GOING AWAY 

TO SCHOOL

An Evaluation of SEED DC

Executive Summary Rebecca Unterman

Dan Bloom

D. Crystal Byndloss

Emily Terwelp

 June 2016

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Going Away to School

An Evaluation of SEED DC

Rebecca Unterman

Dan Bloom

D. Crystal Byndloss

Emily Terwelp

June 2016 
This material is based upon work supported by the Social Innovation Fund (SIF), a program of the 

Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation

(EMCF) SIF initiative includes support from CNCS and 15 private co-investors: EMCF, The Annie 

E. Casey Foundation, The Duke Endowment, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The JPB 

Foundation, George Kaiser Family Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, Open Society Foundations, 

The Penzance Foundation, The Samberg Family Foundation, The Charles and Lynn Schusterman 

Family Foundation, The Starr Foundation, Tipping Point Community, The Wallace Foundation, and 

the Weingart Foundation.

 

Dissemination of MDRC publications is supported by the following funders that help finance 

MDRC’s public policy outreach and expanding efforts to communicate the results and implications of our work to policymakers, practitioners, and others: The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 

Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, EMCF, Ford Foundation, The George Gund 

Foundation, Daniel and Corinne Goldman, The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Inc., 

The JBP Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, Laura and John Arnold 

Foundation, Sandler Foundation, and The Starr Foundation.

In addition, earnings from the MDRC Endowment help sustain our dissemination efforts. Contributors to the MDRC Endowment include Alcoa Foundation, The Ambrose Monell Foundation, 

Anheuser-Busch Foundation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Ford Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, The Grable Foundation, The Lizabeth and 

Frank Newman Charitable Foundation, The New York Times Company Foundation, Jan Nicholson, Paul H. O’Neill Charitable Foundation, John S. Reed, Sandler Foundation, and The Stupski 

Family Fund, as well as other individual contributors.

The findings and conclusions in this report do not necessarily represent the official positions or 

policies of the funders. 

For information about MDRC and copies of our publications, see our website: www.mdrc.org. 

Copyright © 2016 by MDRC®. All rights reserved.
iii

Overview

The prospect of a well-paying job for a worker without a college education has significantly dimmed

in the past three decades, in the wake of sweeping changes in the U.S. economy and labor market. 

The effects of these changes are particularly devastating for young people from disadvantaged urban

communities. In response to this issue, the SEED Foundation, founded in 1997 by former management consultants Rajiv Vinnakota and Eric Adler, opened the first public, urban, college-preparatory 

boarding school in the country. The primary mission of the SEED School of Washington, DC 

(SEED DC), is to provide an intensive education program that prepares students from low-income 

and underserved communities for college enrollment and success.

The SEED school, located in a residential section of southeast Washington, serves approximately 

320 sixth- through twelfth-graders. Students attend school on campus five days a week, arriving on 

Sunday evening and going home on Friday afternoon. The SEED model posits that an alternative 

urban academic environment that puts a high priority on academic excellence and personal development will allow students to succeed through high school and in college. An important facet of the 

SEED model is to surround students with a cadre of adults to support them in preparing for college

success — including their teachers, school administrators, and the residence hall staff.

Using the random assignment inherent in the school admissions lottery, this report presents results 

from a six-year evaluation of SEED DC, including both an implementation study — to understand

how the school operates in practice — and an examination of the impacts of winning admission to 

SEED DC on a broad range of student outcomes.

Key Findings

• SEED DC creates a highly supportive environment for its students, with a network of caring 

adults. The school provides students with a wide array of services, ranging from academic support to emotional support and relationship-building activities. 

• The school produced significant, positive impacts on students’ standardized test scores and proficiency levels — particularly in math — in comparison with outcomes among students who did 

not win admission to SEED. 

• For students in the earliest cohorts, who can be followed through high school, SEED DC did not 

increase the proportion who graduated from high school in four years. 

• Although SEED DC showed a couple of positive behavioral effects, it did not show an impact 

on the key nonacademic outcomes, such as teen pregnancy or interaction with the criminal justice system, that could justify its higher cost. 

