MDRC
Associated IES Content
Grant
National Education Research and Development Center for Improving Rural Postsecondary Education
This Education Research and Development Center will assess strategies for improving rates of postsecondary enrollment and success for students from rural communities across the United States. The Center will accomplish this mission through research conducted using nationally representative data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics, partnerships with state-level higher education agencies, and research projects spanning 10 states and 25 colleges and universities, with prac...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305C240065
Grant
The Using Generative AI for Reading R&D Center
The Using Generative AI for Reading R&D Center (U-GAIN Reading) will investigate how to apply AI innovations, aligned to scientific evidence about reading, to achieve strong, equitable gains for diverse elementary school students, with a specific focus on English learners (ELs). U-GAIN Reading will ask two overarching research questions: (1) How can generative AI improve reading performance for ELs and all students who are not yet reading connected text? (2) How can generative AI improve...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305C240040
Grant
The Higher Education Randomized Controlled Trials (THE-RCT) – Supporting High Quality and Efficient Postsecondary RCTs and Open Science Practices
The research team will develop resources to support the quality, efficiency, comparability, and transparency of research on the causal effects of postsecondary programs, policy, and practices at colleges and universities across the United States. Over the last 20 years, researchers have conducted approximately 130 postsecondary RCTs that meet What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) standards without reservations. While these studies reflect WWC standards for designs that support causal inference, t...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305D240057
Grant
Combining Causal Inference and Psychometrics
Test scores are ubiquitous in education research aimed at estimating the causal effects of programs, policies, and practices. However, test scores are also complex statistical objects that can create complications for causal analysis. The purpose of this project is to develop the Principal Investigator's (PI's) career as an education methodologist who combines the insights and frameworks of psychometrics and causal inference to tackle the methodological complications of doing causal analysis...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305B240026
Grant
Ten-Year Follow-up of Two RCTs of CUNY's ASAP Model – Educational and Labor Market Outcomes
The research team will examine the 10-year impact of the City University of New York's (CUNY) Accelerated Studies in Associate Programs (ASAP) on education and labor market outcomes. CUNY ASAP is a 3-year program, designed and implemented by CUNY, that provides comprehensive supports including student support services, financial supports, and structured pathways. Since its inception in 2007, ASAP has served more than 88,000 students at CUNY, has been replicated across 7 states, and is widely...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A240240
Grant
Project REACT: A Multisite Randomized Controlled Trial to Improve College Re-Enrollment and Completion for Stopped-Out Students
In this project researchers will examine the effectiveness, implementation, and cost of the Re-Enrollment and Completion Team (REACT) program. This program draws on prior research regarding the components of interventions that promote persistence and degree completion among community college students and applies this research base to "near completers," namely students who have stopped out of college while being very close to completing an associate degree. The REACT program includes these ke...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A240245
Grant
Leveraging Washington State's Longitudinal Data System to Understand School-to-Work Pathways
Although the state of Washington has invested in policies to address inequities in educational opportunities for its learners, deep inequities persist in postsecondary degree attainment and earnings. Differences in the pathways young people take from high school to postsecondary education and work may be one mechanism causing these differences in outcomes. Much attention has been paid to traditional school-to-work routes, e.g., going straight to a 4-year degree program after graduating high ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305S240017
Grant
A Collaborative Use of a State Longitudinal Data System: A Study of the Washington College Grant Program
This project will assess the effectiveness of the Washington College Grant (WCG) for increasing postsecondary access and attainment for low-income college students in Washington state and for improving equity in postsecondary education access and attainment for students from key demographic groups. The Washington state legislature has enacted the WCG as a need-based financial aid program to increase access to postsecondary education for Washington residents. The state intends for the program...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305S230019
Grant
Examining Effects of Social-Emotional Learning on Outcomes Through High School and Beyond: A Follow-up Study of INSIGHTS
The aim of this study is to conduct a long-term efficacy follow-up of INSIGHTS into Children's Temperament. INSIGHTS is a comprehensive school based preventive intervention that aims to support children's social-emotional development in order to improve their behaviors, social-emotional well-being, and academic skills during the transition to elementary school. Findings from the original cluster randomized trial of INSIGHTS implemented in kindergarten and first grade in schools serving stude...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A220174
Grant
Investigating the Potential of Machine Learning Methods for Identifying Impact Variation in Randomized Control Trials
In research on the effects of education interventions, there is interest not only in the overall average treatment effect but also in effects for subgroups of sample members and whether those effects differ. The purpose of this grant is to investigate the value and limitations of using machine learning to detect the presence of heterogeneous subgroup impacts in randomized control trials (RCTs) in education and other policy domains. The machine learning approach does not require researchers t...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305D220028
Grant
Identifying Best Practices for Estimating Average Treatment Effects in Cluster Randomized Trials: Estimands, Estimators, and Estimates
The purpose of this grant is to provide guidance to applied researchers on the best estimands and estimators of those estimands for analyses of cluster randomized control trials (CRTs).
