Publications

In 2016, New York City rolled out Supervised Release, which allowed judges to release defendants under supervision instead of setting bail. The findings in this report suggest that the program reduced the number of defendants detained in jail, while at the same time maintaining court appearance rates and public safety.

This study evaluated TFA’s initiative to better align its regional in-service training during the school year with its national pre-service summer teacher training, which emphasized a productive learning environment and diversity, equity, and inclusiveness. Teachers who received more in-service training in those national components adopted more culturally relevant classroom practices.

MDRC is leading several studies that measure the quality of early childhood education classrooms in innovative ways. This policy brief focuses on instructional quality, highlighting promising practices that seek to promote school readiness and sustained academic success among low-income children.

Grameen America is a microfinance institution that provides business loans to women in poverty in the United States. Results from a randomized controlled trial show the program increased business ownership and earnings, credit worthiness, and savings, and reduced material hardship among participants, but it did not increase overall net income.

The Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) project integrates procedural justice (the idea of fairness in processes) into enforcement at six child support agencies. This brief aimed at child support practitioners and administrators describes the component of the PJAC model in which a case manager facilitates a discussion between parents.

The pandemic has exacerbated postsecondary education issues in rural areas that have affected students and communities for decades, such as the lack of adequate broadband infrastructure. In response, educators are developing innovative strategies that may be applicable to all institutions, not just those with a preponderance of rural students.

Job seekers with low incomes face numerous hurdles to finding and keeping high-quality jobs. Sector strategies address those hurdles by matching job seekers with skills training for specific industries or occupations where there is a growing demand. This review examines a cross-section of strategies, highlighting successes and areas for improvement.

Ismerlyn Gonzalez, a senior at Hunter College, held one of two paid internships in the MDRC Judith Gueron Scholars Program this summer. In this Q&A, she describes what drew her to MDRC, what she learned during her virtual internship, and what her plans for the future are.

As the need for distance learning in some form continues due to COVID-19, lessons from an intervention that integrates technology coaching into a curriculum can help schools create support structures for teachers adopting new digital tools and could lead to significant gains in student learning.

Many schools are using technology-based tools to generate career recommendations and supplement the capabilities of their guidance departments. MDRC has partnered with two technology companies to test whether their career-advising software programs are viable tools for equitably supporting students as they identify and pursue future careers.

Home visiting programs like Child First are a vital support system for families coping with challenges such as homelessness, poverty, drug abuse, and maternal depression. As the COVID-19 crisis continues, Child First teams have transitioned to telehealth technology to maintain their relationships with families and provide them with much-needed services.

Francis Estrada, a senior at Baruch College, held one of two paid internships in the MDRC Judith Gueron Scholars Program this summer. In this Q&A, she describes what drew her to MDRC, how much she enjoyed working with qualitative data during her internship, and what her plans for the future are.

In this commentary, which originally appeared in Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, MDRC’s Alex Mayer and Alyssa Ratledge describe evidence-backed strategies that colleges can employ this fall to help students stay engaged.

A recent (virtual) discussion with representatives of 13 schools, districts, and programs that provide work-based learning found each of them seizing unexpected opportunities amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The pivot from hands-on experiential learning to virtual instruction is varied and evolving at these organizations, which offer internships, apprenticeships, job shadowing, and other work-related programs.

A Better Life is an economic mobility program operating in four housing authorities in Massachusetts. This brief discusses how the program has shifted to meet residents’ dramatically different needs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper summarizes ASAP’s long-term effects and the educational investment in students associated with its services. The program helped students graduate faster, boosted graduation rates by 30 percent, and increased the financial aid students received.

Tulsa Community WorkAdvance is a sector-based training and career advancement program that prepares people for jobs in the health care field. Executive Director Karen Pennington talks about the impact of COVID-19 on operations and future opportunities in health care, and graduate Dawn Slinkard describes her experience in the program.

Individual growth modeling allows researchers to examine individual research subjects’ trajectories over time. This post describes how the approach was used to test whether the growth in students’ academic skills slowed down during the summer between preschool and kindergarten, and how that pattern varied among students of different demographic groups.

In this Q&A, William Corrin, Director of MDRC’s K-12 Education Policy Area, discusses the challenges facing schools during the pandemic, the changing face of education research, and the opportunities to learn from how teachers, schools, and districts are responding to the current crisis.

Employment programs situated within public housing developments are facing multiple challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With routine operations disrupted by shelter-in-place orders, programs like Jobs Plus can find creative ways to keep their doors open and their clients engaged.