Executive Summary
�

TWO YEARS OF
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CASE MANAGEMENT
� FINAL FINDINGS FROM THE COMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS
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RANDOM ASSIGNMENT EVALUATION
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Leigh M. Parise
�

William Corrin
� 

Kelly Granito
�

Zeest Haider
�

Marie-Andrée Somers
�

and
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Oscar Cerna
�

APRIL 2017
�

 

 

Executive Summary 

Two Years of Case Management 

Final Findings from the Communities In Schools
 

Random Assignment Evaluation
 

Leigh M. Parise
 

William Corrin
 

Kelly Granito
 

Zeest Haider
 

Marie-Andrée Somers
 

and
 

Oscar Cerna
 

April 2017
 
 

 

 

 

This report is funded by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation’s Social Innovation Fund, a White 

House initiative and program of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). 

The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation’s Social Innovation Fund includes support from CNCS 

and 15 private coinvestors: The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, 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, Penzance 

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

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

Weingart Foundation. The Wallace Foundation also provided additional support separate from its 

involvement with the Social Innovation Fund, as part of its mission to support and share effective 

ideas and practices. 

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, The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, 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 © 2017 by MDRC®. All rights reserved. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overview
 

While high school graduation rates are on the rise nationwide, too many students still never reach 

that milestone, with 7,000 on average dropping out every day. Recognizing that many students need 

additional support to succeed in school, Communities In Schools (CIS) works to provide and 

connect students with integrated support services to keep them on a path to graduation. CIS makes 

some services broadly available to all students at a school, and provides individual case management 

to those deemed most at risk of dropping out. 

This report presents the final implementation and impact findings from a two-year randomized 

controlled trial of CIS case management. This trial is half of a two-pronged national evaluation, the 

other half being a quasi-experimental study of the whole-school model. The report describes the 

implementation and effects of CIS case management in 24 mostly urban, low-income secondary 

schools in two states during the 2013-2014 school year. The study’s implementation research finds: 

•	 CIS site coordinators directly provide many services and also connect students with local 

partners and extant in-school services. While partner and in-school service providers help CIS 

meet students’ needs, it is challenging to monitor and evaluate their services’ quality. 

•	 During the second year of the study, approximately 80 percent of the students assigned to case 

management received services. These students received services an average of 20 times, for an 

average of just over 18 hours. Students classified as being at high risk of dropping out received 

services at a lower rate than moderate-risk students. 

•	 CIS case-managed students participated in support activities more frequently than non-casemanaged students overall. 

The study also estimated the effect of case management on students’ nonacademic and more 

traditional school outcomes. After two years, the study found that case management had a positive 

effect on several nonacademic outcomes, including students’ attitudes about school and their 

relationships with adults and peers. However, the study also found that case management did not 

improve students’ school progress, achievement, attendance, or behavior. 

The final chapter of this report includes implications for practice based on the evaluation findings: 

ensuring that high-risk students receive the most attention; keeping students engaged with services; 

monitoring and adjusting services over time; working to ensure the quality of services from partner 

organizations; and emphasizing students in transition grades. CIS’s national office has already begun 

to implement changes based on the results of this evaluation. 

The report concludes by considering the results of this random assignment study of case management together with the results of the quasi-experimental analysis of the whole-school model. Taken 

together, the results suggest that whole-school models of integrated student support offer the 

promise of positive effects. The results also indicate, however, some areas to which support providers may need to pay close attention, to ensure that students receive services that address their specific 

needs and that benefit them above and beyond the services already available. 

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Preface
 

Although graduation rates have increased in recent years, the fact is that too many young people 

— about one million of them — drop out of school each year. To make it through high school, 

many students, especially those growing up in low-income communities, require academic and 

social support services that go beyond the classroom. While services may be available in the 

school and community, they are often scattered across numerous government agencies and 

nonprofit organizations, which makes it difficult to coordinate them and difficult for at-risk 

students to use them. Integrating these services is therefore viewed as a promising way to help 

students stay on track to graduate. 

