What the Evidence Says
Here we present Summaries and Synthesis of the evidence base for high school improvement and Significant Individual Studies on key redesign and improvement practices. We organize the evidence base into four key drivers of student outcomes that schools can directly influence and impact.
- Organizing Adults
- Putting Students-at-the-Center (Student Supports)
- Teaching & Learning
- Universal Postsecondary Options
We also show the evidence base for comprehensive efforts which provide blueprints and guidance for implementing all four of the key drivers.
- Whole-School Improvement Efforts
Featured Resource
Early Warning Systems Video Training Series
The Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University School of Education produced an eight-part Early Warning Systems video training series in partnership with the New Mexico Public Education Department, and the High Plains Regional Education Cooperative. The series focuses on developing and monitoring effective systems and interventions for students at risk of dropping out.
The eight-part series includes:
- Overview of an Early Warning System (Video 1)
- Building a Data Culture (Video 2)
- Linking Indicators to a Tiered Intervention System (Video 3)
- Planning for Your School or District (Video 4)
- Getting Started (Video 5)
- Lessons Learned (Video 6)
- Intervention Review & Data Gap Analysis (Video 7)
- Introducing Early Warning System to School Faculty & Staff (Video 8)
The videos, materials, and activities are designed to assist school teams in designing and implementing an Early Warning System. Visit the video series home page.
Knowledge Modules
XQ’s Knowledge Modules offer a mix of cutting-edge academic research and inspiration to help anyone think boldly about both the possibilities and the realities of rethinking high school.
The XQ Knowledge Modules. The modules, organized into three categories
- Discovery
- Design
- Develop
Survey on High School Strategies Designed to Help At-Risk Students Graduate
The U.S. Department of Education sponsored the National Survey on High School Strategies Designed to Help At-Risk Students Graduate and collected data in the 2014-2015 school year from a nationally representative sample of 2,142 public high schools. The resulting data provided approximately 13 specific, evidence-based high school improvement strategies designed to improve the likelihood of high school graduation for at-risk students. Read More. . .
Organizing Adults
How the adults are organized in a school building is a foundational driver of school outcomes.
If the daily interactions of teachers, administrators, partners, parents AND students – leave them more satisfied, more productive, more supported, more connected and more engaged, evidence shows that the school will achieve greater success.
The evidence is clear, there are better and worse ways to organize the adults in high schools to achieve these ends.
The Organizing Adults section highlights the evidence base for key actions schools can take to improve school outcomes through better organization of how adults do their work, interact with other adults and students, make decisions, and engage in improvement efforts.
The resources are arranged among the following categories:
- Teacher Teams
- Distributed Leadership
- Leadership, Development, and Support
- Building Relationships and Trust
- Data-Driven Decision Making (Follow the Evidence)
- Whole School Organizations
- Continuous Improvement Processes
One of the CSHSC’s goals is to provide a network to share resources and experiences with educators dedicated to improving the high school experience for all students.
Have a resource to share? Please share any useful resource, tool, website, etc. that you found helpful during your redesign.
Have a story to tell? Please share any experience, anecdote, cautionary tale you encountered during your redesign.
Teacher Teams
AudioCast
Teacher Teams is an audiocast cohosted by Dr. Robert Balfanz, Director of the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University and Linda Muskauski, Knowledge Development Director at the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University. The pair discuss how teacher teams serve as the building blocks for high school redesign initiatives.
Distributed Leadership
Fostering the Capacity for Distributed Leadership: A Post-Heroic Approach to Leading School Improvement this article examines the specific practices of six high school principals who fostered the leadership capacities of 18 other leaders in their respective schools. Our findings illustrate the key steps these principals undertook in identifying potential leaders, creating leadership opportunities for them, facilitating their role transitions and providing them with continuous support.
Department-Head Leadership for School Improvement this review of research was prompted by the widespread belief
that at least in a significant number of secondary schools, department heads are an underutilized, if not untapped, source of instructional leadership, the type of leadership critical to secondary-school improvement initiatives.
Examining Integrated Leadership Systems in High Schools: connecting principal and teacher leadership to organizational processes and student outcomes this study examines how leadership pathways are related in the context of high schools and compare findings to research in elementary schools.
