Displaying 1 - 20 of 20
Postsecondary preparation & success

Postsecondary decisions, state financial aid, and college affordability

This study aims to understand student, counselor, and policy maker experiences with state financial aid programs, like the Tuition Incentive Program, and how they shape student postsecondary decisions and the affordability of postsecondary options in Michigan. Using interviews with high school students, high school counselors, college advisors, and those tasked with outreach and implementation, we will better understand multiple perspectives on state financial aid implementation and its usefulness at giving students more postsecondary choices.  We plan to talk to students and counselors...
Boston Early Childhood Research Practice Partnership

Impacts of the Boston Pre-K Program Through Early Adulthood Study

July 2022
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Christina Weiland, Rebecca Unterman, Anna Shapiro, Tiffany Wu, Anne Taylor, Thomas Staines, William Corin
The Boston Early Adulthood study is the second phase of an ongoing study, which follows 12,740 children who applied to the Boston Pre-K program between 2007 and 2011. The Boston Pre-K program is somewhat unique in the national landscape as it uses evidence- and play-based language, literacy, and math-focused curriculum, pays teachers on the same scale as their K-12 peers, provides coaching supports to teachers, and is open to children in Boston, regardless of family characteristics.  The first students to experience the program are just reaching early adulthood, allowing our team to estimate...
Postsecondary preparation & success

Go Blue Community College Project

The barriers facing community college students are numerous. An elite higher education institution, like the University of Michigan, can play a transformative role in the economic mobility of low-income students through programs like HAIL Scholars, but relatively few low-income students ever matriculate at such institutions. Community colleges are  good places to find high-achieving, low-income students who would benefit from further enrollment at institutions like U-M. In this project, researchers will develop and implement a randomized controlled trial of an intervention that aims to...
Early learning

Mitigating the Impact of COVID-19 on Early Educators and Young Children: Understanding the Issues and Identifying Evidence-based Recovery Responses

March 2021 - June 2021
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Christina Weiland, Erica Greenberg, Daphna Bassok, Anna Markowitz, Paola Guerrero Rosada, Grace Luetmer, Rachel Abenavoli, Celia Gomez, Anna Johnson, Brenda Jones-Harden, Michelle Maier, Meghan McCormick, Pamela Morris, Milagros Nores, Deborah Phillips, Catherine Snow, Jasmina Camo-Biogradlija
The COVID-19 crisis upended life for young children, their families, and the early care and education (ECE) programs that serve them. Leaders need a clear understanding of the pandemic’s impact, particularly as the Biden administration makes historic investments in ECE. To meet this need, a team of early childhood experts synthesized findings from 76 high-quality studies, spanning 16 national studies, 45 studies from 31 states, and 15 local studies. The experts then collaborated with ECE policy and practice leaders from multiple states to identify actionable, evidence-backed, and...
Early learning

Evaluation of Michigan's Transitional Kindergarten Program

In partnership with the Michigan Department of Education (MDE), the research team is analyzing administrative education records to describe transitional kindergarten programming in Michigan (i.e. Young Fives) and to examine its impacts on children’s kindergarten readiness and K-3 outcomes. This study also has several connections to the COVID-19 crisis. Program data will be used to describe the progress of cohorts of children more versus less directly affected by COVID-19. Additionally, surveys of families, teachers, and districts on their COVID-19-related experiences and challenges will be...
Postsecondary preparation & success

Understanding Geographic Differences in Postsecondary Decision Making and Financial Aid Interventions

This study gathers and analyzes data from qualitative interviews with high school students in Michigan. These interviews ask students to describe their college decision making process and to what extent financial aid programs or interventions were effective at influencing their postsecondary decisions. The information gathered through this project provides vital insight, directly from the student perspective, on how financial aid interventions work and who they work for. Moreover, this project sheds light on the link between postsecondary inequality and student decision-making. Finally, the...
Postsecondary preparation & success