Communities In Schools (CIS), a nonprofit organization with a national reach, offers a 

school-based model focused on organizing and supplementing the disparate services in a school 

and community. With a network of local affiliate offices in half the states in the nation (plus 

Washington, DC), CIS provides services of varying levels of intensity and duration based on 

students’ levels of need. Some CIS services are broadly available to all students at a school and 

others are directed at those most at risk of dropping out. This report is the second of two that 

present the findings from an experimental evaluation of the most intensive component of the 

CIS model — individual case management. This study found that the case management CIS 

provides succeeded in getting targeted students into more support activities and improving 

several of their nonacademic outcomes. However, the study found that these services did not 

have a positive effect on students’ attendance, academic performance, or behavior. 

CIS has committed itself to being a learning organization, regularly evaluating aspects 

of its program in order to improve its work on behalf of students. For CIS, external evaluation is 

not an endpoint or “check-the-box” activity intended solely to assess effectiveness, but rather an 

independent source of information that can be used for program improvement. For example, 

after this evaluation found there was little differentiation in the type and amount of services 

provided to students receiving case management, CIS shifted from a two-tier to a three-tier 

model that specifies greater differentiation in services based on students’ needs. In addition, CIS 

relies heavily on services provided by partner organizations, and this evaluation found that 

monitoring the quality of these services can be challenging. In response, CIS has developed 

tools and additional guidance to help its network engage partners, with a focus on high-quality, 

evidence-based interventions. During the course of this evaluation, CIS also increased its own 

internal research capabilities, so that in the future it can both generate its own information and 

collaborate even more effectively with independent research organizations. 

Gordon L. Berlin 

President, MDRC 

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Acknowledgments
 

This report is based on work supported by the Social Innovation Fund, a White House initiative 

and program of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). The Social Innovation Fund combines public and private resources with the goal of increasing the impact of 

innovative, community-based solutions that have compelling evidence of improving the lives of 

people in low-income communities throughout the United States. 

The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation’s Social Innovation Fund includes support from CNCS 

and 15 private coinvestors: The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, 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. The Wallace Foundation also provided additional support 

separate from its involvement with the Social Innovation Fund. This report would not have been 

possible without the support of these funders. 

We owe special thanks to Communities In Schools (CIS) national and affiliate staff members for their support and cooperation throughout this study. At the national level, Gary 

Chapman, Heather Clawson, Dan Linton, and Kevin Leary provided support for the study. 

Heather was critical in providing important information about the organization throughout 

the course of the evaluation. She also coordinated with other national and affiliate staff 

members to obtain data about the schools in the study, and we are grateful to them for 

providing this information. Affiliate staff members and school-based site coordinators supplied vital information about their work locally, which helped shape communication and 

planning regarding several aspects of the study. Additionally, their efforts helped make all 

in-school data collection activities possible, and the research team is grateful for their support and cooperation. They also helped connect the team with school district staff members, 

who provided critical school records data used in the analyses herein. 

The research team received useful responses throughout the evaluation and insightful comments on early findings and drafts of this report from many people outside of MDRC: 

Heather Clawson and Kevin Leary at CIS National; Gabriel Rhoads, Kelly Fitzsimmons, 

and Partheev Shah at The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, as well as members of the 

foundation’s independent evaluation advisory committee; Hilary Rhodes and Dara Rose at 

The Wallace Foundation; and the reviewers at CNCS. 

vii 
 

 

 

 

 

Survey Research Management (SRM) administered the student surveys that yielded data 

analyzed for this report. They formatted and produced the student surveys, administered 

them in the participating schools, executed the data entry, and produced the necessary data 

files for the research team. Linda Kuhn, Tony Lavender, Ashley Bronzan, Betsy Quicksall, 

and Rob Schroder led this work at SRM. 

