Low-performing high schools, particularly those serving low-income communities and students of color, are often characterized by high absentee and course failure rates, substantial dropout rates, and — even for graduates — inadequate preparation for postsecondary education and the labor market. While the stage is often set for these problems in elementary and middle...
Georgia
Many low-income children in the early grades need after-school care. And many of these children score well below their more advantaged peers on standardized tests of reading and math. The confluence of these circumstances suggests that it may be possible to strengthen the academic component of after-school programs (now often confined to providing help with homework)...
At the time this project began, a third of all babies in the United States were born to unmarried mothers, and the fraction was even higher among low-income families. Although many children of unwed couples flourish, research has shown that, on average, they are at higher risk of living in poverty and of developing social, behavioral, and academic problems than are...
For low-income youth who lack basic skills and drop out of school, finding employment at a living wage is a challenge. Developed by MDRC as a nonresidential alternative to Job Corps, JOBSTART was an unusual collaborative effort to help disadvantaged young people join the economic mainstream. The idea guiding this demonstration project was that training coupled with...
Especially in low-income neighborhoods, schools are an attractive setting for after-school programs for many reasons, including their physical facilities and their convenience. Indeed, the vision of some youth development experts is to transform public schools into full-service youth and community centers that open early in the morning and stay open into the early...
Launched in Houston in 1993 by James Ketelsen, retired CEO of Tenneco, and since expanded to 12 additional school districts, Project Graduation Really Achieves Dreams ( GRAD ) combines a variety of promising reforms to improve instruction and raise student achievement in schools that serve primarily minority and low-income students. With the overarching objective of...
The welfare system has been transformed over the past two decades, notably through the introduction of stricter work requirements and time limits on cash assistance in the 1990s. At the same time, government at both the federal and the state level invested in offering financial work supports of unprecedented scope to low-income parents. A top priority on the national...
Career Academies were first developed some 35 years ago with the aim of restructuring large high schools into small learning communities and creating better pathways from high school to further education and the workplace. Since then, the Career Academy approach has taken root in an estimated 8,000 high schools across the country. The proliferation of Career Academies...