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This practice guide provides four evidence-based recommendations for designing and delivering comprehensive, integrated advising to support students’ educational success.

This practice guide provides community colleges with five specific recommendations for supporting occupational skills training through career pathways.

This practice guide provides higher education instructors, instructional designers, administrators, and other staff with five recommendations for supporting learning through the effective use of technology.

This practice guide presents six evidence-based recommendations for college and university faculty, administrators, and advisors working to improve the success of students academically underprepared for college. Each recommendation includes an overview of the practice, a summary of evidence used in support of the evidence rating, guidance on how to carry out the recommendation, and suggested approaches to overcome potential roadblocks. Each recommendation includes an implementation checklist as guidance for getting started with implementing the recommendation.

Year Up provides six months of occupational and technical training in the information technology and financial service sectors followed by six-month internships, together with other supports that ensures students have strong connections to employment.

Project QUEST (Quality Employment through Skills Training) provides comprehensive support services to help participants complete occupational training programs at local community colleges and professional training institutes, pass certification exams, and obtain well-paying jobs in targeted sectors of the local economy.

Growth Mindset interventions aim to improve college persistence and academic achievement by encouraging students to view intelligence as a “malleable” characteristic that grows with effort, and to view academic challenges as temporary setbacks that they can overcome.

Bottom Line provides intensive advising for high school students from low-income households, most of whom are the first in their family to go to college. The advising is designed to help students apply for college and financial aid and select a high-quality affordable institution. For students who attend one of their target colleges, Bottom Line continues to provide regular support to students on campus for up to six years.

Social Belonging interventions for college students aim to reduce the impacts of negative stereotypes that may burden students in underrepresented groups and affect their persistence in college. Examples of such groups are racial or ethnic minority groups, women in engineering, and first-generation college students. There are different variations of Social Belonging interventions but they all have in common a goal of influencing students’ sense that they could be successful within a college setting.

The New York City P-TECH 9-14 schools are an educational model that ties together the secondary, higher education, and workforce systems to improve outcomes across domains. The distinguishing feature of the model is a partnership among a high school, a community college, and one or more employer partners that focuses on preparing students for both college and careers within six years. P-TECH 9-14 schools collaborate with local colleges to provide students with an opportunity to earn a high school diploma within four years, followed by a cost-free, industry-recognized associate's degree. During the six-year program, employer partners provide students with work-based learning experiences such as internships, mentoring, and job shadowing. This evaluation provides the first rigorous evidence about the effects of the P-TECH 9-14 model on student outcomes. The study uses a lottery-based random assignment design that takes advantage of the nature of the New York City high school admissions process, in which students were randomly offered or not offered an opportunity to attend a P-TECH 9-14 school. This study has also investigated how P-TECH 9-14 schools implemented the elements of the model, and where implementation varied among schools, and has conducted a cost and cost-effectiveness analysis, which assesses the impacts relative to the cost of obtaining them. [For the Executive Summary, see ED632481.]

Early college high schools (ECHSs) in North Carolina are small public schools of choice on college campuses that seek to promote attaining postsecondary credits in high school, college readiness, and postsecondary enrollment for underrepresented groups. Evidence from randomized control trials (RCTs) has shown positive effects of the ECHS model on important high school and postsecondary outcomes but appear to be underpowered to detect moderation effects. Furthermore, RCTs rarely address the key question of primary policy interest: Is the program effective on average across the population? This leaves us uncertain about: (1) whether the early college intervention is a good strategy for helping to close enrollment and attainment gaps between under- and overrepresented groups, and (2) whether the expansion of the ECHS model will lead to the positive results that the RCT studies suggest. This study uses administrative data on all ECHSs in North Carolina including those that were part of a lottery study. This allows us to generate RCT estimates for the ECHSs in the lottery sample and quasi-experimental estimates for both the lottery and non-lottery ECHSs. We leverage this unique circumstance to generate estimates of the effect of ECHS on postsecondary outcomes that simultaneously maximize both internal and external validity. Specifically, because generalization depends on both moderation and sample selection, we: (1) investigate sample selection, (2) conduct a moderation analysis to determine whether the effects of the intervention vary by key factors that also predict sample selection, and (3) produce a pooled estimate by extending a method called cross-design synthesis to incorporate both RCT evidence and quasi-experimental evidence. We find strong evidence that the positive results of the RCTs generalize to the full sample of ECHSs, which provides stronger evidence of effectiveness.

Following up on a previous impact study of Early Colleges (EC) based on retrospective admission lotteries, this study assessed longer-term impacts on students' postsecondary outcomes with 4 more years of data. The study found that students who won EC admission lotteries were significantly more likely to enroll in college, enroll in 2-year colleges, complete a college degree, complete associate's degrees or certificates, and complete bachelor's degrees within 6 years after expected high school graduation than control students. Moreover, it found that treatment students completed postsecondary degrees earlier and faster than control students. Consistent with EC's focus on college exposure during high school, the EC impacts on college enrollment and the completion of associate's degrees largely occurred within high school. The study also found that EC impacts did not vary significantly by students' demographic characteristics; however, some impacts were significantly stronger for students with higher levels of prior achievement.

The Linking Learning to Careers (LLC) program offered high school students with disabilities an individualized and targeted approach to strategically plan for their futures. The Vermont Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) designed LLC to build on its usual services for high school students to emphasize unpaid and paid work-based learning experiences (WBLEs) in integrated environments, college exploration and coursework opportunities at the Community College of Vermont, team-based guidance and support from DVR staff, dedicated support for assistive technology, and additional transportation funding. To support a rigorous evaluation, DVR relied on a randomized controlled trial design, recruiting 803 participants to participate. This report presents evidence on LLC's impacts up to two years after students enrolled in the program. The demonstration had impacts on services and education that were consistent with the LLC model and findings from the implementation evaluation. However, the program did not have consistent impacts on employment. [Mathematica prepared this report under contract to the Vermont Division of Vocational Rehabilitation under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education.]

Early colleges are a new model of schooling in which the high school and college experiences are merged, shortening the total amount of time a student spends in school. This study uses a lottery-based experimental design to examine the impact of the model on longer term outcomes, including attainment of a postsecondary credential and academic performance in 4-year institutions. Results show that a significantly higher proportion of early college students were attaining postsecondary credentials. The results also show that early college students were completing their degrees more rapidly but that their performance in 4-year institutions was still comparable with the control students. [For the corresponding grantee submission, see ED604350.]