At MDRC, Leslyn Hall supported the design of student surveys, and Seth Muzzy and Nicole Morris helped manage communications between MDRC and SRM. Rachel Pedraza 

and Emily Pramik played roles as liaisons between the research team and local CIS and 

school staff members. Emily Pramik programmed and managed the online surveys administered to CIS site coordinators and school leaders. Nicholas Commins, Emily Pramik, and 

Kelly Quinn contributed to the processing and analysis of quantitative data, with Kelly leading the efforts at tracking and conducting many of the team’s analyses during the second 

year of the study. Helen Chen Kingston and Rachel Pedraza contributed to the coding and 

analysis of qualitative data. Kelly Quinn was the fearless leader of the report production, 

with responsibilities that included producing exhibits and checking tables and text. Kelly’s 

support, management, and encouragement were vital to the team’s success in completing 

this report. Daphne Chen also supported the fact-checking of this report, which was critical 

in getting it completed. 

Gordon Berlin, Fred Doolittle, Robin Jacob, Elizabeth Zachry-Rutschow, Rob Ivry, Ivonne 

Garcia, and Joshua Malbin carefully reviewed earlier drafts of the report, offered helpful 

suggestions on how to present the findings, and provided valuable advice on conducting 

additional analyses. Joshua Malbin did an excellent job editing the full report, and Ann 

Kottner prepared the report for publication. 

The Authors 

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Executive Summary
 

About one million students drop out of American high schools every year.1 While graduation 

rates have increased over the last decade, one in five students still fail to graduate within four 

years. Compared with high school graduates, students who drop out are more likely to live in 

poverty, suffer from poor health, be involved in crime, and receive government assistance.

2 

Many students at risk of dropping out need academic and social services and other forms of 

support to make it through high school. However, services are often scattered across numerous 

government agencies and nonprofit organizations, which makes it difficult to coordinate them 

and difficult for at-risk students to use them. Integrating these services is therefore viewed as a 

promising way to help students stay on track to graduate.3 

This report presents the findings from a random assignment study of individual case 

management provided by Communities In Schools (CIS), a national nonprofit organization 

focused on reducing dropout rates by providing integrated support to at-risk students in the 

nation’s poorest-performing schools. This study found that the case management CIS provides 

succeeded in getting targeted students into more support activities and improving several of 

their nonacademic outcomes. However, the study found that these services did not have a 

positive effect on students’ attendance, academic performance, or behavior after two years. 

What Is the CIS Model? 

Founded in 1977 by children’s advocate Bill Milliken, CIS works with K-12 schools in lowincome communities that have many students at risk of failing or dropping out. CIS now serves 

nearly 1.5 million students and their families in 25 states and the District of Columbia. It is 

active in approximately 2,400 schools and 360 school districts.4 

The ultimate goal of the CIS model is to reduce dropout rates by integrating community 

and school-based support services within schools. In the schools included in this evaluation, 

1

National Center for Education Statistics, “Table 219.71: Population 16 to 24 Years Old and Number of 

16- to 24-Year-Old High School Dropouts (Status Dropouts), by Sex and Race/Ethnicity: 1970 through 2014” 

(website: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_219.71.asp, 2015). 2

Child Trends, High School Dropout Rates: Indicators on Children and Youth (Bethesda, MD: Child 

Trends, 2015). 3

Kristin Anderson Moore, Making the Grade: Assessing the Evidence for Integrated Student Supports 

(Bethesda, MD: Child Trends, 2014). 4

Communities In Schools, 2014 Annual Report (Arlington, VA: Communities In Schools, 2014). 

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CIS works to accomplish this goal by providing what it calls “Level 1” and “Level 2” services.5 

Level 1 services are broadly available to all students at a school and are usually short-term, lowintensity activities or services (for example, making clothing or school supplies available to 

students, organizing a school-wide career fair, or hosting a financial aid workshop for twelfthgraders). CIS’s internal standards say that a minimum of 75 percent of students at the school 

must be involved in at least one Level 1 service during the year. CIS site coordinators — those 

responsible for all CIS school-based operations — spend much of their time focused on more 

intensive Level 2 “case-managed” services, which they provide to a subset of students displaying one or more significant risk factors for dropping out, such as poor academic performance, a 

high absentee rate, or behavioral problems. In case management, site coordinators work with 

individual students to identify their needs, provide support directly and connect them with 

support in the school and community to address those needs, and regularly monitor their 

progress to ensure that their needs continue to be met. 

