One of the most wideranging reforms in public education in the last decade has been the reorganization of large comprehensive high schools into small schools with roughly 100 students per grade. We use assignment lotteries embedded in New York City's high school match to estimate the effects of attendance at a new small high school on student…

Taking advantage of lottery-like features in New York City's high school admissions process, previous MDRC reports have provided rigorous evidence that new small public high schools are narrowing the educational attainment gap and markedly improving high school graduation prospects, particularly for disadvantaged students. The new findings in this…

The Early College High School (ECHS) initiative developed in response to calls to significantly decrease the number of first-generation college and underserved students of color and from poverty who are high school dropouts or marginally graduates (i.e., ill prepared for college). The ECHS model is different from other educational reforms in that…

This report presents Year One (2010-11) school level achievement and attendance outcomes and case study findings from fall 2011 that focused on school leadership and instruction. Thirteen schools were included in the first year of Philadelphia's Renaissance Schools Initiative (2010-11). Of these schools: (1) Four K-8 schools were…

It is widely accepted that postsecondary education has become a necessity for US youth. College access, however, has been found not to be equal for all. As a result, federally funded college-readiness programs, such as Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP), have been established to increase the numbers of…

Despite national calls to conceptualize education as a continuous P-16 system, most high schools cease to serve their students at the point of graduation. For their part, colleges provide relatively few students with formal bridge programs during the summer transition between secondary and postsecondary education. Even among low-income students…

This report describes the effects of Project Graduation Really Achieves Dreams (GRAD) on student progress at three high schools in Houston (the initiative's original site) and at high schools in two other school districts (Columbus, Ohio, and Atlanta, Georgia). MDRC--a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization--conducted a third-party…

The Quantum Opportunities Project (QOP) was a multisite youth development demonstration project funded by the Ford Foundation in San Antonio (Texas), Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), Milwaukee (Wisconsin), Saginaw (Michigan), and Oklahoma City (Oklahoma). The programs, organized around educational activities, guaranteed up to 250 hours of education,…

A case study of a large nonselective urban high school in Baltimore (Maryland) describes the design and implementation of a comprehensive package of school reforms, the Talent Development Model with Career Academies. Qualitative and quantitative evidence is provided on significant improvements in school climate, student attendance, promotion…