Marsha Silverberg

Growing concern over college enrollment, completion, and costs has heightened interest in how to help low-income students, including those in college access programs funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

The complex process of applying to, enrolling in, and staying in college is one of many barriers to postsecondary success that low-income students face. Emerging research suggested that customized text message reminders that also connect students to advisors could help. This demonstration evaluated a promising text messaging strategy that addressed hurdles that are both procedural – registration, course selection, tuition payments, getting to office hours, FAFSA refiling – and psyc

The Grants for School-Based Mandatory Random Student Drug Testing (MRSDT) Programs was authorized under Title IV, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act). The program, administered by the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, awarded grants to districts to implement school-based drug-testing programs for students to reduce substance use. In MRSDT programs, students enrolled in school-sponsored, competitive, and extracurricular a

The U.S. Department of Education's Student Mentoring Program was authorized under the No Child Left Behind Act and funded at $47 million in Fiscal Year 2009. The program intended to address the lack of supportive adults in the lives of students in grades four through eight at risk for academic failure and behavioral problems. The program provided funds to schools and to community- and faith-based organizations to create school-based mentoring programs. This study evaluated the impact of this p

The Smaller Learning Communities (SLC) Program (funded at $88 million in Fiscal Year 2009), authorized in 2000 by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, awarded discretionary grants to school districts to support the implementation of SLCs and activities to improve student academic achievement in large public high schools. Because, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, over 70 percent of students nationally arrive in high school with reading skills that are below p

The Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act (SDFSCA) was authorized as part of Title IV of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The program provided grants to states for the purposes of preventing students' use of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit substances as well as to prevent violence in and around schools. SDFSCA was funded at close to $295 million in Fiscal Year 2009. This study sought to inform the SDFSCA by providing rigorous evidence on the impacts of a violence prevention p

In 2004, Congress established the first federally-funded private school voucher program, with annual funding of about $14 million. The program provided scholarships of up to $7,500 for low-income residents of the District of Columbia to send their children to participating local private schools, with students from "schools in need of improvement" under the Elementary and Secondary School Act receiving the highest priority for admission. This study is in response to the law mandating that the U

Title II, Part A, the Improving Teacher State Formula Grants program, is the primary federal funding under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to support a high-quality teacher in every classroom. The program, funded at $2.9 billion in Fiscal Year 2010, targets high-poverty districts and funds a broad array of allowable activities such as support for certification including alternative certification, teacher mentoring and induction, intensive professional development, recruitment, reten