The Minnesota Alliance With Youth (the Alliance) goal is to increase graduation rates by hosting AmeriCorps members through the AmeriCorps Promise Fellow program created to address the early indications of disengagement from school. AmeriCorps members are placed in schools and community sites across Minnesota where they are assigned Focus Lists of up to 30 qualifying students, who are in grades 6 through 12 and off track to graduate. Members work with teams including teachers, school administrators, parents, school social workers, and community partners to identify and work directly with students with low school attendance, low work completion, and/or low school engagement.
 
Study Goals:
The goal of the study is to evaluate the impact of the Alliance’s AmeriCorps Promise Fellow Program on the program’s qualifying students.
 
Research Questions:
The research questions were:
  • To what extent do students served by the Alliance demonstrate greater increases in:
    1. monthly attendance relative to other students who do not qualify to be served, but are close to the cut-off?
    2. pre-post engagement relative to other students who do not qualify to be served, but are close to the cut-off?
    3. monthly work completion relative to other students who qualify to be served, but are close to the cut-off?
Findings:
The evaluation found that the Focus List students demonstrated improvements in the three key outcome areas, as students in the control group showed declines:
      Attendance:
  • Focus List students increased attendance, while students in the control group decreased attendance.
  • Focus List students decreased tardiness by nearly one-fifth between the baseline and final benchmark periods.
  • Most Focus List students saw reductions in their individual tardiness rates: 69 percent of Focus List students decreased their individual tardiness between the benchmark and baseline periods.
Engagement:
  • Focus List students significantly improved their engagement over the course of the school year.
      Work Completion:
  • Focus List students significantly increased work completion over the course of the year, while Control group students’ work completion decreased slightly:
    • 45 percent of Focus List students increased their work completion between the baseline and final benchmark.
    • Focus List students are expected to complete nearly 6 percent more homework between the baseline and final benchmark.

For more information, download the full report.

Full report

Full Report
MinnesotaAllianceWithYouth.20AC220660.Report-Revised_508.pdf

Further information

Program/Intervention
Statewide AmeriCorps Promise Fellows
Implementing Organization
Minnesota Alliance With Youth
Intermediary(s)

Minnesota Alliance With Youth

AmeriCorps Program(s)
AmeriCorps State and National
Age(s) Studied
6-12 (Childhood)
13-17 (Adolescent)
Focus Population(s)/Community(s)
Schools
Outcome Category
K-12 success
Study Type(s)
Impact
Study Design(s)
Quasi-Experimental (QED)
Level of Evidence
Preliminary
Researcher/Evaluator
The Improve Group
Published Year
2019
Study Site Location (State)
Minnesota