Podcasts about mdrc

Since MDRC's founding more than 50 years ago, evidence-building and data-driven technical assistance (TA) have been a crucial part of its work. MDRC is now launching a comprehensive and innovative approach to TA, to ensure that effective service strategies reach more people and improve lives. MDRC's approach to technical assistance leverages the organization's years of on-the-ground experience to help nonprofits and government agencies build new evidence, use existing evidence, and harness data to advance their goals. The approach centers on technical assistance informed by data and evidence, underscored by empathy, curiosity, humility, and respect for the views of participants and program staff. In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with John Martinez, MDRC's first Vice President for Evidence to Practice. The two dive into the history of technical assistance at MDRC (fun fact: MDRC's TA predates its randomized controlled trials!) and then explore the new Evidence to Practice initiative and what sets MDRC's TA apart.

Sectoral training programs have emerged as a promising driver of economic mobility for people with low incomes. These programs prepare people for quality jobs in specific industries where there's strong employer demand and an opportunity for career advancement. Studies find that sectoral programs can meaningfully improve participants' earnings, yet not all programs have the support they need to apply the best research evidence to improve their services.   In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with three guests: Jessa Valentine, Deputy Director of Learning and Impact at Ascendium Education Group, a collaborator and funder of MDRC's work;  Frieda Molina, Director of the MDRC's Economic Mobility, Housing, and Communities Policy Area; and Kelsey Schaberg, MDRC Research Associate. They discuss exciting initiatives like the Economic Mobility Lab at MDRC and the Sector Training Evidence-Building Project — efforts that aim to understand the most important components of sectoral programs and address some of the challenges these programs face.

Postsecondary education is a crucial factor in achieving economic mobility. However, graduation rates at community colleges remain low, particularly for students from low-income families.   One effort to help students graduate and succeed in the workforce is MDRC's Scaling Up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS), a comprehensive student support program supported by 15 years of MDRC's postsecondary research. Through its Expanding SUCCESS Initiative, MDRC is partnering with states and districts to scale the SUCCESS program to new locations and campuses   In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with Elena Serna-Wallender, Senior Evidence to Practice Associate at MDRC, and Emily Dow, Assistant Secretary of Academic Affairs at the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC). They discuss how MHEC and MDRC are working together to support institutions implementing these supports in Maryland.

Sector-based training programs prepare people for jobs in specific industries where there is strong local demand and an opportunity for career advancement. Several models for technology jobs have been found to be effective in improving long-term earnings for workers with low incomes. But for many people, the programs are too expensive and too far from home.  With support from the $100-million Google Career Certificates Fund, Social Finance is leading an initiative that will allow training providers to better support 20,000 learners in getting industry-recognized certificates that can lead to better wages.   The providers combine Google Career Certificates, which offer online instruction in sector-specific skills, and outcomes-based loans, in which learners are only required to pay for training and related costs if they find jobs above a certain income threshold. Learners also receive supportive services, such as living stipends or childcare assistance, and career-related guidance.  MDRC's study will examine how training providers make use of online training courses and financing, how learners experience the programs, and how learners fare in the labor market.  In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with Edith Yang, project director and Senior Research Associate at MDRC, about the initiative and the research questions MDRC is hoping to answer.

Every year, courts across the United States impose millions of dollars in fines, fees, and restitution charges on people for traffic violations, misdemeanors, and felonies. In theory, these assessments are intended to punish and deter unlawful behavior, compensate victims for financial losses, and raise money for the justice system. However, they don't often accomplish those goals; instead, research suggests they erode community trust in law enforcement and saddle community members with debt many will never be able to pay.   The Center for Criminal Justice Research at MDRC partnered with the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, Alabama's Tenth Judicial Circuit Court, and the Center for Court Innovation on the Jefferson County Equitable Fines and Fees Project (Project JEFF) to better understand the impact that court debts have on citizens of Jefferson County, Alabama.   In this episode, Leigh Parise is joined by Sarah Picard, the Director of the Center for Criminal Justice Research at MDRC, and Leah Nelson, the then-Research Director at Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, to discuss some of the early findings of Project JEFF. The pair introduce the history of fines and fees, share the perspectives of those who are assessed court fines or fees; and describe the disproportionate impact of court debt across racial groups in Jefferson County. 

Both college-going and college completion rates are far lower in rural areas than in other geographical settings. To learn what works to help rural students enroll in and complete college, MDRC, supported by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), has launched the National Rural Higher Education Research Center. The center will work with college systems to conduct eight research studies in two regions: the South and the Mountain West.    In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with Alyssa Ratledge, research associate at MDRC, about the research questions the Center will address in response to the needs of rural practitioners and policymakers. 

Today, Hunter is joined once again by Leah Nelson, and this time, she is joined by Judge Stepehen Wallace. On today's episode, Leah and Judge Wallace are her to unveil their years long research into the fines and fees that the Jefferson County, Alabama Courts are extracting from criminal defendants. As will surprise no one who listens to the show, the fines and fees program fails the accused, fails victims, fails to fund the legal system, and thus, fails the entire state of Alabama.   Guests: Leah Nelson, Co-Founder, Jefferson County Equitable Fines and Fees Project, Alabama Stepehen Wallace, Circuit Judge, Jefferson County, Birmingham, Alabama   Resources: Coverage of Aug. 2024 Releases https://aldailynews.com/court-fee-system-inefficient-discriminatory-research-finds/ https://aldailynews.com/column-crime-and-garnishment/ https://aldailynews.com/capitol-journal-september-13-2024/   Oct. 2024 paper with IBM https://krvarshney.github.io/pubs/LaraYejasJMNSTNBV_aies2024.pdf   Aug. 2024 with MDRC https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/JeffCoFines%26Fees_Brief_FInal.pdf   Background reading on-- Brookside (the Ferguson of Alabama): https://www.al.com/bankingoncrime/ Alabama tax policy and how the Alabama constitution encourages reliance on fines and fees: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/27/opinion/alabama-fines-fees.html     Contact Hunter Parnell:                                 Publicdefenseless@gmail.com  Instagram @PublicDefenselessPodcast Twitter                                                                 @PDefenselessPod www.publicdefenseless.com  Subscribe to the Patron www.patreon.com/PublicDefenselessPodcast  Donate on PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=5KW7WMJWEXTAJ Donate on Stripe https://donate.stripe.com/7sI01tb2v3dwaM8cMN Trying to find a specific part of an episode? Use this link to search transcripts of every episode of the show! https://app.reduct.video/o/eca54fbf9f/p/d543070e6a/share/c34e85194394723d4131/home  

Many states and school districts are eager to expand high-dosage tutoring programs, a proven way to accelerate student learning by providing personalized instruction in small group settings several times a week. But there are challenges to getting these programs successfully off the ground, like recruiting tutors in a tight labor market, fitting sessions into already packed school days, and ensuring consistent student participation.    To help practitioners address these challenges, the University of Chicago's Education Lab and MDRC launched the Personalized Learning Initiative (PLI) in 2021. PLI is supporting and studying the expansion of high-dosage tutoring programs in school districts across the country.     In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with Barbara Condliffe, a senior research associate at MDRC, who's leading the implementation research on PLI, about the early lessons from the project.

Developmental education, also known as remedial education, refers to courses that some entering college students will have to take if they are deemed unprepared for college-level courses. However, studies have shown that developmental education can actually hinder students' progress in college. Additionally, students of color, adults, first-generation students, and those from low-income backgrounds are disproportionately placed in developmental education programs, so there's a lot of interest among policymakers, college practitioners, and researchers in reforming developmental education programs to address these challenges and support more equitable outcomes for students. As part of MDRC's 50th anniversary celebration, this episode of Evidence First features MDRC's longtime partner the Community College Research Center, or CCRC. In 2014, MDRC and CCRC launched the Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness, or CAPR, to research the effectiveness of developmental education reforms and to understand their implications for equity. In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with Nikki Edgecombe, a senior research scholar at CCRC who leads CAPR, and Michael Weiss, a senior fellow in postsecondary education at MDRC, about what has been learned about promoting equity in developmental education reform.

This EP features Steve Mesler.  Steve is a 3-time Olympian and Olympic gold medalist, Board Director, co-founder, and CEO of Classroom Champions. As the world's foremost sport-for-education organization, Classroom Champions supports academic, social, and emotional student well-being through the mentorship and mindsets of world-class athletes. Steve's Olympic gold medal-winning team was the first for the USA in the 4-man bobsled in 62 years. In 2011, Steve founded Classroom Champions with his sister Dr. Leigh Parise, the Director of Program Development at MDRC. Over the past twelve years, the organization has grown into an international and award-winning non-profit that provides K-8 SEL curriculum and corresponding mentorship from Olympians, Paralympians, Pro and NCAA athletes. Steve recently reached his term limit for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee Board of Directors. A persistent public speaker and writer, Steve's bi-weekly newsletter for leaders focuses on finding improvements and places to get better in life, health, and work. Steve has been inducted into the Hall of Fame of multiple organizations including USA Bobsled, Jewish Sports, University of Florida (CHHP), and Buffalo Sports. Steve and his sister were awarded the second highest civilian award, the Meritorious Service Medal, from the Canadian Government for their work in supporting Canadian communities. Please enjoy this amazing conversation. If you liked this EP, please take the time to rate and comment, share with a friend, and connect with us on social channels IG @Kingopain, TW @BuiltbyScott, LI+FB Scott Livingston. You can find all things LYM at www.LYMLab.com, download your free Life Lab Starter Kit today and get busy living https://lymlab.com/free-lym-lab-starter/Please take the time to visit and connect with our sponsors, they are an essential part of our success:www.VALD.com

Sector-focused employment programs aim to improve the economic mobility of people with low incomes by training them for quality jobs in sectors that have strong local demand and opportunities for advancement. By partnering with local employers, these programs provide them with a skilled and able workforce.    As part of MDRC's 50th anniversary celebration, this episode of Evidence First features MDRC's longtime partner Per Scholas, a leading national nonprofit offering training and employment services focused on specific employment sectors. MDRC's evaluation has confirmed that Per Scholas offers a highly effective training model.   Leigh Parise talks with Tamara Johnson, Chief of Staff at Per Scholas; Shondra Tobler, Senior Director of National Admissions at Per Scholas; and Donna Wharton-Fields, a senior fellow at MDRC. They discuss MDRC's long-term research partnership aimed at helping Per Scholas improve its program and expand its reach.

