment and increase the payoff of low-wage work. They can also provide an important incentive for individuals to stay employed. While the earnings supplement can be a critical component of programs, it is also generally combined with a range of other employment and support services. Many formal evaluations of earnings supplement initiatives, using random assignment designs, have been completed by MDRC — some, quite recently — making this an opportune time to step back and assess how to build on successes and challenges in moving forward.
This brief presents findings, and lessons for policy and practice, from MDRC-conducted studies of five programs that provided earnings supplements and that have been rigorously evaluated using a random assignment research design: the Canadian Self-Sufficiency Project (SSP), the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP), Milwaukee’s New Hope Project, the Texas Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) program, and the United Kingdom Employment Retention and Advancement (UK ERA) program. The evaluations primarily focus on the effects of the programs on single parents. SSP, MFIP, and New Hope operated some time ago (primarily in the 1990s), but long-run follow-up data are available only recently. In addition, relatively new evaluation results are available from the more recent Texas ERA and UK ERA programs.
+ Full Document (PDF)
Promoting Full-Time Attendance Among Adults in Community College: Early Impacts from the Performance-Based Scholarship Demonstration in New York
Many adult students struggle to finance their educations, often contending with work and child care expenses in addition to the extra cost of remedial courses. Moreover, there is little need-based grant aid to help. This report presents early findings from an evaluation of a program in New York City targeted to low-income adults (ages 22 to 35) who need remedial course work. Part of MDRC’s national Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration, the program operated at Borough of Manhattan Community College and Hostos Community College, both part of the City University of New York, in 2008 and 2009. Participating students were eligible for either a $1,300 scholarship for two consecutive semesters (totaling up to $2,600) or for $1,300 for each of those semesters and one summer term (totaling up to $3,900), if they maintained at least part-time enrollment, met attendance benchmarks, and earned at least a “C” average across six credits of courses. Scholarships were paid directly to students in increments and did not supplant other aid for which students qualified.
This innovative program, along with those in five other states in the PBS Demonstration, builds on lessons from MDRC’s Opening Doors Demonstration in Louisiana, which led to higher rates of persistence and credit accumulation. The Louisiana program offered performance-based scholarships to low-income parents for two semesters; counselors met with students periodically and disbursed the scholarships. Unlike the Louisiana program, the New York PBS program did not include counseling and focused on adult students needing remediation.
The PBS evaluation randomly assigned approximately 1,500 low-income students to one of two program groups eligible to receive up to either $2,600 or $3,900 in scholarships, or to a control group eligible only for usual financial aid. Comparing outcomes of the combined program groups with control group outcomes measures the impact of the scholarship program. Comparing outcomes for the two program groups speaks to the relative importance of additional funding for summer attendance.
+ Full Report (PDF)
Designing and Analyzing Studies That Randomize Schools to Estimate Intervention Effects on Student Academic Outcomes Without Classroom-Level Information
This paper provides practical guidance for researchers who are designing and analyzing studies that randomize schools — which comprise three levels of clustering (students in classrooms in schools) — to measure intervention effects on student academic outcomes when information on the middle level (classrooms) is missing. This situation arises frequently in practice because many available data sets identify the schools that students attend but not the classrooms in which they are taught. Do studies conducted under these circumstances yield results that are substantially different from what they would have been if this information had been available? The paper first considers this problem in the context of planning a school-randomized study based on preexisting two-level information about how academic outcomes for students vary across schools and across students within schools (but not across classrooms in schools). The paper next considers this issue in the context of estimating intervention effects from school-randomized studies. Findings are based on empirical analyses of four multisite data sets using academic outcomes for students within classrooms within schools. The results indicate that in almost all situations one will obtain nearly identical results whether or not the classroom or middle level is omitted when designing or analyzing studies.
+ Full Paper (PDF)
The Social Security Administration’s Youth Transition Demonstration Projects: Interim Report on Transition WORKS
The Social Security Administration’s Youth Transition Demonstration Projects: Interim Report on Transition WORKS
Source: MDRC
The Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD) is a large-scale demonstration and evaluation sponsored by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to improve understanding of how to help youth with disabilities reach their full economic potential. In particular, SSA is interested in developing and testing promising approaches for helping young people with disabilities become more self-sufficient and less reliant on disability benefits. The YTD conceptual framework, which is based on best practices in facilitating youth transition, specifies that the six projects participating in the evaluation provide employment services (emphasizing paid competitive employment), benefits counseling, links to services available in the community, and other assistance to youth with disabilities and their families. Additionally, participating youth are eligible for SSA waivers of certain benefit program rules, which allow them to retain more of their disability benefits and health insurance while they work for pay. Using a rigorous random assignment methodology, the YTD evaluation team is assessing whether these services and incentives are effective in helping youth with disabilities achieve greater independence and economic self-sufficiency. The earliest of the evaluation projects began operations in 2006 and ended in 2009. The latest started in 2008 and will end in 2012.
This report presents first-year evaluation findings for the Transition WORKS YTD project, which served youth disability beneficiaries in Erie County, New York, including the city of Buffalo, from February 2007 to December 2009. While it will take several more years to fully observe the transitions that youth participants make to adult life, early data from the evaluation provide rich information on how Transition WORKS operated and the differences it made in key outcomes for youth. Specifically, the report includes findings from a process analysis of Transition WORKS, including a description of the program model, how the project was implemented and services were delivered, and the project’s fidelity to the YTD model. The report also includes impact findings, based on data collected 12 months after youth entered the evaluation, on the use of services, paid employment, participation in education, income from earnings and benefits, and attitudes and expectations.
