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There are large gaps in reading skills by family income among school-aged children in the United States. Correlational evidence suggests that reading skills are strongly related to the amount of reading students do outside of school. Experimental evidence testing whether this relationship is causal is lacking. We report the results from a randomized evaluation of a summer reading program called Project READS, which induces students to read more during the summer by mailing ten books to them, one per week. Simple intent-to-treat estimates show that the program increased reading during the summer, and show significant effects on reading comprehension test scores in the fall for third grade girls but not for third grade boys or second graders of either gender. Analyses that take advantage of within-classroom random assignment and cross-classroom variation in treatment effects show evidence that reading more books generates increases in reading comprehension skills, particularly when students read carefully enough to be able to answer basic questions about the books they read, and particularly for girls. [Metametrics Inc. provided additional support for this report.]

There are several goals guiding this study. First, the authors use an experimental design to examine the causal effects of giving children 10 self-selected books over two summers. Second, they examine whether treatment effects are moderated by children's family income (i.e., eligibility for free- and reduced-price lunch). As a result, they examine whether the magnitude of the treatment effects differ for children who are eligible for free- and reduced-price lunch and those who are not. In spring 2007, a total of 991 Grade 4 children received parental consent to participate in their study. The results of study indicate the children's intrinsic motivation declines from the end of fourth-grade to the beginning of sixth-grade. At the same time, the decline in motivation is slower during the school year than during the summer, suggesting that schools play an important role in maintaining children's intrinsic motivation to read. There is also evidence that income status moderates reading comprehension gains during the school year and summer months. Finally, the experimental results indicate that providing children choice of reading materials over 2 summers had no impact on growth rates during the school year or summer. (Contains 2 tables.)

One literature documents a significant, black-white gap in average test scores, while another finds a substantial narrowing of the gap during the 1980's, and stagnation in convergence after. We use two data sources--the Long Term Trends NAEP and AFQT scores for the universe of applicants to the U.S. military between 1976 and 1991--to show: (1) the 1980's convergence is due to relative improvements across successive cohorts of blacks born between 1963 and the early 1970's and not a secular narrowing in the gap over time; and (2) the across-cohort gains were concentrated among blacks in the South. We then demonstrate that the timing and variation across states in the AFQT convergence closely tracks racial convergence in measures of health and hospital access in the years immediately following birth. We show that the AFQT convergence is highly correlated with post-neonatal mortality rates and not with neonatal mortality and low birth weight rates, and that this result cannot be explained by schooling desegregation and changes in family background. We conclude that investments in health through increased access at very early ages have large, long-term effects on achievement, and that the integration of hospitals during the 1960's affected the test performance of black teenagers in the 1980's. (Additional details on data used for the study are appended. Contains 38 footnotes, 11 figures and 10 tables.)

As part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the U.S. government began subsidizing Internet and telecommunications access in classrooms and libraries through a tax on long-distance services (the E-Rate Program). This paper analyzes the impact of this program on public schools' technology adoption during 1996-2000, examining data on technology owned in each year by every school in California and administrative data on every E-Rate funding application these same schools filed. The study uses demographic data for each school and district from the National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data and 1990 U.S. Census. It examines whether schools with higher subsidy rates make greater investments in technology than they would have without the program and whether increases in Internet access impact student outcomes. Despite the strong pre-1998 income gradient of Internet access, E-Rate funding went disproportionately to low-Internet schools. The subsidy produced significant increases in Internet investment. By 2000, 66 percent more classrooms had Internet connections than they would have had without the subsidy. Urban schools and predominantly black and Hispanic schools disproportionately responded to the subsidy. The increase in Internet connections has had no measurable impact on student achievement. (Contains 19 references.) (SM)

