To estimate the long-term effects of the Reading Recovery® intervention, a regression discontinuity design (RD) was implemented in a randomly selected sample of Reading Recovery schools during each year of the federally-funded i3 Scale-Up external evaluation (2011-2015) and also in one additional cohort during the 2016-17 school year. Long-term…

Social-emotional learning (SEL) and character education are important components of adolescent development. In this study, we evaluated a randomized controlled trial of CharacterStrong, a curriculum that combines SEL and character education that included 1609 students and 242 teachers across 14 schools. This study applied baseline target…

The purpose of this study was to understand the impact, implementation and costs associated with a one-semester elective lab course in 9th grade, Accelerating Literacy for Adolescents (ALFA) Lab, which seeks to improve students' reading achievement, particularly for those from economically disadvantaged communities. This study used three cohorts…

In 2015, Abt Associates received a grant from the Institutes for Education Sciences (IES) for a five-year "Development and Innovation" study of PTC. The purposes of the study were to gauge progress in implementing PTC and to develop and test improvements where needed. Fein et al. (2020) summarize the IES study's approach and findings. A…

The purpose of this study was to report on the effects of a comprehensive set of postsecondary grant aid programs on outcomes from initial college enrollment to post-college employment, based on a systematic review of the literature from January 2002 to January 2020. Studies that used randomized-controlled trials, regression discontinuity designs,…

In the effort to improve student outcomes, teachers are usually the focus of professional development efforts. However, research increasingly demonstrates the significance of administrators in influencing student outcomes, raising questions about how they too should be involved in such programs. The study involved interviews conducted with 12…

This paper reports the outcomes of an experimental evaluation of "Direct Instruction Spoken English (DISE)," an English language curriculum that focuses on developing English speaking, listening, and comprehension skills in English Learners (ELs). Twenty-nine middle schools in three states were randomly assigned to teach "DISE"…

Student-teacher relationships are important to student outcomes and may be especially pivotal at the high school transition and for minoritized racial/ethnic groups. Although interventions exist to improve student-teacher relationships, none have been shown to be effective among high school students or in narrowing racial/ethnic disparities in…

Six percent of children in the United States enter foster care by age 18. We estimate the effects of foster care on children's outcomes by exploiting the quasi-random assignment of child welfare investigators in Michigan. We find that foster care improved children's safety and educational outcomes. Gains emerged after children exited the foster…

This study examines the impacts of two distinct types of school spending on student outcomes. State-imposed revenue limits cap the total amount of revenue that a school district in Wisconsin can raise unless the district holds a referendum asking voters to exceed the cap. Importantly, Wisconsin law requires districts to hold separate referenda for…

Card and Krueger (1992a,b) used labor market outcomes to study the productivity of school spending. Following their lead, we examine effects of post-1990 school finance reforms on students' educational attainment and labor market outcomes. Using a state-by-cohort panel design, we find that reforms increased high school completion and…

Previous research has shown that providing video recommendations to students in virtual learning environments implemented at scale positively affects student achievement. However, it is also critical to evaluate whether the treatment effects are heterogeneous, and whether they depend on contextual variables such as disadvantaged student status and…

Using a two-stage, matched design, we found dual enrollment students enrolled in college within one year of their expected high school graduation at higher rates than control students who did not take college classes in high school (OR = 3.06). For students that matriculated within one year after high school, compared to control, treatment…

Powell, Berry, et al. (in press) conducted a randomized control trial assessing the effects of two variants of word-problem intervention with third graders (n = 304) experiencing mathematics difficulty. Students were assigned to a business-as-usual condition (BaU) or one of two variants of word-problem intervention. One variant included a…

Credit recovery programs are a form of alternative learning in which students have an additional opportunity to gain credit, or pass, a previously failed class by retaking the course, either in full or with key standards. Although little scientific research exists regarding the effectiveness of credit recovery, in addition to the short- and…