Level 2 Case Management 

This report focuses on the Level 2 case management component of the CIS model as 

implemented in middle and high schools.6 The CIS model posits that providing individual 

support to at-risk students will provide them with the skills and resources they need to succeed. 

Through a review of data or because of a referral from an adult in the school, a site coordinator identifies a student as being at risk for eventually dropping out and seeks consent from 

a parent or guardian for the student to receive case management. The site coordinator assesses 

the student’s needs, develops an individual case plan, and sets goals with the student. Based on 

that plan, the site coordinator provides services appropriate to the student’s needs or connects 

the student to those services. The site coordinator monitors the student’s progress during the 

year and may adjust the plan based on changes in the student’s needs. 

The case management activities are expected to affect nonacademic outcomes related to 

students’ attitudes, behaviors, and relationships. The services provided to a student are intended 

to foster supportive relationships with adults and peers, encourage greater engagement with 

school, stimulate greater effort to meet academic and behavioral expectations, and increase the 

value that students see in their schooling. Effects on these nonacademic outcomes are hypothesized to indirectly affect more traditional school outcomes, such as attendance, performance in 

5

As discussed below, CIS shifted from a two-tier model of services to a three-tier model after this study 

was completed. 6

The comprehensive CIS model is implemented in elementary, middle, and high schools. This evaluation 

of case management focuses only on secondary schools. 

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class, and disruptive behavior in school. These traditional school outcomes, in turn, are believed 

to predict students’ likelihood of eventually graduating from high school.7 

How Was the CIS Model Evaluated? 

In its ongoing commitment to continuous improvement, the CIS national office looks to 

external organizations to provide independent and objective research intended to help its staff 

understand how its model is being implemented in schools and what its effect is on schools and 

students. A previous evaluation by ICF International suggested that young people who receive 

CIS services are more likely to achieve a number of positive outcomes than those who do not.8 

As part of its participation in the federal Social Innovation Fund (SIF) grant program, CIS 

selected MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education and social policy research organization, to 

conduct an independent, two-study evaluation funded by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, with additional funding provided by The Wallace Foundation.9 

One of the studies in this latest evaluation examines whether introducing the model 

with all of its elements improves school graduation rates, dropout rates, attendance rates, and 

state test scores. This component of the evaluation uses a quasi-experimental comparative 

interrupted time series design to estimate the effect of the whole-school model.

10 

This report addresses the second study in the evaluation, which focuses on CIS Level 2 

case management, examining service provision, student experiences, and student outcomes in 

the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 school years. This study relies on a random assignment research 

7

Allensworth and Easton indicate that earning course credits and not failing core courses in ninth grade 

predicts eventual graduation. See Elaine M. Allensworth and John Q. Easton, The On-Track Indicator as a 

Predictor of High School Graduation (Chicago: University of Chicago, Consortium on Chicago School 

Research, 2005). Balfanz, Herzog, and MacIver have also found that as early as the sixth grade, 50 percent of 

future school dropouts in high-poverty schools show signs of falling off track: poor attendance, poor behavior, 

or poor course performance (that is, course failure). See Robert Balfanz, Liza Herzog, and Douglas MacIver, 

“Preventing Student Disengagement and Keeping Students on the Graduation Path in Urban Middle-Grades 

Schools: Early Identification and Effective Interventions,” Educational Psychologist 42, 4 (2007): 223-235. 8

ICF International, CIS National Evaluation: Five Year Summary Report (Fairfax, VA: ICF International, 

2010); Allan Porowski and Aikaterini Passa, “The Effect of CIS on High School Dropout and Graduation 

Rates: Results From a Multiyear, School-Level Quasi-Experimental Study,” Journal of Education for Students 

Placed at Risk (JESPAR) 16, 1 (2011): 24-37. 9

The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation (EMCF) received a SIF grant from the federal Corporation for 

National and Community Service. CIS is a subgrantee to EMCF within the SIF program. Thus, while CIS was 

interested in continuing to evaluate its model, this evaluation is also being conducted as one of the required 

activities of the SIF grant program. It also aligns with EMCF’s interest in supporting organizations that are 

participating in evidence-generating research. 10For an explanation of this quasi-experimental design, see Marie-Andrée Somers and Zeest Haider, A 

Tiered Approach to Dropout Prevention: A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of Communities In Schools (New 

York: MDRC, 2017). 

