Diplomas Now is a partnership of three national organizations--Talent Development Secondary, City Year, and Communities In Schools--collaborating in an effort to transform urban secondary schools so that fewer students drop out and more graduate ready for postsecondary education and work. With the goal of a continuous system of support through…

This paper describes a series of school-based randomized trials in over 250 urban schools designed to test the impact of financial incentives on student achievement. In stark contrast to simple economic models, our results suggest that student incentives increase achievement when the rewards are given for inputs to the educational production…

Using a cluster randomized trial design, we evaluated the persistence of effects of a research-based model for scaling up educational interventions. The model was implemented in 42 schools in two city districts serving low-resource communities, randomly assigned to three conditions. In pre-kindergarten, the two experimental interventions were…

With funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, CRESST conducted a multi-year evaluation of a major school reform project at Alain Leroy Locke High School, historically one of California's lowest performing secondary schools. Beginning in 2007, Locke High School transitioned into a set of smaller, Green Dot Charter High Schools,…

The Talent Development Middle School model was created to make a difference in struggling urban middle schools. The model is part of a trend in school improvement strategies whereby whole-school reform projects aim to improve performance and attendance outcomes for students through the use of major changes in both the organizational structure and…