It is important to note that SEED DC operates in a district with many innovative alternatives and, 

owing to local rules, is unable to target the most underserved students. Thus the evaluation cannot 

speak to the question of whether SEED’s unusual boarding school model could produce larger effects in different environments, serving students who face more serious obstacles to success.

v 

Preface

Of the 24 million adolescents in the United States today, 41 percent live in low-income families 

and 19 percent, or 4.7 million, live in families with incomes falling below the federal poverty 

threshold. These young people are more likely to move multiple times, to face food insecurity, 

and to live in neighborhoods characterized by crime and a lack of resources. While educational 

attainment is often heralded as a pathway out of poverty, many of these young people live in 

neighborhoods with failing schools and come from families without a history of high school 

completion or college enrollment. 

Education reformers working in low-income areas have tried for decades to improve 

students’ school options and break the cycle of poverty. While there have been some successes, 

for some students, the compounding effects of multiple disadvantages are often too disruptive. 

In response the founders of SEED boarding schools sought to create a holistic intervention that 

provides students with a constant, safe place to live; regular healthy meals; and the kinds of resources — such as a library and a peaceful outdoor area — found in middle- and high-income 

communities. Within this context SEED strives to provide its students with a rigorous, collegeready academic program and supplements it with a youth development-focused life skills curriculum after school hours.

The SEED Foundation created its first school, SEED DC, in 1997. It currently serves 

320 students in grades 6 through 12; students live on campus Monday through Friday and go 

home on the weekends. The evaluation described in this report, funded under the Social Innovation Fund, takes advantage of lotteries within the SEED DC admissions process to assess 

SEED’s effects on students throughout middle and high school. The study focuses mainly on 

students’ academic outcomes but also uses a survey to measure whether SEED students are 

more likely to be engaged in school and have positive plans for the future. 

Notably, SEED improved students’ scores on standardized tests, but to date a partial 

sample of students who won a lottery to attend SEED were no more likely to graduate in four 

years than students who lost the lottery and attended other schools. There is no evidence that 

SEED students were less likely to engage in risky behaviors. Finally, many students left SEED 

after middle school. Still, it will be important to understand whether the gains in academic performance translate into additional high school graduates and higher rates of college enrollment 

in later years. The results raise the question of whether the intensive SEED approach would be 

more effective if aimed more narrowly at students facing very serious obstacles to success. 

Gordon L. Berlin

President, MDRC

vii

Acknowledgments

This report would not have been possible without the support of many individuals and organizations. In particular, the SEED Evaluation and the production of this report were funded by the 

Corporation for National and Community Service and the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, 

in partnership with the Social Innovation Fund.

We are tremendously grateful to several individuals on the staff at the SEED Foundation and the SEED School of Washington, DC. We could not have produced this report without 

the cooperation of SEED Foundation founders Rajiv Vinnakota and Eric Adler, as well as 

members of their staff, including Shane Mulhern, Mary Lease, Corin Collier, Lesley Poole, and 

Vincena Allen. We are equally grateful for the dedicated collaboration of so many school administrators and educators at the SEED DC school, including Carmen Johnson (Managing Director), Charles Adams (Head of School), Mecha Inman (Director of Admissions), Erika 

Asikoye (Director of Student Support Services), Jon Tucker (Director of Student Life), Kara 

Stacks (Principal), Kerry Richardson (Director of College Counseling), Matthew Carothers (Director of Middle School), Stacey Pearl (Special Education Coordinator), and Melissa Freeman 

(College Success Manager).

We could not have learned about the implementation of the SEED DC school model 

without the help of many other staff members at SEED DC, including middle school, ninthgrade, and high school teachers, resident advisers, academic intervention and life skills counselors, health counselors, and all other members of the SEED DC community, who are deeply 

committed to creating a caring and supportive space for the young people there.

At MDRC, Howard Bloom, William Corrin, Kate Gualtieri, and Janet Quint provided 

thoughtful comments on several drafts of this report. Karla Mendez and Danielle Craig coordinated the production of the report. Jennie Kaufman edited the report, and Stephanie Cowell prepared it for publication.

We are especially grateful to the SEED DC students, who graciously and enthusiastically welcomed us into their school. They participated in surveys and focus group discussions and 

allowed us to partake in and observe their daily lives. Many of the students were excited about 

our research and the opportunity to develop more knowledge about urban public boarding 

schools and the services that they can provide for young people.

