The Story of Scaling Up: Interim Report on the Impact of Success Boston's Coaching for Completion

N

110

Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), Social Innovation Fund (SIF)

Coaching (Performance); Program Effectiveness; Student Participation; Partnerships in Education; Colleges; School Community Programs; At Risk Students; Student Adjustment; College Students; Transitional Programs; Minority Group Students; Low Income Students; Program Implementation; Costs; Disproportionate Representation; Interpersonal Communication; Student Recruitment; High School Graduates; College Attendance; Barriers; College Readiness; Student Financial Aid; Grade Point Average; Academic Achievement; College Credits; High School Seniors; Racial Differences; Ethnicity; Gender Differences; Institutional Characteristics

Access to middle class jobs increasingly requires a college degree or credential. Individuals with postsecondary education have competitive advantage in the labor market: even when a job does not explicitly require a degree, a candidate with a degree will tend to be hired over an equally qualified candidate without one. Low-income students, in particular, along with first-generation students and racial/ethnic minorities, are underrepresented in postsecondary education Massachusetts is faced with an aging workforce where nearly half of the labor market is 45 or older. In Boston, the six-year college graduation rate for the city's 2011 public high school graduates who enrolled in college was 52 percent. This rate improves upon the 39 percent seven-year rate for 2000 graduates, yet likely is not sufficient to meet the predicted demand for a college-educated workforce. One-on-one coaching from experienced counselors when students are completing their senior year in high school and beginning college can help them succeed. A core strategy of the city-wide "Success Boston" initiative is one-on-one transition coaching. The coaching model is implemented across a network of nonprofit organizations (that provide coaching) in partnership with institutions of higher education. Transition coaching offers students sustained, proactive, and responsive support in their first two years after high school. This report refers to the transition coaching program as Success Boston Coaching (SBC). The report is designed to answer four main research questions about implementation and impact: (1) What is the effect of SBC on student success in college?; (2) How, if at all, do the impacts of SBC vary by student characteristics and features of the coaching?; (3) How is SBC implemented across partner organizations and partner colleges? and (4) What resources are necessary to implement SBC? This report focuses on the effectiveness of coaching on students' persistence and achievement early in college, answering the first and second research questions. [For the previous report, "Success Boston: Coaching for Completion. 2015-16 Implementation Report," see ED582088. For the companion report, "The Story of Scaling Up: Highlights from the Interim Report on the Impact of Success Boston's Coaching for Completion," see ED602749.]

ERIC

2020

ED602748