The Relationship Between Distributed Leadership and Teachers’ Academic Optimism The goal of this study was to examine the relationship between four patterns of distributed leadership and a modified version of a variable Hoy et al. have labeled “teachers’ academic optimism.” The distributed leadership patterns reflect the extent to which the performance of leadership functions is consciously aligned across the sources of leadership, and the degree to which the approach is either planned or spontaneous.
Download the Study (PDF)
Read the Abstract
Leadership, Development, and Support
Global Best Practices: An Internationally Benchmarked Self-Assessment Tool for Secondary Learning created by the Research Summary as prepared by the New England Secondary School Consortium.
Click to Download (PDF)
Click to View Web-based Version (Adobe Presenter)
School Organizational Contexts, Teacher Turnover, and Student Achievement: Evidence From Panel Data by Matthew A. Kraft, Brown Univeristy; William H. Marinell; and Darrick Shen-Wei Yee, Harvard University studies the relationship between school organizational contexts, teacher turnover, and student achievement in New York City (NYC) middle schools.
Building Relationships and Trust
School Organizational Contexts, Teacher Turnover, and Student Achievement: Evidence From Panel Data by Matthew A. Kraft, Brown Univeristy; William H. Marinell; and Darrick Shen-Wei Yee, Harvard University studies the relationship between school organizational contexts, teacher turnover, and student achievement in New York City (NYC) middle schools.
Data-Driven Decision Making (Follow the Evidence)
Design and Data in Balance: Using Data-Driven Decision Making to Enable Student Success to gain a better understanding of the dynamic between data and design, the New Visions data team took a closer look at schools that have used thoughtful approaches to achieve impressive results. This study describes how teachers and school leaders at the High School of Telecommunication Arts and Technology (familiarly known as Telly) used data and design to strengthen programming for students in grades 9 and 10, thereby improving outcomes for all students.
Improvement Research Carried Out Through Networked Communities: Accelerating Learning about Practices that Support More Productive Student Mindsets this paper from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching discusses the function of networked communities engaged in improvement research and illustrates the application of these ideas in promoting greater student success in community colleges.
Whole School Organizations to Support Evidence-Based Redesign
Ninth-Grade Academies, Career Academies,
Early College etc.
A Better 9th Grade: Early Results from an Experimental Study of the Early College High School Model Funded through a federal grant from the Institute of Education Sciences, this five-year study is the first to rigorously examine the impact of the early college high school model.
Early College, Continued Success: Early College High School Initiative Impact Study This study from the American Institutes for Research (AIR) focuses on the impact of Early Colleges. It addressed two questions: 1. Do Early College students have better outcomes than they would have had at other high schools? 2. Does the impact of Early Colleges vary by student background characteristics (e.g.,
gender and family income)?
Opportunity by Design: New High School Models for Student Success produced by the Carnegie Corporation of New York examines while it is important to graduate from high school, high school is not an end in itself, but rather preparation for college as well as life-long learning. It is one part of the path that leads students towards their ultimate potential in any of endeavor as well as in personal satisfaction in their lives. To reach these goals, students deserve the best possible education that we can provide.
Global Best Practices: An Internationally Benchmarked Self-Assessment Tool for Secondary Learning created by the Research Summary as prepared by the New England Secondary School Consortium.
Click to Download (PDF)
Click to View Web-based Version (Adobe Presenter)
Small High Schools and Student Achievement: Lottery-Based Evidence from New York City One of the most wide-ranging 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 achievement.
Click to Download Report (PDF)
Students at the Center
“Students at the Center” examines the evidence-based research that highlights core principles to consider when redesigning high school experiences to increase:
- Student motivation
- Engagement
- Active participation in their learning
As you design, think about how to keep students at the center of their educational experiences. Student apathy, lack of motivation, and non-productive behaviors are factors which limit learning and underlie teacher stress and burnout. The longer students are in school, the less hopeful they become regarding their educational experiences. This has resulted in higher rates of student and teacher absenteeism, higher rates of student suspension and less learning ultimately.
A shift can occur that places students at the center when redesigning schools, which aligns students’ interest with teachers and administrators desired outcomes. This section presents what the evidence-based says about how to produce this change of ideas and practices within schools, as well as how to keep all students on track to school success.
The resources below are divided into five actions schools can do to reach these goals.
