What Can Schools, Colleges, and Youth Programs Do with Predictive Analytics? Practitioner Brief

MDRC. 16 East 34th Street 19th Floor, New York, NY 10016-4326. Tel: 212-532-3200; Fax: 212-684-0832; e-mail: publications@mdrc.org; Web site: http://www.mdrc.org

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Low Income Groups; At Risk Students; Youth Programs; School Role; College Role; Predictive Measurement; Evaluation Methods; Academic Achievement; Academic Persistence; Data Collection; Identification

Many low-income young people are not reaching important milestones for success (for example, completing a program or graduating from school on time). But the social-service organizations and schools that serve them often struggle to identify who is at more or less risk. These institutions often either over- or underestimate risk, missing opportunities to intervene with those who need more help or inefficiently providing services to those who do not need them. Most "early warning systems" of risk rely on only a few measures, mainly because in the course of day-to-day practice, one can keep track of only so much information at a time. Yet this approach ignores a wealth of data collected for different purposes that could help programs and schools identify risk earlier and more accurately. This report presents what schools, colleges, and youth programs can do with predictive analytics.

ERIC

2017

ED574327