Marriage Initiatives

“Starting Early: How the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative (OMI) Helps Schools Prepare Young People for Healthy Marriages.” Robin Dion and Timothy Silman, June 2008. Oklahomans who marry for the first time are 2.5 years younger than other Americans and more likely to divorce than those who marry later. To increase the odds that youth will grow into adults with the skills and information needed to form a healthy relationship, marriage, and stable family, the OMI works with the state's high schools to offer a research-based curriculum. To date, more than 62,500 students have elected to take the classes at 289 schools across the state. This ASPE research brief is the second in a series describing findings from Mathematica's in-depth process evaluation. 

Methods Update

“Propensity Score Matching: A Note of Caution for Evaluators of Social Programs.” Deborah N. Peikes, Lorenzo Moreno, and Sean Michael Orzol, The American Statistician, August 2008. Over the past 25 years, evaluators of social programs have searched for nonexperimental methods that can substitute effectively for experimental ones. Recently, the spotlight has focused on propensity score matching for evaluating employment and education programs. The authors present a case study of their experience using this method for evaluating the State Partnership Initiative, a program to promote employment among recipients of Social Security disability benefits. Despite ideal conditions and statistical tests suggesting that the matching procedure had worked, they found that propensity score matching produced incorrect impact estimates when compared with a randomized design.

Alternative Certification

“Passport to Teaching: Career Choices and Experiences of American Board Certified Teachers.” Steven Glazerman, Elizabeth Seif, and Gail Baxter, June 2008. A growing number of states now recognize an alternative teaching credential called the Passport to Teaching, offered by the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE). This new report describes the experiences of those who obtain the credential. Mathematica’s survey of more than 500 Passport holders reveals that nearly 6 out of 10 were teaching K-12 in the U.S.; of this group, 71 percent were in public schools, 12 percent in charter schools, and 15 percent in private schools. Passport teachers remain in the classroom at comparable rates to other teachers, with 85 percent of teachers who were certified by ABCTE through 2005 still in the classroom during the 2007-2008 school year.

Head Start

The Head Start National Reporting System (NRS) was an ambitious initiative to assess the early literacy, language, and numeracy skills of all 4- and 5-year-olds enrolled in Head Start. Although the NRS ended with the recent reauthorization of the Head Start Act, Mathematica continues to develop materials to assist program staff in interpreting and using child assessment data to improve practice. Two recently released reports from Mathematica’s NRS evaluation include:

“Implementation of the Head Start National Reporting System: Spring 2006.” Cheri A. Vogel, Renée Nogales, Nikki Aikens, and Louisa Tarullo, February 2008. This report documents Head Start program experiences during the third year of NRS implementation. It is based on information collected through visits to a nationally representative sample of 35 Head Start programs in spring 2006. On average, staff adhered to certification standards but would have benefited from more guidance on conducting assessments with children in Spanish and with children identified with disabilities. Executive Summary

“Implementation of the National Reporting System in Migrant Seasonal Head Start Programs: Year Two Update.” Renée Nogales, Diane Paulsell, and Louisa Tarullo, November 2007. This report summarizes the experiences of a sample of migrant/seasonal Head Start programs during their second year of NRS implementation based on site visits conducted in 2005. The report describes the quality of the child assessments, experiences of staff members in administering the assessments, program approaches to train and certify staff and implement the NRS, and program staff concerns and suggestions.

Quick Reviews

The What Works Clearinghouse, administered by Mathematica for the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences, has released two new quick reviews. These reviews provide an objective assessment of the quality of research evidence from a research paper, article, or report whose public release is reported in a major national news source. Visit http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/publications/quickreviews/ for more information.

Read quick reviews of the following studies:

• Making a Difference? The Effects of Teach For America in High School—This study looked at whether having a Teach For America (TFA) teacher instead of a non-TFA teacher affects the academic performance of high school students.     

• The Advantage of Abstract Examples in Learning Math—This study examined whether college students are better able to apply knowledge of simple mathematical concepts when they are taught the concepts using abstract symbols or concrete examples.