- Positive Developmental Relationships with Adults
- Building Hope, Purpose, and Agency
- Safe and Trusting School Climates
- Student Voice
- Early Warning and Multi-Tiered Student Response Systems and Community Support
Podcast:
School Mission & Culture
Michele Cahill hosts a discussion with experts about how a school’s mission and culture defines the student experience. Featuring: Ronald Chaluisan Vice President, New Visions for Public Schools Tanya Ennis Early Teacher, Denver School of Science and Technology JoEllen Lynch Executive Director, Springpoint Schools.
Positive Developmental Relationships
with Adults
Relationships First: Creating Connections that Help Young People Thrive “It’s all about relationships.” That statement has become a cliché, whether the focus is on parenting, mentoring, teaching, coaching, raising money for a cause, getting a job, or finding a partner. And the cliché has research behind it: We’ve known for decades that high-quality relationships are essential to young people’s growth, learning, and thriving—including for those young people who face serious challenges in their lives and in the world around them.
The Role of Risk: Mentoring Experiences and Outcomes for Youth with Varying Risk Profiles presents findings from the first large-scale study to examine how the levels and types of risk youth face may influence their relationships with program-assigned mentors and the benefits they derive from these relationships. Carla Herrera, David L. DuBois, Jean Baldwin Grossman.
School-Based Mentoring Programs: Using Volunteers to Improve the Academic Outcomes of Underserved Students the overarching aim of this paper is to enrich the field’s understanding of how volunteer mentors can best support the academic mission of schools. Amanda Bayer, Swarthmore College; Jean Grossman, Princeton University; and David DuBois, University of Illinois at Chicago.
Building Hope, Purpose, and Agency
Going to school is optional: Schools need to engage students to increase their lifetime opportunities is a report featured on the Brookings website by authors Jing Liu, Doctoral student, Economics of Education – Stanford Graduate School of Education and Susanna Loeb, Nonresident Senior Fellow – Economic Studies, Center on Children and Families.
Click to Read the Report Online
Reducing socioeconomic disparities in the STEM pipeline through student emotion regulation Increasing access to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields can create career opportunities. Yet many students, especially those from lower-income backgrounds, find the high-stakes exams in courses necessary for STEM success to be stressful and anxiety provoking. Critically, emotion regulation interventions cut in half the course failure rate for lower-income students. Formany students, success is based on more than STEM knowledge—their ability to regulate emotions is important too.
Safe and Trusting School Climates
WWC Intervention Report: My Teaching Partner–Secondary by the Institute of Education Sciences is a professional development program that aims to increase student learning and development through improved teacher–student interactions.
Download the Report (PDF)
The Association Between Student Reports of Classmates’ Disruptive Behavior and Student Achievement this study examines the relation between student reports regarding disciplinary infractions to student achievement, with a special focus on classroom disruptions.
Download the Report (PDF)
Student Trust in Teachers and Student Perceptions of Safety this study examined the effects of student trust in teacher and student perceptions of safety on identification with school. Data was collected from one large urban district in an eastern state.
Download the Report (PDF)
Too Scared to Learn? The Academic Consequences of Feeling Unsafe in the Classroom using a unique panel data set of survey responses from New York City middle school students, this article provides insight into the relationship between feelings of safety in the classroom and academic achievement.
Download the Report (PDF)
Authoritative School Climate and High School Student Risk Behavior this study tested the hypothesis that an authoritative school climate characterized by strict but fair discipline and supportive teacher–student relationships is conducive to lower risk behavior for high school students.
Download the Report (PDF)
Student Voice
Teen Voices: What We Really Need from Schools To get some insider perspectives for this issue, Educational Leadership editors reached out to several teens across the country, inviting them to tell us about their school experiences and what their biggest challenges are. We asked them: What do you most need from your school, your teachers, your community? Read what they said.
The Significance of High School Practices on Students’ Four-Year College Enrollment from the Research Alliance for New York City Schools outlines there are two major challenges facing both research and policy related to accountability for postsecondary outcomes. First, we know relatively little about the conditions under which students are successful in getting college and career ready. Second, we do not yet know in the New York City context to what extent school-level differences in college-going rates are the function of compositional differences.
Strategies for Improving School Culture from the Research Alliance for New York City Schools educators reflections on transforming the high school experience for Black and Latino young men.
