Performance-based scholarships have two main goals: (1) to give students more money for college; and (2) to provide incentives for academic progress. MDRC launched the Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration in 2008 to evaluate the effectiveness of these scholarships in a diverse set of states, institutions, and low-income student…

Success for All (SFA), one of the best-known school reform models, aims to improve the reading skills of all children but is especially directed at schools that serve large numbers of students from low-income families. First implemented in 1987, SFA combines a challenging reading program, whole-school reform elements, and an emphasis on continuous…

Success for All (SFA), one of the best-known school reform models, aims to improve the reading skills of all children but is especially directed at schools that serve large numbers of students from low-income families. First implemented in 1987, SFA combines a challenging reading program, whole-school reform elements, and an emphasis on continuous…

Low-income students are at particular risk of not persisting to earn a certificate or degree, often because of competing priorities, financial pressures, and inadequate preparation for college. One form of financial assistance designed explicitly to reward students' academic success is a performance-based scholarship, paid contingent on attaining…

First implemented in 1987, Success for All (SFA) is one of the best-known and most thoroughly evaluated school reform models. It combines three basic elements: (1) Reading instruction that emphasizes phonics for beginning readers and comprehension for students at all levels, and that is characterized by a highly structured curriculum, an emphasis…

The Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) project is the most comprehensive effort thus far to ascertain which approaches help welfare recipients and other low-income people stay steadily employed and advance in their jobs. Launched in 1999 and slated to end in 2009, the ERA project encompasses more than a dozen demonstration programs and…