Third-Party Evaluation Results
Two third-party evaluations have affirmed First Things First’s positive outcomes: "The Challenges of Scaling Up Educational Reform," conducted by MDRC, and the earlier "Turning the Tide," conducted by Youth Development Strategies, Inc.
 The Challenge of Scaling Up Educational Reform: Findings and Lessons from First Things“Findings show that middle and high school students in Kansas City, Kansas, registered large gains on a wide range of academic outcomes that were sustained over several years and were pervasive across the district’s schools.” “For high schools, FTF produced sustained double-digit improvements in reading achievement both in terms of increasing the percentage of students whose scores were proficient and reducing the percentage whose scores were unsatisfactory." |
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 Turning the Tide: The Achievements of the First Things First Education Reform in the Kansas City, Kansas Public School District“After four years of FTF implementation, students were about 70 percent less likely to drop out of school.” Findings showed that “not only did the district as a whole show more improvement on the state test than did the rest of the state, but the gap between minority and non-minority groups also closed faster in KCK than it did in the rest of the state.” |
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