The New York City P-TECH Grades 9-14 schools represent an education model that ties together the secondary, higher education, and workforce systems as a way to improve outcomes in both domains. The distinguishing feature of the P-TECH 9-14 model, as it is referred to in this report, is a partnership between a high school, a local community college, and one or more employer partners that focuses on preparing students for both college and careers -- not one or the other -- within a six-year timeframe. Education and workforce development are traditionally seen as separate spheres of influence with multiple transition points that students have been left to navigate largely on their own (for example, high school to postsecondary, and postsecondary to the workforce). P-TECH 9-14 is designed to seamlessly assist student navigation of those points -- supporting student success and mitigating the potential for students to fall through the cracks. P-TECH 9-14 schools collaborate with local colleges to provide students with an opportunity to earn a high school diploma (within four years) followed by a cost-free, industry-recognized associate's degree. During the six-year program, employer partners support P-TECH 9-14 schools by providing students with work-based learning experiences such as internships, mentoring, and job shadowing. By design, the P-TECH 9-14 model offers students the opportunity to participate in focused and accelerated high school pathways, early college, and career-focused activities. This study offers initial impact and implementation findings from the first rigorous evaluation of the model, evaluating the first seven P-TECH 9-14 schools that opened in New York City. The study leverages the random lottery process created by the New York City High School Admissions System to identify impacts. The majority of the students in the sample who participated in the admissions lotteries were academically below proficiency in both math and English language arts (ELA) prior to entering high school. [This report was written with Fernando Medina. For the executive summary, see ED605313.]

The nation's community colleges play a central role in producing a more educated workforce and promoting social mobility. They serve about 40 percent of all college students and, not surprisingly, they serve a disproportionate number of low-income and underrepresented students. But most students who enter these colleges do not graduate--only about a third of entering students earn a degree or certificate within six years. Among the many programs that have attempted to increase graduation rates, one program stands out. Developed by the City University of New York (CUNY), the Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) is a comprehensive program that provides students with up to three years of financial and academic support and other support services. Along with those services and other forms of support comes an obligation to attend full time and participate in essential program services. An experimental evaluation of CUNY ASAP found that the program nearly doubled graduation rates after three years. This report presents findings through three years from a replication of the ASAP model at three community colleges in Ohio. Low-income students were randomly assigned either to a program group, who could participate in their colleges' new programs based closely on ASAP (called the Ohio Programs), or to a control group, who could receive the usual college services. Comparing the two groups' outcomes provides an estimate of the Ohio Programs' effects. The findings from the evaluation add to a body of evidence showing that comprehensive programs that offer academic, financial, and other forms of student support for multiple years are an effective way to increase college completion rates. The fact that the earlier CUNY ASAP findings have now been replicated in Ohio suggests that ASAP in particular can serve as a national model to help students succeed.

Senior year of high school can be a pivotal time in a young person's life. For some, it is the last step on the path to college and work. For others, finding stable employment or attending university after high school is far from guaranteed. Urban Alliance, headquartered in Washington, DC, helps students at risk of becoming disconnected from work or school transition to higher education or employment after high school. Through its High School Internship Program, it offers participating high school seniors training, an internship, and mentoring to help them succeed. The Urban Institute recently completed an evaluation of the program in Washington, DC, and Baltimore. Using an experimental design, the study revealed several key findings approximately two years after high school.

Young people have been hit especially hard by changes in the labor market over the past decades. Unemployment among 16- to 24-year-olds increased the most of any age group during the recent recession, and remains more than double that among older adults. The unemployment rate is especially high for young people without high school diplomas. YouthBuild is one program that attempts to help this group, serving over 10,000 of them each year at over 250 organizations nationwide. Each organization provides construction-related or other vocational training, educational services, counseling, and leadership-development opportunities to low-income young people ages 16 to 24 who did not complete high school. YouthBuild is being evaluated using a randomized controlled trial, in which eligible young people at participating programs were assigned either to a program group, invited to enroll in YouthBuild, or to a control group, referred to other services in the community. The evaluation includes 75 programs across the country funded by the U.S. Department of Labor or the Corporation for National and Community Service and nearly 4,000 young people who enrolled in the study between 2011 and 2013. This report, the second in the evaluation, presents the program's effects on young people through two and a half years. About 75 percent of the young people assigned to the program group participated in YouthBuild, and about half of these participants reported that they graduated from the program within 12 months. YouthBuild led to a number of positive effects on young people, most consistently in the area of education and training. Main findings include: (1) YouthBuild increased participation in education and training, even though a high percentage of the young people in the control group also sought out and participated in education and training. Overall, participants rated their experiences in YouthBuild favorably, although some program components were rated more highly than others; (2) YouthBuild increased the rate at which participants earned high school equivalency credentials, enrolled in college, and participated in vocational training; (3) YouthBuild led to a small increase in wages and earnings at 30 months; (4) YouthBuild increased civic engagement, particularly volunteering, but had few effects on other measures of youth development or attitudes; and (5) YouthBuild had few effects on involvement in the criminal justice system. The program's interim effects on education and training are encouraging. A later report, measuring effects through four years, will examine whether these interim effects lead to longer-term gains in work and earnings. The following are appended: (1) Site Selection, Random Assignment, the Analysis Model, and Previous Evaluations; (2) Response Analyses for the 12- and 30-Month Surveys; (3) Survey Responses About YouthBuild Experiences and Service Receipt at 30 Months; and (4) Survey-Based Impacts and Subgroup Impacts at 12 Months and Selected Impacts Per Participant.

This study presents findings from three cohorts of students--the classes of 2003, 2004, and 2005, in the School District of Philadelphia--that were admitted to the district's career and technical education (CTE) schools through a randomized lottery process. This study takes advantage of this so-called "'natural experiment' to compare high school academic outcomes for" lottery applicants who were admitted with those for students who did not receive an acceptance. Results find that CTE students had significantly better outcomes in terms of graduation rates, credit accumulation, and the successful completion of the college preparatory mathematics sequence algebra 1, algebra 2, and geometry. Results for other outcomes such as the completion of science and foreign language course sequences, overall grade point average, and mathematics and reading comprehension achievement, were inconsistent across cohorts and statistical tests, neither favoring nor against students accepted to CTE schools.