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design. The middle schools and high schools that underwent random assignment for this study 

had more eligible students — those facing challenges that threatened to impede their progress 

toward graduation — than could be included on site coordinators’ caseloads.11 These students 

were randomly assigned to join site coordinators’ caseloads (the case-managed group) or to 

continue with business as usual, with access to whatever other forms of support were available, 

including CIS Level 1 services (the non-case-managed group). Since random assignment 

created two comparable groups and the sample is large, students’ individual characteristics are, 

on average, the same in both groups, and any differences that emerge over time between these 

two groups can be attributed to CIS case management. The strength of the causal inference 

made possible by random assignment is why it is considered the gold standard of evaluation 

design. 

What Did the Study of CIS Level 2 Case Management Find? 

MDRC previously published an interim report after students had received case management for 

one year.12 The current report focuses on 14 middle schools and 10 high schools in the second 

year of the study. In this second year the research team conducted additional implementation 

research and followed both the case-managed and non-case-managed students for another year 

of services.

13 The findings are consistent with the results found after one year. 

Two-Year Implementation Findings 

This report presents information about the CIS services available in study schools, provides details about how CIS works in schools, and describes the amounts and types of support 

received by case-managed and non-case-managed students. Most schools in the study are 

located in or around large or midsize cities, serve predominantly black and Hispanic students, 

and serve low-income populations. 

The study team learned that students in study schools have available to them a variety 

of support services from a variety of service providers. The services include Level 1 wholeServices Available in CIS Schools 

11The quasi-experimental and random assignment components of the evaluation did not include any of the 

same schools. 12William Corrin, Leigh Parise, Oscar Cerna, Zeest Haider, and Marie-Andrée Somers, Case Management 

for Students at Risk of Dropping Out: Implementation and Interim Impact Findings from the Communities In 

Schools Evaluation (New York: MDRC, 2015). 13Students in the comparison group continued not to receive case management during the second year of 

the study. One affiliate, with four study schools, opted not to continue in the study for the second year so that it 

could serve the students in the comparison group during that year. 

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school services provided by CIS site coordinators; school leaders reported that CIS is an 

important provider of many services, including mentoring, links to providers of basic necessities, college and career preparation activities, and family-engagement activities. 

Working with Schools and Partners to Support Case -Managed Students 

CIS site coordinators provide many Level 2 services, and they also connect casemanaged students with local partners and extant in-school services. When CIS staff members 

connect case-managed students to services provided by school staff members, those services 

“count” as Level 2 case-managed services. These services are often also available to non-casemanaged students, which may mean that case-managed and non-case-managed students are 

sometimes receiving similar forms of support. The study team learned that one component of 

site coordinators’ roles is to act as advocates for their case-managed students, both by making 

sure students take advantage of services in their schools (which they might not do otherwise) 

and by checking with school staff members about students’ academic and behavioral progress. 

One of the goals of the second year of the study was to learn more about CIS partners’ 

role in supporting case-managed students. CIS’s partners provide many important services to 

case-managed students, especially mentoring, academic assistance, and family-engagement 

activities. However, some partners work more closely with site coordinators to plan services 

than others. It can be challenging in any case for CIS to monitor and evaluate the quality of the 

services partners provide, and that problem may be exacerbated when site coordinators and 

partners are not working together closely. 