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305D220046
Contract
Study of Strategies to Address Unfinished Learning in Math
The coronavirus pandemic led to substantial unfinished learning in math and an important debate about how best to address it. Traditionally, policymakers and educators have advocated a "broad foundation skill building" approach, which systematically reteaches all below-grade content where there are knowledge gaps. "Just-in-time skill building" has received attention more recently, including in the U.S. Department of Education's <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/documents/coronavirus/reopening-2.pdf
Federal funding program:
Contract number:
91990021D0001
Grant
Scaling Up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS): A Multisite Randomized Controlled Trial
This project will evaluate the SUCCESS intervention, which provides evidence-based, mutually reinforcing support services to help community college students stay on track through graduation at an affordable cost for colleges. The intervention design seeks to address two problems that have emerged in the postsecondary research literature: (1) very few interventions have causal evidence of substantially increasing graduation rates at community colleges; and (2) the few interventions with such ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210276
Grant
An Experienced School Support Organization at Scale: A Study of The Urban Assembly Network
Amidst modest increases in high school graduation rates for all students, stark differences still exist between the supports and quality of secondary schooling provided to low-income students of color. In response to this equity issue, there has been a growth in third-party "school support" organizations like Urban Assembly (UA): groups created to independently interface with schools to provide additional monetary, organizational, instructional, personnel and professional development resourc...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210292
Contract
Study of Data Disaggregation Initiative
Because English learners (ELs) are a diverse group, looking at their academic achievement in the aggregate may hide important opportunities to identify challenges and target services to help particular subsets of them. In 2016, the Office of English Language Acquisition of the U.S. Department of Education awarded grants to three states — Minnesota, Hawaii, and Washington under the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Data Disaggregation Initiative. The grants are intended to suppor
Federal funding program:
Contract number:
ED-IES-15-C-0050
Grant
Choice and Information: The Impact of Technology-Based Career Advising Tools on High School Students' CTE Choices and Academic Performance
The purpose of the study is to rigorously test two popular and widely used technology-based career advising tools for secondary school students. These tools provide attractive options for schools, which often lack capacity to increase depth or breath of current career and technical education (CTE) and career counseling services, even as the current Perkins V policy environment seeks to strengthen and increase CTE choices for students. However, despite the popularity and widespread use of the...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A200307
Grant
An Intervention Return on Investment (ROI) Tool for Community Colleges
The purpose of this project is to calculate the return on investment before a college or system decides to implement an effective intervention for their students. Postsecondary research over the last 20 years has made great strides in identifying effective interventions and estimating their cost-effectiveness. The main objective of the proposed project is to provide a third piece of information critical to college administrators' decision-making about intervention adoption: an estimate of th...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305U200007
Grant
Planning Randomized Controlled Trials in Community Colleges
The project team developed products to support community college researchers with the same type of empirically based benchmarks, design parameters, and tools currently available for K-12 researchers planning and interpreting randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305D190025
Grant
The Higher Education Randomized Controlled Trial (THE-RCT) Project: Synthesizing Evidence from 15+ Years of RCTs in Postsecondary Education
This project synthesized evidence from 15+ years of postsecondary randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conducted by MDRC to draw conclusions about effective intervention strategies for boosting rates of college success. Drawing on detailed data from 30 large-scale postsecondary RCTs of 39 interventions, including 65,000 students, this project
