What's New for October 2018

Presenting School Choice Information to Parents: An Evidence-Based Guide (October 30, 2018)
Presenting School Choice Information to Parents: An Evidence-Based Guide, from the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE), found parents generally preferred looking at school information displays that had graphs as well as numbers, more rather than less data, and a list of choices ordered by each school's distance from home. But showing schools ordered by their academic performance made parents more likely to pick a higher performing school for their child. The guide is based on an online experiment conducted with 3,500 low-income parents. Each parent viewed one of 72 different web pages displaying information about schools in a hypothetical district. They study examined how variations in the displays affected parents' understanding of the information; perceived ease of use and satisfaction; and which schools they would choose given what was sho

Study of Enhanced College Advising in Upward Bound: Impacts on Steps Toward College (October 18, 2018)
A new report finds that certain kinds of advising can help disadvantaged students take steps towards enrolling in a more selective college.

The U.S. Department of Education tested a set of promising, low-cost advising strategies, called Find the Fit, designed to help low-income and "first generation" students enrolled in the Department's Upward Bound program choose more selective colleges and stay until they complete a degree. About 200 Upward Bound projects with 4,500 seniors agreed to participate. The projects were randomly assigned to receive Find the Fit to supplement their regular college advising (treatment group) or to offer their regular advising (control group). This first of three reports looks at Find the Fit's effects on students' steps toward enrolling in a more selective college.