For this study, the authors designed an experiment to test whether some high-achieving, low-income students would change their behavior if they knew more about colleges and, more importantly, whether a cost-effective way to help such students realize their full array of college opportunities can be implemented. This was done by randomly assigning interventions that provide different types of information to roughly 18,000 students, including 3,000 students who serve as controls. The most comprehensive form of the intervention, which is called the Expanding College Opportunities-Comprehensive (ECO-C) Intervention, combined application guidance, semicustomized information about the net cost of attending different colleges, and no-paperwork application fee waivers. Expanding College Opportunities Project was designed to to test several hypotheses about why most high-achieving, low-income students do not apply to and attend selective colleges. The application guidance component of ECO-C provides the kind of advice that an expert college counselor would give a high-achieving student. An expert counselor would advise such a student to apply to eight or more colleges, including a combination of "safety," "match," and "reach" colleges. The authors call this group of colleges that are within an appropriate range for a given student's achievement "peer" colleges. Using random assignment of thousands of students, the authors successfully demonstrated that a low-cost, fully scalable intervention can help many high-achieving, low-income students recognize their full array of college opportunities.

The career academy approach is one of the oldest and most widely established high school reforms in the U.S., stretching back for more than 30 years. A large-scale, multi-site, random assignment research design was conducted to determine the impact of career academies on student outcomes. Some of the findings of the study include the following: (1) the career academies in the study increased both the level of interpersonal support students experienced and their participation in career awareness and work-based learning activities; (2) the career academies substantially improved high school outcomes among students at high risk of dropping out; (3) among students least likely to drop out, the career academies increased the likelihood of graduating on time; (4) in academies that greatly enhanced interpersonal support from teachers and peers, the dropout rates dropped dramatically; (5) the academies did not improve standardized mathematics and reading test scores; and (6) the impact of the academies and the types of students who participated in them varied greatly from site to site. The study concluded that career academies can be an effective means of reducing the high school dropout rate and enhancing students' engagement with school, especially if they increase personal support of students through involvement with teachers and peers. (Contains 33 references and two appendixes that provide supplementary information about the career academies research study and strategies for creating subgroups of students defined by at-risk characteristics.) (KC)

Using a regression discontinuity design, we examine the effects on graduation and college and career readiness of two types of school performance designations under ESSA in California: (1) color ratings based on individual performance measures that are highly visible, yet do not carry direct ramifications; and (2) federally-mandated Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) designations based on multiple performance measures that are less visible, but have explicit consequences for designated schools. We find significant positive effects of a red color rating (the lowest performance designation) on the outcome on which the rating was based, yet no significant effect of a CSI designation. Descriptive evidence from a principal survey and interviews with district administrators highlight two potential mechanisms behind the differential effects: (1) the relative clarity of color ratings that rely on a single performance measure; and (2) the visibility of color ratings that may induce a sense of urgency among stakeholders.

This report is the second in a series that presents evidence about the conditions under which Career and Technical Education (CTE) may be most and least effective and for whom. It focuses on a different set of schools: Comprehensive high schools in New York City (NYC) that offer CTE alongside other educational options. Like the CTE-Dedicated high schools, these Comprehensive high schools serve a large and diverse group of students. Between 2013 and 2016, for example, more than 80,000 8th grade students applied and were assigned to programs offering CTE in these schools through the City's High School Application Processing System (HSAPS). There are several important differences between the CTE-Dedicated and Comprehensive high school contexts that make this report and its findings distinctive. First, when students apply to Comprehensive high schools, they have the option of choosing programs that offer CTE as well as programs that do not. By contrast, when students apply to CTE-Dedicated high schools, every available option in that school offers a CTE Program of Study. In an effort to capture as much student engagement in CTE as possible, this report focuses only on students who chose CTE programs in Comprehensive high schools. Like those in CTE-Dedicated high schools, CTE programs in Comprehensive high schools must offer the full range of CTE courses, work-based learning opportunities, certified teachers, and dual enrollment opportunities required by the state.

This study examines relationships between dual enrollment and high school graduation, college enrollment, college choice (2-year or 4-year), and persistence in college among Nebraska's 2018 high school graduating class. Unlike previous studies that focus on states where dual enrollment is standardized and subsidized by state policy, the Nebraska context offers an opportunity to study potentially heterogeneous effects of dual enrollment where implementation is devolved to the local level. Using propensity score matching, we find that taking at least one dual enrollment course was positively associated with graduating from high school, going to college, choosing a 4-year college over a 2-year college, and re-enrolling in college in the second year. More importantly, the positive association was greater for racial minority students, first-generation students, and low-income students. Our findings suggest that dual enrollment may help close achievement gaps for historically underrepresented students. We provide policy implications on how states can use dual enrollment to improve higher education access and success.

Recent policy efforts have attempted to increase the number of dual enrollment courses offered within Career and Technical Education pathways and there is evidence to suggest that this practice is widespread. However, there is very little research on student participation in CTE dual enrollment and on its impacts. This study examines participation in the CTE dual enrollment pathway in North Carolina, finding that about 9% of North Carolina students participated in CTE dual enrollment courses in 11th or 12th grade and disparities in participation among subgroups were less than for college transfer dual enrollment courses. Using a quasi-experimental approach to examine the effect of the program, the study found that participation is CTE was positively associated with college credits earned in high school, graduation from high school, and overall enrollment in college within one year after high school. The study also examined results by subgroup.

In 2015 Oregon became the second state in the country to implement a statewide promise program. Its program, Oregon Promise, seeks to promote students' postsecondary attainment by covering nearly all community college tuition. This study used student data from K-12 public schools, Oregon Promise applications, and postsecondary records to examine which public high school seniors the program reached and served and to assess the program's impact on high school graduates' postsecondary outcomes in its first two years. The study found that Oregon Promise applicants generally reflected the demographic composition of all Oregon public high school seniors in 2015/16 and 2016/17, although applicants were more likely to be female and less likely to have received special education services. While applicant characteristics were similar in the first and second years, there were fewer eligible applicants and recipients in the second year, when an expected family contribution limit was added, than in the first year, and they were more likely to be from low-income households and to be students of color. Using grade point average (GPA) data from the Portland metropolitan area, the study also found that lowering the GPA requirement would have increased the overall applicant pool, as well as the number of applicants from low-income households and applicants of color. Just over half of recipients in the first year of the program renewed their award and received it in their second year at a community college. These recipients had better high school attendance and were more likely to have participated in college-level coursework during high school than recipients who received an award only in their first year. Finally, among high school graduates in the Portland metropolitan area with a GPA close to the eligibility cutoff (2.5), the offer of an award had a positive impact on first-year persistence and on persistence or college completion within four years of high school graduation. Findings from the statewide exploratory analysis also found positive program impacts on first-year persistence and persistence or college completion within three or four years of high school graduation for all 2015/16 and 2016/17 seniors in the state. Oregon stakeholders can use the findings to better understand the reach and impact of the Oregon Promise program, implications of program requirements on the number and composition of applicants and recipients, and the high school experiences of recipients who renewed their award. [For the Study Snapshot, see ED615646. For the appendixes, see ED615648.]

