| Title: | Toward Reduced Poverty Across Generations: Early Findings From New York City’s Conditional Cash Transfer Program |
| Description: | The WWC quick review of the report "Toward Reduced Poverty Across Generations: Early Findings From New York City's Conditional Cash Transfer Program" reviews a study that examined whether offering low-income families cash rewards for engaging in activities related to children's education, family preventive health care, and parental employment improves family and child outcomes. This quick review focuses specifically on the effects of the Opportunity NYC-Family Rewards program on children's core educational outcomes. The study covered the first two years of this ongoing project and followed more than 9,000 K-12th-graders. The study measured the effect of the Family Rewards program by comparing educational outcomes of students whose families were randomly assigned to participate in the program with students whose families were not given the opportunity to participate. Study authors reported that, of the more than 50 attendance and test-score outcomes examined for elementary and middle school students, the only statistically significant finding was a 2.9 percentage-point difference favoring the Family Rewards group in the percentage of K-5 students who were proficient on the state math test in Year 2 of the study. Of the more than 20 attendance and credit-accumulation outcomes examined for high school students, the study reported statistically significant positive effects of the program on outcomes in two categories: having an attendance rate of 95% or higher and attempting 11 or more credits. However, there were no program effects on the overall attendance rate or total number of credits earned. Of the more than 50 Regents exam outcomes examined, only six were statistically significant and suggest an increase in the number of students attempting and passing Regents exams. There were no significant effects on the four graduation outcomes examined. The WWC rated the research described in this report as meets WWC evidence standards but offers a word of caution to readers that study authors examined a large number of outcomes for a number of age groups and different points in time. Estimating such a large number of effects increases the possibility that some may be found to be statistically significant by chance. The authors did not adjust for this possibility when reporting the statistical significance of individual effects. |
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| Cover Date: | September 2010 |
| Web Release: | September 29, 2010 |
| Publication #: | WWC QRNYC0929 |
| Center/Program: | WWC |
| Associated Centers: | NCEE |
| Authors: | WWC |
| Type of Product: | Quick Review |
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