Video: Student Voices
A group of urban high school students from Baltimore, MD work together in four groups to design a 21st Century high school.
Early Warning and Multi-Tiered Student Response Systems and Community Support
Preventing Dropout in Secondary Schools This report was prepared for the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences.
The Predictive Power of Ninth-Grade GPA high schools in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) emphasize the importance of freshman year, specifically the need for students to earn passing grades. There are two important aspects of this focus: its emphasis on freshman year, and its targeting of grades rather than test scores. A large body of research supports this approach. Much of the research has been conducted in Chicago, but has also been widely replicated across the country.
A National and Across-State Profile on Adverse Childhood Experiences Among U.S. Children and Possibilities to Heal and Thrive Issue Brief this issue brief offers hope and a way forward so that all children and their families can attain optimal physical, social, and emotional development and well-being.
Download the Report (PDF)
Meeting the Challenge of Combating Chronic Absenteeism from the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University School of Education examines the extent and nature of chronic absenteeism in New York City in schools with above‐average rates of chronic absenteeism which were the focus of the task force’s efforts. It investigates the impact of entering and exiting chronic absenteeism on academic outcomes. Finally, it examines the impact of the task force’s chronic absenteeism prevention and intervention programs on reducing chronic absenteeism and increasing school attendance – and what that means for other cities.
Diplomas Now: Findings from the First Decade and What’s Next examines how an evidence-based, collaborative, whole-school improvement model, leveraging its partners, members and early warning systems can accelerate student and school success in the highest-need schools.
Lessons Learned in Massachusetts High School Turnaround a resource for high school leaders produced by Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the American Institutes for Research.
Falling Off Track During the Transition to High School: What We Know and What Can Be Done by Ruth Curran Neild examines four theories about why ninth grade poses difficulties for some students.
Not Too Late: Improving Academic Outcomes for Disadvantaged Youth from the Institute for Policy Research reports on a randomized controlled trial of a school-based intervention that provides disadvantaged youth with intensive individualized academic instruction.
Teaching & Learning
These resources are organized into seven key domains. Each of these may require substantial changes in teacher practice and preparation, and as such, it will be important to give considerable thought on how best to stage and sequence these actions and build the necessary teacher, leader, and student capacities in supportive and achievable manners. The resources in this section include articles, papers, and solid research-based practices used to promote practical and intellectual contributions to the enhancement of teaching and learning.
The seven evidence-based key domains:
- Creating Challenging & Caring Classrooms
- Using the Learning Sciences
- PLCs and Instructional Coaching
- Aligned Standards, Instruction, & Assessments
- Using Formative Assessments to Tailor Instruction and Supports
- Integrating Social, Emotional, and Academic Development
- Developing Cultural Competencies
Featured Resource
The Surprisingly Powerful Influence of Drawing on Memory is a report that explores whether drawing to-be-learned information enhanced memory and found it to be a reliable, replicable means of boosting performance.
If They Think, “I can”: Teacher bias and youth of color expectations and achievement this article examines one key social actor that plays a prominent role in the formation of student expectations and academic achievement is the classroom teacher. Scholars argue that teacher support, in the form of beliefs about students’ academic abilities, is crucial.
Podcast:
School Mission & Culture
Michele Cahill hosts a discussion with experts about how to build equity into 21st century learning environments. Featuring: Arva Rice President and CEO of the New York Urban League Sonja Santelises Vice President for K-12 Policy and Practice at the Education Trust Uri Treisman Professor of Mathematics and Director of the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas, Austin.
Podcast:
Technology & Learning
Michele Cahill hosts a conversation with experts on how to use technology as a learning asset. Featuring: Nichole Pinkard Professor at DePaul University and Founder of the Digital Youth Network Mary Ryerse Director of Strategic Design at Getting Smart Monica Martinez Former President of the New Tech Network and Co-Author of Deeper Learning.
Creating Challenging & Caring Classrooms
Free to Fail or On-track to College these studies suggest that increasing the challenge (rigor) of high school curriculum is unlikely to improve student achievement without concurrent improvements in teachers’ abilities around classroom management and academic support; asking students to do more challenging work can have both beneficial and adverse effects, depending on elements of the classroom instructional environment.
