This report summarizes the two-year findings of a rigorous random assignment evaluation of the WorkAdvance model, a sectoral training, and advancement initiative. Launched in 2011, WorkAdvance goes beyond the previous generation of employment programs by introducing demand-driven skills training and a focus on jobs that have career pathways. The…

This article examines the impacts of the Youth Transition Demonstration, an initiative of the Social Security Administration (SSA) to improve employment outcomes for youth with disabilities. Based on a random assignment design, the analysis uses data from a 1-year follow-up survey and SSA administrative records for 5,203 youth in six research…

Background: Community health efforts often include outreach activities designed to increase awareness and ensure uptake of services or programs. Yet, few comprehensive outreach evaluations exist, particularly those designed to improve access to and use of mental health services. Purpose: This article summarizes the use of two established…

Recent efforts to improve K-12 educational outcomes have had mixed success. One possible reason is that many students entering kindergarten lack the basic skills to succeed in school. In 2007, with support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Hawai'i launched its P-3 (preschool through third-grade) initiative, the early childhood component of the…

This paper details a semi-structured interview protocol that evaluators can use to develop a logic model of a program's services and outcomes. The protocol presents a series of questions, which evaluators can ask of specific program informants, that are designed to: (1) identify key informants basic background and contextual information, (2)…

The Algebra Project DR K-12, funded by the National Science Foundation as a Research and Development Project, addressed the challenge of offering significant STEM content for students to ensure public literacy and workforce readiness. The project's primary purpose was to test the feasibility and effectiveness of a model for establishing four-year…

Illinois Shifting Gears is a multilevel initiative that has simultaneously created bridge programs in the field and altered state policy to facilitate the creation of more programs in the future. These efforts have informed each other, giving policymakers the opportunity to interact with practitioners, troubleshoot bridge programs, and make…

An evaluation of the "Project Advance" program at the Morse Crisis Intervention Center was conducted. Review of documents, formal and informal interviews, questionnaires and direct observations were the methods used to assess the correspondence between the objectives of the program and its achievements. The evidence, based on findings from…

Afterschool programs offer an important avenue for enhancing educational opportunities. Federal, state, and local educational authorities increasingly see them as environments to improve attitudes toward school, achievement, and academic performance (Fashola, 2002; Hollister, 2003) with higher levels of student participation and engagement in…

This article discusses the challenges faced when a popular model program, the Strengthening Families Program, which in the past has been implemented on a smaller scale in single organizations, moves to a larger, multiorganization endeavor. On the basis of 42 interviews conducted with program staff, the results highlight two main themes that…

This field procedures manual for community interviewers and site coordinators, one of a series of documents on the evaluation of the National Home Start program (NHS), describes specific testing procedures for collecting family data. A federally funded demonstration program, NHS is aimed at providing home-based services (such as health, education,…

This paper reports the results of a retrospective study of the 3-year Head Start Planned Variation (HSPV) experience. The long-term residual effects of HSPV's effort to install and implement educational models in various communities are discussed with emphasis on the effects on the models and sponsors themselves. Six models were studied: Bank…

The findings from a series of case studies of nine successful demonstration programs are summarized. The programs, funded by the Appalachian Regional Commission, included child development, vocational education, technology, economic development, and housing. The primary purpose of the case studies was to discover what makes programs successful. A…

This report describes activities and accomplishments of the Community Options Project, a 5-year effort to enhance the capacity of eight local communities in New Hampshire and Maine to include young children (birth to age 6) with disabilities and their families in typical early childhood programs and to enhance the quality of these programs for all…

Flexibility and accountability are two levers for change that occupy an increasingly prominent place among federal strategies for educational improvement. In return for introducing higher academic standards and performance-based accountability systems, states and districts have been granted increasing flexibility over how they may use the funding…