Publications

In 2019, MDRC’s Evidence First podcast featured experts — program administrators, policymakers, and researchers — talking about the best evidence available on education and social programs that serve low-income people.

MDRC posted nearly 100 publications to its website in 2019 – reports, briefs, commentaries, blog posts, infographics, and more – on a wide range of topics, from microfinance to homevisiting, from behavioral science interventions to rent reform, from growth mindset interventions to small high schools.

This is the seventh in a series of Q&As with past participants in MDRC’s Gueron Scholars Program in which they reflect on their experiences at MDRC and discuss what they’re up to today.

This report examines colleges’ use of multiple measures to determine whether students take college-level or developmental education courses, a more accurate method than standardized placement exams. Using additional placement tests, high school transcripts, and student motivation evaluations places more students into credit-bearing courses, improving academic results and college completion rates.

In 2019, MDRC and its partners produced six videos highlighting some of the most exciting work in MDRC’s portfolio — including criminal justice reform, big data in welfare programs, a GED “bridge” program in Wisconsin, and research-practice partnerships with nonprofits.

This study analyzes the per person cost of a subsidized employment program for enrollees in Minnesota’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families who could not otherwise find employment, and the costs of other services that all sample members may have received. The program’s primary goal was to move participants into unsubsidized employment.

This report, based on a national survey of two- and four-year colleges, examines the current state of practices in developmental education assessment, placement, instruction, and support services offered to students. Reform efforts have accelerated, but new practices still reach less than half of students.

An earlier post in this series discussed considerations for reporting and interpreting cross-site impact variation and for designing studies to investigate such cross-site variation. This post discusses how those ideas were applied to address two broad questions in the Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program Evaluation.

One type of intervention to help students navigate the tricky transition to ninth grade communicates to them that their brains can grow “stronger.” This evaluation of one such intervention finds that it changed students’ beliefs and attitudes and produced impacts on their average academic performance.

This instructional reform diversifies math course content so that it better aligns with students’ career interests. After three semesters, the reform increased developmental math students’ rates of taking and passing college-level math and accumulating math credits. Few effects have yet emerged on overall credit accumulation, degree receipt, or transfer to a four-year college.

This study examined a “Boot Camp” program designed to reinforce basic mathematics functions for college students with limited math, reading, and writing skills, to prepare them for developmental-level courses. Three features made the program unique: computer-assisted, self-paced learning; a focus on individual learner progress; and in-class help from College-Readiness Advisors.

A voluntary program in San Francisco arranged interviews for disadvantaged job-seekers and offered employers temporary wage subsidies to hire them. This study analyzes the one-year, per person program costs and the cost of non-program services, including education and training. The analysis indicates that the program was likely cost-beneficial from society’s perspective.

In 2017, New Jersey implemented sweeping changes to its pretrial justice system. This report is one of a planned series on the impacts of those changes. It describes how the reforms affected short-term outcomes including arrests, complaint charging decisions, release conditions, and initial jail bookings.

The Behavioral Interventions for Child Support Services demonstration used insights from behavioral science to develop interventions that could improve child support services. This report summarizes findings from 22 interventions that tested a range of design principles from behavioral science — for example, simplification, personalization, and reminders.

Behavioral science theory tells us that all program environments have cues that influence decision-making and behavior – nudges – that affect a person’s behavior and can affect participation, retention and efficiency. The November 2019 In Practice blog post explores real-life examples of nudges that improved program results.

MDRC’s Scaling Up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS) aims to help more low-income students and students of color graduate by combining proven components into an integrated three-year program. This brief provides an early look at participating states and colleges and how they have aligned SUCCESS with existing initiatives.

Households receiving federal rental subsidies struggle to become self-sufficient. Jobs Plus provides grants to public housing agencies to offer tenants employment-related services, rent-based work incentives, and community support for work. This report examines a second round of Jobs Plus implementation, including evolving program operations, challenges, resident participation, and technical assistance.

This is the sixth in a series of Q&As with past participants in MDRC’s Judith Gueron Minority Scholars Program in which they reflect on their experiences at MDRC and discuss what they’re up to today.

This paper analyzes variation in the medium-term effects of the oversubscribed Boston Public Schools prekindergarten program. Prekindergarten gains persisted if kids applied to and won a seat in a higher-quality elementary school.

In this special post to the Implementation Research Incubator blog, we feature a short video in which leaders from three programs describe how MDRC’s implementation research informed their efforts to improve their programs.