The Authors

1 

Executive Summary

Sweeping changes in the U.S. economy and labor market over the past three decades have dramatically reduced the availability of well-paying jobs for workers without postsecondary education. Yet one in five high school freshmen nationwide do not graduate in four years, and many 

who do complete school are not ready to perform college-level work.1These patterns are particularly pronounced in urban areas, and among students from low-income and underserved families. 

In recent years, charter schools, which receive public funding but operate independently 

of local school districts, have increased in number and popularity, in part due to their flexible 

governance structure, which allows them to implement innovative new education models. One 

such model belongs to the SEED School of Washington, DC (SEED DC), the nation’s first urban, public, college-prep boarding school. The school provides students with an intensive, fully

integrated academic and boarding school program, including scheduled study time, constant 

access to positive role models, and life skills training. SEED’s model is based on the assumption that, for certain disadvantaged students who face overwhelming barriers to success at home 

and in the community, piecemeal reform efforts will not be sufficient.

This report presents the findings from a rigorous evaluation of SEED DC, which was

supported by the Social Innovation Fund (SIF), a program of the Corporation for National and 

Community Service (CNCS). The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation (EMCF) is leading a SIF 

project that includes support from CNCS and 15 private co-investors. EMCF’s SIF project included an investment in the SEED Foundation, the national nonprofit organization that oversees 

SEED DC and the two other SEED schools (in Baltimore and Miami) currently in operation.

SEED has been the subject of previous studies, including an impact study that found 

that SEED led to significant gains in standardized test scores in seventh and eighth grade.

2 The 

authors of that study questioned whether these increases were large enough to justify the high 

cost of the boarding school model. If SEED affects nonacademic outcomes such as teen pregnancy or crime involvement, which trigger very high social costs, the program could turn out to 

be a worthwhile investment of public funds.

The study uses SEED DC’s annual admissions lottery to identify two comparable 

groups of students: those who applied to SEED and were selected, at random, to be offered a 

 1

Grace Kena, Susan Aud, Frank Johnson, Xiaolei Wang, Jijun Zhang, Amy Rathbun, Sidney WilkinsonFlicker, and Paul Kristapovich, The Condition of Education 2014, NCES 2014-083 (Washington, DC: National 

Center for Education Statistics, 2014). 2

Vilsa E. Curto and Roland G. Fryer Jr., “Estimating the Returns to Urban Boarding Schools: Evidence 

from SEED,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 16746 (2011). 
2 

slot in the school, and those who applied to SEED and were not offered a slot. By following 

those two groups of students over time, the study can estimate the impacts of SEED DC on 

standardized test scores, high school graduation rates, and other nonacademic outcomes. This 

study focuses only on SEED DC, which is by far the most mature of the existing SEED schools.

The evaluation examined both the implementation of SEED DC and its impact on student outcomes. The study’s two overarching research questions are as follows: 

• How is SEED DC structured and how does it operate in practice? Using 

interviews with staff members and students, observation, and other methods, 

the evaluation team set out to understand the on-the-ground reality of SEED 

DC and how the school is experienced by students. This information not only 

helps in interpreting the impact findings, but also may help SEED improve 

service delivery over the long run.

• What is the effect of being offered an opportunity to attend SEED DC on 

student outcomes? Academic outcomes include standardized test scores and 

high school graduation. Nonacademic outcomes include both attitudes (for 

example, college aspirations) and behaviors (positive ones like homework

completion and risky ones like alcohol and drug use).

The evaluation focuses on 766 students who “won” or “lost” the SEED lottery as fifth- or sixthgraders between 2006 and 2011. The study followed those students through the 2013-2014 academic year, which means that only a small number of them could have graduated from high 

school or enrolled in college during the study period. Thus, while improving students’ performance in college is a key goal of SEED’s, it is too soon to assess whether SEED improves students’ postsecondary outcomes.

SEED DC in Operation

Located in a residential section of southeast Washington, SEED DC serves approximately 340 

sixth- through twelfth-grade students. Students in the study sample were primarily AfricanAmerican and were economically and academically disadvantaged. Of those who won the 

SEED lottery (the SEED group), four out of five qualified for free or reduced-price lunch. In the 

year they applied to SEED, 14 percent of the SEED group students qualified for special education services and just under 50 percent scored at or above proficient on the district-wide reading 

and math exams. 

