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DIR to Conduct Feasibility and Evaluation Study of TRIO
On Monday, August 23, 2010, DIR signed a contract with the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) National Center for Education Evaluation (NCEE) of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) to “design and conduct a study of TRIO Program implementation and outcomes.”
The eight federal TRIO Programs (TRIO) are designed to identify and provide services for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds; the programs serve and assist low-income individuals, first-generation college students, and individuals with disabilities to progress through the academic pipeline from middle school to postbaccalaureate programs.
The project has a feasibility phase and potentially an evaluation phase. The feasibility phase will last through May 2012, and, if awarded, the evaluation phase will last through August 2015.
DIR and its partners, Abt Associates and MPR Associates, will examine (1) several possible design options for a quasi-experimental evaluation of program implementation strategies in Upward Bound and (2) the feasibility, level of effort, and timeframes for conducting each of the proposed evaluation designs. Dr. Russell Jackson will serve as the project director. DIR has been been involved with prior evaluations and studies of other TRIO programs besides Upward Bound, including Talent Search and the McNair Postbaccalaureate Program. Methods developed to evaluate the Upward Bound program through this project will be assessed for their possible application for evaluating other TRIO programs in the future.
IES Releases Interim Report on Comprehensive Technical Assistance Centers
On Thursday, July 29, 2010, the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE) of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), U.S. Department of Education, announced the release of its National Evaluation of the Comprehensive Technical Assistance Centers: Interim Report. Executive Summary (NCEE 2010-4034). Russell Jackson, DIR president, is co-principal investigator for the evaluation. Carol Pistorino, DIR vice president, was one of the report authors.
Branch Associates, Inc., and its partners DIR and Policy Studies Associates (PSA), are conducting the evaluation of 16 Regional Comprehensive Centers (RCCs) and 5 Content Centers (CCs). The centers were established to help low-performing schools and districts close achievement gaps and meet the goals of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. The evaluation assesses the extent to which the 21 Comprehensive Centers have expanded states’ capacity to address the educational needs of local education agencies and schools.
To assess the impact of the NCLB Act, the evaluation team is conducting a series of panel reviews and is also collecting data through client ratings of Center products and services and through surveys of State Education Agency (SEA) officials and Regional Center staff.
The evaluation is assessing three program performance measures: the percentage of products and services that are deemed to be of high quality; the percentage of products and services that are deemed to be of high relevance to educational policy or practice; and the percentage of products and services that are deemed to be of high usefulness to educational policy or practice.
This interim report addresses the first of the evaluation’s three rounds of data collection pertaining to the Comprehensive Centers’ work from July 2006 through June 2007.
To access the NCEE announcement, go to NCEE announcement. To access the Executive Summary, go to Executive Summary of report; to access the complete report, go to Complete Interim report.
Report Released on New York Poverty-Reduction Initiative
On Tuesday, March 30, 2010, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and MDRC President Gordon Berlin released early findings from MDRC’s evaluation of Opportunity NYC (ONYC)-Family Rewards, the city’s conditional cash transfer (CCT) initiative for low-income families. The ONYC program was designed to boost the income of program participants in the short term while building their capacity to avoid longer-term and second-generation poverty by encouraging good behavior and self-sufficiency. Most of the data for the evaluation is being collected by DIR under contract with MDRC.
DIR is conducting the longitudinal follow-up surveys of 3,750 parents for the evaluation at 18, 36, and 60 months after they applied to the program. For the 18-month surveys reported in the recently-released report, DIR achieved overall response rates of 82 percent. DIR designed data-collection methods, refined the survey instrument, developed a tracking system, hired and trained skilled interviewers and field locators, conducted interviews, and prepared data files for MDRC analysts.
The New York Times (see NYT/2010/03/31/MDRC-ONYC) said that the program “has so far had only modest effects on [the participants’] lives and economic situation.” However, a news item on the MDRC website said that “In its first two years, Opportunity NYC–Family Rewards substantially reduced poverty and material hardship and had a range of positive results in improving some education, health-related, and work-related outcomes” (see MDRC-announcement). For a fuller summary of the evaluation results, see “Key Findings” in the overview of MDRC’s published report at Publication-overview. You can access the full report at Publication-complete.
McNair Report
The U.S. Department of Education (Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development; Policy and Program Studies Service) has printed DIR's evaluation report of the McNair Program, dated 2008. For a copy of Education and Employment Outcomes of the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program Alumni, go to http://edpubs.ed.gov/. In the search box, type Education and Employment Outcomes, and click Go.
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