There is growing concern that it is too difficult or costly to substantially improve the academic skills of children who are behind in school once they reach adolescence. But perhaps what we have tried in the past relies on the wrong interventions, failing to account for challenges like the increased variability in academic needs during adolescence, or heightened difficulty of classroom management. This study tests the effects of one intervention that tries to solve both problems by simplifying the teaching task: individualized, intensive, in-school tutoring. A key innovation by the non-profit we study (Saga Education) is to identify how to deliver "high-impact tutoring" at relatively low cost ($3,500 to $4,300 per participant per year). Our first randomized controlled trial (RCT) of Saga's tutoring model with 2,633 9th and 10th grade students in Chicago public schools found participation increased math test scores by 0.16 standard deviations (SDs) and increased grades in math and non-math courses. We replicated these results in a separate RCT with 2,710 students and found even larger math test score impacts--0.37 SD--and similar grade impacts. These effects persist into future years, although estimates for high school graduation are imprecise. The treatment effects do not appear to be the result of a generic "mentoring effect" or of changes in social-emotional skills, but instead seem to be caused by changes in the instructional "technology" that students received. The estimated benefit-cost ratio is comparable to many successful model early-childhood programs. [This working paper was sponsored by numerous organizations. Refer to the direct link for the complete list.]

In response to budget problems, many urban school systems reduced resources for getting students to come to school, like truancy officers. Chicago, for instance, went from 150 truancy officers down to, in 1991, a total of zero. Is that a good idea? We explore here the effects of increased support by a pro-social adult, or "social capital," delivered through a structured student monitoring and mentoring program called Check & Connect (C&C). We carried out a large-scale randomized controlled trial with C&C in partnership with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to students in grades 1-8. Program participation decreased absences in grades 5-7 by 4.2 days, or 22.9 percent, but with no detectable effects on students in grades 1-4. We also did not find statistically significant effects on learning outcomes such as test scores or GPA, or any detectable spillovers to other students within the schools where the program was administered. The modest impacts per dollar spent, compared to previous evidence on either low-cost "nudges" or relatively intensive, higher-cost interventions, raise the possibility that, for very disadvantaged students, there may be decreasing but then increasing returns to program intensity for the problem of student disengagement.

Improving the educational outcomes of economically disadvantaged children is a policy priority in the United States, and yet relatively little progress has been made in recent decades. Education reforms that aim to help economically disadvantaged students often focus on improving the quality with which grade-level material is taught, or the incentives that students have to learn it. Yet such efforts may not adequately account for important differences within a classroom of students--differences in knowledge, in learning styles, or the rate at which students learn. As a result, in spite of these efforts, students who fall behind grade-level material tend to stay behind. When these students miss developing crucial foundational skills, they can have major difficulties in subsequent learning tasks, which worsens the gap between them and their grade-level peers as they move from one grade to the next. This persistent mismatch between the learning needs of students and what classroom instruction delivers can seriously undermine students' chances of success in the workforce and beyond. We propose scaling up a daily, individualized tutorial program that would allow students who have fallen behind grade level in math to reengage with regular classroom instruction, likely increasing their chances of graduating high school and achieving the many long-term economic benefits that go along with academic success. [This work was made possible by the generous support of the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, as well as the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, the city of Chicago, the Chicago Center for Youth Violence Prevention, the Chicago Public Schools, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, the Crown Family, the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation, the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, IMC Financial Markets, the Joyce Foundation, J-PAL, the Reva and David Logan Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Polk Bros Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation.]

We present the results of three large-scale randomized controlled trials (RCTs) carried out in Chicago, testing interventions to reduce crime and dropout by changing the decision-making of economically disadvantaged youth. We study a program called Becoming a Man (BAM), developed by the non-profit Youth Guidance, in two RCTs implemented in 2009-10 and 2013-15. In the two studies participation in the program reduced total arrests during the intervention period by 28-35%, reduced violent-crime arrests by 45-50%, improved school engagement, and in the first study where we have follow-up data, increased graduation rates by 12-19%. The third RCT tested a program with partially overlapping components carried out in the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC), which reduced readmission rates to the facility by 21%. These large behavioral responses combined with modest program costs imply benefit-cost ratios for these interventions from 5-to-1 up to 30-to-1 or more. Our data on mechanisms are not ideal, but we find no positive evidence that these effects are due to changes in emotional intelligence or social skills, self-control or "grit," or a generic mentoring effect. We find suggestive support for the hypothesis that the programs work by helping youth slow down and reflect on whether their automatic thoughts and behaviors are well suited to the situation they are in, or whether the situation could be construed differently. [A full list of sponsors of this project can be found on the NBER web site: http://www.nber.org/papers/w21178.ack.]