There is growing concern that improving the academic skills of children in
poverty is too difficult and costly once they reach adolescence, and so policymakers
should instead focus either on vocationally oriented instruction or else on early childhood
education. Yet this conclusion might be premature given that so few previous
interventions have targeted a key barrier to school success: “mismatch” between what
schools deliver and the needs of youth, particularly those far behind grade level. The
researchers report on a randomized controlled trial of a school-based intervention that
provides disadvantaged youth with intensive individualized academic instruction. The
study sample consists of 2,718 male ninth and tenth graders in 12 public high schools on
the south and west sides of Chicago, of whom 95 percent are either black or Hispanic and
more than 90 percent are free- or reduced-price lunch eligible. Participation increased
math achievement test scores by 0.19 to 0.31 standard deviations (SD), depending on
how the researchers standardize, increased math grades by 0.50 SD, and reduced course
failures in math by one-half in addition to reducing failures in non math courses. While
some questions remain, these impacts on a per-dollar basis—with a cost per participant of
around $3,800, or $2,500 if delivered at larger scale—are as large as those of almost any
other educational intervention whose effectiveness has been rigorously studied. |
