Publications

Communities In Schools (CIS) works to integrate a variety of support services for students to keep them on a path to graduation. This quasi-experimental evaluation examined the effects of the CIS whole-school model in high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools.

More and more schools are using multi-tiered systems of support to deliver students the right amount of help when they need it. MDRC has evaluated several such systems — eight, in fact. This brief summarizes some lessons about tiered systems of support drawn from those evaluations.

This report presents implementation and early impact results from a random assignment evaluation of the Young Adult Internship Program (YAIP), a subsidized employment program for young people in New York City who are disconnected from school and work. YAIP boosted earnings for participants, which suggests that they obtained better jobs.

Low-income fathers often face substantial barriers to maintaining stable employment and relationships with their children. This design report describes the B3 study, a rigorous evaluation of new program approaches to support low-income fathers in working toward economic stability and improved relationships with their children.

Defendants awaiting trial and unable to post bail are often detained in local jails unnecessarily, disrupting their lives and adding to costs for taxpayers. To address this situation, New York City has launched a program that gives judges the option to release some defendants to community-based supervision. 

The integration of evidence-based treatment with usual-care practices can pose challenges for organizations that deliver many services. The Implementation Research Incubator reports on a study of the Children’s Institute, Inc., whose staff has worked to employ such treatment in its services for low-income children and families.

Communities In Schools (CIS) works to integrate a variety of support services for students to keep them on a path to graduation. This randomized controlled trial assessed the effects of one component of the CIS model — case management for high-risk students.

Communities In Schools (CIS) works to integrate a variety of support services for students to keep them on a path to graduation. MDRC’s evaluation consisted of a quasi-experimental study of the whole model and a randomized controlled trial of one of its components — case management for students at higher risk.

In the City University of New York’s innovative program, CUNY’s least prepared students delay matriculation, beginning instead with noncredit, time-intensive instruction aimed at eliminating developmental needs after one semester, preparing participants for college courses, and improving academic outcomes. An independent evaluation will help determine CUNY Start’s effect on academic success.

This report examines the impacts of the nation’s largest summer youth jobs program — New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) — on young people’s education, employment, and earnings. The analysis uses an experimental design based on SYEP’s randomized lottery application system. The report also describes SYEP’s implementation and participants’ experiences.

To serve at-risk girls, PACE provides academic and social services in a gender-responsive environment, focusing on safety, relationships, and girls’ individual strengths while accounting for the effects of trauma. The program offers low staff-to-student ratios, counseling and case management, and a life skills curriculum targeted to girls.

This issue focus describes how MDRC is helping administrators in criminal justice and child support enforcement test innovative reforms to improve the way their systems interact with low-income people, particularly men of color. 

School choice systems can be complex and confusing for low-income families. In the search for solutions, researchers and policymakers may have overlooked lessons from other policy arenas. This issue focus suggests strategies from MDRC’s experience designing and evaluating interventions to support low-income people’s decision making in arenas outside P-12 choice systems.

Many low-income young people are not reaching important milestones, but the social-service organizations and schools that serve them often struggle to identify who is at more or less risk. Predictive analytics use schools’ and programs’ existing data to help them identify risk earlier and more accurately.

This practitioner brief describes three new approaches in the B3 evaluation of enhancements to Responsible Fatherhood programs: a cognitive behavioral workshop that builds skills for employment stability; Just Beginning, an interactive approach to high-quality parenting; and DadTime, a mobile app to encourage active participation by fathers with their children.

How do community groups collaborate to improve schools, address violence, and rebuild homes and businesses? What strategies do groups take to connect with each other to improve their communities? Are some forms of collaboration more effective than others?

Born out of research showing that girls and boys have different risk factors and pathways into the justice system, gender-responsive programs focus on girls’ unique needs and strengths. This brief summarizes the developing research on their effectiveness and describes how one program enacts the principles in its service delivery.

MDRC launches the first of a five-part web series from the Chicago Community Networks study — a mixed-methods initiative that combines formal social network analysis with in-depth field surveys of community practitioners. It measures how community organizations collaborate on local improvement projects and how they come together to shape public policy.

Funding requirements, new government policies, or budget realities may force organizations to alter components of a program model, complicating the assessment of its implementation. How can researchers anticipate such adaptations, and what can they learn from them? The Implementation Research Incubator offers some ideas.

MDRC launches the first of a five-part web series from the Chicago Community Networks study — a mixed-methods initiative that combines formal social network analysis with in-depth field surveys of community practitioners. It measures how community organizations collaborate on local improvement projects and how they come together to shape public policy.