Students attend school on campus five days a week, arriving on Sunday evening and returning home on Friday afternoon. During the days that students reside on campus, they have

access to quiet places to study and sleep, nutritious meals, academic resources, and spaces to 
3 

engage in extracurricular activities. By design, students are also surrounded by a cadre of caring 

adults who support them in preparing for success in college. In both academic and residential 

life programs, the school uses a grade-based cohort system, meaning that distinct goals, expectations, and approaches are set for middle school, ninth-grade, and high school students.

Academic Curriculum

The school philosophy is that all students have the same inherent potential for academic 

success, and thus all students are expected to excel at SEED. The academic department strongly 

believes in using data to guide and inform instruction, so all students take interim assessments in 

English and math four times per year. After each assessment, academic and Student Life staff

members meet in teams to discuss the results and identify priority issues. Teachers then use the 

assessment results to develop lesson plans to “reteach” skills that students have been unable to 

master.

SEED students are expected to attend college following high school graduation. The 

College Counseling department is responsible for providing support to students in the college 

search, application, and selection process. From sixth grade on, students are encouraged to visit 

the College Café, a colorful and inviting space stocked with information and decorated with 

memorabilia from many of the nation’s colleges. In middle school, students engage in discussions about the value of enrolling in college, visit a college campus, and participate in activities 

to strengthen their academic habits. Starting in ninth grade, students practice taking college entrance exams (the PSAT) so that they become familiar with the test and can improve their 

scores. High school students have access to test preparation materials during after-school hours. 

Eleventh-graders receive college advising focused on finding the “right-fit” college — the one

that is the best academic match and also meets their financial, social, and personal needs — and

students in the twelfth grade are actively engaged in the college search, application, and choice 

process.

A unique feature of the SEED student experience is the support that SEED students and 

graduates receive from the College Transition and Success (CTS) team, a unit within the SEED 

Foundation. Working in collaboration with the College Counseling Department, the CTS team 

holds a series of college transition workshops for seniors and their parents (including a financial 

literacy workshop) and helps students finish required college enrollment paperwork. The CTS 

Team also monitors and supports SEED graduates as they make the transition to college and 

maintains contact with SEED graduates who are enrolled in college. 

Student Life Curriculum

Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of SEED’s learning environment is the time that 

adults spend with students after school and through the evening. The Student Life Department is 
4 

responsible for developing and coordinating residential life programming and managing students’ time outside of the traditional academic day. Students are organized into houses (or 

groups) within the dorms, each of which is led by a resident adviser. Each house is named after 

a college or university and decorated with its pennants, pillows, and the like. 

The Student Life Department aims to develop students’ behavioral, social, and life 

skills while reinforcing what they are learning in the classroom. Middle school programming is 

intended to develop and refine social skills that are connected to meeting behavior expectations 

and routines, such as following instructions the first time they are given, adhering to the school 

dress code, and learning how to disagree appropriately. Ninth-grade Student Life activities aim 

to develop and reinforce the skills and habits necessary for success in high school, such as planning ahead, using anger control strategies, and building strong self-esteem. High school programming focuses on the transition to college. To accomplish these goals, the majority of Student Life time is structured, especially for the middle school grades.

The SEED-created Habits for Achieving Life-Long Success (HALLS) program teaches 

students social and basic life skills, such as decision making and communication strategies, and 

the importance of taking responsibility for oneself and others. HALLS activities focus on a variety of topics, such as bullying, dating relationships, and appropriate dining etiquette. 

Students described the social and life skills they are being taught as an important step in 

their preparation for college and beyond. They told of instructional and noninstructional staff 

members routinely discussing the personal habits and skills that students need to succeed in college, such as self-motivation, discipline, independence, strong time management skills (a recurring theme in all interviews and focus groups), leadership qualities, and other personal characteristics. Middle school students characterized their schedules as being regimented and related

an overall sense of being overscheduled, yet many also reported taking advantage of the various 

extracurricular activities offered at SEED. For example, some participated on the track team and 

some in student government.