Services Received by Case-Managed and Non -Case-Managed Students 

During the second year of the study, approximately 80 percent of the students in the 

CIS case-managed group received services.14 Students received services as a result of case 

management an average of 20 times per year, totaling an average of just over 18 hours. One of 

the implementation findings from the first year of the study was that “high-risk” students 

received services as a result of case management about as many times and for about as many 

hours as lower-risk students.15 In the second year, however, high-risk students received significantly different amounts of services than moderate-risk students. Specifically, 75 percent of 

high-risk case-managed students received services during the second year of the study, compared with 85 percent of moderate-risk students. This pattern held true for most of the catego14The 20 percent of students who did not receive services were still in the schools, as they were present to 

take the student survey in the spring of the second study year. 15“High-risk” students were those who in the year before the study began had failed a course, been chronically absent, or been suspended. A student is considered chronically absent if he or she has an attendance rate 

below 90 percent. 

5 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ries of services provided to case-managed students: A greater proportion of moderate-risk 

students received services than did high-risk students. 

CIS case-managed students reported participating in more support activities than noncase-managed students, suggesting that CIS case management is providing something more 

than what students otherwise receive. Case-managed students reported higher levels of participation in meetings with adults at school, meetings with mentors, tutoring, and career planning 

activities. For example, 39 percent of case-managed students participated in mentoring, compared with 27 percent of non-case-managed students; 75 percent of the case-managed students 

had one-on-one meetings with adults about academics, compared with 64 percent of non-casemanaged students. Case-managed students also participated in support activities more times per 

year than non-case-managed students. 

Two-Year Impact Findings 

Level 2 case management is intended to advance CIS’s larger goal of improving students’ school progress. That is, CIS seeks to reduce the number of dropouts from a school and 

to increase its number of graduates. Because this study lasted only two years, it was not possible 

to track students through high school graduation. The study therefore examines nonacademic 

mediating outcomes and more traditional school outcomes. 

Nonacademic Outcomes 

These outcomes are behaviors and attitudes believed to precede students’ improved 

success in school. CIS case management had a positive and statistically significant effect on the 

rate at which students reported having a caring adult at home, at school, and outside of home 

and school, and on the quality of their peer relationships. Case management also had positive 

and statistically significant effects on students’ engagement with school, their educational 

attitudes, and their belief that education has value for their lives. However, there was no 

difference between case-managed and non-case-managed students in participation in schooland non-school-sponsored extracurricular activities, or in educational goals and expectations. 

CIS case management did not have an effect on students’ traditional school outcomes. 

Students in the case-managed and non-case-managed groups had similar rates of chronic 

absenteeism, attendance, core course failure, and credit accumulation, and similar course marks. 

However, case-managed students had more suspensions, on average, than non-case-managed 

students and this difference was statistically significant. Thus, it cannot be concluded that CIS 

case management improved students’ attendance, course performance, or behavior. 

6 

Traditional School Outcomes 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What Conclusions Can Be Drawn from MDRC’s Evaluation? 

While this study did not find that CIS case management had effects on students’ school outcomes, it did gather a great deal of information about CIS case management and the wholeschool model. This information can help CIS improve case management practices and provide 

insight into how CIS might contribute to whole-school improvements. 

Considerations for CIS Case Management 

The evaluation findings suggest some areas where the CIS national office might consider providing more or different guidance and support to the affiliates and schools in its 

network, with the goal of affecting case-managed students’ school outcomes. They also offer 

some lessons for other integrated student-support organizations. The national office has already 

begun to implement some of these changes based on results from the evaluation. 

Ensuring that high-risk students receive the most attention. This study found that 

students potentially at higher risk for dropping out did not receive more services than those who 

may have been at less risk. After the first evaluation report, which included the finding that 

high-risk students did not receive meaningfully different services than moderate-risk students, 

CIS began moving beyond the two-level model implemented by the schools in this study. Its 

new three-tiered model is intended to provide more intensive support to the students with the 

greatest need. Further, CIS has begun classifying students based on their level of risk or need, 

and is focusing on providing more differentiated forms of support to meet students’ needs.16 

CIS should continue to pay attention to this issue, and collect data to monitor whether the threetiered model delivers more appropriate services to students with greater needs. 