College Acceleration Programs in Michigan

September 2020
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Kevin Stange, Sabrina Solanki, Jonathan Hartman, Nicole Wagner Lam, William Metz, Yincheng Ye
In 2020, the Michigan Legislature asked that the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) produce a report analyzing trends in college acceleration program participation in Michigan and the extent to which postsecondary access and outcomes is improved as a result of these programs. To meet these aims, MDE has partnered with EPI to study enrollment, performance, and postsecondary outcomes for students who enrolled in international baccalaureate (IB), advanced placement (AP), dual or concurrent enrollment (DE), early or middle college high schools (EMC), and career and technical education (CTE)...
Support for K-12

Enrollment in Michigan's K-12 schools during COVID

September 2020
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Kevin Stange, Tareena Musaddiq, Josh Goodman, Andrew Bacher-Hicks
This study aims to examine the extent to which COVID-19 has led to changes in the total number and composition of students enrolled in K-12 public schools in Michigan. The study team will use student-level data to better understand which specific types of students did not enroll or return in the fall of 2020. For instance, whether re-enrollment patterns were different by prior year achievement, attendance, economically disadvantaged status, race, and district and neighborhood characteristics. Separately, the research team will complement the Michigan data with nationally-representative data...
Support for K-12

Evaluation of Michigan's Comprehensive State Literacy Development Grant

The Michigan Department of Education is using the federal Comprehensive Literacy State Development grant to support literacy development in five districts in the state. Over the course of the five-year, $16 million grant, districts and statewide partners will work to advance literacy skills for children from birth through grade 12. The five districts awarded funding are: Benton Harbor Area Schools  Detroit Public Schools Community District  Flint Community Schools  Muskegon Heights Public School Academy System  Pontiac School District The goal of the grant funding is to...
Transitions into the labor market

Skills, Majors, and Jobs: Does Higher Education Respond?

September 2019
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Kevin Stange, Steven Hemelt, Brad Hershbein
Higher education institutions play an outsized role in facilitating skill development, yet employers regularly cite a gap between the skills they need and those new college graduates possess. One explanation for this disconnect is that technological change, industrial restructuring, and international trade are continuously evolving the demand for skills in the labor market, but that investment is slow to respond. This project uses several quasi-experimental techniques, and the universe of all online job ads paired with novel data on college course-taking over the past decade, to study how...
Support for K-12

Evaluation of Michigan's Read by Grade Three Law

Literacy knowledge and skills developed in the early elementary grades predict long-term literacy achievement, on-time graduation, and later-life outcomes. In recognizing the critical importance of establishing early literacy skills, there has been substantial instructional and policy attention given to improving rates of reading proficiency in the elementary grades. In 2016, based on the recommendation of the Michigan Third Grade Reading Workgroup, the Michigan legislature passed the Read by Grade Three Law (RBG3), which requires schools to identify learners who are struggling with reading...
Boston Early Childhood Research Practice Partnership

Boston Universal Pre-K Study

January 2019
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Christina Weiland, Jason Sachs, Catherine Snow, Louisa Penfold, Anne Taylor, Paola Andrea Guerrero Rosada, Meghan McCormick, TeeAra Dias, Yuzhu Xia, Rachel Kushner
The Boston Universal Pre-K study is a mixed-methods implementation study of the expanded universal Pre-K program in Boston. In April 2019 the City of Boston announced a historic investment in expanding high-quality universal preschool for four year olds through a combination of community-based programs and existing public school seats. We are studying the implementation of this mixed-delivery program with an emphasis on identifying the barriers and facilitators of scaling quality programming. This study has evolved over the course of the pandemic and the study team has worked closely with...
Transitions into the labor market

College and Beyond: Outcomes of a Liberal Arts Education

December 2018
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Kevin Stange, Timothy McKay, Paul N. Courant, Margaret Levenstein, Susan Jekielek, Allyson Flaster
Building on the work of the Mellon Research Forum, University of Michigan's Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) has brought together seven 4-year postsecondary institutions (U-M, the City University of New York, Georgia College and State University, Indiana University, Truman State University, University of Houston and University of California, Irvine) to pilot measures of the liberal arts educational experience linked to various long-term outcomes for students. This collaboration is laying the foundation to scaling the work and develop the kind of large data...
Transitions into the labor market

