Supporting parents' efforts to help their children develop during the preschool years improves a child's school readiness, reduces behavior problems, enhances social skills, and promotes academic success.

The Issue

Children begin learning at home before they ever reach the classroom, but many families face barriers to providing high-quality early educational opportunities. There are a number of research-based strategies to bolster parent engagement in ways that improve child outcomes.

Key Findings

• Programs that promote positive parenting practices and parent-child relationships can reduce behavioral problems.
• Promoting home learning activities and effective teaching strategies can foster early learning
• Strengthening parent-teacher partnerships can boost academic and social-emotional skill development.
• Emphasizing a child's physical health can aid healthy overall development.

Conclusion

Providing systematic supports for parent engagement in early childhood has the potential to promote optimal development for all children.

Supporting parents' efforts to help their children develop during the preschool years improves a child's school readiness, reduces behavior problems, enhances social skills, and promotes academic success.

The Issue

Children begin learning at home before they ever reach the classroom, but many families face barriers to providing high-quality early educational opportunities. There are a number of research-based strategies to bolster parent engagement in ways that improve child outcomes.

Key Findings

• Programs that promote positive parenting practices and parent-child relationships can reduce behavioral problems.
• Promoting home learning activities and effective teaching strategies can foster early learning
• Strengthening parent-teacher partnerships can boost academic and social-emotional skill development.
• Emphasizing a child's physical health can aid healthy overall development.

Conclusion

Providing systematic supports for parent engagement in early childhood has the potential to promote optimal development for all children.

Supporting parents' efforts to help their children develop during the preschool years improves a child's school readiness, reduces behavior problems, enhances social skills, and promotes academic success.

The Issue

Children begin learning at home before they ever reach the classroom, but many families face barriers to providing high-quality early educational opportunities. There are a number of research-based strategies to bolster parent engagement in ways that improve child outcomes.

Key Findings

• Programs that promote positive parenting practices and parent-child relationships can reduce behavioral problems.
• Promoting home learning activities and effective teaching strategies can foster early learning
• Strengthening parent-teacher partnerships can boost academic and social-emotional skill development.
• Emphasizing a child's physical health can aid healthy overall development.

Conclusion

Providing systematic supports for parent engagement in early childhood has the potential to promote optimal development for all children.

SBC coaches engage in providing the general kinds of supports proven helpful in research about beginning college outcomes for students. Connecting students to resources, helping them plan their coursework and identify a major, and developing a positive relationship with coaches have all been identified as mechanisms by which supports may improve outcomes for community college students in particular. Two-thirds of SBC coaches reported that connecting students to resources on and off campus is an important component of transition coaching. Coaches and students communicated with one another through a variety of methods; generally, coaches relied upon the modes students most preferred—text, email and in-person.

In 2014-2015 the SBC program, as a whole, was providing support services on those topics aligned with prior research findings about the specific factors linked with college persistence and graduation, including financial aid support, course selection, time management, connecting students to resources, setting goals, and selecting a course of study. Importantly, students concurred that their coaches were most helpful when providing support about these same topics. Coaches described two other central components of their work with students, including helping students learn to advocate for themselves, and developing the confidence to succeed, through encouraging students to meet with professors to discuss course requirements, seek out support services, and identify and apply for internships.

Prior research also suggests that the amount of communication and contact coaches have with students may contribute to improved college-related outcomes.ix SBC coaches and students communicate frequently, as evidenced by the nearly 9,000 transition support interactions recorded for the 2014-2015 school year. Yet these same data suggest variability in nonprofit organizations' expectations about how often coaches should engage with students each semester. To ensure that all students receive a consistent threshold of coaching support, perhaps stakeholders could consider whether to establish a minimum number of interactions between coaches and their students or minimum amount of one-on-one coaching each semester.

