School's Out: How Summer Youth Employment Programs Impact Academic Outcomes

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-54
Author(s):  
Alicia Sasser Modestino ◽  
Richard Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Academic Outcomes ◽  
Work Experience ◽  
Drop Out ◽  
Youth Employment ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Basic Work ◽  
Employment Programs

Abstract Recently there has been an emphasis on how time spent outside of the classroom can affect student outcomes, including high school graduation, with the hope of closing academic achievement gaps along socioeconomic and racial lines. This paper provides experimental evidence regarding a particular type of out-of-school activity—early work experience—on high school academic outcomes for low-income inner-city youth. Using randomized admissions lotteries for students who applied to the Boston Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), we estimate the effect of being selected to participate on academic outcomes as measured by administrative school records. We find that SYEP lottery winners are 4.4 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school on time and 2.5 percentage points less likely to drop out of high school during the four years after participating in the program relative to the control group. These improvements appear to be driven by better attendance and course performance in the year after being selected for the program, with the program's impact on attendance persisting into the second year. Survey data suggest that the Boston SYEP may affect academic outcomes by increasing aspirations to attend college, gaining basic work habits, and improving social skills during the summer.

Access and Adoption of Hybrid Seeds: Evidence from Uganda

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-235
Author(s):  
Nikolaus Axmann ◽  
Torben Fischer ◽  
Kevin Keller ◽  
Kevin Leiby ◽  
Daniel Stein ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Maize Seeds ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Female Farmers ◽  
Hybrid Seeds ◽  
Plant Hybrid ◽  
Hybrid Maize

Abstract Adoption of hybrid seeds remains low in many low-income countries. We conduct a field-experiment designed to measure the effect of offering hybrid maize seeds for purchase during a time when potential customers have high liquidity. Working with a large buyer of agricultural commodities in Northern Uganda, we randomly offer smallholder farmers the opportunity to purchase certified hybrid maize seeds at the same time as they visit the buyers’ stores to sell crops from a previous harvest. 16% of those offered purchase hybrid seeds, and average adoption of hybrid maize among those offered increases by 8 percentage points compared to a control group who does not receive the offer. Among those who accept the offer, we see an increase in the propensity to plant hybrid maize of 50 percentage points. This effect is more pronounced for female farmers than for their male counterparts. Our findings suggest that providing access to certified agricultural inputs at the place and time of post-harvest sales is a promising strategy to increase input usage.

scholarly journals Low-Income Female Students and the Reversal of the Black-White Gap in High School Graduation

AERA Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 233285842091520
Author(s):  
Brian Clark ◽  
Ying Shi
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Low Income ◽  
High School Graduation ◽  
Risky Behaviors ◽  
Female Students ◽  
Tailored Interventions ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Racial Gaps ◽  
School Graduation ◽  
Nationally Representative

This article shows that the traditional narrative of Black-White high school graduation gaps is inverted among economically disadvantaged female students. Two nationally representative surveys and statewide administrative data demonstrate that low-income White females graduate at rates 5 to 6 percentage points lower than Black peers despite having higher test scores. Greater rates of tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug use among White females account for one third of the attainment disparity. Since the early onset of substance use among low-income White females predicts lower attainment, more research on the factors leading to risky behaviors and their correlates during early adolescence is warranted. Examining racial gaps in high school graduation at the intersection of gender and income categories can inform more tailored interventions.

The Effects of Youth Employment: Evidence from New York City Lotteries *

2015 ◽  
Vol 131 (1) ◽  
pp. 423-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Gelber ◽  
Adam Isen ◽  
Judd B. Kessler
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Work Experience ◽  
New York State ◽  
The United States ◽  
Youth Employment ◽  
Program Participation ◽  
Employment Program ◽  
Employment Programs

Abstract Programs to encourage labor market activity among youth, including public employment programs and wage subsidies like the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, can be supported by three broad rationales. They may (i) provide contemporaneous income support to participants; (ii) encourage work experience that improves future employment and/or educational outcomes of participants; and/or (iii) keep participants “out of trouble.” We study randomized lotteries for access to the New York City (NYC) Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), the largest summer youth employment program in the United States, by merging SYEP administrative data on 294,100 lottery participants to IRS data on the universe of U.S. tax records; to New York State administrative incarceration data; and to NYC administrative cause of death data. In assessing the three rationales, we find that (i) SYEP participation causes average earnings and the probability of employment to increase in the year of program participation, with modest contemporaneous crowdout of other earnings and employment; (ii) SYEP participation causes a modest decrease in average earnings for three years following the program and has no impact on college enrollment; and (iii) SYEP participation decreases the probability of incarceration and decreases the probability of mortality, which has important and potentially pivotal implications for analyzing the net benefits of the program.

The Effects of Delivering Personalized Course Recommendations at Scale on Advanced Placement Participation and Performance

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-49
Author(s):  
Zachary Mabel ◽  
Michael D. Hurwitz ◽  
Matea Pender ◽  
Brooke White
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Minority Students ◽  
Advanced Placement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Underrepresented Minority ◽  
Underrepresented Minority Students ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Percent Increase ◽  
Group Rate

Abstract Gaps in advanced high school coursework by socioeconomic status and geography persist in the United States, even among students with the ability and access to succeed in them. Lack of information on course availability and inaccurate self-perceptions may contribute to these inequities. We report on a large-scale experiment designed to increase Advanced Placement (AP) participation among underrepresented minority students and students attending rural high schools. Students and parents assigned to treatment received personalized outreach via multiple communication channels about APs offered at their high school in which they demonstrated potential to succeed. Outreach increased the probability of AP Exam participation in subjects in which students demonstrated potential to succeed by 1.1 percentage points, a 2.5 percent increase over the control group rate. This, in turn, increased the probability that students scored 3 or higher on those AP Exams by 0.5 percentage points, a 1.4 percent increase over the control group rate. Intervention effects were concentrated among underrepresented minority students attending non-rural schools and relatively less academically prepared students. The findings indicate that personalized course recommendations can increase equity in advanced high school course participation; however, designing outreach campaigns at scale that engage students is a crucial challenge to their efficacy.