Recorded live at SXSW EDU, this episode features three experts who are digging into AI's impacts on education and work: Riddhima Mishra, research director at Learning Collider; Edith Yang, senior associate at MDRC; and Debbie Wasden, senior vice president at the Burning Glass Institute. Paul Fain talks with the three panelists about research questions they're exploring, including how AI is reshaping jobs and what that means for educators. The conversation encompasses K-12, higher education, and the workforce, with a focus on how to ensure that lower-income learners aren't left behind. Subscribe to The Cusp wherever you get your podcasts. And check out Work Shift and The Job newsletter for agenda-free, sophisticated reporting on connections between education and work.

As the cost of higher education climbs, skills-based hiring has gained traction. It's a labor market trend in which employers hire based on applicants' skills, with the understanding that degrees are not the only way to acquire competencies.   In a follow-up to an earlier episode on skills-based hiring, Rachel Rosen, who leads MDRC's Center for Effective Career and Technical Education, speaks with two guests: Kelli-Marie Vallieres, Connecticut's Chief Workforce Officer who leads the state's Office of Workforce Strategy, and Elizabeth Creamer, Vice President of Workforce Development for the Community College Workforce Alliance, which is the workforce development division of Brightpoint and Reynolds community colleges, within the Virginia Community College System.   They discuss which sectors are experiencing an uptick in skills-based hiring in Connecticut, what non-degree programs are offered in Virginia, and whether skills-based hiring can promote equity.

Most pre-K classrooms use a whole-child approach to educational curricula, which focuses on the broad development of children's academic skills. By contrast, domain-specific curricula focus more on specific areas of learning, such as math, literacy, or science. MDRC has partnered with the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) to implement a new domain-specific curriculum in its schools. In this episode, Leigh Parise speaks with Cheryl Ohlson, DCPS deputy chief of early childhood education, and Michelle Maier, MDRC senior associate, to outline their domain-specific curriculum strategy and to explain some of the ups and downs of their ongoing implementation in pre-K programs across Washington, DC. They explain how domain-specific curricula intersects with other important trends in pre-K education, including the importance of play and of providing developmentally appropriate instruction. Ohlson also discusses how teachers were trained to teach domain-specific curricula and addresses some of the challenges of implementing the initiative at scale.

Host Jeremy C. Park talks with Jared Barnett, CEO of Slingshot Memphis, and John Martinez, Vice President and Director of Program Development with MDRC, who each share some background on their organization and the importance of collaborating for MemWorks to identify the root causes of employment roadblocks for Memphis experiencing poverty so evidence-based solutions can be implemented to enable pathways to economic mobility.During the interview, Jared and John provide an update on the insights after concluding the initial round of data research. They discuss five of the ten most significant Roadblocks MemWorks has identified, including insufficient math and literacy proficiency impeding entry to and success in technical training, the lack of resources and support that allow seemingly insignificant factors to derail the completion of career and technical education programs, and limited coordination within and between systems making accessing workforce services unmanageable.Jared and John highlight how MemWorks is moving into the primary research phase where Slingshot Memphis and MDRC will work with local organizations who serve in these areas every day and will verify findings against the lived experience of Memphians. They also shares some of the solutions that are being explored and how the community can support their efforts with MemWorks.Visit www.memworks.org to learn more about MemWorks. Visit www.slingshotmemphis.org to learn more about Slingshot Memphis. Visit www.mdrc.org to learn more about MDRC.

Many schools are expanding tutoring services and personalized instruction to address learning loss caused by the pandemic. This episode features Reading Partners, a successful national nonprofit that mobilizes community volunteers to provide one-on-one tutoring to students who struggle with reading in under-resourced elementary schools. MDRC has been working with Reading Partners for nearly 15 years to help document and improve the program's effectiveness. MDRC's rigorous evaluation of Reading Partners found that its program boosted three different measures of reading proficiency, including reading comprehension, for second- to fifth-graders.   In the first episode of a series celebrating MDRC's 50th anniversary and our longtime collaborators, join Leigh Parise as she talks with Dean Elson, Chief Knowledge Officer at Reading Partners, and Robin Jacob, a Research Professor at Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan and Co-Director of the Youth Policy Lab. Jacob helped lead MDRC's evaluation of Reading Partners and is currently studying their distance learning model, Reading Partners Connects. Elson and Jacob discuss MDRC's study of Reading Partners, how to get volunteers to teach reading effectively, and how technology will continue to play a role in tutoring.

Montana 10 is a scholarship program offered by the Montana University System that offers wraparound academic, social, and financial supports to students from rural areas, first-generation college students, and Native American students. MDRC is partnering with the Montana University System on an evaluation of Montana 10.. In this episode, Leigh Parise speaks with Crystine Miller, Director of Student Affairs and Student Engagement in the Montana University System, and Alyssa Ratledge, a Research Associate in Postsecondary Education at MDRC, about the Montana 10 evaluation and its potential value to the field of higher education research. The pair describes the unique challenges of conducting an evaluation in a mostly rural higher education system. They also highlight what questions the evaluation is hoping to answer about rural students. For example, does the choice between returning to one's hometown after graduating and moving away to pursue employment carry a special weight for students from rural backgrounds? To learn more about the Montana 10 project and some of the barriers facing rural students in postsecondary education, check out this recent commentary by Ratledge in The Hechinger Report.

There has been an increased interest in multiple measures in the last few years. In this podcast, Dan Cullinan of MDRC speaks with CCA Assistant Vice President Brandon Protas about what this really means, particularly for placement into college-level courses and as part of developmental education reform.

In 2014, three Ohio colleges set out to adapt a student support model pioneered by the City University of New York called Accelerated Study in Associate Programs, or ASAP. The program requires students to attend college full time and provides them with support services for three years, including enhanced advising, financial aid, and career counseling. MDRC'S evaluation of the ASAP Ohio program has found that it doubled graduation rates for community college students after three years. With support from Arnold Ventures, MDRC recently released exciting long-term findings, showing that ASAP Ohio not only boosted attainment of associate's and bachelor's degrees after six years but also increased the earnings of students. In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with Christine Brongniart, the University Executive Director of CUNY ASAP, and Colleen Sommo, a senior research fellow in MDRC's Postsecondary Education policy area, to learn more about the CUNY ASAP model, its replication across the country, and the latest findings from MDRC's study of the program in Ohio.

Nondegree credentials are typically certificates or licenses earned in a short period of time that confer some kind of professional or industry-recognized skill. They're not new to the world of higher education, but they have received a lot of attention in the last few years as a “faster ” way to connect students to employment in comparison to earning a traditional college degree.   Leigh Parise sits down with Paul Fain, a higher education journalist who writes an education and workforce newsletter called “The Job,” and Betsy Tessler, a senior research associate at MDRC, to answer some of the big questions surrounding nondegree credentials.

We all have two basic needs as human beings.  One is to be authentic, to live our lives in a manner that reflects our true selves.   The other human need is to be accepted within a community.  When these two need conflict, when the community to which we belong does not accept our authentic self, the most common reaction is to "mask" that part of our identity that puts us at risk of being excluded from our association with other community members.  The MDRC mission is to "... cultivate disability pride and strengthen the disability movement by recognizing disability as a natural and beautiful part of human diversity while collaborating to dismantle all forms of oppression."  And while it is not possible for MDRC, or any advocacy organization, to reform the entire world,  they are committed to creating a space for self-discovery, to cultivate community, and to develop pride.  And they have developed an admirable track record in doing so.  Support the showThank you for listening to our podcast and for your continued support! If you'd like to learn more about NLAWKI please visit our facebook page and if you'd like to support our program more directly, stop by our Ko-Fi and make a contribution! But the most important way you can help our program is by sharing NLAWKI with someone you know!

On this week's episode of The R&B Money Podcast, Tank and J Valentine welcome the phenomenal James Fauntleroy. A multifaceted artist with one of the greatest voices in the music industry, James will share his beginnings in LA, including his time with the globally prolific 1500 or Nothin' crew. He will tell his compelling tale of the chance encounter that connected him with Tyrese and brought him to the Edmonds building where he would pen one of his greatest hits, 'No Air'. James will also jump into his staggering MDRC commitment, the accompanying check, and the spending that would follow. Brimming with unforgettable anecdotes, this is the riveting journey of James Fauntleroy. Now on The R&B Money Podcast   Extended Episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/RnBMoneyPodcast Follow The Podcast: Tank: @therealtank   J Valentine: @JValentine Podcast: @RnbMoneyPodcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) provides wrap-around support and employment services to people returning home from incarceration. While participant feedback was always important to their work, CEO was looking to better understand the range of their participants' experiences and use it to improve the services they provide. MDRC's Center for Data Insights (CDI) partnered with CEO and used data science tools and qualitative research to better utilize the feedback CEO was receiving from their participants.   In this episode, Leigh Parise first talks with Alissa Stover, a former research analyst at MDRC and CDI. Alissa describes CDI's partnership with CEO, the importance of big-picture thinking in data science, and their implications. Ahmed Whitt, the director of learning and impact at CEO, then explains the critical lessons that were learned.  

