Disruptive behavior (DB) negatively affects the learning process in various ways, interfering with the educational process of individual students, the teacher, and/or the class as a whole. Group contingency interventions, such as the Good Behavior Game (GBG), are often used classwide to provide teachers with evidence-based management strategies…

We provide theory and evidence about how the design of college financial aid programs affects a variety of high school, college, and life outcomes. The evidence comes from an eight-year randomized trial where 2,587 high school ninth graders received a $12,000 merit-based grant offer. During high school, the program increased their college…

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…

Students who fail algebra are significantly less likely to graduate on time, and algebra failure rates are consistently high in urban districts. Identifying effective credit recovery strategies is critical for getting students back on track. Online courses are now widely used for credit recovery, yet there is no rigorous evidence about the…

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 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 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…

Students' beliefs that success in science depends on exceptional talent negatively impact their motivation to learn. For example, such beliefs have been shown to be a major factor steering students away from taking science and math courses in high school and college. In the present study, we tested a novel story-based instruction that models how…

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…

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…

In 2002, New York City embarked on an ambitious and wide-ranging series of education reforms. At the heart of its high school reforms were three interrelated changes: the institution of a district wide high school choice process for all rising ninth-graders, the closure of 31 large, failing high schools with an average graduation rate of 40…

Early college high schools are a new and rapidly spreading model that merges the high school and college experiences and that is designed to increase the number of students who graduate from high school and enroll and succeed in postsecondary education. This article presents results from a federally funded experimental study of the impact of the…

The Building Assets Reducing Risks (BARR) Model BARR is a comprehensive model that addresses the challenges that are part of the 9th grade transition year. BARR employs eight different school-wide and individual strategies that are built on positive relationships and ongoing monitoring of student data. In 2010, BARR received an Investing in…

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 Striving Readers evaluation examined the impact of a targeted intervention for struggling adolescent readers in participating schools. This study was conducted in nine high schools in nine school districts serving large percentages of at-risk students in Kentucky. The targeted intervention for struggling readers was the Kentucky Cognitive…