Keeping students engaged. About 80 percent of the case-managed student sample received case management in the second study year. While keeping a large majority of students 

engaged for multiple years is a noteworthy accomplishment, it seems especially challenging to 

provide continuous services to high-risk students, as the percentage of those students who 

received case management declined substantially from the first to second year of the study. 

Other research has suggested that it may take at least two years for intensive case management 

to generate effects on students’ outcomes,

17 so CIS site coordinators and practitioners might 

16These adjustments to the model occurred after this study, and thus this study’s results do not capture the 

effect of the changes. 17Maynard, Kjellstrand, and Thompson reported that the evaluations of the Check & Connect dropout 

prevention program that found positive effects on attendance and behavior were those that evaluated the 

program when implemented for at least two years. See Brandy R. Maynard, Elizabeth K. Kjellstrand, and 

Aaron M. Thompson, “Effects of Check and Connect on Attendance, Behavior, and Academics: A Randomized Effectiveness Trial,” Research on Social Work Practice 24, 3 (2014): 296-309. 

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benefit from additional guidance about how to keep students engaged, particularly higher-risk 

students. 

Monitoring and adjusting services over time. During both years of the random assignment study, there was variation in the extent to which site coordinators monitored the 

outcomes of case-managed students against their case plans, and revised those case plans and 

service provision to meet ongoing or changing student needs. Other researchers studying case 

management programs have emphasized the importance of carefully assessing students’ needs 

and meeting those needs with specific services.18 One of the recent changes CIS has made is to 

expect a minimum number of check-ins per student, and to provide guidance to site coordinators about what should happen during the check-ins. CIS site coordinators and other staff 

members providing integrated support services may also benefit from guidance regarding how 

to monitor and adjust services, including the development of or training in systems intended to 

help them stay current about students’ needs. 

Working to ensure the quality of services from partner organizations. Finally, it 

can be inherently challenging for integrated student support organizations like CIS to monitor 

the quality of services provided by different organizations and individuals. Case-managed 

students in this study did receive more services than non-case-managed students, but they did 

not have different school outcomes. It may be that the services they received did not align with 

their most critical needs, or it may be that not all of the extra services they received were of high 

quality, in which case site coordinators could benefit from additional support to ensure their 

quality in the future. (Or both things could be true.) Site coordinators provide some services 

directly, but also rely heavily on school and community partners to provide others. CIS could 

help school-level and affiliate staff members make decisions about which partners and practices 

to bring into schools and about which in-school services to draw upon by helping them assess 

the existing evidence about the effectiveness of these partners or practices, and by identifying 

evidence-based practices or organizations that might be a fit in their schools. The CIS national 

office has already begun moving in this direction by developing tools for its network regarding 

partnership engagement, with a focus on high-quality, evidence-based providers. 

Working with students beginning in transition grades. Subgroup analyses for this 

study suggest that CIS case management may have the greatest potential to improve the 

outcomes of students who begin receiving it when they first enter middle or high school (that is, 

sixth- and ninth-graders). CIS site coordinators in secondary schools typically bring new 

students onto their caseloads when they are in those transition grades, and continuing this 

practice may help maximize the effects of case management on those students. 

18Allen Schirm, Elizabeth Stuart, and Allison McKie, The Quantum Opportunity Demonstration: Final 

Impacts (Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy Research, 2006). 

8 
Reflections Encompassing Both Studies 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This evaluation included two studies, as mentioned above, and it is important to consider what has been learned from both of them together. This study found that CIS case management succeeded in getting secondary school students into more support activities and improving 

several of their nonacademic outcomes, but that it did not have a positive effect on their more 

traditional school outcomes. Meanwhile, the quasi-experimental study examined the CIS model 

as a whole in elementary, middle, and high schools. That whole-school study found that after 

three years of implementation, on-time graduation rates improved by a statistically significant 

amount in the CIS high schools, relative to what would have been expected given those schools’ 

baseline trends. Graduation rates also improved in the comparison schools used in the study, 

and it is unclear whether the CIS model was more effective than the strategies used by the 

comparison schools. However, the findings do suggest that the model may be at least as 

effective as these other approaches. At the middle school level, ELA test scores did not improve 

in schools implementing the CIS model, whereas they did significantly improve for a group of 

similar comparison middle schools. At the elementary school level, attendance rates improved 

in schools implementing the CIS model more than they improved in a group of similar comparison schools. 