Impacts on Academic Achievement and Behavior

At the beginning of the study period, students entered SEED as seventh-graders, but two years 

later SEED changed its model and began to enroll sixth-graders as well. In 2010-2011, SEED 

fully transitioned to its new model and admitted students only as sixth-graders. Analyses drew 

on separate samples for sixth-grade and seventh-grade entrants to estimate the short-term effects 

of SEED and drew on the sample of students from the first two years of the study (cohorts 1 and 

2 of the seventh-graders) to estimate the longer-term effects. 
5 

Washington, DC, is an especially charter-rich environment, and many of the students 

who applied to SEED but did not win the lottery actively sought out other innovative school 

options. Specifically, of the SEED lottery losers, roughly half the students enrolled in charter 

schools and half enrolled in traditional District of Columbia middle schools. Thus, in this study 

the SEED student experience was compared with a diverse set of other school experiences that 

may not exist in other contexts.

Short-Term Effects of SEED

About 20 percent of the students who won the SEED lottery (the SEED group) did not 

enroll in SEED the following fall. Among lottery winners who did not enroll in SEED, a little 

more than half enrolled in other charter schools and the remainder enrolled in traditional District 

of Columbia middle schools.

Short-term academic effects were measured by standardized test scores in the first two 

years of follow-up. Findings for the Seventh-Grade Entrant Sample are as follows: 

• On average, being offered the opportunity to attend SEED increased students’ 

academic achievement in math. In the first year, SEED group scores were 

higher than non-SEED group scores by 0.24 standard deviation, which is 

roughly equivalent to a 76 percent improvement on top of the typical annual 

gains for this age group. In the second year, the SEED effect in math was

equivalent to one and a half years of typical growth.

3

• Students in the SEED group did not perform better than students in the nonSEED group in their first year of follow-up on the standard reading exam, but

in the second year, the SEED group’s test scores exceeded those of the nonSEED group by the equivalent of one year of typical growth in reading.

4

Students in the Sixth-Grade Entrant Sample experienced a similar, though slightly 

weaker, pattern of positive SEED effects. 

Longer-Term Effects of SEED

In their third follow-up year, students in the first two cohorts made the transition into 

high school.5SEED’s high school model is different from the middle school model in a few key 

ways — boys and girls are taught in the same classroom, students’ time after school is less 

structured, and students begin more rigorous college-preparatory activities. Between the second 

 3

Carolyn J. Hill, Howard S. Bloom, Alison Rebeck Black, and Mark W. Lipsey, “Empirical Benchmarks 

for Interpreting Effect Sizes in Research,” Child Development Perspectives 2, 3 (2008): 172-177. 4

Hill, Bloom, Black, and Lipsey (2008).

5

Ten percent of the students were retained in grade.
6 

and third follow-up years, roughly 20 percent of the SEED lottery winners in cohorts 1 and 2

who were enrolled in SEED chose to leave and attend a different high school.

In the fall of 2013 the research team surveyed lottery winners and lottery losers in cohorts 1 and 2 and asked them a variety of questions about their experiences in school. At that 

point, most of the respondents were high school seniors or had recently graduated. Overall, students in the SEED group reported experiencing a more rigorous and supportive academic environment. 

• Students in the SEED group took fewer Advanced Placement courses but a 

larger number of foreign language, advanced science, and advanced math 

courses; participated in more extracurricular activities; received more academic support from teachers and adults; and participated in more college-prep 

and work-readiness activities. 

• SEED group students reported having more orderly classrooms and more academically motivated peers. Students did not report a difference in the calmness and order of weekday living environments or the frequency of meals, 

though students in the SEED group did report that they slept less and exercised more during the week. 

The effects on high school graduation for the earliest cohorts were limited: 

• Being offered the opportunity to attend SEED did not have an effect on students’ probability of four-year high school graduation.

In addition to positively affecting students’ academic achievement, SEED aims to promote positive behaviors like rigorous study habits and self-control, while discouraging “risky” 

ones like alcohol use and unplanned pregnancy. SEED may have had small effects on some

measures of student behavior, but only four are statistically significant: 

• While the SEED group did not report having developed more rigorous study 

habits or organizational skills than the non-SEED group, they did report 

spending four more hours a week doing homework than the non-SEED group. 

• Students in the SEED group reported slightly lower tobacco use in the past 30 

days than non-SEED group students.

• Students in the SEED group indicated slightly more frequent risky behavior 

(for example, skipping school, arguing with parents, or hitting someone) in 

the three months before they were surveyed, compared with non-SEED group 

students.
7 

• SEED group students reported slightly lower levels than non-SEED group 

students on scales designed to measure “grit” or perseverance.