The Influence of Teaching Beyond Standardized Test Scores: Engagement, Mindsets, and Agency comissioned by the Raikes Foundation, the Achievement Gap Initiative (AGI) at Harvard Universtiy conducted over 300,000 Tripod surveys across 16,000 sixth and ninth grade classrooms offers an unparalleled opportunity to learn from what’s working in teachers’ classrooms.
What Matters for Staying On-Track and Graduation in Chicago Public High Schools a report prepared by CCSR which looks closely at students’ performance in their coursework during their freshman year, how it is related to eventual graduation, and how personal and school factors contribute to success or failure in freshman-year courses.
Project-Based Learning A Literature Review The concept of project-based learning (PBL) has garnered wide support among a number of K-12 education policy advocates and funders. This working paper published by MDRC builds on and updates a seminal literature review of PBL published in 2000.
Using the Learning Sciences
The 10 Biggest Breakthroughs in the Science of Learning, originally published by OnlinePHDPrograms.com, shares the 10 most significant breakthroughs that recent research has made on the science of learning, providing valuable insights on how to make the best use of your brain without wasting energy.
Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology improving educational outcomes will require efforts on many fronts, but a central premise of this monograph is that one part of a solution involves helping students to better regulate their learning through the use of effective learning techniques. Produced by the Association for Psychological Science.
Learning and Memory Under Stress: Implications for the Classroom Research over the past two decades identified stress and the hormones and neurotransmitters released during and after a stressful event as major modulators of human learning and memory processes, with critical implications for educational contexts. Taking these insights from psychology and neuroscience into account could bear the potential to facilitate processes of education for both students and teachers. Published by the Nature Partner Journals in partnership with the University of Queensland.
PLC’s and Instructional Coaching (content, instructional moves, classroom environment and behavior)
Peer Coaching that Works: The Power of Reflection and Feedback in Teacher Triad Teams this report from McRel International examines that teachers, like all professionals, should continuously grow and learn by developing new knowledge, skills, and abilities that benefit their students academically, we do not believe that a deficit-based approach to coaching is the way to get there.
The Effects of Coaching on English Teachers’ Reading Instruction Practices and Adolescent Students’ Reading Comprehension this report published in April, 2018 examines that although the use of literacy coaches is becoming more common, few research studies have shown positive effects of coaching on teacher practices and student achievement. In the current study, a cluster randomized design was used to evaluate usefulness of coaches for teachers of struggling high school students. High schools were randomly assigned across three experimental conditions: professional development workshops, workshops with written lesson materials, and workshops with lesson materials and coaching. Participants in this three-year study included 130 ninth-grade teachers and 3,160 ninth grade students. Recommended literacy practices included teacher modeling, student team discussions, and self-selected reading. Findings indicated that coaching improved teachers’ use and quality of recommended literacy practices and increased student reading achievement over the period of a year.
Effective Teacher Professional Development A 2017 research brief from the Learning Policy Institute reporting on teacher professional learning is of increasing interest as one way to support the increasingly complex skills students need to succeed in the 21st century.
Aligned Standards, Instruction, & Assessments
Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively from the Institute of Education Sciences offers educators specific, evidence-based recommendations that address the challenges of teaching students in grades 6–12 to write effectively. This guide synthesizes the best publicly available research and shares practices that are supported by evi-dence. It is intended to be practical and easy for teachers to use.
Global Best Practices: An Internationally Benchmarked Self-Assessment Tool for Secondary Learning was created by the New England Secondary School Consortium to equip high schools with a clearly articulated, step-by-step process they can follow to identify existing issues or needs, and to shape school-improvement plans and priorities.
Download the Report Summary (PDF)
Download the Web-based Version
The Surprisingly Powerful Influence of Drawing on Memory is a report that explores whether drawing to-be-learned information enhanced memory and found it to be a reliable, replicable means of boosting performance.
If They Think, “I can”: Teacher bias and youth of color expectations and achievement this article examines one key social actor that plays a prominent role in the formation of student expectations and academic achievement is the classroom teacher. Scholars argue that teacher support, in the form of beliefs about students’ academic abilities, is crucial.
Using Formative Assessments to Tailor Instruction and Supports
Using Data and Formative Assessment to Drive Instruction from Research for Better Teaching Empowering Sustainable School Improvement.