The term dual, or concurrent, enrollment refers to the broad array of programs available to high school students that allow them to take college-level courses for credit. Dual enrollment creates multiple pathways to college by enabling high school students to take: (1) selected academic courses on college campuses; (2) college-led academic courses at their high school; or, (3) a hybrid of both. In addition, some dual enrollment programs permit students to take post-secondary level career and technical education courses. This study shows Concurrent Enrollment to be highly effective in increasing college graduation for high school students in Colorado. The sample included students across different demographics and academic abilities. Compared to students who did not take college courses while in high school, students who took Concurrent Enrollment courses were more likely to: (1) Attend college within one year following high school graduation, (2) Earn a college degree on time or early, and (3) Have higher workforce earnings after five years. [The Institute of Behavioral Science (IBS) at the University of Colorado Boulder also produced this report.]

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of Get the Picture?! in improving the overall college/career readiness of 900 students with disabilities in each of the nine participating treatment high schools in nine rural, high poverty Kentucky school districts after four years of implementation. This quasi-experimental study followed the 9th grade cohort of students with disabilities in the nine treatment and 18 matched control schools over four school years, 2015-16 through 2018-19. Through the development of self-determination skills, the goal of the intervention was to increase the number of students with disabilities who achieved the state standard for College and/or Career Readiness by meeting established benchmarks on State/National assessments and/or completion of a recognized industry certification in each of the nine participating schools. For the confirmatory analyses, there were two outcome variables in two different outcome domains: (a) Transition Ready, a binary "Yes"/"No" variable [Transition Readiness domain], and (b) the cumulative number of in-school suspensions (a continuous variable) [Self-management behaviors domain]. For the confirmatory analyses, outcome data were examined using two-level Hierarchical Linear Models (HLM) (for Cumulative In-School Suspensions) and Hierarchical Generalized Linear Models (HGLM) (for Transition Ready) to account for the nested structure of the data (i.e., students nested within schools). Overall, after four years of implementation, Get the Picture?! was able to demonstrate a statistically significant positive impact on the Transition Readiness of participating 9th grade cohort students compared to controls. Treatment students had statistically significantly higher odds of being Transition Ready, and were more than twice as likely to achieve Transition Readiness status compared to control students. However, while the confirmatory study showed the intervention was also able to reduce the total number of in-school suspensions for treatment students relative to controls, the outcome was indeterminate (i.e., not statistically significant). The following are appended: (a) Kentucky Department of Education Revised Transition Readiness Standards, and (b) Fidelity of Implementation Final Report.

Purpose: The purpose of this two-year study was to assess the impact of the CORE program, a model that integrates technology and active learning modules in high schools by providing multi-disciplinary teams of teachers and administrators with professional development and resources to support the development of students' non-cognitive skills and increase their college and career readiness. A fidelity of implementation study was also conducted to assess the seven key program components were being implemented as intended. Methods: This Randomized Control Trial (RCT) study followed a cohort of 9th and 10th grade high school students in 28 treatment and control schools; students completed the CWRA+ assessment and non-cognitive skills, engagement, and self-efficacy scales at three timepoints. Using the hierarchical linear model (HLM), the study assessed one-year program impact and two-year program impact. The two-year program impact model suffered a high attrition (due to COVID19) and the study became a quasi-experimental design (QED) study after propensity score matching analysis was applied. Results: Findings highlight how students at CORE schools showed increased scores across the two-year program intervention. Specifically, standardized effects on CWRA+ scores, the non-cognitive skills scale, engagement scale, and efficacy scale were respectively, 0.22, 0.22, 0.23, and 0.32. The effect size for the efficacy scale (0.32) was large enough to be considered important. To selectively mention exploratory findings, the level of program exposure both in terms of whether students were enrolled in the program-trained teachers' courses and whether teachers participated in PD activities seemed correlated with a higher growth in student's CWRA+ scores. Another set of exploratory findings implied that the program impact may interact with demographic characteristics of students. Findings demonstrate a need for further testing of differences between student subgroups based on demographics, as well as the importance of buy-in from program implementers to provide the customized PD support that educators and partners at rural schools need to more effectively serve their students. The exploratory findings suggested that the program exposure of teachers and students may be a key to enhance the CORE program impact. [This report was submitted by the ICF Evaluation Team.]

We explore the impacts of a Consortium of rural high schools and colleges in Tennessee engaged in partnership activities to improve high school students' college and career readiness. These 29 Consortium schools received support from the federal Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) to scale up local promising practices, including distance and online learning, college partnerships to boost dual enrollment, professional development for teachers, and college and career counseling to students. Propensity score matching was used to select 29 comparison schools from among 288 regular high schools statewide. We used a quasi-experimental, matched-control study to compare students in Consortium schools to those in matched comparison schools and found that even though most of the Consortium's components of the intervention were implemented with at least moderate fidelity, most of the impacts on student outcomes were relatively small in magnitude and were not statistically significant for all cohorts. Outcomes with positive impacts include testing college ready, participating in Advanced Placement (AP) courses, receiving a score of 3 or greater on an AP examination, enrolling in college, and persisting in college. These findings suggest that schools faced considerable challenges to reforming college and career readiness that might reflect deeper issues associated with developing and maintaining relationships and changing the cultures of schools.

The National Math + Science Initiative's (NMSI's) College Readiness Program (CRP) is an established program whose goal is to promote science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education in high schools to improve students' readiness for college. It provides teacher, student, and school supports to promote high school students' success in mathematics, science, and English Advanced Placement (AP) courses, with a focus on students who are traditionally underrepresented in the targeted AP courses. Through a federal Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) validation grant awarded to NMSI in 2011, CRP was implemented in a total of 58 high schools in two states--Colorado and Indiana--beginning in the 2012-13 school year. American Institutes for Research (AIR) conducted an independent evaluation of the impacts of CRP on students' AP outcomes in these schools for the three cohorts of schools that adopted the program in sequential years, using a comparative interrupted time series (CITS) design that matched comparison schools to program schools in the two states. Overall, schools implementing CRP demonstrated significantly larger increases in the share of students taking and passing AP tests in targeted areas relative to comparison schools in each of the three cohorts of schools, and the gains in CRP schools were sustained over time. Fidelity of program implementation was evaluated using a fidelity matrix approach required as part of the National Evaluation of the i3 program, which showed that not all elements of the program were implemented with high fidelity. Teachers and students were not always able to attend all meetings, and schools did not always meet negotiated enrollment targets. Teacher survey data indicated that teachers found the professional development activities provided by CRP to be the most helpful support they received under CRP, and students reported that the tutoring and special study sessions were the most helpful. Although the program provided financial incentives to both teachers and students that were tied to student performance on AP tests, these incentives were considered the least important element of the program by both teachers and students