Conclusions

Several factors are critical to the interpretation of the findings to date from this evaluation:

• Cost. Owing to its boarding school model, SEED costs at least twice as much 

per student as a traditional nonresidential school. If SEED has impacts on 

four-year high school graduation and nonacademic outcomes such as teenage 

childbearing and justice involvement, it would have the potential to produce 

large societal benefits that would offset its cost. At this point, there is little evidence that SEED DC has affected either graduation or the nonacademic outcomes, though it is important to note that the sample size for measuring longer-term impacts (about 200 students) is quite small.

• Enrollment targeting. SEED’s founders argue that the intensive, holistic, 

boarding-school model is needed for some students who face very serious obstacles to school success in their homes and communities. And, indeed, both 

the Maryland and Florida SEED schools are open only to students who meet 

certain specific criteria signifying severe disadvantage. In contrast, owing to 

local rules, the DC school, the focus of this evaluation, is open to any student 

who resides in Washington. It is possible that SEED’s model would produce 

larger impacts for students facing more serious obstacles to success.

• Local educational context. Washington, DC, has many innovative charter 

and magnet schools, and it appears that a large proportion of the students who 

lost the SEED lottery enrolled in these schools, particularly by the time they 

reached high school, when two-thirds of the non-SEED group were attending 

charter or magnet schools. It is possible that SEED would make a bigger difference in a context with fewer innovative alternatives. 

• Length of stay at SEED. SEED DC’s impacts on academic proficiency are 

substantial, particularly in the middle school years, and other literature suggests that middle school test scores are highly predictive of high school graduation. Yet there is no evidence to date that SEED has increased high school 

graduation rates. This fact, coupled with data showing that less than half the 

SEED group was still at the school in twelfth grade, raises the question of 

whether SEED could have larger, more sustained impacts if more students 
8 

remained in the school longer and received a larger “dose” of SEED — in 

other words, whether the school needs to focus more on promoting retention. 

• Implementation quality. While the implementation study noted many positive qualities of SEED DC’s operation, it also raised questions about the 

quality of instruction in SEED DC’s classrooms — particularly at the high 

school level — and noted that many students seemed to be struggling with the 

transition from eighth grade to ninth grade, even while remaining at the same 

school. The SEED Foundation has recently announced a renewed and intensified focus on the quality of instruction, leadership, and services at its schools.

For example, the foundation reports that SEED DC has identified new curriculum resources to strengthen the middle school math program and is seeking 

to increase student engagement through interactive learning technologies. 

Given these and other ongoing changes, it is possible that impacts on student 

outcomes — and, perhaps, retention rates — will be stronger in the future.
About MDRC

MDRC is a nonprofit, nonpartisan social and education policy research organization dedicated 

to learning what works to improve the well-being of low-income people. Through its research 

and the active communication of its findings, MDRC seeks to enhance the effectiveness of social and education policies and programs.

Founded in 1974 and located in New York City and Oakland, California, MDRC is best known 

for mounting rigorous, large-scale, real-world tests of new and existing policies and programs. 

Its projects are a mix of demonstrations (field tests of promising new program approaches) and 

evaluations of ongoing government and community initiatives. MDRC’s staff bring an unusual 

combination of research and organizational experience to their work, providing expertise on the 

latest in qualitative and quantitative methods and on program design, development, implementation, and management. MDRC seeks to learn not just whether a program is effective but also 

how and why the program’s effects occur. In addition, it tries to place each project’s findings in 

the broader context of related research — in order to build knowledge about what works across 

the social and education policy fields. MDRC’s findings, lessons, and best practices are proactively shared with a broad audience in the policy and practitioner community as well as with the 

general public and the media.

Over the years, MDRC has brought its unique approach to an ever-growing range of policy areas and target populations. Once known primarily for evaluations of state welfare-to-work programs, today MDRC is also studying public school reforms, employment programs for exoffenders and people with disabilities, and programs to help low-income students succeed in 

college. MDRC’s projects are organized into five areas:

• Promoting Family Well-Being and Children’s Development

• Improving Public Education

• Raising Academic Achievement and Persistence in College

• Supporting Low-Wage Workers and Communities

• Overcoming Barriers to Employment

Working in almost every state, all of the nation’s largest cities, and Canada and the United 

Kingdom, MDRC conducts its projects in partnership with national, state, and local governments, public school systems, community organizations, and numerous private philanthropies.