The Students in Front of US: Reform for the Current Generation of Urban High School Students Jefferson County Public Schools high school educators implemented Project Proficiency (PP). Results from state-administered mathematics tests demonstrated that all participating schools reported substantial increases in student proficiency. We examined the impact of PP on the performance of students, who met dropout predictive criteria established by Balfanz, Herzog, and MacIver. Study results suggested that PP students at risk of dropout realized meaningful and statistically significant achievement gains.
Integrating Social, Emotional, and
Academic Development
The Evidence Base for How We Learn Supporting Students’ Social, Emotional, and Academic Development by the National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development The Aspen Institute. A 20 page report that shows compelling research demonstrates what parents have always known—the success of young people in school and beyond is inextricably linked to healthy social and emotional development.
Download the Report (PDF)
Read the Full Report Online (PDF)
Supporting the Whole Teacher from The Aspen Institute highlights the need for teacher preparation and professional learning to both build teachers’ own social and emotional competence and prepare teachers to foster these skills in their students. The case study cites key examples of programs supporting teachers in this work including RULER, an evidence-based program that trains teachers on how to model the social and emotional behaviors they want to see in their students, and the Center for Reaching and Teaching the Whole Child, which works with teacher preparation programs to help integrate teacher and student social and emotional competencies into their classes.
Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis human development derives from the continuous interaction between the individual and the context of each individual’s relationships and experiences. Development is shaped by a convergence of individual, biological, contextual, cultural, and historical factors.
What Do Test Scores Miss? The Importance of Teacher Effects on Non-Test Score Outcomes issued by Northwestern University Institute for Policy Research. The paper extends the traditional test-score value-added model of teacher quality to allow for the possibility that teachers affect a variety of student outcomes through their effects on both students’ cognitive and noncognitive skill.
Social-Emotional Learning Programs for Adolescents by David S. Yeager and The Future of Children poses the questions, do SEL programs work for adolescents? If so, how well and under what conditions? And how can they be improved? The article reviews these questions and SEL programs that try to help adolescents cope with their difficulties more successfully by improving skills and mindsets, and they try to create respectful school environments that young people want to be a part of by changing the school’s climate.
WWC Intervention Report: My Teaching Partner–Secondary by the Institute of Education Sciences is a professional development program that aims to increase student learning and development through improved teacher–student interactions.
Developing Cultural Competencies
Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis human development derives from the continuous interaction between the individual and the context of each individual’s relationships and experiences. Development is shaped by a convergence of individual, biological, contextual, cultural, and historical factors.
Rehumanizing the “Other”: Race, Culture, and Identity in Education Research in this excerpt from Review of Research in Education March 2016, Vol. 40, the authors examine the trajectory of the literature on race, culture, and identity in education research through the past century. The authors also explore the body of education research—from the mid 20th century to today—focused on the relationship between cultural and racial identities and students’ experiences with schooling. They close with a vision for the next era of research on this critical topic.
Supporting English Learners and Students with Disabilities strategies From Turnaround Schools in Massachusetts.
Postsecondary Options
Postsecondary pathways presents the evidence and research base which identify core principles to consider when redesigning the high school experience to enable all students to graduate with a strong and supported pathway to postsecondary success. As you design pathways they should reflect high school as a beginning and not an ending.
The evidence indicates that the core principals are:
- Provide universal access and use of postsecondary preparations and guidance supports
- Keep students’ options open
- Keep the choice of which pathway with students and their families
- Collaborate beyond the school walls with families, employers, community partners and postsecondary education providers
Summaries & Synthesis
WWC Intervention Report: Career Academies this report by the Institute of Education Sciences focuses on Career Academies with a school-within-a-school structure. Each academy has a career theme, such as health care, finance, technology, communications, and public service.
Download the Report (PDF)
WWC Intervention Report: Dual Enrollment in the five studies that meet WWC group design standards, students were able to accumulate college credits either through a dual enrollment program or an early college high school program. Report issued by the Institute of Education Sciences.
Download the Report (PDF)
New Pathways to Careers and College Examples, Evidence, and Prospects is an April, 2015 report MDRC which describes some of the most prominent CTE (career-technical education) “pathway” models.
