Evaluation Report Brief

Corporation for National and Community 

Service and U.S. Department of Education: 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps Grant Program

Office of Research and Evaluation, Corporation for National and Community Service October 2015 

nationalservice.gov/research 1 

What is the community challenge? 

The Department of Education (ED) provides funding to the 

country’s lowest performing schools designated as SchoolImprovement Grant (SIG) or Priority schools. The SIG- and Priorityfunded schools are implementing one of four school intervention 

models: turnaround, transformation, restart, or school closure. 

These intervention models are designed to improve academic 

outcomes for students. 

What is the promising solution?

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and 

ED are collaborating on a new grant program called School 

Turnaround AmeriCorps. This program supports placement of 

AmeriCorps members in SIG- and Priority-funded schools to help 

implement turnaround models successfully. The premise is that 

AmeriCorps members are particularly well-suited to deliver 

effective turnaround interventions and can achieve the goal of the 

program to improve students’ academic performance, academic 

engagement, attendance, high school graduation rates, and college 

readiness. 

What did the evaluation find?

CNCS engaged an independent evaluator to evaluate the implementation of the program: 

 A majority of school leaders, staff, and parents perceived the program to be successful and valuable.

 School leaders perceived the greatest degree of improvement in academic achievement, followed by 

increased motivation and increased attendance. 

 School staff reported significant or moderate improvements in students’ classroom or classwork 

behaviors.

 Relationship building between program and school stakeholders was identified as one of the most 

important conditions supporting success because it provides the groundwork for maximizing the 

support of the AmeriCorps members. 

 Some challenges faced during implementation were: start-up challenges, data collection challenges, 

overly ambitious targets, confusion about AmeriCorps members’ roles, and provision of adequate 

supervision and training of AmeriCorps members. However, there were clear signs of improvement 

by the end of the program’s second year. 

Program At-a-Glance

Intervention: School Turnaround AmeriCorps 

Grant Program.

Subgrantee: 13 grantee programs.

Intermediaries: Corporation for National and 

Community Service (CNCS) and the U.S. 

Department of Education (ED).

Focus Area(s): Education, Capacity Building.

Focus Population(s): Students at schools 

implementing school turnaround interventions.

To access the full evaluation report and learn more about CNCS, please visit nationalservice.gov/research.
Evaluation Report Brief

Corporation for National and Community 

Service and U.S. Department of Education: 

School Turnaround AmeriCorps Grant Program

Office of Research and Evaluation, Corporation for National and Community Service October 2015 

nationalservice.gov/research 2 

Evaluation design, timeline and study locations

This report covers the first year (2014-2015 school year) of the two-year evaluation of the School Turnaround 

AmeriCorps program being conducted by Abt Associates. The evaluation is an assessment of implementation 

and outcomes across all 13 grantee programs, as well as comparative case studies of matched pairs of SIG- and 

Priority- funded schools with and without School Turnaround AmeriCorps members serving in them. The 

goal of the evaluation is to understand the 

effect that AmeriCorps members have had 

on grantee schools’ capacity to implement 

their turnaround models successfully and to 

improve key turnaround outcomes. 

How are CNCS and ED using the evaluation findings to improve? 

As a result of the evaluation CNCS has incorporated changes to the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) 

and to its training and technical assistance for grantees. The NOFO was strengthened by clarifying 

expectations for allowable activities and school and program coordination via written partnership agreements 

and letters of commitment. CNCS is providing targeted training and technical assistance to programs by 

implementing check-in calls, technical assistance calls with prospective applicants, and monitoring visits. 

CNCS also facilitates peer support among School Turnaround AmeriCorps grantees on topics such as data 

collection and data sharing agreements, data quality, and overcoming the challenges inherent in working in 

low-performing schools. 

Evaluation At-a-Glance

Evaluation Design(s): Comparative Case 

Study, Implementation Study.

Study Population: School leaders and staff, 

grantee staff, AmeriCorps members, and 

parents.

Evaluator: Abt Associates.

The content of this brief was drawn from the full evaluation report submitted to CNCS by the evaluator. The section of the brief that discusses 

evaluation use includes contributions of the grantee/subgrantee. All original content from the report is attributable to its authors.

AmeriCorps State and National supports a wide range of local service programs that engage thousands of Americans in intensive community

service each year. We provide grants to a network of local and national organizations and agencies committed to using national service to

address critical community needs in education, public safety, health, and the environment.