Aiming Higher: Assessing Higher Achievement’s Out-of-School Expansion Efforts

To investigate how the program changed the academic enrichment environment for its scholars and how it affected their academic performance, the research team compared the behavior of the eligible youth who were randomly selected to be offered a spot in the program (the program group) with the outcomes of the nonselected students (the control group). [...] Thus, the study also examines: • What was the difference in the educational experiences of those assigned to participate in the Higher Achievement program and those not assigned to participate? An implementation study was also conducted to describe the quantity, quality, and structure of the services delivered by Higher Achievement center staff, summer teachers, and volunteer mentors. [...] All rising fifth- and sixth-graders who applied to the program in 2015 or 2016 and, along with their families, agreed to participate in the study, were randomly assigned either to the program group and offered a position in Higher Achievement or to the control group that was not allowed to enroll in the program for the dura- tion of the study. [...] Thus, because the data obtained for the DC Metro affiliate was not representative of the scholars the program served, nor could a similar dataset be created for the other affiliates, the impact portion of the report discusses only the impacts at the expansion sites, all of which had school records data available for the majority of students. [...] The study team worked with the national organization staff to specify the core components of the model and determine the minimum thresholds for each of 11 School records were obtained for 48 percent of the DC Metro sample members in Year 1 and 40 percent in Year 2.