Through its Real World Learning initiative in the Kansas City metropolitan area, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is working to ensure that all students in participating districts graduate from high school with a diploma and at least one market value asset (or MVA). MVAs are designed to prepare students for further education and employment. They can include such activities as completing an internship or employer-sponsored project, earning an industry-recognized credential, engaging in an entrepreneurial experience, or earning college credits. MDRC is the learning and evaluation partner on this project.  In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with Dan Tesfay, senior program officer at the Kauffman Foundation, and Osvaldo Avila, research associate in MDRC's K-12 education policy area. They discuss what it takes to create partnerships between school districts and industries to develop MVAs and what they hope to learn from MDRC's evaluation work.

On the latest episode of the Connecting Badgers podcast we meet with Ryan Keegan of the McBurney Disability Resource Center to learn about accommodations and other resources available to students.  To learn more about the MDRC: https://mcburney.wisc.edu/   General information on Mental Health Services at UHS: https://www.uhs.wisc.edu/mental-health/    To schedule an Access appointment, please call us at 608-265-5600, option #2 or webbook through the MyUHS portal: https://myuhs.uhs.wisc.edu/     Our intro and outro music is ‘Storybook' by Scott Holmes: scottholmesmusic.com 

On this episode of Career Chat, Tedi welcomes special guest Kellie Blackwell, Michigan Assistive Technology Program Co-Director at the Michigan Disability Rights Coalition (MDRC).  Tedi and Kellie talk about what Assistive Technology (AT) is and how it can greatly benefit those using AT and the organizations who understand its importance.  Kellie shares with us what we need to know when adding AT to our organizations and how MDRC can assist businesses to better understand the need for AT and what the ADA requires.   You can connect with Kellie at:Kellie Blackwell, MA, CRCMichigan Assistive Technology Program Co-DirectorMichigan Disability Rights Coalition (MDRC) Website:  https://mymdrc.org/Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/mymdrcTwitter:   https://twitter.com/mymdrcEmail:  kellie@mymdrc.orgPhone: 1-800-578-0280, Ext. #352MDRC Assistive Technology ProgramUnited Cerebral Palsy of MichiganDisability Rights MichiganJob Accommodation Network (JAN)The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) The opinions and statements made by guests on RTWT Career Chat are/or do not necessarily reflect those of  Real Talk with Tedi  podcast or The Professionals Forum LLC.  Learn more  at:    https://www.teditalks.comThe music used for this podcast was provided by: Funky Logo 12 by TaigaSoundProd.  Check them out at: https://filmmusic.io/song/8045-funky-logo-12.  License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license.   Artist Website: https://linktr.ee/taigasoundprod.

Child support agencies aim to secure payments from noncustodial parents to support the well-being of their children. When noncustodial parents fall behind on child support, they may face consequences, such as driver's license suspensions, civil contempt, and even jail time. These enforcement actions can make it harder for parents to make future child support payments. The Procedural Justice-Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) demonstration, sponsored by the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE), integrates principles of procedural justice into enforcement practices in six child support agencies across the United States. Procedural justice is the perception of fairness in processes that resolve disputes and result in decisions. Research has shown that if people perceive a process to be fair, they will be more likely to comply with the outcome of that process, whether or not the outcome is favorable to them. MDRC, MEF Associates, and the Center for Court Innovation are evaluating the effectiveness of the PJAC model. As part of the demonstration, the PJAC Peer Learning initiative provided training and support to several additional child support agencies that were interested in procedural justice but not part of the PJAC study. In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with Michael Hayes and Tanya Johnson from OCSE, Melissa Froehle from Minnesota Child Support Enforcement, and Maria Lasecki, Director of Brown County Child Support in Wisconsin, about the role of procedural justice in child support, how the Peer Learning initiative works, and what the sites have learned so far.

The pandemic has had devastating effects on students' learning. One strategy to help students is individualized instruction, which includes interventions like tutoring. In this lively episode, Leigh Parise talks with Andy Rotherham, cofounder of Bellwether, a national education nonprofit organization, and William Corrin, the director of MDRC's K-12 Education policy area, about the promise, challenges, and politics of implementing individualized instruction.

Green jobs in diverse industries, such as transportation, construction, environmental management, and agriculture, have grown in recent years and are predicted to further increase in the future. Filling these jobs will require a skilled workforce, yet federal investments in training for green jobs have focused mostly on adults. In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with Rachel Rosen, a senior research associate and co-director of MDRC's Center for Effective Career and Technical Education, on evidence-based strategies that can help create pathways for careers in the green economy for young people.

Considering how much attention is focused on getting into college, you'd think people would be equally concerned with getting out of college… with a degree, of course. Sadly, the shockingly low six-year graduation rate suggests otherwise. Amy and Mike invited author and researcher Michael Petrilli to explore why college readiness matters.  What are five things you will learn in this episode? What exactly does college readiness mean? How can college readiness best be measured? What is the risk for college students who don't meet readiness benchmarks? How can we best address lagging college readiness? How early in K-12 education should college readiness be addressed? MEET OUR GUEST Mike Petrilli is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, executive editor of Education Next, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow for Education Commission of the States. An award-winning writer, he is the author of The Diverse Schools Dilemma, editor of Education for Upward Mobility, and co-editor of How to Educate an American. Follow  Mike has published opinion pieces in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg View, and Slate, and appears frequently on television and radio. Petrilli helped to create the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Innovation and Improvement, the Policy Innovators in Education Network, and, long, long ago, Young Education Professionals. He serves on the advisory boards of the Association of American Educators, MDRC, and the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. He lives with his family in Bethesda, Maryland. Mike previously appeared on this podcast in episode 180 to discuss The Heightened Need For Testing In 2021. Find Mike at https://fordhaminstitute.org or in Twitter @MichaelPetrilli. LINKS College Readiness Benchmarks Using the National Assessment of Educational Progress as an Indicator for College and Career Preparedness The college readiness battle is won or lost in elementary school We all agree that college isn't for everyone. We should start acting like it American Diploma Project RELATED EPISODES DON'T SHOOT THE MESSENGER: WHAT TESTING TELLS US TRACKING COLLEGE AND CAREER READINESS WHERE MODERN EDUCATION FAILS ABOUT THIS PODCAST Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page. ABOUT YOUR HOSTS Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you're interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.

As a student, it's not enough to have visible representation on campus, you must also feel a sense of belonging, there must also be safety, and there must also be tangible support at each step of your journey. With this in mind, Rashida and Jalen have joined our hosts as they explore the need for post-secondary institutions to be intentional in their approach to supporting historically excluded students. We dive into the importance of mentorship; the need to ensure campus resources and support services are accessible and equitably useful; and how to build rapport and trust with our most vulnerable. What student support-based ideas do you have that center the unique experiences of marginalized students on-campus? The Guests: Jalen Alexander [He|Him] A researcher, project manager, and problem solver, Jalen Alexander conducts applied research to impact policy and empower people to own their data stories. He works to continually connect his profession, research, and service within the classroom to his passion for education and desire to reach real-world solutions to today's big problems. Jalen has published in the fields of education, public health, and neurosurgery bringing attention to systemic inequities and analyzing new paths forward. He currently serves as a Research Analyst at MDRC, a leading policy think tank committed to finding solutions to improve the lives of low-income individuals, families, and children. Outside of work, Jalen makes time for gaming, all Shonda Rhimes TV shows, and being a plant dad. Rashida Welbeck [She|Her] A wife, mother of three, and lifelong lover of learning, Rashida Welbeck has brought these and other intersectional identities into her education policy research work over the last 14 years. With empathy as her starting point, Rashida centers racial and social equity in the research efforts she leads with the dual goal of helping postsecondary institutions better serve the needs of their marginalized students while amplifying the voices of students to be better understood by their institutions. Currently at MDRC, Rashida leads the Equity Collaborative, a cross organization group of researchers working to strengthen how equity is applied to research and technical assistance. Rashida also leads the Men of Color College Achievement (MoCCA) project, which is learning about the effectiveness of student support services targeting male students of color. Social Media: Jalen Instagram: @Jalen2Kool Twitter: @HouseofJ_Tweets LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jalenalexander2014/ Rashida Instagram: @MochaMontessorian LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rashida-welbeck-9764a07/ Emeka & Leila Twitter: @JustAThoughtE Instagram: JustAThought_EL This season is sponsored by Catalyst:ed --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/just-a-thought-el/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/just-a-thought-el/support

Improving outcomes for community college students has long been the focus of rigorous research studies by MDRC and others. Through a project called The Higher Education Randomized Controlled Trial, or THE-RCT, MDRC has created a broadly accessible database that compiles student-level data from all MDRC's randomized controlled trial evaluations of postsecondary education programs. Researchers are able to use the database to conduct analyses across studies to answer important questions about the effectiveness of different higher education interventions. THE-RCT is supported by Arnold Ventures and the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education. In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with Michael Weiss, a Senior Fellow in MDRC's Postsecondary Education policy area, about how MDRC has used this database, how other researchers can access it, and how MDRC is encouraging colleagues to contribute their own studies to THE-RCT.

