This is the final report of a large-scale independent evaluation of the Building Assets and Reducing Risks (BARR) model in ninth grade in eleven high schools in Maine, California, Minnesota, Kentucky, and Texas. This sample of schools included large and small schools in urban, suburban, and rural areas, serving students from a wide range of…

The Building Assets, Reducing Risks (BARR) model is a comprehensive, strength-based approach to education that aims to improve achievement for all students by improving a school's effectiveness at building relationships, leveraging real-time student data, and capitalizing on the strengths of each student. The U.S. Department of Education's…

This study examined the effects of Reading Intervention for Adolescents, a 2-year extensive reading intervention targeting current and former English learners identified as struggling readers based on their performance on the state accountability assessment. Students who enrolled at three participating urban high schools were randomly assigned to…

The authors investigated the impact of a manualized high school transition program, the Peer Group Connection (PGC) program, on the graduation rate at a low-income, Mid-Atlantic high school. The program utilized 12th-grade student peer leaders to create a supportive environment for incoming ninth-grade students. Results of a randomized control…

Background/Context: Billions of dollars are spent annually on professional development (PD) for educators, yet few randomized controlled trials (RCT) have demonstrated the ultimate impact PD has on student learning. Further, while policymakers and others speak to the role schools should play in developing students' civic awareness, RCTs of PD…

American Institutes for Research (AIR) conducted an evaluation of the effect on struggling readers of implementing the READ 180 reading intervention in five participating schools in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) under a Striving Readers grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The evaluation used an experimental design in order to produce a…

This research is part of a larger, IES-funded study titled: "Measuring the Efficacy and Student Achievement of Research-based Instructional Materials in High School Multidisciplinary Science" (Award # R305K060142). The larger study seeks to use a cluster-randomized trial design, with schools as the unit of assignment, to make causal…

The Illinois Striving Readers (ISR) Project had two purposes: (1) implement a supplemental reading intervention for students in ninth grade who were reading below grade level; and (2) study the impact of the intervention on students' performance on standardized assessments using a randomized control trial design. The Illinois Striving Readers…