We examine whether the El Dorado Promise, a guaranteed college scholarship program for students in the El Dorado School District (EDSD), affected elementary and middle school achievement using a quasi-experimental matching design. We first match the EDSD with similar districts to create a pool of potential comparison students then match students…

Although previous research has shown that teacher coaching can improve teaching practices and student achievement, little is known about specific features of effective coaching programs. We estimate the impact of MATCH Teacher Coaching (MTC) on a range of teacher practices using a blocked randomized trial and explore how changes in the coaching…

This article exploits a natural experiment to estimate the effects of need-based aid policies on first-year college persistence rates. In fall 2006, Ohio abruptly adopted a new state financial aid policy that was significantly more generous than the previous plan. Using student-level data and very narrowly defined sets of students, I estimate a…

We evaluate the impact of Success for All literacy instruction in grades 3 through 5 using data from the same cluster randomized trial used to evaluate effects in the earlier grades (K-2). In contrast to the early benefits, there is no effect on reading achievement in the later grades, either overall or for students and schools with high or low…

This study explores the extent to which differences in research design explain variation in Head Start program impacts. We employ meta-analytic techniques to predict effect sizes for cognitive and achievement outcomes as a function of the type and rigor of research design, quality and type of outcome measure, activity level of control group, and…

Interim assessments are increasingly common in U.S. schools. We use high-quality data from a large-scale school-level cluster randomized experiment to examine the impact of two well-known commercial interim assessment programs on mathematics and reading achievement in Indiana. Results indicate that the treatment effects are positive but not…

Dual enrollment in high school is viewed by many as one mechanism for widening college admission and completion of low-income students. However, little evidence demonstrates that these students discretely benefit from dual enrollment and whether these programs narrow attainment gaps vis-a-vis students from middle-class or affluent family…

Despite planning college, disadvantaged students are less likely to enroll in college, particularly 4-year colleges. Beyond cost and academic achievement, previous research finds that a lack of college-related social resources poses barriers. However, little research investigates whether schools can help. We examine whether, how, and for whom a…

College graduation rates often lag behind college attendance rates. One theory as to why students do not complete college is that they lack key information about how to be successful or fail to act on the information that they have. We present evidence from a randomized experiment which tests the effectiveness of individualized student coaching.…

The authors describe an independent evaluation of the READ 180 Enterprise intervention designed by Scholastic, Inc. Despite widespread use of the program with upper elementary through high school students, there is limited empirical evidence to support its effectiveness. In this randomized controlled trial involving 312 students enrolled in an…

Since 1964, the Federal Work-Study (FWS) program has provided funds to subsidize the wages of student employees, but it has never been studied directly. I use an instrumental variables difference-in-difference framework with administrative data from West Virginia to identify causal effects, comparing eligible and ineligible students across…

This article examines the power analyses for the first wave of group-randomized trials funded by the Institute of Education Sciences. Specifically, it assesses the precision and technical accuracy of the studies. The authors identified the appropriate experimental design and estimated the minimum detectable standardized effect size (MDES) for each…

Consequences of the bicultural goal are: (1) failure to review the unreasonable goal critically; (2) prevention of standardized scores from "leaking out" to the public; (3) attempts to "interpret" evaluation results to make them palatable to the schools' critics; and (4) lack of attention to various evaluation techniques. (RL)

The author examined the effects of professional development (PD) on literacy instruction using 75,689 lessons from 1,945 classrooms in 112 schools participating in the Study of Instructional Improvement. Stratifying over 94 pretreatment covariates, including prior instruction, the results revealed the importance of PD as a lever for changing…

The goals, methods, and long- and short-term effects of a comprehensive intervention project are described. Included is a discussion of the social policy implications, particularly that intervention programs should provide quality services and options responsive to the needs of the individuals. (Author/GK)