Mar 2023
Not Too Late: Improving Academic Outcomes Among Adolescents
Read our academic paper on the early Saga studies published in the American Economic Review.
Improving academic outcomes for economically disadvantaged students has proven challenging, particularly for children at older ages. We present two large-scale randomized controlled trials of a high-dosage tutoring program delivered to secondary school students in Chicago. One innovation is to use paraprofessional tutors to hold down cost, thereby increasing scalability. Participating in math tutoring increases math test scores by 0.18 to 0.40 standard deviations and increases math and non-math course grades. These effects persist into future years. The data are consistent with increased personalization of instruction as a mechanism. The benefit-cost ratio is comparable to many successful early-childhood programs.
Not Too Late: Improving Academic Outcomes Among Adolescents
National Bureau of Economic Research working paper that evaluates the effectiveness of an innovative intervention, focused on personalized, intensive, in-school tutoring, in improving academic outcomes for adolescents who are academically behind in school.
Latest Updates
Help Wanted: Strategies to Recruit a Tutoring Workforce on a Large Scale
MDRC’s Rebecca Davis explores effective strategies for recruiting a tutoring workforce at scale, an essential component of the Personalized Learning Initiative, and advancing educational outcomes through targeted recruitment efforts.
Here’s one roadmap to easing the mental health crisis in teen girls
Education Lab Senior Research Director Monica Bhatt and Youth Guidance Chief Program Officer Nacole Milbrook wrote an op-ed featured in the Chicago Sun-Times on the Working on Womanhood program and their partnership with the city and Chicago Public Schools to systematically provide school-based counseling services to 750 girls.
AbbVie spends $350M to bolster healthcare, education; ‘We look forward to the impact we will make in the decades to come’
Lake County News-Sun’s Steve Sadin highlights AbbVie’s philanthropy including commitments to the University of Chicago Education Lab’s research helping urban youth, “in high schools and beyond.”
