Attendance and Truancy, Dropout, Student Engagement
Conditions
Keywords
Attendance, Truancy, Student engagement, Mentoring, Monitoring, Case management
Brief summary
In partnership with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the goal of this project is to test the effectiveness of a manualized mentoring and case management program for students in grades 1-8. Most of the current policy and research attention on dropout has focused on the dropout decision itself, even though dropout is more likely to be simply the end point of a longer-term developmental process. This project seeks to learn more about the relative effectiveness of preventing dropout through mentoring and case management programs, and to learn more about the relative effectiveness of intervening early vs. later.
Detailed description
High school graduation is tremendously protective against involvement with crime and violence, as well as against the risk of adult poverty, unemployment, and poor health. Most of the policy and research attention on dropout has focused on the dropout decision itself. Yet dropout is almost always the end point of a longer-term developmental process. For this project the investigators have raised nearly $7 million in external support from the U.S. Department of Education, the National Institutes of Health, and the William T. Grant Foundation to learn more about the relative effectiveness of preventing dropout by trying to re-engage children in school much earlier during their academic careers. Specifically, this project is motivated by findings from the late University of Chicago sociologist James Coleman indicating that one of the strongest protective factors against school failure for children is having a strong relationship with a pro-social adult - something that far too many children do not currently have, particularly those growing up in distressed family and community environments. The investigators are partnering with other researchers at Northwestern, Duke, and the University of Minnesota to test at large scale the effects of a structured mentoring and monitoring programs called Check & Connect. To date, the project has completed its pilot year, and starting this academic year will work with nearly 500 elementary and middle school students distributed across 23 CPS schools on the West and South sides of the city. Students will receive Check & Connect assistance for two academic years total.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALCheck & Connect
Structured mentoring and case management
Sponsors
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
U.S. Department of Education
William T. Grant Foundation
Northwestern University
Study design
Allocation
NA
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
5 Years to 16 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Student with 10-27 total absences in prior school year * Students in Grades 1-7 at start of 2011-2012 or 2013-14 school years * In attendance at one of the Chicago Public Schools elementary/middle schools randomly selected to be offered the intervention
Exclusion criteria
* None
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Change in attendance and truancy | 2 times a year (on average every 6 months) during the intervention and 1 time a year each year following the completion of the intervention for up to 25 years | Attendance and truancy measured through school records on absences |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Criminal activity and involvement | 1 time a year each year following the completion of the intervention for up to 25 years | Criminal activity and involvement using criminal records will include individual-level administrative data on juvenile arrests from the Chicago Police Department and Cook County juvenile court records |
| Employment history and workforce involvement | 1 time a year each year following the completion of the intervention for up to 25 years | Employment outcomes using employment records will include formal labor market involvement as measured by quarterly unemployment insurance (UI) records from the Illinois Department of Employment Security |
| Health and medical system participation | 1 time a year each year following the completion of the intervention for up to 25 years | Health outcomes using health records will include Medicaid records on eligibility and service use from the Medicaid Analytic eXtract (MAX) |
| Academic achievement | 1 time a year each year during the intervention and 1 time a year each year following the completion of the intervention for up to 25 years | Academic achievement measured through school records will include grades received in school and scores on standardized achievement tests (Iowa Test of Basic Skills in reading and math) |
| School engagement | 1 time a year each year during the intervention and 1 time a year each year following the completion of the intervention for up to 25 years | School engagement measured through school records will include disciplinary actions/referrals |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed