This report measures trends in performance among urban schools receiving federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) awards as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). The Council of the Great City Schools aims to document how member districts of the Council of the Great City Schools implemented SIG and specifically what effects the program had on student test scores and school "holding power"--the ability of high schools to move students through the system on a timely basis. Finally, based on interviews with district and school-based staff in several case study districts, common characteristics of successful and unsuccessful implementation of the SIG program in Council schools and districts are identified and described. Results of the analysis across states for grades three through eight in both math and reading indicate that the gaps in the percentages of students scoring at or above Proficient on state assessments between SIG-award schools and the two comparison groups (SIG-eligible schools that did not receive grants and non-SIG-eligible schools) appear to have narrowed steadily over the first two years of the grants, and then leveled off in the third year. The findings suggest that SIG-award schools also reduced the percentage of students in the lowest proficiency levels on state assessments. In many respects, this measure could be considered the most relevant assessment of the impact of the SIG investment, as more than one out of every three students in SIG-award schools were classified in the lowest performance level on state assessments. The following are appended: (1) Reading and Math School Means for at or above Proficient and Below Basic by District; and (2) High School Enrollment Trends by District.