Despite the growing popularity of dual-credit courses as a college readiness strategy, numerous reviews of the literature have noted a number of important limitations of the research on the effects of dual-credit on student postsecondary outcomes. This study addressed these gaps in the literature by estimating the impact of dual-credit courses on postsecondary access, first-to-second year persistence, and eventual college attainment, and overcame many of the methodological limitations of previous studies. The study utilized a statewide longitudinal data system (SLDS), allowing us to track an entire cohort of students through their transition into postsecondary statewide. Propensity score matching was used in order to reduce the self-selection bias associated with high achieving students being more likely to take dual-credit courses. We explored how the number of dual-credit courses students complete and the subject of the courses influences their impact. We also compared the effects of dual-credit to alternative advanced courses. Our results suggest that dual-credit is a promising strategy for increasing the likelihood of students accessing, persisting through, and completing a degree in postsecondary, and is possibly even more impactful than advanced coursework. However, significant variation in the benefit of dual-credit exists.

New Mexico is one of 48 states that offer a biliteracy seal to high school graduates to recognize their proficiency in a non -English language. The Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest English Learners Research Partnership collaborated with a large urban district in New Mexico to study the characteristics and college readiness of students who earned different types of biliteracy seals (state, district, and global seals), the number of students who met some requirements for a seal but did not earn one, and the effect of earning a seal on college outcomes. The study used data from three cohorts of grade 12 students in the district from 2017/18 to 2019/20. Between 2017/18 and 2019/20, 7 percent of graduates earned at least one type of biliteracy seal, and these graduates were more likely than graduates who did not earn a seal to be Hispanic, to be eligible for the National School Lunch Program, to be a current English learner student, to have ever been an English learner student, and to speak Spanish at home. Graduates who earned a biliteracy seal were more likely than similar graduates who did not earn a seal to enroll in college within one year of high school graduation. Finally, among graduates who enrolled in college, graduates who earned a biliteracy seal were more likely than graduates who did not earn a seal to enroll in a four-year college and to enroll in college full time. The New Mexico Public Education Department and district leaders can use the findings to decide how to expand access to biliteracy seals. [For the Study Snapshot, see ED624244. For the appendixes, see ED624246.]

Building on a previous randomized experiment of the impact of Early Colleges (ECs) (Berger et al., 2013), this follow-up study assessed longer-term impacts of ECs on students' postsecondary outcomes 6 years after expected high school graduation. It also explored the extent to which students' high school experiences mediate EC impacts. Specifically, this study addressed three research questions: (1) Did EC students have better postsecondary outcomes (i.e., college enrollment and degree attainment) than control students? (2) Did the impacts of ECs vary by student background characteristics (i.e., gender, race/ethnicity, low-income status, and prior mathematics and English language arts [ELA] achievement)? and (3) Were the impacts of ECs mediated by students' high school experiences (i.e., college credit accrual during high school, instructional rigor, college-going culture, and student supports)? To answer these questions for the follow-up study, the authors analyzed 4 more years of postsecondary outcome data from the StudentTracker Service at the National Student Clearinghouse for students participating in the EC admission lotteries that were the basis of the previous impact study. They also analyzed data on student background characteristics from administrative records and data on high school experiences from a student survey administered in the previous impact study 5 or 6 years after students entered the ninth grade. [To view the earlier report, "Early College, Early Success: Early College High School Initiative Impact Study," see ED577243.]

Community colleges offer a pathway to the middle class for low-income individuals. Although access to college has expanded, graduation rates at community colleges remain low, especially for students who need developmental (remedial) courses to build their math, reading, or writing skills. The City University of New York's (CUNY's) Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP), launched in 2007, is an uncommonly comprehensive and long-term program designed to help more students graduate and help them graduate more quickly. This report presents results from a random assignment study of ASAP at three CUNY community colleges: Borough of Manhattan, Kingsborough, and LaGuardia. Low-income students who needed one or two developmental courses were randomly assigned either to a program group, who could participate in ASAP, or to a control group, who could receive the usual college services. Comparing the two groups' outcomes provides an estimate of ASAP's effects. Key findings from the report are included. The following are appended: (1) Additional Baseline Information; (2) MDRC Student Survey Documentation and Analyses; and (3) Additional Impact Tables. [See earlier CUNY's ASAP reports: "What Can a Multifaceted Program Do for Community College Students? Early Results from an Evaluation of Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) for Developmental Education Students" at ED532840 and "More Graduates: Two-Year Results from an Evaluation of Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) for Developmental Education Students" at ED546636.]

The summer after high school graduation is a largely unexamined stage of college access among underrepresented populations in higher education. Yet two recent studies revealed that anywhere from 10% to 40% of low-income students who have been accepted to college and signaled their intent to enroll reconsider where, and even whether, to matriculate in the months after graduation. This experimental study investigates the effect of providing college counseling to low-income students during the summer. We randomly assigned students at 7 innovative high schools to receive proactive outreach from high school counselors. The treatment focused on addressing financial and information barriers students faced. Results show that providing college counseling to low-income students during the summer months leads to substantial improvements in both the rate and quality of college enrollment. Students in the treatment group were 14 percentage points more likely to enroll immediately in college and 19 percentage points more likely to keep the postsecondary plans they developed during senior year. Policy recommendations include strategies for high schools and/or colleges to provide effective support during the post-high school summer. (Contains 2 tables and 17 footnotes.)

This study examines the causal impact of grade retention on high school attainment outcomes. We use administrative data on New York City public school students and a regression discontinuity design based on test score cutoffs used to determine retention eligibility. For students scoring at the test score cutoff, grade retention reduces average high school credit accumulation and the likelihood of taking math and English Regents exams. For middle grade students at the test score cutoff, we also find that retention increases dropout and reduces the likelihood of completing Regents exam graduation requirements. We also explore potential mechanisms and find that retention increases placement into special education and makes future retentions of these students less likely.