The findings summarized in this brief illustrate how the SBC program has continued to help collegeentering students navigate their first years in college. They also suggest possible connections between aspects of program implementation and later accomplishments—connections to be explored in subsequent reports about key student outcomes. The findings also point to some challenges faced by the nonprofit organizations, especially in terms of managing large and sometimes widely dispersed caseloads of students. Those coaches with caseloads of 60-plus students lamented the lack of adequate time with individual students, and coaches whose caseloads were distributed across multiple campuses faced logistical hurdles in managing multiple college calendars and spending valuable time traveling between campuses. These impediments hindered coaches' capacity to support students effectively. Over the coming years, as SBC triples the number of students to be served, helping coaches and organizations manage these barriers will be even more critical.

SBC coaches engage in providing the general kinds of supports proven helpful in research about beginning college outcomes for students. Connecting students to resources, helping them plan their coursework and identify a major, and developing a positive relationship with coaches have all been identified as mechanisms by which supports may improve outcomes for community college students in particular. Two-thirds of SBC coaches reported that connecting students to resources on and off campus is an important component of transition coaching. Coaches and students communicated with one another through a variety of methods; generally, coaches relied upon the modes students most preferred—text, email and in-person.

In 2014-2015 the SBC program, as a whole, was providing support services on those topics aligned with prior research findings about the specific factors linked with college persistence and graduation, including financial aid support, course selection, time management, connecting students to resources, setting goals, and selecting a course of study. Importantly, students concurred that their coaches were most helpful when providing support about these same topics. Coaches described two other central components of their work with students, including helping students learn to advocate for themselves, and developing the confidence to succeed, through encouraging students to meet with professors to discuss course requirements, seek out support services, and identify and apply for internships.

Prior research also suggests that the amount of communication and contact coaches have with students may contribute to improved college-related outcomes.ix SBC coaches and students communicate frequently, as evidenced by the nearly 9,000 transition support interactions recorded for the 2014-2015 school year. Yet these same data suggest variability in nonprofit organizations' expectations about how often coaches should engage with students each semester. To ensure that all students receive a consistent threshold of coaching support, perhaps stakeholders could consider whether to establish a minimum number of interactions between coaches and their students or minimum amount of one-on-one coaching each semester.

The findings summarized in this brief illustrate how the SBC program has continued to help collegeentering students navigate their first years in college. They also suggest possible connections between aspects of program implementation and later accomplishments—connections to be explored in subsequent reports about key student outcomes. The findings also point to some challenges faced by the nonprofit organizations, especially in terms of managing large and sometimes widely dispersed caseloads of students. Those coaches with caseloads of 60-plus students lamented the lack of adequate time with individual students, and coaches whose caseloads were distributed across multiple campuses faced logistical hurdles in managing multiple college calendars and spending valuable time traveling between campuses. These impediments hindered coaches' capacity to support students effectively. Over the coming years, as SBC triples the number of students to be served, helping coaches and organizations manage these barriers will be even more critical.

SBC coaches engage in providing the general kinds of supports proven helpful in research about beginning college outcomes for students. Connecting students to resources, helping them plan their coursework and identify a major, and developing a positive relationship with coaches have all been identified as mechanisms by which supports may improve outcomes for community college students in particular. Two-thirds of SBC coaches reported that connecting students to resources on and off campus is an important component of transition coaching. Coaches and students communicated with one another through a variety of methods; generally, coaches relied upon the modes students most preferred—text, email and in-person.

In 2014-2015 the SBC program, as a whole, was providing support services on those topics aligned with prior research findings about the specific factors linked with college persistence and graduation, including financial aid support, course selection, time management, connecting students to resources, setting goals, and selecting a course of study. Importantly, students concurred that their coaches were most helpful when providing support about these same topics. Coaches described two other central components of their work with students, including helping students learn to advocate for themselves, and developing the confidence to succeed, through encouraging students to meet with professors to discuss course requirements, seek out support services, and identify and apply for internships.

Prior research also suggests that the amount of communication and contact coaches have with students may contribute to improved college-related outcomes.ix SBC coaches and students communicate frequently, as evidenced by the nearly 9,000 transition support interactions recorded for the 2014-2015 school year. Yet these same data suggest variability in nonprofit organizations' expectations about how often coaches should engage with students each semester. To ensure that all students receive a consistent threshold of coaching support, perhaps stakeholders could consider whether to establish a minimum number of interactions between coaches and their students or minimum amount of one-on-one coaching each semester.