Today, we will go back to episode 24 in which we cover the important topic of choosing a preschool. We think the start of the new year is an excellent time to begin your research on what factors are important to you for choosing your child's preschool. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to revisit and review all our other episodes. Happy Holidays! We are thrilled to have back with us Dr. Meghan McCormick, Research Associate at MDRC and lead researcher on Boston's Public Pre-Kindergarten Project. Dr McCormick has extensive research experience examining the roles of the home, school and neighborhood contexts on children's development. Today Dr. McCormick will be speaking with us on the topic of preschool and how it impacts children's growth and development. Some factors we will be examining are choosing a preschool, how to determine environments that best support learning, and what is considered a “high quality” program. You can learn more about Dr. Meghan McCormick by visiting https://www.mdrc.org/about/meghan-mccormick or by email at meghan.mcormick@mdrc.org

A growing body of research shows that comprehensive student support programs can increase graduation rates for students from low-income backgrounds and students of color. But what do these programs look like on the ground? And what are the experiences of students participating in them? In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with students and staff from Ivy Tech Community College in Bloomington, Indiana about SUCCESS, a student support program that offers personalized advising and financial incentives and emphasizes data-driven program management. Ivy Tech Community College in Bloomington is one of 13 colleges across five states participating in MDRC's Scaling Up College Completion Efforts for Student Success (SUCCESS), which aims to increase degree completion through the implementation of comprehensive support programs based on strong evidence.

This episode features a conversation with Lynsey Wood Jeffries and Nyasha Rusununguko from Higher Achievement. Lynsey is CEO and Nyasha Director of Program Operations for the 45-year-old, Washington DC-based nonprofit serving middle-school age youth in the out-of-school-time space with a blend of academic enrichment, mentoring, and community-building, culminating in high school and ultimately college preparation. Higher Achievement serves students in communities in and around Washington, DC, Baltimore and Richmond. Lynsey, Nyasha and Jason talk about the history and program model of Higher Achievement, emphasizing literacy, social and emotional learning, and high school readiness. They look at the results the organization is seeing in terms of student academic and other outcomes. They delve into the ways Higher Achievement staff and mentors deliver a meaningful student experience, the changes they had to make during virtual programming amid the pandemic, and which of those they will keep. And they discuss what the pandemic showed about the essential role out-of-school-time programs have in education going forward.Additional Readings and ResourcesHigher AchievementStaying On Track: Testing Higher Achievement's Long-Term Impact on Academic Outcomes and High School ChoiceAiming Higher: Assessing Higher Achievement's Out-of-School Expansion Efforts, MDRC, 2000Achieve 3000 LiteracySocial and Emotional LearningWilliam T. Grant Foundation

We are thrilled to have back with us Dr. Meghan McCormick, Research Associate at MDRC and lead researcher on Boston's Public Pre-Kindergarten Project. Dr. McCormick has extensive research experience examining the roles of the home, school and neighborhood contexts on children's development. Today Dr. McCormick will be speaking with us on the topic of preschool and how it impacts children's growth and development. Some factors we will be examining are choosing a preschool, how to determine environments that best support learning, and what is considered a “high quality” program. You can learn more about Dr. Meghan McCormick by visiting https://www.mdrc.org/about/meghan-mccormick or by email at meghan.mcormick@mdrc.org

Programs that combine employment services with substance use disorder (SUD) treatment and recovery services have faced unprecedented challenges in the COVID-19 pandemic, including increased substance misuse and overdose, dramatic increases in unemployment, and the need to quickly shift to virtual service provision. In partnership, MDRC, Abt Associates, and MEF Associates learned how some of these SUD treatment programs adapted their services early in the pandemic in response to these challenges [ link to the brief]. MDRC recently released a brief on responses to COVID-19 by seven SUD treatment programs across the country. The brief was written as part of the Building Evidence on Employment Strategies Project, or BEES, funded by the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with researchers Karin Martinson from Abt Associates and Susan Scrivener from MDRC about the key findings from the brief. They are joined by Matthew Brown, Senior Vice President of Administration at Addiction Recovery Care (ARC), one of the programs participating in the BEES study.

Work-based learning opportunities, like internships and apprenticeships, are a critical component to many career and technical education programs. They can help participants develop critical skills for in-demand careers. The abrupt shift to virtual education caused by the pandemic hit these programs especially hard. In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with Hannah Dalporto, a research associate at MDRC, who recently cowrote a piece about how employers and trainers have been adapting their services during the pandemic to keep students connected to the labor market.

In this episode, we speak with Dr Meghan McCormick, Research Associate at MDRC and lead researcher on Boston's Public Pre-Kindergarten Project. Dr McCormick has extensive research experience examining the roles of the home, school and neighborhood contexts on children's development. Today she focuses on “constrained” vs “unconstrained” activities in which young children are involved at home and school, and the benefits of unconstrained activities. We also get into a great conversation with Meghan on how to choose a good preschool for your children. You can find Dr Meghan McCormick on Twitter @meghan_mccorm and https://www.mdrc.org/about/meghan-mccormick McCormick, M., Weiland, C., Hsueh, J., Pralica, M., Weissman, A. K., Moffett, L., Snow, C., & Sachs, J. (2021). Is skill type the key to the prek fadeout puzzle? Differential associations between enrollment in pre k and constrained and unconstrained skills across kindergarten. Child Development, 1-22.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread operational challenges and unprecedented disruption in America's early childhood education sector. But can it serve as a learning opportunity? A new policy brief from researchers and partners at the University of Michigan, the Harvard Graduate School Of Education, MDRC and Boston Public Schools highlights the impacts of COVID-19 on Boston's universal pre-K program, and shares some important lessons learned. Coauthors Christina Weiland (University of Michigan) and Annie Taylor (Boston Public Schools) join CPRE Knowledge Hub managing editor Keith Heumiller to discuss the brief, and offer some research-backed recommendations for early childhood stakeholders across the U.S.

Early childhood experiences of trauma and toxic stress can affect how young children develop and are associated with learning and behavior problems. Child First is a promising home visiting program that aims to mitigate or prevent these negative experiences for families to promote healthy development for kids.  An initial study of Child First found that the program improved children's social-emotional skills and language development, reduced mother's depression and improved their psychological functioning, reduced family involvement with child protective services, and increased families' connections to services and support. In this episode, Leigh Parise talks with Mervett Hefyan, a research analyst at MDRC; Massiel Abramson, a clinician with Child First in Connecticut; and Jessica Canavan, a licensed clinical social worker and assistant director of community-based services at her organization in North Carolina, which houses a Child First program. They discuss MDRC's replication study of Child First and how the program adapted their home-visiting model during the pandemic to continue helping families. 

The global pandemic made standardized testing impractical for much of 2020. Before we get used to life without high-stakes exams--as lovely as that might sound--let’s consider what we lose when we abandon objective academic assessments. Amy and Mike invited author and researcher Mike Petrilli to explicate the heightened need for testing in 2021. What are five things you will learn in this episode? What makes testing controversial? Why is 2021 different from other years? What is the value of standardized test scores in educational systems? Have standards changed during the pandemic period? In what ways are tests agents of equity and access? MEET OUR GUEST Mike Petrilli is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, executive editor of Education Next, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow for Education Commission of the States. An award-winning writer, he is the author of The Diverse Schools Dilemma, editor of Education for Upward Mobility, and co-editor of How to Educate an American.  Mike has published opinion pieces in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg View, and Slate, and appears frequently on television and radio. Petrilli helped to create the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement, the Policy Innovators in Education Network, and, long, long ago, Young Education Professionals. He serves on the advisory boards of the Association of American Educators, MDRC, and the National Association of Charter School Authorizers. He lives with his family in Bethesda, Maryland. Find Mike at https://fordhaminstitute.org/ or @MichaelPetrilli. LINKS Without tests in 2021, we’ll never know which schools met the Covid-19 challenge RELATED EPISODES WHY GRADE INFLATION IS HARMFUL WHY TESTING STANDARDS MATTER DON’T SHOOT THE MESSENGER: WHAT TESTING TELLS US ABOUT THIS PODCAST Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.

A special series from the Rural Matters podcast This episode is the third of a special four-part series about issues facing rural higher education from our colleagues at the Rural Matters podcast. It is coproduced by MDRC and supported by Ascendium Education Group. Rural America is not monolithic. About 15 to 20 percent of rural individuals identify as non-white, but in many areas of the country the percentage is much higher. Even in predominantly white states, rural diversity is increasing faster than urban diversity, which is important for understanding rural issues, including promoting access to higher education and dealing with rural poverty.  In this episode, Rural Matters host Michelle Rathman chats with four experts on diversity in rural communities and institutions of higher education: MDRC’s Alyssa Ratledge; Deborah Santiago, the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Excelencia in Education; Edward Smith-Lewis, Executive Director of UNCF’s Institute for Capacity Building, a team dedicated to supporting the resiliency of HBCUs; and Noel Harmon, President and Executive Director of Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholars. 

Why don't government social services programs better serve families struggling through crises like the COVID-19 pandemic? One reason is that these systems are designed for compliance over access. Many of those who are in need and qualify for benefits are deterred by administrative burdens, including excessive steps and paperwork. Insights from behavioral science can help agencies and nonprofits find ways to streamline their processes and simplify their communications with clients. In this episode of Evidence First, Leigh Parise interviews Rebecca Schwartz, a research analyst in MDRC’s Center for Applied Behavioral Science (CABS). Rebecca describes real-world examples of how CABS has worked with agencies to improve their service delivery to families. She also highlights how the federal government adopted an important behavioral technique — prospective eligibility — in the recent distribution of the CARES Act stimulus checks.