Community colleges and broad-access universities (those with minimally selective admissions policies) provide an opportunity for students across the United States to attain postsecondary degrees and economic mobility. However, graduation rates from such colleges are often low and there are many obstacles that can be difficult to overcome, especially for students who must balance work or family responsibilities, older students, students from low-income backgrounds, and students of color who face additional systemic barriers. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic introduced unprecedented challenges for college students, making the pursuit of higher education even more difficult. Since about 2000, researchers have been collecting evidence on what forms of support are effective in helping students earn their degrees. Evidence shows that interventions that include multiple program components that support students over several years are associated with larger impacts on student outcomes. Building on the existing body of research, MDRC designed and is evaluating the Scaling Up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS) program, a multifaceted student support program designed to effectively promote student success and be financially sustainable. SUCCESS combines evidence-based components, including coaches engaged in active outreach to students, monthly financial incentives for students who meet program requirements, strategies to encourage students to enroll full time, and a data-driven program management system. Starting in 2019, 13 colleges across five states (California, Indiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Ohio), along with their state higher education agencies, have worked with MDRC to customize and launch SUCCESS. Eleven of the 13 colleges are participating in the randomized controlled trial. A previous brief presenting early findings from the first study cohort illustrated that the SUCCESS program in the 2020-2021 academic year, as adapted for the context of the pandemic, had no discernible effect on students' academic progress. This report provides updated insight into the SUCCESS program after one year of participation for the first three evaluation student cohorts, covering fall 2020 through summer 2022. The main implementation finding from that time period is that the program implementation varied by college and term, and did not fully align with the SUCCESS model, largely due to the adaptations implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, students who were offered SUCCESS had a different college experience from students in the control group--they were more likely to be told about the importance of full-time enrollment and, on average, they had substantially more contact with their advisors or coaches. [The following organizations supported the SUCCESS demonstration: the Minnesota State System Office and the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services.]

Policymakers and practitioners are increasingly interested in students' deeper learning skills, or the interpersonal and intrapersonal skills students need to succeed in school, careers, and civic life. This article presents evidence about whether the concept of deeper learning--applied across a variety of approaches--has potential merit as a means for education improvement. The analysis, based on 16 high schools implementing a school-wide approach to promoting deeper learning within the context of small schools, indicates that students who attended schools focused on deeper learning reported greater opportunities for deeper learning, greater competency in some deeper learning domains, had higher rates of graduating from high school, and were more likely to enroll in 4-year colleges than similar students who attended comparison schools.

College education is fundamental to students' upward mobility, states' economic growth, and the country's economic competitiveness. Researchers have forecast that 63 percent of future jobs will require a college degree, yet in the coming years the United States will likely produce 3 million fewer college graduates than are needed to fill workforce demand. With these statistics and projections in mind, policymakers are placing greater emphasis on motivating high school students to attend college and on ensuring that students have the skills needed to succeed in college. Minnesota legislators, for example, have called on the public K-12 education system to motivate middle school students to attend college and to help high school students plan for college as a means of attaining their career aspirations. To better enable middle and high schools to increase college participation and success rates among their students, the University of Minnesota's College Readiness Consortium developed Ramp-Up to Readiness™ (Ramp-Up), a schoolwide advisory program to increase students' likelihood of college enrollment and completion by enhancing five dimensions of college readiness (academic, admissions, career, financial, and personal-social) among middle school and high school students. As of 2016, the program has been rolled out in 150 middle and high schools throughout Minnesota, but little information is available on the program's effectiveness. Members of the Midwest College and Career Success Research Alliance expressed an interest in learning how the program attempts to improve students' college readiness, how it differs from typical college-readiness supports in high schools, how it is implemented, whether schools meet the consortium's expectations for implementation, how school staff perceive the program, and whether the program has an immediate impact on student outcomes. Since 2012 Regional Educational Laboratory Midwest has worked with alliance members to answer these questions. This report describes a study of the impacts of the Ramp-Up program after one year of implementation and provides information on how Ramp-Up differs from college-related supports in other schools and the degree to which Ramp-Up has been implemented with fidelity. This study involved 49 public high schools serving grades 10-12 in Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Twenty-five of the 49 schools were randomly assigned to implement Ramp-Up during the 2014/15 academic year (Ramp-Up schools), and the other 24 schools were randomly assigned to continue with business as usual during 2014/15 and then implement Ramp-Up during 2015/16 (comparison schools). The final analytic sample was smaller than expected, which made it harder to detect program impacts. Data collected in fall 2014 and spring 2015 were used to examine the impact of the program after one year of implementation on students' scores on the ACT Engage goal striving and commitment to college scales along with their likelihood of completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid [FAFSA] and submitting at least one college application. The study also addressed questions about whether the types of college-readiness supports offered by Ramp-Up schools differed from those offered by comparison schools, whether staff in Ramp-Up schools engaged in more college-oriented activity, and whether Ramp-Up schools in 2014/15 were able to implement the program adequately by consortium standards. The study's main findings are: (1) After a single year of implementation, there were no statistically significant differences on self-reported goal striving or commitment to college scores or on likelihood of completing the FAFSA and submitting at least one college application between students in Ramp-Up schools and students in comparison schools; (2) Ramp-Up schools and comparison schools offered the same types of supplemental college-readiness supports; (3) Staff in Ramp-Up schools engaged in more college-readiness activity than did staff in comparison schools. Students in Ramp-Up schools perceived a greater emphasis among staff on two of the five dimensions of college readiness (admissions readiness and financial readiness) than did students in comparison schools; and (4) When averaged across program components, 96 percent of Ramp-Up schools' implementation scores fell within the range that the program developer classified in advance as adequate. However only 3 of the 25 (12 percent) Ramp-Up schools had adequate scores for all five of Ramp-Up's key components (structural supports, professional development, curriculum delivery, curriculum content, and postsecondary planning tools), suggesting that Ramp-Up schools need to improve implementation if they hope to produce the program's intended impacts. The following are appended: (1) Ramp-up program history; (2) Methods; and (3) Detailed results.

Project Lead the Way (PLTW) is an applied STEM program first introduced nearly three decades ago to enhance the STEM content of Career Technical Education (CTE). Currently, more than 12,000 US high schools offer the program. Using data from three cohorts of public high school freshmen in Missouri, we investigate the impact of PLTW program offer (ITT) and participation (TOT) on initial post-secondary outcomes. We use a difference-in-difference (DiD) analysis for ITT and a principal score adjusted DiD to estimate TOT. The parallel trends assumption is explicitly tested. We find positive ITT impacts on STEM major declaration among students with higher STEM preparation levels, and this outcome improved substantially for PLTW participants. Impacts on college enrollment are less conclusive.

Informational and behavioral barriers hinder social benefit take-up. We investigate the impact of mitigating these barriers through providing personalized information on benefits application status and application assistance on filing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the gateway to college financial aid. Through a multidistrict experiment, we assess the impact of this outreach, delivered via text message. This data-driven strategy improves FAFSA completion and college matriculation and potentially reduces the negative consequences of additional procedural hurdles such as FAFSA income verification, required of approximately one third of filers nationally.

