Founded in 1974, MDRC is committed to improving the lives of people with low incomes. We design promising new interventions, evaluate existing programs, and provide technical assistance to build better programs.
MDRC develops evidence about solutions to some of the nation’s most difficult problems. Explore our projects and variety of products, including publications, videos, podcast episodes, and resources for researchers and practitioners.
Using Behavioral Science to Identify Barriers to Credit Intensity and Satisfactory Academic Progress
Taking enough credits and passing enough classes are key requirements for college success. But behavioral and institutional barriers often get in the way. A new report from MDRC shows how behavioral science can expose these barriers and help colleges move their students past the finish line to graduation.
In Practice: Lessons for and from Practitioners is a new web series that highlights the work of MDRC’s technical assistance teams, which work with partners on the ground to solve everyday problems and improve services. Monthly posts will feature tips, tools, and stories from our collaboration with practitioners.
The Early Implementation of College Promise Programs
College Promise programs offer scholarships for up to 100 percent of tuition and fees. Many Promise programs are adding to their models by providing students with support services. MDRC’s College Promise Success Initiative (CPSI) works with Promise programs interested in including such services; this brief provides some early implementation lessons.
This Excel tool is intended for colleges undertaking student success programs. It helps colleges set benchmarks: outcome measures that they can use over a defined time period to measure success relative to a prespecified target.
This web feature is the last in a series from the Chicago Community Networks study and offers users the opportunity to interact with the study’s data set through a series of customized network maps that show interrelationships among organizations according to selected neighborhood characteristics and network statistics.
Using Behavioral Strategies to Increase Initial Child Support Payments in Texas
This behavioral science-based intervention was designed to increase the percentage of employed parents who made child support payments during the first months after a new order was established, before employer income withholding went into effect. It did increase the percentage who made payments in the first month.
This evaluation examines a “growth mindset” intervention for ninth-graders as they make the transition to high school. It aims to boost students’ ability to meet challenges and persist in school by demonstrating that academic setbacks do not indicate poor intelligence ― with the goal of enhancing academic resilience and, ultimately, performance.
Interim Findings from the Detroit Promise Path Evaluation
The Detroit Promise allows the city’s high school graduates to attend local colleges tuition-free. To that scholarship the Detroit Promise Path adds campus coaches, monthly financial support, enhanced summer engagement, and messages informed by behavioral science. Interim findings about persistence in school, full-time enrollment, and credit accumulation are all positive.
Assessment-to-Instruction (A2i) is a data-driven professional support system that helps teachers tailor instruction for each child. When delivered with intensive in-person training, it is effective at improving students’ reading ability. This Issue Focus introduces the evaluation of a delivery model that uses technology to make the system more affordable.
Engagement in New York City's Kindergarten Application
Parents applying to kindergarten today must follow multiple steps. Identifying families who do not apply can help a school system improve its application process and can help it target families who need support. MDRC partnered with the New York City Department of Education to conduct this sort of diagnosis.
Early Findings From the Family Self-Sufficiency Program Evaluation
This first national randomized controlled trial of the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program — the main federal strategy to help housing voucher recipients make progress toward economic mobility — examined program implementation, participants’ engagement, and impacts on labor force participation and benefits receipt in the first 24 months of this five-year program.
Schools use individual screening tests to identify students at risk of falling behind in their reading levels. Could predictive analytics, incorporating multiple composite and subsection scores from a series of tests over time, do a better job of identifying at-risk students? Reflections on Methodology gives an example of this approach.
The Public Safety Assessment (PSA) assesses the likelihood that a defendant will commit a new crime or fail to appear for court hearings, information that then can guide decisions about release conditions. This study presents the effects of the PSA and related policy changes in Mecklenburg County, NC.
Grameen America provides loans to low-income women who are seeking to start or expand their small businesses. Early results from a random assignment evaluation show that Grameen participants are more likely to operate their own businesses and to establish credit scores and less likely to experience material hardship.
Supporting Teachers with the Drive to Write Program
Good writing is an important skill that students are increasingly required to master in high school. But how does a school cultivate good writing? An ambitious new program called Drive to Write is using technology, coaches for teachers, and data on student progress to help answer this question.
Findings from a Study of Teach For America’s Summer Institutes
In summer 2016, TFA piloted a redesigned training model for its teachers that incorporated college- and career-ready standards and methods. This study examined how the new model was implemented at one TFA site and how it compared with the usual TFA training at other sites.
Summer courses can help students progress to graduation, but most students do not enroll in them. An informational campaign incorporating behavioral science, tested with and without tuition assistance, increased summer enrollment. This brief presents findings from the Encouraging Additional Summer Enrollment (EASE) project following the reinstatement of year-round Pell grants.
Lessons from the Grameen America Formative Evaluation
Random assignment is prized for its rigor, but it’s not always feasible to carry out. This Reflections in Methodology post outlines other strong options for studying the effects of a program and illustrates the application of some key considerations in a specific context.
MDRC worked closely with PACE in evaluating its program for girls. As an organization dedicated to continuous improvement, PACE used the implementation research findings to refine its services in several ways. This issue focus summarizes the study and the partnership and explains how the program applied some of the lessons.
The Incubator reviews the activities of another busy year — monthly posts, conference presentations, and dozens of MDRC publications informed by implementation research — and previews the topics of upcoming posts.