In brief, Transition WORKS was a well-organized, cohesive project that broadly conformed to the YTD program model and focused on self-determination, benefits planning, employment, education, and case management. The project enrolled 83 percent of eligible youth and provided most of them with some services in each of these components. The median duration of services directly delivered to participating youth was lower for the employment component than for several of the other components; however, the impact analysis found that youth who had been given the opportunity to participate in Transition WORKS were more likely to have used services to promote employment than youth in a randomly selected control group. Nevertheless, the project had no impacts on youth employment during the year following random assignment — nor on income, expectations for the future, and a composite measure of school enrollment or high school completion.
+ Full Report (PDF)
Supporting Healthy Marriage Toolkit: Resources for Program Operators from the Supporting Healthy Marriage Demonstration and Evaluation
The Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM) team consists of researchers, curriculum developers, and social service delivery professionals who were funded to research and oversee the development of community-based programs that provide relationship education to married parents. This Toolkit was developed by the SHM team to guide emerging SHM programs as they developed and implemented various aspects of the program design and research agenda — with the goal of helping program operators develop a strong, successful program. Our goal in providing this document for general use is that managers and staff of relationship and marriage education or other voluntary programs will benefit from the program design and management strategies used by SHM program operators.
The original intent of the Toolkit was to instruct SHM operators in developing programs that adhere to a common SHM model. Because the viability of the research required some uniformity across programs, this guide instructs program operators with some authority. However, in providing this document for general use, the SHM team is not asserting that these strategies will result in a successful marriage and relationship education program. Rather, the SHM team is providing strategies for consideration that may be useful to other program operators.
This Toolkit covers a variety of topics, and the appendixes offer sample tools that were developed for and by the SHM program operators. Some aspects of program design and the content of the sample tools were influenced by the research model and funding requirements. For example, sites were asked to recruit 800 couples in a 21-month period, which meant programs focused on developing a robust approach to recruitment and enrollment. Although future program operators may not face the same requirements for recruitment or participation, the guidance and strategies in this Toolkit are relevant to providers of voluntary marriage education programs, particularly for those interested in offering relationship education services to married parents. Future programs are likely to face many of the same challenges in recruiting couples to a voluntary program and keeping couples coming back over time.
+ Full Document (PDF)
Opening Doors to Student Success: A Synthesis of Findings from an Evaluation at Six Community Colleges
Opening Doors to Student Success: A Synthesis of Findings from an Evaluation at Six Community Colleges
Source: MDRC
In today’s economy, having a postsecondary credential means better jobs and wages. Community colleges, with their open access policies and low tuition, are an important pathway into postsecondary education for nearly half of all U.S. undergraduates. Yet only one-third of all students who enter these institutions with the intent to earn a degree or certificate actually meet this goal within six years. The reasons for this are many, including that community college students are typically underprepared for college-level work, face competing priorities outside of school, and lack adequate financial resources. Recent cuts to higher education spending along with insufficient financial aid and advising at colleges only add to the problem. Ultimately, these factors contribute to unacceptably low persistence and completion rates.
In response to these issues, MDRC launched the Opening Doors Demonstration in 2003 — the first large-scale random assignment study in a community college setting. The demonstration pursued promising strategies that emerged from focus groups with low-income students, discussions with college administrators, and an extensive literature review. Partnering with six community colleges across the country, MDRC helped develop and evaluated four distinct programs based on the following approaches: financial incentives, reforms in instructional practices, and enhancements in student services. Colleges were encouraged to focus on one strategy but to think creatively about combining elements of the other strategies to design programs that would help students perform better academically and persist toward degree completion.
Opening Doors provides some of the first rigorous evidence that a range of interventions can, indeed, improve educational outcomes for community college students. The findings spurred some of the colleges to scale up their programs and led to additional large-scale demonstrations to test some of the most promising strategies. More work must be done, however, both to determine whether the early effects can last and to test even bolder reforms. This 12-page policy brief describes the different strategies tested, discusses what MDRC has learned from Opening Doors, and offers some suggestions to policymakers and practitioners for moving forward.
+ Full Document (PDF)
Can Low-Income Single Parents Move Up in the Labor Market?
Can Low-Income Single Parents Move Up in the Labor Market?
Source: MDRC
The Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) project evaluated strategies to promote employment stability among low-income workers. This 12-page practitioner brief examines the work, education, and training patterns of single parents in the ERA project.
Three years after entering the study, only one in four single parents had advanced. Most of the remaining parents either spent long periods out of work or they lost ground. Single parents who advanced worked more consistently over the study period than other parents and, if they were unemployed, they returned to work more quickly. They experienced faster earnings growth while working than other parents, especially when they changed jobs. At the end of the study period, they worked in better jobs, such as those with higher pay and more benefits, than parents who had not advanced. These findings support other research in underscoring the importance of changing jobs and of access to “good” jobs as strategies to help low-wage workers advance.
+ Full Document (PDF)
See also: Paths to Advancement for Single Parents