In this final episode of our four-part series, Rural Higher Education: Challenges & Opportunities, Michelle chats with three experts about innovative programs in rural higher education: Matt Dunne, founder and executive director of the Center On Rural Innovation; David Tandberg, senior vice president for policy research and strategic initiatives at the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO); and Leslie Daugherty, an education designer at the Education Design Lab. The Lab’s focus is on ensuring that learners’ needs and goals are front and center, using a human centered design approach, She describes the Lab’s  latest project, called BRIDGES, which is conducted in partnership with Ascendium and five rural community colleges, and is dedicated to creating pilot programs for sustainable growth and economic agility for these institutions and their learners. It’s important to talk to  learners and  uncover the “why” behind quantitative  analysis to enable innovative programs to truly succeed and be inclusive, she notes. Tandberg discusses how his organization deploys empirical research to advance policy objectives in higher education in United States. State leaders should broaden their perspective of rural institutions of higher education and view them as “stewards of place,” where they can become key actors in economic and cultural development in rural areas. Dunne talks about how globalization and automation had a disproportionate, detrimental effect on rural areas following the 2008 recession and how his organization is building digital economy ecosystems to deal with this disparity. He also notes that in implementing these critical ecosystems, it was essential that the rural area have an institution of higher education, which could engage in the community, as is happening now in the exciting collaboration between Colby College and the town of Waterville, Maine. To access the Center on Rural Innovation’s report, Higher Ed’s Role in Rural Innovation Ecosystems, visit https://ruralinnovation.us/rural-ihe-report/ This episode and the entire Rural Higher Education Series is underwritten by and produced in collaboration with Ascendium Education Group, a nonprofit organization committed to helping learners from low-income backgrounds reach their education and career goals. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org. The series is also produced in collaboration with MDRC, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research firm committed to finding solutions to some of the most difficult problems facing the nation. Learn more at www.mdrc.org.

In the third of our four-part series, Rural Higher Education: Challenges & Opportunities, Michelle chats with four epexerts about rural diversity, both perceptions and realty; challenges and opportunities involving diverse students in the rural higher education space; and the innovative initiatives colleges and rural communities are developing to deal with these challenges and opportunities: Alyssa Ratledge, a postsecondary education researcher at MDRC, a nonpartisan, nonprofit policy research firm; Deborah Santiago. the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Excelencia in Education; Edward Smith-Lewis, Executive Director of UNCF’s Institute for Capacity Building (ICB), a team dedicated to supporting the resiliency of HBCUs; and Noel Harmon, President and Executive Director of Asian Pacific Islander American Scholars, formerly the Asian Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund. Ratledge notes that rural America is not monolithic. About 15 to 20 percent of rural individuals identify as non-white, but in many areas of the country the percentage is much higher. In addition, she explains, even in predominantly white states, rural diversity is increasing faster than urban diversity, which is important for understanding rural issues, including access to higher education and dealing with rural poverty Santiago notes her organization is looking at transformation and resiliency in areas with a substantial Latino population, including a current focus on Puerto Rico. There’s a myth that the majority of Latinos in the United States are documented, which is not accurate, she notes, adding that it’s important to “meet students with they’re at.” Smith-Lewis notes that almost 50 percent of the black population in the South is located in rural communities, and that his organization is developing programs that enable these individuals to return to these communities. Smith-Lewis believes that a key to solving HRCH issues is to bring the stakeholders to the table and to understand that better technology and additional resources need to be brought to bear in the rural South. Harmon points out that the Asian community itself is quite diverse and that about 75 percent of the higher ed students it serves is first generation.  Native Hawaiians Pacific Islanders, and the Asian community in general often are not represented at the table or are not part of the discussion in terms of necessary resources, such as extending broadband access, she says. The guests describe culturally relevant initiatives they are undertaking to meet these challenges: Harmon hopes to engage in culturally relevant research that involves organic conversations to find areas of systemic change. Smith-Lewis describes his group’s  Career Pathways Development initiative, which involves actually going to the higher education institutions and conducting town halls and other conversations to find ways for the institutions they partner with to be successful, and the importance of telling the larger historical narrative of the black population, and the importance of targeting recipients, as is the case in a recent initiative in Mississippi. Santiago describes her organization’s focus on positioning rural students as trendsetters, including those in rural Puerto Rico. This episode and the entire Rural Higher Education Series is underwritten by and produced in collaboration with Ascendium Education Group, a nonprofit organization committed to helping learners from low-income backgrounds reach their education and career goals. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org. The series is also produced in collaboration with MDRC, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research firm committed to finding solutions to some of the most difficult problems facing the nation. Learn more at www.mdrc.org.    

In the second of our four-part series, Rural Higher Education: Challenges & Opportunities, Michelle chats with four inviduals committed to improving education in West Viriginia:  Danielle Vetter, Senior Progrm Officer at Ascendium; Stephanie Hyre, Senior Program Officer of The Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation; Corley Dennison, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission and the West Virginia Council for Community and Technical College Education; and Paul Daugherty, President & CEO of Philanthropy West Virginia. Vetter discusses Ascendium’s priorities in the rural space, including research, building capacity for postsecondary providers, and  catalyzing investment and partnerships to create opportunities and open doors that may have been previously closed. There are many lessons learned from these incredible collaborative efforts in West Virginia, including the importance not just talking about issues, but actually meeting the needs of rural communities through strategic development. Dennison notes how rural West Virginia really is and how important it is to initiate innovative programs, such as the one designed to improve developmental education. Dennison also describes the main goal of West Virginia Climbs, supported by Ascendium, that 60 percent of workers in the state will have some kind postsecondary credentials by 2020. Daugherty describes how Philanthropy West Virginia promotes collaboration among government, business, nonprofit, and philanthropy to bolster communities, an effort that has taken on added significance during the pandemic, especially on the issues of food security and business and survival. An essential component to success in the space, according to Daugherty: Courage to try something new. Hyre  describes the work of the Education Affinity Group, a subset of Philanthropy West Virginia (which she now co-chairs), whose priorities include early childhood literacy and postsecondary degree attainment. She explains how the group moved toward strategic priorities  through the 3 Ps (pipelines, partnerships, and platforms), to attract additional funding and support for rural education. Want to find out more about what’s happening in West Virginia? Cheick out this video:   https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qcPNVITWOoM.  This episode and the entire Rural Higher Education Series is underwritten by and produced in collaboration with Ascendium Education Group, a nonprofit organization committed to helping learners from low-income backgrounds reach their education and career goals. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org. The series is also produced in collaboration with MDRC, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research firm committed to finding solutions to some of the most difficult problems facing the nation. Learn more at www.mdrc.org.

This episode is the first of a special four-part series about issues facing rural higher education from our colleagues at the Rural Matters podcast. It is coproduced by MDRC and supported by Ascendium Education Group. COVID-19 has caused seismic shifts for postsecondary education. For rural colleges, the pandemic exacerbated issues that have affected students and communities for decades. While 41 percent of urban adults have a college degree, only 28 percent of rural adults do. The college access gap between rural and urban areas is sizable: In most states, rural high school students achieve graduation rates similar to urban and suburban counterparts, but their college enrollment rates are much lower. Rural communities have long been confronted with unique education challenges. Chief among them is the digital divide: Many rural areas lack adequate broadband internet infrastructure, which has become even more critical during the pandemic. Only 63 percent of rural adults say they have access to the internet at home, compared with 75 percent of urban adults. In areas where internet is available, it can be costly. And students may lack the technology they need to be successful in online learning. In this episode, Rural Matters host Michelle Rathman chats with MDRC’s Alyssa Ratledge; Dr. Jan Miller, Dean of the College of Education and the Director of Online Programs at the University of West Alabama; and Joe Thiel, Director of Academic Policy and Research for the Montana University System. They discuss some innovative programs that rural higher ed institutions are adopting to address the challenges faced by rural communities.

In the first of our four-part series, Rural Higher Education: Challenges & Opportunities, Michelle chats with Alyssa Ratledge. a postsecondary education researcher at MDRC; Dr. Jan Miller, Dean of the College of Education and the Director of Online Programs at the University of West Alabama (UWA); and Joe Thiel, Director of Academic Policy and Research for the Montana University System. There’s a big gap between urban and rural students in higher education, Ratledge notes, with about 41 percent of urban adults attaining college degrees, while only 28 percent of rural adults have those degrees. While rural and urban areas have similar graduation rates, those in rural areas are less likely to attend college, she points out. In addition, she says, many rural students live in “education deserts,” where there are no nearby colleges to attend. Ratledge adds that rural students are facing a “digital divide,” with less access to robust broadband, as well as other challenges like transportation issues.  Miller describes UWA’s University Charter School, which provides real-world experience for education students and how business and economic opportunities in the area are now expanding. UWA also has introduced innovative initiatives with local communities, such as “drive-in” education programs and turning school buses into Internet “hot spots.” Miller also describes dual enrollment programs and scholarships opportunities for juniors and seniors in high school that require that students remain in the local area for three years. In Montana, Thiel notes, it’s difficult for smaller institutions of higher education to sustainably offer even in-demand programs in fields like allied health, due to the costs of programs and the challenges recruiting and retaining qualified faculty, who can often earn more working in industry. He notes that higher education institutions are exploring “hub-and-spoke” initiatives, in which the hubs would provide online teaching in respiratory therapy, for example, while the spokes would coordinate the clinical and lab experiences and provide in-person supports. To learn more about these ideas, check out MDRC’s paper on COVID-19 and Rural Higher Education, https://www.mdrc.org/publication/covid-19-and-rural-higher-education. This episode and the entire Rural Higher Education Series is underwritten by and produced in collaboration with Ascendium Education Group, a nonprofit organization committed to helping learners from low-income backgrounds reach their education and career goals. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org. The series is also produced in collaboration with MDRC, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research firm committed to finding solutions to some of the most difficult problems facing the nation. Learn more at www.mdrc.org.