Download the Report (PDF)
Apprenticeships and Internships
Urban Alliance commissioned the Urban Institute to conduct a six-year, randomized controlled trial impact and process evaluation of its High School Internship Program. A first report (Theodos et al. 2014) provided a process analysis of the program and baseline information about Urban Alliance and the youth participating in its High School Internship Program in Washington, DC, and Baltimore in the 2011–12 and 2012–13 program years. A second report (Theodos, Pergamit, Hanson, et al. 2016) shared interim impact findings. This report describes final impact findings.
Download the Report (PDF)
High School Redesign/Improvement Components
Access & Equity in Linked Learning a report issued by Linked Learning on pathway access and academic outcomes for traditionally under-served students.
Taking Stock of the California Linked Learning District Initiative the Executive Summary from the Seventh-Year Evaluation Report prepared by the James Irvine Foundation in November, 2016.
Taking Stock of the California Linked Learning District Initiative the complete Seventh-Year Evaluation Report prepared by the James Irvine Foundation in November, 2016.
Career Academies from MDRC examines the evidence of career academies and their long-term impacts on the labor market outcomes, educational attainment, and transitions to adulthood.
Linking the Timing of Career and Technical Education Coursetaking With High School Dropout and College-Going Behavior from the American Educational Research Journal reports that CTE course taking in high school was linked to lower chances of dropout and increased chances of on-time graduation, especially when these courses were taken later in high school. Download the Report (PDF)
Comprehensive Evidence-based Improvement Efforts
Addressing Early Warning Indicators: Interim Impact Findings from the Investing in Innovation (i3) Evaluation of Diplomas Now from MDRC and ICF International which conducted an independent, experimental evaluation of 62 secondary schools in 11 school districts on the impact and implementation of Diplomas Now.
ISA Outcome Evaluation This report summarizes key findings from Academy for Educational Development’s external evaluation of the Institute for Student Achievement (ISA). The six-year evaluation investigated the following key questions: 1) What are the outcomes for ISA students in terms of high school and college achievement?, and 2), How do outcomes for ISA students compare with those of similar students in non-ISA schools?
Early College, Continued Success: Early College High School Initiative Impact Study This study from the American Institutes for Research (AIR) focuses on the impact of Early Colleges. It addressed two questions: 1. Do Early College students have better outcomes than they would have had at other high schools? 2. Does the impact of Early Colleges vary by student background characteristics (e.g., gender and family income)?
Diplomas Now: Findings from the First Decade and What’s Next examines how an evidence-based, collaborative, whole-school improvement model, leveraging its partners, members and early warning systems can accelerate student and school success in the highest-need schools.
Download the Report (PDF)
Making Progress Toward Graduation: Evidence from the Talent Development Secondary Model from MDRC demonstrates how Talent Development Secondary, which targets some of the most troubled schools in the country, seeks to raise the expectations of teachers and students, with the ultimate goal of preparing all students for post secondary education and employment.
Download the Report (PDF)
Sustained Positive Effects on Graduation Rates: Produced by New York City’s Small Public High Schools of Choice from MDRC Between fall 2002 and fall 2008, New York City undertook a district-wide high school reform that is perhaps unprecedented in its scope, scale, and pace. The school district closed 23 large failing high schools (with graduation rates below 45 percent),1 opened 216 new small high schools (with different missions, structures, and student selection criteria), and implemented a centralized high school admissions process that assigns over 90 percent of the roughly 80,000 incoming ninth-graders each year based on their school preferences.
Download the Report (PDF)
Headed to College: The Effects of New York City’s Small High Schools of Choice on Postsecondary Enrollment Since 2010, MDRC has released three research reports on the New York City Department of Education’s multi-year initiative to create small public high schools that are open to any student who wants to attend. This brief adds evidence from a fourth cohort on high school graduation and presents MDRC’s first results with respect to these schools’ effects on postsecondary enrollment.
Download the Report (PDF)
Small High Schools and Student Achievement: Lottery-Based Evidence from New York City This detailed report shows results of more than 150 unselective small high schools created between 2002 and 2008 have enhanced autonomy, but operate within-district with traditional public school teachers, principals, and collectively-bargained work rules. Lottery estimates show positive score gains in mathematics, English, science, and history, more credit accumulation, and higher graduation rates.
Download the Report (PDF)