We report on an effectiveness evaluation of the Youth Empowerment Solutions (YES) program. YES applies empowerment theory to an after-school program for middle school students. YES is an active learning curriculum designed to help youth gain confidence in themselves, think critically about their community, and work with adults to create positive…

The Pittsburgh Promise is a scholarship program that provides $5,000 per year toward college tuition for public high school graduates in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who earned a 2.5 GPA and a 90% attendance record. This study used a difference-in-difference design to assess whether the introduction of the Promise scholarship program directly…

In July 2008, Riverbend Public Schools (RPS) in Western Michigan and Grand Valley State University (GVSU) received a grant from the Wallace Foundation that supported the development of a specialized educational leadership program. The project was designed to customize an existing degree program in the university's College of Education, focusing on…

Grand Valley State University (GVSU) in conjunction with the Grand Rapids Michigan Public Schools (GRPS) collaborated to implement a Wallace Foundation Grant Program designed to develop urban school leaders. The theoretical constructs of the program were evident in the research on leadership and change. This research formed a basis for the…

On November 10, 2005, then Superintendent of the Kalamazoo Public School System, Janice Brown announced--to the surprise of Kalamazoo's residents--the beginning of the Kalamazoo Promise. Fully funded by a set of anonymous donors, the Kalamazoo Promise is an urban revitalization program that offers up to four years of free tuition to any public…

The Kalamazoo Promise was announced in the fall of 2005, offering free college tuition at any public state college or university for graduates of the district who have gained acceptance to a postsecondary institution. This program was funded through the generous support of anonymous donors, and a federally-funded evaluation is underway to examine…

Two schools in Michigan received ARRA SIG (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act School Improvement Grants) funds to enable them to implement their improvement efforts. This paper describes the outcomes of these two ARRA SIG recipient schools: (1) Phoenix Elementary-Middle School; and (2) Arthur Hill High School. The experiences of these…

This two-part report comprises a description of an urban school improvement project in Michigan and the final evaluation report of the project. The Project for Secondary School Improvement was a 3-year program designed to assist secondary schools in 19 Michigan districts in implementing improvement models based on the research on effective schools…

The 1987-88 Saginaw (Michigan) Prekindergarten Program, funded under the Education Consolidation Improvement Act Chapter 1, served 479 children at 13 elementary schools, and attained ten (62.5 percent) of its 16 achievement objectives. A list of the objectives is included in Appendix A. The program is designed to prepare inner-city 4-year-olds…

The Michigan Department of Education implemented a large-scale social action program through its Compensatory Education School Aid Act of SY 1971-72. Schools received $200 per pupil and were held accountable for pupil achievement. This paper describes the educational delivery systems in three urban schools, the evaluation of pupil achievement, and…

The purpose of the Neighborhood Education Center (NEC) Project, funded under Title III of the 1965 Elementary Secondary Education Act, is to significantly raise academic achievement in the areas of language arts and computational skills. The NEC encompasses four elementary schools in Region 8 of the Detroit Public Schools system. This region…

The School District of the City of Saginaw, Michigan operates a compensatory education delivery system in reading and mathematics consisting of two programs, elementary and secondary Academic Achievement (A2). The goal of the programs is to improve the reading and mathematics achievement of a designated number of educationally disadvantaged…

The 1987-88 school year was the ninth year that students in the State Bilingual and Migrant programs were assessed in reading and mathematics using a norm referenced test. This is the second year that the new California Achievement Test (CAT) Form E, normed in the Spring of 1985, has been used for program evaluation purposes. The locally adopted…

The School District of the City of Saginaw, Michigan operates a compensatory education delivery system in reading and mathematics consisting of two programs, elementary and secondary Academic Achievement (A2). The program was designed to provide direct instruction to some 2,613 students in grades one through nine. The goal of A2 was to improve the…

The State Bilingual Education program, the Local Bilingual program, and the Migrant Education program are designed to meet the needs of bilingual and migrant students in the School District of the City of Saginaw, Michigan. Instruction consisted primarily of one hour of supplemental reading and mathematics. Students in grades 7-12 also received…