Too many community college students get stuck in multi-semester developmental math sequences and never progress to or complete college-level courses. To meet this challenge, the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin developed the Dana Center Math Pathways (DCMP), which diversifies the math course content that students take so it better aligns with their career interests. The curriculum also encourages student-centered learning in small group formats. Researchers from the Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness — a partnership between MDRC and the Community College Research Center — recently published an evaluation of DCMP in Texas. After three semesters, the study found that the DCMP had a positive impact on students’ completion of the developmental math sequence, increasing their likelihood of taking and passing college-level math and the number of math credits earned. Researchers also saw a small impact on early cohorts’ attainment of a certificate.  To learn more about these encouraging results and what they mean for the field, Katie Beal spoke with Elizabeth Zachry Rutschow, a senior associate at MDRC and lead author of the study.

In solving problems, the tension between quick action and measured action can be wide. Government has to deal with this  conflict often while dealing with issues as wide-ranging as racial justice and food insecurity to the pandemic and domestic terrorism.    Dan Bloom is Senior Vice President for MDRC and the author of the a post on GovExec.com that investigates this notion headlined “There’s No Need to Choose Between Taking Action and Building Evidence.” He’s here to discuss the balance of evidence-based policy and quick action.

Jan Nicholson is President of two private family foundations, The Nicholson Foundation in NJ and The Grable Foundation in Pittsburgh PA.She recently retired from a Board Role at MDRC, a non-partisan research organization based in NYC, and has held Board Positions at Rubbermaid, Ball Corporation, and Radian Group, Inc. from 1990 to 2015. She has an extensive background in finance having worked at Citibank and follow-on firms for 25 years and our conversation tracks how she transitioned from thinking like a banker to thinking like an investor. Jan shares her experience in investing in emerging markets and lessons learned from investing through the years. She also shares what she brings to her Board and Committee roles and what makes an effective Board and Committee member in her view.

Jesus Amadeo is CFO and Senior VP at MDRC, a non-partisan research organization based in NYC and Oakland CA, and is a partner at an emerging venture capital fund focused on the defense and security industry. He was born in Puerto Rico and came to study at Columbia University in New York City at the age of 17. In the early part of his career he traveled and worked extensively in Latin America and Central America, a phase that he approached with deep humility and cultural sensitivity in order to gain the trust of his new colleagues.Our conversation covers the unique challenges of working in emerging markets and moves to his current role at a non-partisan research organization in NYC which evaluates the efficacy of certain social and educational programs. We explore the experience of running and working in a non-profit, and how returning to the underlying business reason is central to decision making.

Subsidized employment uses public funds to create jobs for the unemployed and are especially useful during economic downturns. Many have argued that subsidized employment programs should be part of policymakers’ response to pandemic-induced mass joblessness. MDRC has been studying subsidized employment for more than 40 years and recently completed two large-scale federal projects that rigorously tested 13 subsidized employment programs in eight states. The programs served very disadvantaged workers, such as people receiving cash assistance or people returning to the community from prison. To learn more about subsidized employment programs and how they can be designed to reach the most disadvantaged, Leigh Parise spoke with MDRC Senior Vice President Dan Bloom.

The City University of New York’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) provides comprehensive support services to community college students to help them stay enrolled and graduate. MDRC’s evaluation of ASAP at CUNY community colleges found that it nearly doubled graduation rates within three years — which are some of the largest impacts found among programs for community college students. To see if the program could work beyond New York City, CUNY, MDRC, and the Ohio Department of Higher Education worked with three Ohio community colleges to implement the ASAP model. Recent findings from MDRC’s evaluation show that the Ohio programs had similarly large impacts on student outcomes, illustrating that the program can be successfully replicated and serve as a model for community colleges across the country. To learn more about the Ohio results and what it takes to replicate and scale the successful ASAP model, Katie Beal spoke with Christine Brongniart, the University Executive Director of CUNY ASAP, and Camielle Headlam, a research associate at MDRC.

New types of career and technical education programs are trying to prepare workers for an increasingly complex labor market. For high school students, this preparation can mean combining academic study with a strong career focus and hands-on work experience with an industry partner. MDRC is testing the effectiveness of this approach in an evaluation of the New York City P-TECH 9-14 school model. P-TECH 9-14 schools collaborate with local community colleges to allow students to earn high school diplomas and cost-free, industry-recognized associate’s degrees at the same time. During the six-year program, employer partners support P-TECH 9-14 schools by providing students with work-based learning experiences such as internships, mentoring, and job shadowing. Interim results show that after three years, students in P-TECH 9-14 schools earn about two more credits than students at other schools. Students in P-TECH 9-14 schools also pass state-level proficiency exams earlier and pass at higher rates. In this episode, Leigh Parise talks about the NYC P-TECH grades 9-14 high school model and MDRC’s study with Rachel Rosen, codirector of MDRC's Center for Effective Career and Technical Education and co-principal investigator on the study.

Community colleges graduation rates remain low. Some studies have shown that students who enroll in summer courses are more likely to stay on track and graduate, yet despite these benefits most college students do not attend during the summer. So why don’t students attend, and how can colleges encourage more of them to enroll in the summer? To answer these questions MDRC launched the Encouraging Additional Summer Enrollment — or EASE — project in partnership with the Ohio Association of Community Colleges and 10 community colleges in Ohio. MDRC designed, implemented, and tested two interventions to encourage summer enrollment, using insights from behavioral science, a study of how people make decisions. Both interventions worked to increase enrollment, and both could be operated at a relatively low cost. Join Leigh Parise as she talks about the EASE study with Caitlin Anzelone, deputy director of MDRC’s Center for Applied Behavioral Science.

Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is a model for helping people who have serious mental illness find employment. There is a good deal of evidence showing the model’s success, but less is known about the model’s effectiveness with those who have other types of disabilities and health conditions, such as physical disabilities or less severe types of mental illness. Between 2016 and 2018, MDRC led an evaluation of Breaking Barriers, a program in San Diego County that implemented the IPS model. Breaking Barriers served individuals who had a wide range of disabilities, not only serious mental illness. An initial analysis of data found that Breaking Barriers’ IPS services did not have an effect on employment outcomes. With funding from the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, MDRC will be conducting additional analyses of Breaking Barriers, as part of the Building Evidence on Employment Strategies for Low-Income Families (BEES) project. In this episode, Leigh Parise talks to Robert Drake, one of the developers of the IPS model and the vice president of the IPS Employment Center at the Rockville Institute, and Lily Freedman, a member of the MDRC evaluation team, about the IPS model, Breaking Barriers implementation, and the further analysis to be done under BEES.

In the beginning, MDRC was known primarily for evaluations of state welfare-to-work programs. Since then, MDRC has brought its unique approach to an ever-growing range of policy areas and populations. Recently, MDRC celebrated 25 years of working in the field of K-12 research – collaborating with teachers, school leaders, and districts to improve students’ prospects for success. Join Leigh Parise as she talks with Fred Doolittle, MDRC Senior Fellow, and William Corrin, Director of K-12 education research at MDRC, about how the organization expanded into education and the lessons they’ve learned from 25 years of research.

State and local governments often lack the capacity to clean, manage, and analyze administrative data that could be useful for achieving political and policy objectives. Some places have established policy labs to leverage researchers' skills to identify trends in the data, evaluate programs, and provide insights for improving public policies. On this episode of On the Evidence, we talk about the policy lab model with Kristin Klopfenstein, director of the Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab, and Melissa Wavelet, a senior fellow at MDRC and the former director of the Office of Performance and Strategic Outcomes at the Colorado Department of Human Services. This episode is part of a series produced by Mathematica in support of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) and its fall research conference. Klopfenstein and Wavelett participated in an APPAM panel about policy labs. More information about the lab is available at: https://coloradolab.org/ More information about Wavelett and her current work at MDRC is available at: https://www.mdrc.org/about/melissa-wavelet

11 Year old Melbourne schoolboy and music fan, Elis is introduced to new tracks by his grumpy old, music-producer Dad. Will he like them enough to add them to his playlist...?(MDRC playlist: spotify:playlist:40fv432AUONDvvUH5XuwVJ)

Government agencies work hard to help the people they serve, whether it’s helping individuals find jobs or improve family well-being. But despite best efforts, some participants still don’t succeed. What are some ways government agencies can improve services and ensure participants remain on the right track? In this episode, Kate Gualtieri, MDRC’s Director of Strategy, talks with MDRC Senior Fellow Melissa Wavelet, the former director of the Office of Performance and Strategic Outcomes in the Colorado Department of Human Services, about her experience implementing a variety of data-driven strategies that help city and state government agencies meet their goals and improve the lives of the people they serve. They also discuss Melissa’s work at MDRC on the TANF Data Collaborative, a new initiative sponsored by the Office of Family Assistance and the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation in the federal Administration for Children and Families, created in an effort to accelerate the use of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) data for program improvement and evidence-building at the federal, state, and local levels.

Nationwide, only 25 percent of full-time, first-time students at community colleges earn a degree within three years. To increase graduation rates for low-income community college students, the City University of New York (CUNY) launched Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) — a comprehensive program that provides wrap-around support services to students, including one-on-one advising, help covering transportation and book expenses, and tutoring. MDRC’s evaluation of the CUNY ASAP model found that the program doubled graduation rates in New York City. Three community colleges in Ohio successfully replicated the ASAP model as part of the ASAP Ohio Demonstration, and MDRC’s evaluation found positive results in line with those at CUNY. Join Katie Beal as she talks with Dr. Marcia Ballinger, President of Lorain County Community College in Elyria, Ohio, about the demonstration and what it takes to scale a comprehensive program like ASAP.