Technology-facilitated interventions following high school graduation have shown promise for increasing the likelihood of college matriculation, but we know little about how to fine-tune these tools. I conducted an experiment in which college-intending Tennessee high school graduates received informational messages in distinct behavioral frames: business-as-usual, in which they received the same messages as the prior cohort; loss aversion, which emphasized what students would lose if they did not act; reduction of ambiguity, which provided details on necessary actions and anticipated completion times; and peer support, which encouraged students to work with friends on enrollment tasks. There was no main effect of the treatment frames. Heterogeneity analyses suggest that, at certain eligibility checkpoints, a loss aversion frame may negatively affect men and the peer support frame may negatively affect first-generation and Black participants. I situate the findings in the literature and recommend future directions for research on informational intervention delivery.

Competing in today's workforce increasingly requires earning a college degree, yet almost half of all enrolled undergraduates do not graduate. As the costs of dropping out of college continue to rise, instructor-student relationships may be a critical yet underexplored avenue for improving college student outcomes. The present study attempts to replicate and extend a prior study that improved teacher-student relationships at the high school level in a college setting. In this registered report, we test whether an intervention that highlights instructor-student commonalities improves similarity, instructor-student relationships, academic achievement, and persistence for undergraduate students in a large, diverse public university. We found that the intervention increased perceptions of similarity but not downstream relational or academic outcomes. Our exploratory analyses provide one of the first investigations suggesting that instructor-student relationships predict an array of consequential student outcomes in college. These findings show a notable relationship gap: instructors perceived less positive relationships with certain student groups, but on average, students perceived equally positive relationships with their instructors.

Integrated Planning and Advising for Student Success (iPASS) is an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support colleges seeking to incorporate technology into their advising and student services. In iPASS, such technology is intended to increase advising's emphasis on a student's entire college experience, enabling advisors to more easily: (1) intervene when students show early warning signs of academic and nonacademic challenges; (2) regularly follow up as students progress through college; (3) refer students to tutoring and other support services when needed; and (4) provide personalized guidance that reflects students' unique needs. MDRC and CCRC partnered with three institutions already implementing iPASS--California State University, Fresno; Montgomery County Community College; and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte--to study how technology can support advising redesign, employing a randomized controlled trial research design. The three institutions increased their emphasis on providing timely support, boosted their use of advising technologies, and used administrative and communication strategies to increase student contact with advisors. The enhancements generally produced only a modestly different experience for students in the program group compared with students in the control group, although at one college, the enhancements did substantially increase the number of students who had contact with an advisor. Consequently, it is not surprising that the enhancements have so far had no discernible positive effects on students' academic performance. Nonetheless, some staff members indicated in interviews that implementing and enhancing iPASS has enabled their institution to take steps toward a stronger system to support students and help them succeed.

Private school choice programs are rapidly gaining traction, with nearly 450,000 student participants in 2019--an increase of 300,000 students in just 15 years. This report evaluates how well some of these programs prepare students for college by examining college enrollment and completion data from the Florida Tax Credit scholarship program, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, and the Washington, DC, Opportunity Scholarship Program. Unlike previous research on private school choice, this body of work takes a long-term approach, focusing on college enrollment and graduation rates rather than student satisfaction and test scores. Over the past three years, this research has demonstrated that private school choice programs yield varying results on graduation rates, with positive outcomes for students in the Florida and Milwaukee programs and no statistically significant positive or negative outcome in DC. This report presents the most up-to-date data and proposes topics for future research that would better equip policymakers to make decisions. The updated data in this report show more consistent positive effects of Milwaukee's private school choice program, and the results in DC still show no significant effect, even as we broaden the sample to include more students. [Additional funding for this report was provided by the Bill and Susan Oberndorf Foundation and by Kate and Bill Duhamel.]

Pre-college advising programs exist in most disadvantaged high schools throughout the United States. These programs supplement traditional advising by high school guidance counselors and attempt to help underrepresented and disadvantaged students overcome the complexities of the postsecondary admission and financial aid processes. Existing evidence on these programs often uses within-school randomization where spillovers and alternative supports may confound estimates. We provide the first evidence on a whole school intervention resulting from a school-level randomized controlled trial in the United States. The college access program we study uses a near-peer model where a recent college graduate works at the school assisting students in the application and enrollment process. Pooled results across the first three years of program implementation find no significant impacts on overall college enrollment. However, subgroup analyses reveal positive, significant effects among the groups most targeted by the intervention: Hispanic and low-income students. Most of the impact comes through increasing two-year college enrollment, but this appears to be new entrants rather than inducing students to move from four-year to two-year colleges. The observed positive effects for these subgroups attenuate over time. We attribute this drop in the estimated impact to departures in fidelity of the experiment. Even among the cohorts for which we find positive enrollment impacts, we find no significant impacts on college persistence. [For the grantee submission, see ED594418.]

This report is an evaluation of the i3 development grant Think College Transition (TCT), an inclusive dual enrollment transition model to improve achievement and post-school outcomes for students with intellectual disabilities or autism (ID/A). The model offers an innovative approach to transition services for students with intellectual disabilities and autism by providing participation in inclusive academic and social environments of a college campus with same-aged peers rather than continuing to receive transition services in typical high school environments. This evaluation examined the impact of TCT services on the job-seeking skills, career readiness, self-determination, college self-efficacy, and employment of ID/A youth. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare baseline and end-of-the year data on outcome variables from students with ID/A participating in the TCT model at three institutes of higher education in Massachusetts with students with ID/A participating in business-as-usual transition services through their school districts. The fidelity with which the TCT model was implemented at the intervention sites was also evaluated. Results from the evaluation found that, after controlling for student baseline scores, the TCT model had a significant effect on students' scores of self-determination after one year of participation. This is one of the first quantitative studies to examine college-based transition programs using a rigorous research design. Future research will need to be conducted to learn what TCT model components specifically affect self-determination and what other long-term effects participation in the TCT model might have. [Additional financial support for this research was provided by the Peter and Elizabeth C. Tower Foundation.]