An Empirical Analysis of the Consequences of Major Choice Using Texas Administrative Data

June 2018
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Kevin Stange, Rodney Andrews, Scott Imberman, Michael Lovenheim
The central aim of this project is to estimate the causal effect of students’ college major choices  on their postsecondary and labor market outcomes. The combination of a research design that can identify causal effects of major choice with rich administrative data that allow us to track students from high school through college and into the labor market is novel in the higher education literature and will provide new and important evidence on how college major choices affect students during college and...
Boston Early Childhood Research Practice Partnership

Sustaining the Boost Study

June 2014
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Christina Weiland, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Rebecca Unterman, Anna Shapiro
The Sustaining the Boost project was an Institute of Education Sciences-funded study of the Boston Public Schools Pre-K program. It was a retrospective efficacy study of the short- and medium-term impacts of the Boston public Pre-K program on key child academic and school progress outcomes through the end of third grade. The team used new and innovative methods that have not yet been applied to public Pre-K programs, including a lottery-based identification strategy and impact variation across sites. Key outcomes in the study were children’s persistence in the Boston Public Schools from K-3,...
Boston Early Childhood Research Practice Partnership

Expanding Children’s Early Learning from Pre-K to Third Grade (ExCEL P3) Study

January 2014
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Meghan McCormick, Christina Weiland, JoAnn Hsueh, Jason Sachs, Catherine Snow, Mira Pralica, Cullen MacDowell, Sam Maves, Anne Taylor, Paola Andrea Guerrero Rosada, Yuzhu Xia, Rachel Kushner, Lillie Moffett
The Expanding Children’s Early Learning (ExCEL) project is part of the Early Learning Network, an Institute of Education Sciences-funded network examining current policies and practices, identifying malleable factors associated with early learning and achievement, and developing tools to assess early learning instruction, interactions, and environments. The Boston ExCEL project is led by MDRC and has followed a cohort of Boston students from Pre-K to 5th grade. The longitudinal study is focused on identifying malleable factors that promote children’s success into elementary schools, including...
Postsecondary preparation & success

HAIL Scholars: Increasing Economic Diversity at a Flagship University

EPI researchers and University of Michigan administrators developed and piloted the HAIL scholarship research program to attract low-income, high-achieving students to consider applying to and enrolling in the university. The project addresses three issues known to affect college application behavior among low-income, high-achieving students: uncertainty about their suitability for an elite school, over-estimates by students and parents of the net cost of college, and procedural barriers such as aid applications. The intervention targets low-income, high-achieving students in Michigan, as...
Early learning

Preparing to Succeed Study

January 2009 - January 2012
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Christina Weiland, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Jason Sachs
Preparing to Succeed was the first study for the Boston Early Childhood Research Practice Partnership and, in many ways, it kicked off our long-term partnership. The study examined the effects of the Boston Public Schools Pre-K program in 2008-2009, after BPS made evidence-based investments in the quality of the program. The study found Boston Pre-K program has some of the largest positive effects on kindergarten readiness of any Pre-K program in the country. Related publications are linked...
Postsecondary preparation & success

Dual Credit Courses in Tennessee

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Susan Dynarski, Steven Hemelt, Nathaniel Schwartz
It has long been said that the transition from high school to college is a difficult one and that the presence of college remedial classes can be instrumental in helping students catch up to advanced coursework. This is especially true for math, a subject in which, as of 2003-2004, almost 40% of college students required remedial learning. Dual-credit policy seeks to solve this problem by offering high school students the opportunity to learn college content and earn college credit while still in high school. This intervention aligns high school and college coursework, not only to reduce the...
Support for K-12

Virtual Schooling in Florida

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Brian Jacob, Susanna Loeb, Cassandra Hart
Virtual education is touted as a promoter of both quality and access for students across the country. Several states require that students enroll in at least one online course before they graduate, and many states have recently passed legislation encouraging the use of online learning. Yet despite the burgeoning popularity of virtual schools, there remains a stark lack of evidence that these methods actually improve educational opportunity. Our project will fill this gap by exploring how access to the online sector affects students’ academic performance, as well as the effect of various...