High-quality preschool education can have substantial positive impacts on children’s early learning and development, as well as longer-term outcomes like graduating from high school and attending college. But the boost in skills young children experience can fade out as they move on to kindergarten and elementary school, exacerbating the achievement gap between children from more- versus less-advantaged backgrounds. This fadeout pattern has drawn greater attention to students’ experiences after preschool, in early elementary school, and helped increase support for improving curricular alignment from preschool to third grade. Alignment refers to the range of policies and practices designed to launch young children on a positive developmental pathway, with the early elementary grades continuing to build on what children learn in preschool. Join Leigh Parise as she talks with MDRC’s Meghan McCormick about measuring quality in preschool programs and the challenges of implementing aligned curricula.

Can giving small loans to low-income people to start or grow their businesses help lift them out of poverty and improve overall well-being? That’s the idea behind microlending – a promising approach implemented by institutions worldwide. But only limited rigorous evidence is available on the model’s effectiveness, especially in advanced economies. MDRC is evaluating Grameen America, a program that provides small loans to groups of low-income women in the U.S. using a model designed by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus for the original Grameen Bank program in Bangladesh in the 1970s. But carrying out the first random assignment evaluation of Grameen America and its complex model presented unique challenges. In this episode, Katie Beal talks with Marcus Berkowitz, Vice President of Technology and Innovation at Grameen America, and Richard Hendra, MDRC’s Senior Fellow who leads the evaluation, about the partnership between the organizations and how they worked together to overcome those challenges.

Three Ohio community colleges grew enrollment and more than doubled two-year graduation rates following implementation of the CUNY-developed Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP). MDRC senior associate Colleen Sommo joins guest host Peter Horn to discuss her team's new multi-year study of the initiative, and its potential implications for colleges, policymakers, and researchers across the U.S.

Students who are placed into developmental (remedial) courses often fail to complete them, and many colleges and states are therefore interested in reforming developmental education. But what if students are not accurately placed into developmental courses in the first place? What if some of the students placed into developmental courses could have succeeded in college-level courses? Research suggests that standardized tests — the traditional method for placing students — actually does misplace substantial numbers of them. An alternative strategy is to place students using multiple measures of college readiness, including grade point averages, instead of a single test score. Join Katie Beal as she talks to MDRC’s Dan Cullinan and the Community College Research Center’s Elisabeth Barnett about early findings from a Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness study of systems that use multiple measures for placement, and about lessons for colleges interested in implementing these systems.

How should policymakers address the long-standing youth unemployment problem in Puerto Rico, which only worsened in the wake of Hurricanes Irma and Maria? With support from the W. T. Grant Foundation, MDRC partnered with Instituto del Desarrollo de la Juventud, or the Youth Development Institute, to develop recommendations that can create pathways into the workforce for young people and that are supported by evidence-based and promising practices relevant to the current situation in Puerto Rico. Join Katie Beal as she talks to John Martinez, Director of Program Development at MDRC, about those recommendations and the challenges of implementing them. 

Career and technical education programs have taken on many different forms, but one that has been gaining in popularity is apprenticeships. Join Katie Beal as she talks to Noel Ginsberg, CEO of CareerWise Colorado, and Gretchen Morgan, former president of CareerWise Colorado, about the initiative that seeks to enlist hundreds of employers from many sectors to employ thousands of high school students in the nation’s first large-scale youth apprenticeship program. MDRC is currently working with CareerWise Colorado to help its leaders understand the factors that either impede or promote the smooth implementation of this complex initiative, so that the program can continue to improve.

This summer Congress passed the long-awaited reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, which governs the federal investment in career and technical education (CTE). But what do CTE programs actually do? And how have they evolved over time? Join Katie Beal as she talks to Mary Visher, a senior research associate at MDRC, about CTE programs — including their development and challenges. They also discuss MDRC’s two-decade history of constructing and evaluating CTE programs, including the landmark study of Career Academies, and the other CTE programs MDRC is currently partnering with to build evidence and inform policy and practice. 

Early math ability is one of the best predictors of children’s math and reading skills into late elementary school. Children with stronger math proficiency in elementary school are more likely to graduate from high school and attend college. But most early childhood programs don’t focus on math instruction. What kinds of math programs can improve children’s early math abilities? And can they lead to positive impacts for other longer-term outcomes? The Making Pre-K Count and High 5s demonstrations were designed to rigorously assess whether providing high-quality math instruction, aligned across prekindergarten (pre-K) and kindergarten, could lead to long-term gains across a variety of domains for students growing up in low-income communities in New York City. Making Pre-K Count and High 5s are the first studies of the Robin Hood Early Childhood Research Initiative, a partnership between Robin Hood and MDRC, which is supported with lead funding from the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Overdeck Family Foundation, and other funders.  MDRC’s findings show that these programs reduced the achievement gap in math skills between low-income children and their higher-income peers. Join Katie Beal as she talks to Shira Mattera, Research Associate at MDRC, and Robin Jacob, a Research Associate Professor at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, about the positive impacts of the Making Pre-K Count and High 5s demonstrations on kindergarten outcomes.

Social service and education programs aim to help the people they serve achieve positive outcomes (for example, completing a degree or getting a job). But some participants still don’t succeed. Could predicting who is more at risk of not meeting important milestones allow programs to intervene with supports for those who most need them? Predictive analytics is a tool that can help programs use existing data to make predictions of risk for their clients. Program staff can identify milestones, which, if not met, can prompt action. For example, if a child is not reading at grade level by grade 3, school staff can provide additional supports to help avoid unwanted future outcomes,  such as failing or dropping out.  Join Katie Beal as she talks to Rekha Balu, Director of MDRC’s Center for Applied Behavioral Science, who describes how predictive analytics is informing MDRC’s work, and to Brad Dudding, Chief Operating Officer at the Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO), who explains how CEO is using predictive analytics to help formerly incarcerated individuals gain employment and reduce recidivism.

Low-income and first-generation students enroll in and complete college at much lower rates than their more advantaged peers. This is particularly problematic because of the strong link between educational attainment and subsequent earnings, underscoring the need to find effective strategies that promote persistence and degree attainment. We profile two such programs that are making an […] The post Two promising strategies to promote college success for disadvantaged students: An interview with Lindsay Page, University of Pittsburgh, and Michael Weiss, MDRC – Episode #167 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

Drew Perkins talks with Barbara Condliffe, Research Associate at MDRC, about their recent research review publication "Project-Based Learning: A Promising Approach to Improving Student Outcomes".

College Promise is a widespread college access movement in the United States, with more than 200 programs across the country. Although these programs help students access college by covering the cost of tuition and fees, they do not typically address barriers to student success. The Detroit Promise Path, administered by the Detroit Regional Chamber, is a program that allows high school graduates to attend local colleges tuition-free and provides evidence-based support strategies to students to help them stay in school and graduate. The program was developed by MDRC and the Detroit Regional Chamber, and MDRC is conducting an ongoing evaluation to understand the program’s impact on student success.

School choice can be an arduous process and can prove especially challenging for low-income or recent-immigrant families. Offering supports, simplifying the process, and personalizing information, among other things, can help families navigate decisions about school choice. In this podcast, MDRC researcher Barbara Condliffe considers how lessons from other policy arenas can help improve school choice process.

Can small changes based on the insights of behavioral science improve the effectiveness of social programs? Research has shown that small changes in the environment can facilitate behaviors and decisions that are in people’s best interest. For example, a change in the way messages or requirements are worded may increase the likelihood that program participants make positive choices. However, there has been relatively little exploration of the potential application of this science to complex, large-scale human services programs. With funding from the Administration for Children and Families, MDRC has been testing low-cost behavioral science interventions that can make programs more effective and, ultimately, improve the well-being of low-income children, adults, and families. Join Therese Leung as she talks to three guests about MDRC’s work in behavioral science, with a particular focus on improving child support programs: Susan Brown, Director of the Child Support Enforcement Agency, Franklin County, OH Emily Schmitt, Senior Social Science Research Analyst, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Michael Johns, Research Associate at MDRC

In 2010, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched a project to explore how programs could advance their goals, and address specific challenges, by applying insights from behavioral sciences, including behavioral economics. It is called the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project. Now, six years later, […] The post Lessons in applying behavioral insights to human services from the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project: An interview with Lashawn Richburg-Hayes and Nadine Deshausay, MDRC – Episode #136 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