Florida enacted legislation in 2008 for a statewide program known as the Florida College and Career Readiness Initiative (FCCRI), which was intended to reduce the need for postsecondary remediation. The FCCRI consisted of testing grade 11 students to determine their college readiness and offering math and English college readiness and success (CRS) courses in grade 12 for students who did not test college-ready the year before. The theory of action for the FCCRI is that providing college readiness testing and CRS courses in high school may raise students' awareness of their academic deficiencies and motivate them to further develop college-level skills in their senior year. We found considerable variation across districts and schools in the initiative's implementation and level of compliance with state requirements for participation. We estimated program impacts using two different methods. First, we used a regression discontinuity design to compare outcomes for students scoring just above and below test score cutoffs for assignment to the FCCRI. Among the two cohorts of students required to participate in the FCCRI, we found little to no impact on short-term outcomes including high school graduation, college enrollment, and enrolling in or passing non-developmental courses. There is little evidence for improved enrollment or pass rates in for-credit coursework among the highest- and lowest-performing targeted students. However, enrollment and pass rates in transition and degree credit courses were similar for students on the margins of assignment to college readiness courses in either subject, indicating that students just below college-ready were able to "catch up" by the time they enrolled in college. There were also few differences between marginal targeted and non-targeted students on longer-term outcomes including persistence, transfer, non-developmental enrollment and pass, and degree completion rates. Second, we examined the impact of offering the FCCRI to students from a wider range of academic performance levels by using regression analysis to compare student outcomes for targeted students in schools before and after the schools implemented the FCCRI. As with the regression discontinuity analyses, we found little to no effect of the FCCRI on most short-term student outcomes. We did find that the treatment group was more likely to both take and pass nondevelopmental courses in math and English. Although the average effects were small, the magnitudes of these effects were quite large for some portions of the achievement distribution, with impacts of up to 10.7 percentage points for the treatment group. Finally, we estimated the cost for the FCCRI's ongoing implementation at $57 per targeted student in 2014/15, with about 63 percent of per-student program costs incurred at the school level ($36), 33 percent at the district level ($19), and 3 percent at the state level ($2). We also found that while net costs exceeded benefits for the FCCRI as a whole, program impacts and costs varied both within and between districts.

As originally conceptualized, Early Colleges were small schools focused purposefully on college readiness for all students. Frequently located on college campuses, Early Colleges targeted students who might face challenges in postsecondary education, including students who were the first in their family to go to college, economically disadvantaged students, English Language Learners (ELL), or students who are members of racial or ethnic groups underrepresented in college. The Early College Expansion Partnership (ECEP) is among the first large-scale effort to apply Early College strategies into comprehensive high schools. Supported by a $15 million grant from U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) program, the ECEP was designed to increase the number of students graduating from high school prepared for enrollment and success in postsecondary education. The project sought to blend high school and college by applying strategies from the successful Early College high school model to 14 middle schools, 12 high schools, and two 6th-12th-grade schools in three districts in two states: Colorado and Texas. ECEP implemented an adapted version of the Early College High School Model. The program provided a set of services that supported implementation of a whole-school reform model emphasizing the creation of a college-preparatory school environment. A primary emphasis of the program was increasing the number of students who participated in college-credit-bearing courses while in high school. This report describes the approach used to assess student impacts and to track changes over time; uses survey and site visit data to describe key changes that have been made at the district and school levels; presents the impact estimates for the core student-level outcomes; places the findings in context and discusses the broader implications of this work; and summarizes the overall findings. [For the companion report, "Implementation Supports of the Early College Expansion Partnership," see ED618696.]

The purpose of this study is to describe and examine the structures and policies a public, comprehensive high school put in place to implement problem-based learning (PBL) across content areas. Starting in 2010, the school implemented PBL in the hopes of increasing students' career and college readiness skills. The research took place at a comprehensive, public high school in the Pacific Northwest that serves a racially, ethnically, linguistically, and learning ability-diverse population of students. In this mixed-methods study we share findings describing the impacts of PBL adoption on teacher learning, student learning, and students' career and college readiness. Qualitative data was collected during the 2010-2015 school years. To describe how the school implemented PBL pedagogy, we take a grounded theory approach to qualitative data collection including collection and analysis of teacher and school leader interviews, teacher focus groups, classroom observations, and document review. Quantitative data was collected from the 2002-2015 school years and was part of several exploratory studies meant to examine possible changes in student performance and changes in their career and college readiness using student achievement on Advanced Placement (AP) tests over time as our primary tool of measurement. We compare the mean AP scores of two groups of students, matched according to grade point average (GPA), free and reduced lunch (FRL) status, whether or not students speak a first language other than English at home, and students who qualify for Special Education accommodations (SWD). The first group of students (comparison group) attended the school for at least 3 years before PBL adoption and received no exposure to PBL curriculum or coursework. The second group of students (treatment group) attended the school for at least 3 years during and after the school had adopted PBL and received full exposure to PBL curriculum and coursework. Qualitative findings indicate that between 2010-2015, teachers gained and deepened their expertise in PBL pedagogy and principles in part due to redesigned professional learning experiences provided to teachers during that time. Quantitative findings indicate that students in the treatment group experienced gains on AP scores across multiple AP courses in all four core content areas. Notably, student gains on AP scores were statistically significant in AP Biology, AP Calculus (combined BC and BCAB), AP Chemistry, AP United States Government, AP Psychology, AP United States History, and AP World History. Students in the treatment group also experienced gains in AP pass rates overall that paralleled higher enrollment in AP coursework and increased numbers of AP tests takers. Lastly, the data suggest a strong correlation between the number of PBL courses students complete and an increase in mean AP scores throughout their high school career. While student gains in mean AP scores are encouraging and suggest PBL may augment student performance in AP coursework, more research is needed to further explore this relationship. Our data suggest that PBL-focused school transformation necessitates a long-term, school-wide, inside-out approach. Appendices include: (1) Implementing PBL Classroom Observation Protocol; (2) Key Element Classroom Observation Protocol; and (3) Levels of Use (LOU) Teacher Interview Protocol. (Contains 40 Tables and 39 Charts).

The Expository Reading and Writing Course (ERWC) was developed by California State University (CSU) faculty and high school educators to improve the academic literacy of high school seniors, thereby reducing the need for students to enroll in remedial English courses upon entering college. This report, produced by Innovation Studies at WestEd, presents the findings of an independent evaluation of the ERWC funded by an Investing in Innovation (i3) development grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The study sample for the evaluation included more than 5,000 12th grade students in 24 high schools across nine California school districts in the 2013/14 school year. The authors of the report found that the ERWC has a statistically significant positive impact on student achievement. Results from an analysis of implementation fidelity are also presented, along with qualitative findings based on survey data from study participants. Appendixes include: (1) Statistical Power for Impact Estimates; (2) Data Collection Instruments to Measure Fidelity of Implementation; and (3) Rubric for Calculating Fidelity of Implementation for Each Component of the Expository Reading and Writing Course.