Access: 1954–1983

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Albjerg Graham
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Training Sequence ◽  
Drop Out ◽  
Dropping Out ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Public High School ◽  
The Supreme Court

“I’ll Never go to School with a Nigger!” Dickie, an eighth grader in my social studies class, shouted vehemently as we began to discuss the Brown v. Board of Education case prohibiting segregation in public schools that the Supreme Court had decided a year before, in 1954. Dickie was right; he never did, dropping out of school two years later, before his Virginia public high school began desegregation. I was flabbergasted and appalled by Dickie’s assertion, only gradually coming to realize that my new profession, teaching, was heading on a rocky road to improvement. In September 1955, as a new, navy bride, I began teaching in still segregated Deep Creek High School serving the predominantly low-income white community of the Dismal Swamp in southeastern Virginia. Prepared as I had been by the mushy adjustment curriculum of my Indiana public schools (lots of attention to my deficient social skills, not much to strengthening my intellect), I had zipped through college. I added the teacher training sequence after I became engaged in order to have a saleable skill when I married on graduation day. My five education courses, most of which I thought academically and professionally worthless, required that I memorize the Seven Cardinal Principles, still the reigning dogma, and I did, believing they represented the fuzzy thinking I associated with public education. I lived in a totally white world, never having had a black friend, fellow student, or teacher. Under Virginia law at that time Deep Creek High School was also a totally white high school world, though surrounded by a black community. The drop-out rate was high: 140 students in eighth grade but only 40 high school seniors. When Dickie made his assertion about segregation, I was astounded both by the language and by the sentiment. We did not use such a term in my household, and, innocent that I was, I thought the Supreme Court had decided the year before in Brown v. Board of Education that public schools could not be legally segregated by race.

scholarly journals Testing behavioral interventions designed to improve on-time SNAP recertification

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard M. Lopoo ◽  
Colleen Heflin ◽  
Joseph Boskovski
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Text Messaging ◽  
Behavioral Interventions ◽  
Text Message ◽  
Text Messages ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Randomized Controlled ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Hennepin County ◽  
Different Levels

We report results from a series of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) run between January 2019 and February 2020 testing behavioral interventions designed to increase the likelihood that SNAP recipients recertify on-time in Hennepin County, the most populous county in Minnesota. Given the different levels of governance and the abundance of qualifying rules and processes that low-income households must negotiate to obtain and retain SNAP food assistance benefits, many households may fail to recertify for SNAP. Administrative burden includes the difficulties created by having to learn deadlines and which forms constitute the proper paperwork necessary to recertify. In our main intervention, we test a three-armed study (n=23,756), comparing the efficacy of the Hennepin County SNAP recertification auto-dialer communication, a behaviorally-informed text message, and a third arm with both the Hennepin county autodialer and our text message, against a control group that did not receive any reminder at the beginning of the recertification month but did receive other standard written communications. Results from this trial show that the autodialer is not an effective reminder. However, the interventions with text messages are effective in improving recertification rates around five percent (p<0.01) over no additional message and around two percentage points (p<0.05) over the Hennepin County autodialer message currently being used. Text messaging appears to be particularly effective for SNAP recipients under the age of 60 with low to moderate levels of education.

High School Students' Character Strengths: Links With Psychological and Academic Outcomes

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Frank ◽  
Shannon M. Suldo ◽  
Sim Yin Tan ◽  
Rachel Roth ◽  
Bryan Bander ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Academic Outcomes ◽  
Character Strengths ◽  
School Students

Penerapan Model Pembelajaran Problem Based Learning dalam Pembelajaran Matematika di Kelas VIII SMPN 28 Padang

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-236
Author(s):  
Andi Susanto ◽  
Sony Ariadi
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Junior High School ◽  
Problem Based Learning ◽  
Average Score ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Learning Problem ◽  
Math Ability ◽  
Class Viii ◽  
Randomized Control

This reseach is aimed at knowing the students ability in both solving the math problem and connection those who are taught by Problem Based Learning at class VIII of the Junior High school 28 Padang 2017/2018. This research is categorized as quasy Experimental Research, by using Randomized Control Group Only Design. After implementing the Problem Based Leaning, the student was directly given the test as the result showed that the score  of the student who belong to the experimental class in  problem solving recorded as 74,00 while those who were in the control class only refers to 72,30. The test average score on the experimental class in term of math connection ability was 68,73; while in the control class recorded as 62,43. The T- Test showed that T-Table equals to 1,64 with the degree of reliability 95% . This fact reveals that the students’ ability in solving the problem after being taught through Problem Based Learning is higher than in control class with T-count equals to 3,71; while their connection math ability through Problem Based Learning Model in the Experimental Class is higher than control with T-count 2.17.Keywords: Problem Based Learning, problem solving, mathematics connection

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