The application of behavioral science inside government has gained steam over the past few years with the creation of so-called “Nudge units” popping up in countries around the world. Their goals are simple: Use the lessons of behavioral science to make government work better. The Behavioural Insights Team in the United Kingdom and the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences team in the U.S. Canada has a team now. Australia. Singapore. All the Scandinavian countries. Behavioral science teams now have a bit of buzz.  Before this buzz, there was BIAS – the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project, the first major opportunity to apply a behavioral science lens to programs that serve poor and vulnerable families in the United States. The project, which began in 2010 funded through the Administration of Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services, sought to apply behavioral insights to issues related to the design and implementation of social service programs and policies with a goal of learn how such tools could be used to improve the well-being of low-income children, adults, and families. The non-profit education and social policy organization MDRC led the project. (Disclosure: I worked on BIAS in 2010-2011 at one of the partner organizations, ideas42, also participating.) Traditionally, many social programs were designed in ways that individuals must make active decisions and go through a series of steps in order to benefit from them. They must decide which programs to apply to or participate in, complete forms, attend meetings, show proof of eligibility, and arrange travel and child care. Program designers have often assumed that individuals will carefully consider options, analyze details, and make decisions that maximize their well-being. BIAS drew heavily from that past three decades of research in the behavioral sciences showing that human decision making is often imperfect and imprecise. People clients and program administrators alike procrastinate, get overwhelmed by choices, miss details, lose their self-control, rely on mental shortcuts, and permit small changes in the environment to influence their decisions. As a result, programs and participants may not always achieve the goals they set for themselves. Working through ACF programs, the BIAS team designed and tested 15 behaviorally-informed interventions in seven states involving nearly 100,000 people. Many of the interventions involved a redesign of communications materials. Projects ranged from increasing child support collections, to improving child care recertification processes, to changing messaging around TANF participation. Along the way, BIAS researchers published a series of reports laying out not just which designs worked and didn’t, but how they went about implementing the designs in difficult bureaucratic and technological environments and when they faced challenges that altered their work. A final report is due out later this year. Of the 15 interventions, 11 showed positive signs of impact, making the overall project today one proof point among a growing number about the promise of applying insights from behavioral science to make government work better.   John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The application of behavioral science inside government has gained steam over the past few years with the creation of so-called “Nudge units” popping up in countries around the world. Their goals are simple: Use the lessons of behavioral science to make government work better. The Behavioural Insights Team in the United Kingdom and the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences team in the U.S. Canada has a team now. Australia. Singapore. All the Scandinavian countries. Behavioral science teams now have a bit of buzz.  Before this buzz, there was BIAS – the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project, the first major opportunity to apply a behavioral science lens to programs that serve poor and vulnerable families in the United States. The project, which began in 2010 funded through the Administration of Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services, sought to apply behavioral insights to issues related to the design and implementation of social service programs and policies with a goal of learn how such tools could be used to improve the well-being of low-income children, adults, and families. The non-profit education and social policy organization MDRC led the project. (Disclosure: I worked on BIAS in 2010-2011 at one of the partner organizations, ideas42, also participating.) Traditionally, many social programs were designed in ways that individuals must make active decisions and go through a series of steps in order to benefit from them. They must decide which programs to apply to or participate in, complete forms, attend meetings, show proof of eligibility, and arrange travel and child care. Program designers have often assumed that individuals will carefully consider options, analyze details, and make decisions that maximize their well-being. BIAS drew heavily from that past three decades of research in the behavioral sciences showing that human decision making is often imperfect and imprecise. People clients and program administrators alike procrastinate, get overwhelmed by choices, miss details, lose their self-control, rely on mental shortcuts, and permit small changes in the environment to influence their decisions. As a result, programs and participants may not always achieve the goals they set for themselves. Working through ACF programs, the BIAS team designed and tested 15 behaviorally-informed interventions in seven states involving nearly 100,000 people. Many of the interventions involved a redesign of communications materials. Projects ranged from increasing child support collections, to improving child care recertification processes, to changing messaging around TANF participation. Along the way, BIAS researchers published a series of reports laying out not just which designs worked and didn’t, but how they went about implementing the designs in difficult bureaucratic and technological environments and when they faced challenges that altered their work. A final report is due out later this year. Of the 15 interventions, 11 showed positive signs of impact, making the overall project today one proof point among a growing number about the promise of applying insights from behavioral science to make government work better.   John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The application of behavioral science inside government has gained steam over the past few years with the creation of so-called “Nudge units” popping up in countries around the world. Their goals are simple: Use the lessons of behavioral science to make government work better. The Behavioural Insights Team in the United Kingdom and the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences team in the U.S. Canada has a team now. Australia. Singapore. All the Scandinavian countries. Behavioral science teams now have a bit of buzz.  Before this buzz, there was BIAS – the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project, the first major opportunity to apply a behavioral science lens to programs that serve poor and vulnerable families in the United States. The project, which began in 2010 funded through the Administration of Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services, sought to apply behavioral insights to issues related to the design and implementation of social service programs and policies with a goal of learn how such tools could be used to improve the well-being of low-income children, adults, and families. The non-profit education and social policy organization MDRC led the project. (Disclosure: I worked on BIAS in 2010-2011 at one of the partner organizations, ideas42, also participating.) Traditionally, many social programs were designed in ways that individuals must make active decisions and go through a series of steps in order to benefit from them. They must decide which programs to apply to or participate in, complete forms, attend meetings, show proof of eligibility, and arrange travel and child care. Program designers have often assumed that individuals will carefully consider options, analyze details, and make decisions that maximize their well-being. BIAS drew heavily from that past three decades of research in the behavioral sciences showing that human decision making is often imperfect and imprecise. People clients and program administrators alike procrastinate, get overwhelmed by choices, miss details, lose their self-control, rely on mental shortcuts, and permit small changes in the environment to influence their decisions. As a result, programs and participants may not always achieve the goals they set for themselves. Working through ACF programs, the BIAS team designed and tested 15 behaviorally-informed interventions in seven states involving nearly 100,000 people. Many of the interventions involved a redesign of communications materials. Projects ranged from increasing child support collections, to improving child care recertification processes, to changing messaging around TANF participation. Along the way, BIAS researchers published a series of reports laying out not just which designs worked and didn’t, but how they went about implementing the designs in difficult bureaucratic and technological environments and when they faced challenges that altered their work. A final report is due out later this year. Of the 15 interventions, 11 showed positive signs of impact, making the overall project today one proof point among a growing number about the promise of applying insights from behavioral science to make government work better.   John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In April, MDRC President Gordon Berlin was interviewed by Denver Frederick, host of the “Business of Giving” radio show in New York City, about the role of rigorous research evidence in informing how government and philanthropy invest in education and social programs. The podcast was also featured on the Chronicle of Philanthropy website. Berlin describes MDRC’s experience evaluating existing programs and developing demonstrations of new interventions. He highlights a number of current projects, including the Paycheck Plus demonstration of an enhanced Earned Income Tax Credit for single adults, the evaluation of the City University of New York’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs and a replication effort at three Ohio community colleges, our ongoing evaluation of small public high schools in New York City, the Jobs-Plus employment program in public housing, and the Family Rewards test of conditional cash transfers. Berlin also discusses what Frederick terms “the quiet revolution” of increased federal investment in evidence-building under both the Bush and Obama administrations, how new technologies can help make research more effective and efficient, and how behavioral “nudge” interventions can improve social and education programs.

A Social Impact Bond (SIB) uses private funds – from philanthropy or other investors — to pay for a social, educational, or health programs. Importantly, the government only repays investors, plus a return, if pre-specified results are achieved. A new report by Gordon Berlin, the president of the nonprofit social policy research firm MDRC (@MDRC_News), reflects on the […] The post Lessons from the nation’s first Social Impact Bond, aimed at reducing recidivism among adolescent offenders at Rikers Island: An interview with Gordon Berlin, President, MDRC – Episode #120 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

In program evaluation, using the most rigorous methods possible is essential for producing credible research findings. But beyond the goal of rigor, relevance is important too. In particular, the more that evaluations are able to address specific research or implementation questions that are of interest to practitioners and policymakers, the more likely that the findings […] The post Three strategies to promote relevance in program evaluations so that findings are useful to policymakers and practitioners: An interview with Evan Weissman, Senior Associate, MDRC – Episode #117 appeared first on Gov Innovator podcast.

Michael Roster was Managing Partner of Morrison & Foerster’s Los Angeles office as well as co-chair of the firm’s Financial Services Practice Group worldwide, resident in both Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. He subsequently served as General Counsel of Stanford University and Stanford Medical Center and then of Golden West Financial Corporation.Mike has been a director and chair of the Association of Corporate Counsel, an outside director and vice chair of Silicon Valley Bank, chair of the Stanford Alumni Association, and chair of two start-up companies: Insert Therapeutics and Encirq. He also is a former director of the California Bankers Association and the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco. Mike is currently the steering committee co-chair of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Value Challenge, a project that is promoting fundamental reforms in how law firms and in-house counsel serve clients. He also is a director of MDRC, a nonprofit corporation based in New York that that evaluates the effectiveness of government and other programs affecting lower income families and individuals, and he chaired several years ago a project funded by two foundations that developed a private sector approach to eliminate abuses in consumer credit cards in the U.S. The past five years, Mike also has been teaching an upper division contracts course at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law where the goal is for students to be at a second-year attorney level or higher in contracts by the end of the course. He also served on two faculty task forces looking at reforms in the law school’s curriculum.

  How do young adults fare after they age out of the foster care or juvenile justice systems? And are there services that can help these young people make a successful transition to adulthood?    With funding from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, MDRC just released results from an evaluation of the Transitional Living Program (now called YVLifeSet) run by the organization Youth Villages. The program provides intensive, individualized, and clinically focused case management, support, and counseling. This is one of the few rigorously studied programs in this area and the first to find positive results for young adults across a wide range of outcomes, including earnings, housing stability, and economic well-being.  Join Therese Leung as she talks to Erin Valentine, a researcher at MDRC, about the evaluation.    

What's worked to help disadvantaged youth get jobs? And how can we get more employers actively engaged in this issue? Therese Leung talks with Farhana Hossain, a researcher at MDRC, about the problem of youth unemployment.

The Center for Nonprofit Strategy and Management at the School of Public Affairs, Baruch College and NYC Center for Economic Opportunity co-sponsor a panel discussion on "Anti-Property Innovation: The Local and National Impact of New York City's Center for Economic Opportunity." Topics include mission and overview of the NYC Center for Economic Opportunity, case study such as Jobs-Plus, and role of nonprofit organizations in economic development programs. The event takes place on May 22, 2012 at the Baruch College Newman conference Center, Room 750. Part One: 44 min. Panel Discussion Opening Remarks: Jack A. Krauskopf, MPA Distinguished Lecturer and Director of The Center for Nonprofit Strategy and Management Moderator: Jonathan Bowles Executive Director, Center for an Urban Future Speakers: Kristin Morse Deputy Executive Director, NYC Center for Economic Opportunity Debra-Ellen Glickstein Vice- President for Strategy & Program Development, New York City Housing Authority Jessica Nathan Jobs-Plus Director, BronxWorks Donna Wharton-Fields Senior Associate, MDRC