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A190161
Grant
P-TECH 9–14 Schools: An Impact, Implementation and Cost Study
In this project, researchers will assess the implementation, impact and cost of the P-TECH 9-14 school model (P-TECH) in New York City (NYC). The evaluation will provide long-term evidence for P-TECH and policymakers about a model that has been rapidly expanded and scaled nationally. P-TECH is an approach to career and technical education that begins in high school and includes pathways to college and careers, employer and college partnerships, work-based learning, and opportunities to earn ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A170250
Grant
Statistical Power When Adjusting for Multiple Hypothesis Tests: Methodology Expansions and Software Tools
This project extended and validated methods estimating power for different definitions of power and for several multiplicity adjustments commonly used in confirmatory analyses so that researchers who are planning randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with any number of common designs and who will adjust for multiple tests across multiple outcomes will be able to estimate power, minimum detectable effect sizes (MDESs), and sample sizes.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305D170030
Grant
Teaching and Learning 21st Century Skills in Community Colleges: A Study of the New World of Work Program
Twenty-first century skills (e.g., the ability to communicate, collaborate, and adapt) are increasingly viewed as critical for success in both postsecondary settings and the workforce, but there are few opportunities in academic postsecondary institutions for students to develop these skills explicitly. In this project, the researchers analyzed and made recommended refinements to an existing intervention called the New World of Work (NWoW), a course that aims to improve community college stu...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A170304
Contract
Text Ed: A Study of Text Messaging to Improve College Enrollment Rates Among Disadvantaged Adults
College application and financial aid processes are complicated and can be barriers to entry, particularly for those not coming directly from high school. The U.S. Department of Education-funded Educational Opportunity Centers (EOCs) work with low income or potential first-generation college goers to address these barriers. The EOCs, mostly drop-in offices at colleges and community-based organizations, typically operate with a small cadre of staff and are required to serve a large number of in
Federal funding program:
Contract number:
ED-IES-16-C-0016
Grant
Assessing the Long-Term Efficacy and Costs of the City University of New York's (CUNY'S) Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP)
In this project, the research team will assess whether the City University of New York's (CUNY's) Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) intervention causes more college students to complete degrees, measured at seven years after initial college enrollment. This is a follow-up study to a previous efficacy study conducted by MDRC and funded by the New York City Center for Economic Opportunity. Because the ASAP intervention includes a comprehensive set of supports over a long (three-ye...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A160273
Grant
Boston P-3: Identifying Malleable Factors for Promoting Student Success
This research team will work in collaboration with Boston Public Schools to identify policies, classroom-level factors, and school experiences that are associated with children's school success during pre-k and early elementary school grades. The researchers will collect qualitative and quantitative data to address three issues: 1) how students' cumulative experiences within and across settings affect their development over time; 2) how students' characteristics and skills interact dynamical...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305N160018
Grant
The Men of Color College Achievement (MoCCA) Project
In partnership with the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), this research team will refine and evaluate a college success course combined with a set of services designed to boost the success of male students of color. This project addresses the problem that college completion rates for men of color at open- and broad-access postsecondary institutions lag behind completion rates for most other students. The team will complete both development and evaluation activities for an interve...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305N160025
Contract
Academic Language Impact Evaluation
Academic language skills are critical supports for reading and understanding for all students, particularly for English Learners (ELs) and disadvantaged native English speakers whose achievement typically lags behind their peers.