What sense can be made of the two studies’ findings taken together? While the wholeschool study suggested that schools implementing the CIS model experienced improved 

graduation and dropout rates — and that CIS may be at least as effective as other approaches — 

the study of case management found that case management does not improve student outcomes 

thought to predict graduation within two years, though it does get students into more support 

activities and improves their nonacademic outcomes. 

There are several possible explanations for this combination of findings. It may be that 

having a CIS site coordinator who works closely with a group of case-managed students allows 

other support staff members, such as guidance counselors and social workers, to work more 

with the non-case-managed students than they would have otherwise. If that were true, the 

school as a whole might improve because of CIS’s presence, even though the students receiving 

case management did not improve more than students randomly assigned to the non-casemanaged group. The non-case-managed students would then have benefited indirectly from the 

presence of a CIS site coordinator practicing case management. 

A second possibility is that the Level 1 services CIS provides, which are accessible to 

the majority of students in a school, may change school-wide outcomes more than case management can, with its focus on a small minority of targeted students. This notion is supported by 

school leaders’ reports that CIS is an important part of their schools and that CIS is an essential 

provider of support services. 

9 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, while previous research indicates that attendance, behavior, and course performance are correlated with graduation, it may be that this study was not able to track casemanaged students for long enough to see effects on these outcomes, or that these outcomes 

might not be the only factors that predict graduation. It is possible that over time, the positive 

effects of case management on students’ nonacademic outcomes would translate into positive 

effects on their more traditional school outcomes. As indicated above, previous research 

suggests that case management can take at least two years to affect students’ attendance and 

behavior. Alternatively, it may be that those nonacademic improvements could end up making a 

difference in keeping students in school, even though they do not alter the traditional school 

outcomes tracked in this study. 

It remains uncertain, however, whether CIS’s model makes a bigger difference than alternative approaches to school improvement. A random assignment study of the whole-school 

model may be the next step that would provide the most information about the model’s effect 

relative to that of other programs and strategies. If an evaluation included a cost study on the 

implementation of the CIS model, along with cost data on the strategies and interventions used 

by the control schools, it could also determine the CIS model’s relative cost-effectiveness, 

which would ultimately provide the most useful decision-making information for school and 

district leaders. 

As CIS and other integrated student support organizations continue to work toward addressing students’ needs, they can learn from both completed and ongoing research to refine 

their models. While graduation rates have risen in the last decade, it remains the case that far too 

many students drop out of school — roughly 7,000 every day.19 This evaluation suggests that 

whole-school models of integrated student support services do offer the promise of positive 

effects. However, in the actual implementation of tiered-support models, it appears to be 

important to pay close attention to how that tiered support might improve conditions for 

students above and beyond the kinds of support already available in a school. As CIS and other 

similar organizations continue to refine their models, they should pay particular attention to 

reaching the students who are most in need of support and to connecting students with highquality services. In addition, they may want to target schools for CIS implementation that do not 

already provide a broad range of services for students, or where service provision is particularly 

fragmented, as these may be the schools where they would have the most to offer. 

19National Center for Education Statistics (2015). 

10 
 

Earlier MDRC Publications on Communities In Schools 

Case Management for Students at Risk of Dropping Out 

Implementation and Interim Impact Findings from the Communities In Schools Evaluation 

2015. William Corrin, Leigh Parise, Oscar Cerna, Zeest Haider, and Marie-Andrée Somers. 

Using Integrated Student Supports to Keep Kids in School 

A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of Communities In Schools 

2017. Marie-Andrée Somers and Zeest Haider. 

11 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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. 
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