Publications

The Work Advancement and Support Center (WASC) demonstration offers a new approach to helping low-wage and dislocated workers advance by increasing their wages or work hours, upgrading their skills, or finding better jobs. This report presents preliminary information on the effectiveness of strategies that were used to attract people to the WASC program and engage them in services.

This guide contains practical advice on implementing a program model — known as the Jobs-Plus Community Initiative for Public Housing Families (Jobs-Plus) — aimed at helping public housing residents find and keep jobs.

In a speech before the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management Conference on November 7, 2008, Judith M. Gueron, President Emerita and Scholar in Residence at MDRC, accepted the Peter H. Rossi Award for Contributions to the Theory or Practice of Program Evaluation.

This report presents findings from the second year of the Enhanced Reading Opportunities (ERO) study, a demonstration and random assignment evaluation of two supplemental literacy programs — Reading Apprenticeship Academic Literacy and Xtreme Reading — that aim to improve the reading comprehension skills and school performance of struggling ninth-grade readers.

This MDRC working paper on research methodology explores two complementary approaches to developing empirical benchmarks for achievement effect sizes in educational interventions.

This report offers lessons from a conference sponsored by MDRC, the Council of the Great City Schools, and the National High School Alliance, which brought together leaders from 22 midsize school districts to describe their reform initiatives and to discuss ways in which research and evaluation can inform and complement school change.

This paper, by MDRC President Gordon Berlin, traces the economic and social trends that help explain the persistence of poverty, describes some of the unintended consequences of public policies that have exacerbated the challenges facing poor families, and discusses four overarching strategies to address one of the most powerful contributors to poverty: stagnant wages for low-income workers, particularly among men, young men, and men of color.

Many Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) beneficiaries have serious and immediate health care needs, but, under current law, most are not eligible for Medicare until 24 months after they start receiving cash benefits. This policy brief describes a new project that is testing whether providing earlier access to health benefits, as well as other services, for new SSDI beneficiaries who have no other health insurance improves employment and health outcomes.

This report published by the UK Department for Work and Pensions presents new findings on the effects of a program to help long-term unemployed individuals who receive government benefits in Great Britain and participate in a welfare-to-work program, New Deal 25 Plus, retain jobs and advance in the labor market.

This report presents findings on the effectiveness of two specific professional development strategies on improving the knowledge and practice of second-grade teachers in high-poverty schools and on the reading achievement of their students.

This issue brief, published by the National High School Center, highlights lessons from selected policies and programs designed to improve students’ preparation for life after high school.

This report, from the Employment Retention and Advancement Project, finds that unemployed welfare recipients in an enhanced job club had no better employment outcomes than participants in a traditional job club. At the end of the 18-month follow-up period, about half of both groups were employed.

This research brief, published by the National High School Center, examines the challenges and opportunities presented in evaluating whether an intervention achieves defined goals of increasing students’ educational attainment, employment, and earnings after high school.

This “snapshot,” published by the National High School Center, takes a close look at implementation of the Career Academy model in one high school in Oakland, California.

This working paper introduces the Supporting Healthy Marriage evaluation, the first large-scale, multisite experiment that is testing voluntary marriage education programs for low-income married couples with children in eight sites across the country. The year-long programs consist of a series of marriage education workshops with additional family support services and referrals.

A program in Portland, Oregon, to remove employment barriers and assist with job placement and employment retention and advancement for welfare applicants and recipients was never fully implemented and, not surprisingly, had no any effects on employment, earnings, or receipt of public assistance.

Implemented in 1994, New Hope provided full-time workers with several benefits for three years: an earnings supplement, low-cost health insurance, and subsidized child care. This working paper examines the program’s impacts on children’s future orientation and employment experiences eight years after random assignment.

This MDRC working paper on research methodology provides practical guidance for researchers who are designing studies that randomize groups to measure the impacts of interventions on children.