Federal funding program:
Contract number:
ED-IES-15-C-0050
Grant
An Empirical Analysis of Two Methodological Issues for Education Research Caused by Variation in Program Impacts
The purpose of the project is to investigate two issues pertinent to the variation in treatment effects across sites in a multisite trial. The first issue is the impact of cross-site variation on a study's statistical power to detect the mean treatment effect across all sites.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305D140012
Grant
Estimating Statistical Power in Impact Evaluations when Making Adjustments for Multiple Hypotheses
Multiplicity adjustments to p-values protect against spurious statistically significant findings when there are multiple statistical tests (e.g., due to multiple outcomes, subgroups or time points). An important consequence of these adjustments is a change in statistical power. It is typically argued that multiplicity adjustments result in a loss of power, which can be substantial. Current practice for ensuring that impact evaluations in education have adequate statistical power does not tak...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305D140024
Grant
Evaluating the Impact of CUNY Start through a Researcher (MDRC) – Local Education Agency (City University of New York) Partnership
Most community college students are referred to developmental education courses to build basic skills. Colleges have typically responded to the needs of students referred to developmental coursework by designing multi-level, non-credit course sequences in reading, English, and math. However, students often struggle in these courses and college more broadly. To help address the needs of incoming students, the City University of New York (CUNY) developed CUNY Start (CS), a multifaceted pre-mat...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305H140065
Contract
Impact Evaluation of Training in Multi-Tiered Systems of Support for Behavior
Students' early problem behaviors in school can be disruptive and even hinder their learning and long-term success. To prevent these incidences, schools across the country report adopting multi-tiered systems of support for behavior (MTSS-B). The MTSS-B approach seeks to change the school learning environment by consistently teaching and reinforcing good behavior for all students, and then identifying and providing supplemental support to students who need it. Given the limited evidence on whi
Federal funding program:
Contract number:
ED-IES-14-C-0003
Grant
Using Computer-Assisted Instruction to Accelerate Students through Developmental Math: An Impact Study of Modularization and Compression
In this project, researchers examined two distinct interventions for Texas community college students who were referred to non-credit remedial math. At the time of this study, the majority of entering community college students were referred to developmental (or remedial) math, and success rates in the developmental math course sequence and college more broadly were discouraging. The first intervention the researchers examined was called ModMath, a modularized course using computer-assisted ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A130125
Grant
Performance-Based Scholarship Demonstration — An Alternative Financial Aid Program to Incentivize Academic Success
The project will extend an ongoing randomized control trial, known as the Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration that is evaluating the impacts of incentive scholarships on postsecondary outcomes for low-income college students. The PBS Demonstration began in 2008 and has recruited over 10,000 students across four states. Funded by other sources, the PBS Demonstration tracks college students' academic outcomes for up to two years after random assignment. This project will further ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A110204
Grant
Regression Discontinuity Designs with Assignment Based on Multiple Rating Scores: Statistical Properties and Issues in the Context of Education Evaluation
The purpose of this project was to provide practical guidance to education researchers on how to estimate program impacts using a regression discontinuity (RD) design with more than one rating variable. It is often the case that assignment to an education intervention is based on multiple criteria. For example, graduation from high school may depend on a student successfully passing standardized tests in several subjects and meeting Adequate Yearly Progress requires schools to meet a number ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305D100027
Grant
Evaluating the Long-Term Effects and the Costs of Two Community College Interventions
Community colleges serve as an important doorway to higher education for a growing number of minority and low-income students, working adults, parents, and first-generation college students. A large number of such students who enter with the goal of completing a college degree are not successful. To address this problem, a number of innovative programs have been developed to support entering community college students at-risk for dropping out. This project will evaluate the long-term educat...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A100066
Grant
Using Instrumental Variables Analysis Coupled with Rigorous Multi-Site Impact Studies to Study the Causal Paths by which Educational Interventions Affect Student Outcomes
This project explored the theoretical properties and empirical implications of using instrumental variables analysis coupled with rigorous multi-site impact studies to estimate the causal paths by which educational interventions produce effects on students. To this end, it addressed five research questions:
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305D090009
Grant
Evaluation of Ninth Grade Academies in Broward County Public Schools
The purpose of the project is to assess the impact of Ninth Grade Academies (NGAs) on student engagement and performance in ninth grade and throughout high school. NGAs in Broward County and Florida are self-contained units located in a designated area of the school, with their own dedicated teaching faculty, guidance staff, and social services to create an intact community for the transition year of ninth grade. They have interdisciplinary teacher teams that share the same students and have...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305E090019
Grant
Statistical Properties of Regression Discontinuity Analysis and Comparative Interrupted Time Series Analysis for Estimating Impacts
This project explored the circumstances under which two promising quasi-experimental designs can produce estimates of program impacts that are valid, precise and generalizable.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305D090008
Contract
Evaluation of Response to Intervention Practices for Elementary School Reading
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA 2004) is the most recent authorization of a law passed in 1975 to promote a free appropriate public education for children with disabilities. Funded at $12.5 billion in Fiscal Year 2015, IDEA supports early intervention services for infants and toddlers, special education services for children ages 3 through 21, and early intervening services for students not in special education but in need of academic or behavioral sup
Federal funding program:
Contract number:
ED-04-CO-0111/0003
Grant
A Randomized Efficacy Trial of Academically Enhanced Rigorous Career Academies: Studying the Impact of the National Academy Foundation (NAF) Model
Career Academies combine several key school improvement strategies, including creation of small learning communities, use of school-to-work curriculum to better align high school learning with anticipated professional pursuits, and creation of partnerships with local employers and social institutions to strengthen the relationships between schools and communities. In previous evaluations of Career Academies, researchers found a positive effect on labor market outcomes for males but no signi...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305B070702
Contract
Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study
Title II, Part A, the Improving Teacher State Formula Grants program, is the primary federal funding under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to support a high-quality teacher in every classroom. The program, funded at $2.9 billion in Fiscal Year 2010, targets high-poverty districts and funds a broad array of allowable activities such as support for certification including alternative certification, teacher mentoring and induction, intensive professional development, recruitment, reten
Federal funding program:
Contract number:
ED-04-CO-0025/0005
Contract
Impact Evaluation of Supplemental Literacy Interventions in Freshman Academies
The Smaller Learning Communities (SLC) Program (funded at $88 million in Fiscal Year 2009), authorized in 2000 by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, awarded discretionary grants to school districts to support the implementation of SLCs and activities to improve student academic achievement in large public high schools. Because, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, over 70 percent of students nationally arrive in high school with reading skills that are below p
Federal funding program:
Contract number:
ED-01-CO-0111/0001
Grant
Learning from Efforts to Strengthen Educational Leadership in Urban School Districts
In this project, the researchers aimed to investigate the possible relationships among leadership actions, teacher practices, and student achievement, to build research knowledge about how education leaders can become more effective. At the time of this study, there was little evidence regarding what good instructional leaders do and whether these actions had an impact on students' academic achievement. In this project, the researchers' goal was to develop preliminary information on the empi...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305E040100
Contract
Impact Evaluation of Academic Instruction For After-School Programs
The 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program, established in 1999, is a state-administered grant program to provide opportunities for academic enrichment to meet state and local student academic achievement standards in core academic subjects, such as reading and mathematics. This program is authorized as part of Title IV of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and was funded at $1 billion in Fiscal Year 2008. The funding is targeted towards high-poverty schools, with priority giv
Federal funding program:
Contract number:
ED-01-CO-0060/0004
Contract
Reading First Impact Study
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 created the Reading First program to help ensure that all students can read at or above grade level by the end of third grade. The program was funded at $393 million in Fiscal Year 2008 and targeted low-income, low-performing schools. This evaluation was conducted in response to Reading First's legislation requiring that the U.S. Department of Education contract with an independent organization for a "rigorous, scientifically valid, and quantitative"
Federal funding program:
Contract number:
ED-01-CO-0093/0004
Contract
Elementary School Reading Professional Development Impact Study
Title II, Part A, the Improving Teacher State Formula Grants program, is the primary federal funding under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to support a high-quality teacher in every classroom. The program, funded at $2.9 billion in Fiscal Year 2010, targets high-poverty districts and funds a broad array of allowable activities such as support for certification including alternative certification, teacher mentoring and induction, intensive professional development, recruitment, reten
Federal funding program:
Contract number:
ED-01-CO-0026/0020
External Person
Fred Doolittle
Fred Doolittle is the director of policy research and evaluation at MDRC. Dr. Doolittle joined MDRC in 1986, initially specializing in studies of employment and training programs for economically disadvantaged out-of-school youth and adults. As MDRC expanded its work to include education, he focused on evaluations of elementary and secondary school reforms. The author of many publications, Dr. Doolittle has served as the research director or project director for numerous MDRC...
External Person
Howard Bloom
Howard Bloom is a chief social scientist at MDRC. Dr. Bloom leads the development of experimental and quasi-experimental methods for estimating program impacts initiative, working closely with MDRC staff to build these methods into their research. He came to MDRC in 1999, following 21 years of teaching research methods, program evaluation, and applied statistics at Harvard University and at New York University, where he received the Great Teacher Award in 1993. The author of numerous...
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