The findings summarized in this brief illustrate how the SBC program has continued to help collegeentering students navigate their first years in college. They also suggest possible connections between aspects of program implementation and later accomplishments—connections to be explored in subsequent reports about key student outcomes. The findings also point to some challenges faced by the nonprofit organizations, especially in terms of managing large and sometimes widely dispersed caseloads of students. Those coaches with caseloads of 60-plus students lamented the lack of adequate time with individual students, and coaches whose caseloads were distributed across multiple campuses faced logistical hurdles in managing multiple college calendars and spending valuable time traveling between campuses. These impediments hindered coaches' capacity to support students effectively. Over the coming years, as SBC triples the number of students to be served, helping coaches and organizations manage these barriers will be even more critical.

Here you will find the most up-to-date information available on Boston's education pipeline, from kindergarten through college graduation, including measures for school readiness, 3rd-grade reading proficiency, 10th-grade academic proficiency, high school completion, dropout rates, college enrollment and completion rates for youth and adults.

The measures for the public systems—the Boston Public Schools and Boston's Charter public schools—use the state assessments. The data is gathered from the Boston Public Schools, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Archdiocese of Boston. Given the different sizes of the student populations in these systems, this year we have included the number of actual students represented by the percentages for each measure in each chart. We hope this will allow for a deeper and more accurate understanding of the measures, aid in interpreting rapid shifts in the percentages, whether positive or negative, and temper comparisons across systems until we have better methods for comparing measures with significantly different sample sizes. The Archdiocese of Boston uses the Northwest Evaluation Association Measures of Academic Progress (NWEA).

This report card also marks the final update on our initial goals for the Boston Public Schools in high school completion and dropout reduction. While short of our initial five-year goal of 80% for high school completion, the current 66.7% is higher than the national average for urban school systems and represents a jump of five percentage points from the baseline set in 2008. Meanwhile the annual dropout rate narrowly missed the five-year goal of less than 3%, coming in at 3.8%. Having started at 7.3%, this is a tremendous achievement. It reflects the hard work of many partners and it represents a promising start for hundreds of young people annually.

Over the coming year, we will be working with representatives of the Boston Public Schools, the Archdiocese of Boston and Boston's Charter public schools in partnership with the Boston Compact to set new five-year goals for each of the currently identified measures and collectively agree on common measures of progress. We will also work to identify a common measure for middle school, a critical time in the life of a young person that currently has no measure. These changes will enable all stakeholders—students, families, nonprofit partners and educators at all levels—to have a better understanding of the health of Boston's education pipeline and identify areas where we must redouble our efforts to ensure excellence in education for all Boston's students at all levels and in every system dedicated to serving them.

Here you will find the most up-to-date information available on Boston's education pipeline, from kindergarten through college graduation, including measures for school readiness, 3rd-grade reading proficiency, 10th-grade academic proficiency, high school completion, dropout rates, college enrollment and completion rates for youth and adults.

The measures for the public systems—the Boston Public Schools and Boston's Charter public schools—use the state assessments. The data is gathered from the Boston Public Schools, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Archdiocese of Boston. Given the different sizes of the student populations in these systems, this year we have included the number of actual students represented by the percentages for each measure in each chart. We hope this will allow for a deeper and more accurate understanding of the measures, aid in interpreting rapid shifts in the percentages, whether positive or negative, and temper comparisons across systems until we have better methods for comparing measures with significantly different sample sizes. The Archdiocese of Boston uses the Northwest Evaluation Association Measures of Academic Progress (NWEA).

This report card also marks the final update on our initial goals for the Boston Public Schools in high school completion and dropout reduction. While short of our initial five-year goal of 80% for high school completion, the current 66.7% is higher than the national average for urban school systems and represents a jump of five percentage points from the baseline set in 2008. Meanwhile the annual dropout rate narrowly missed the five-year goal of less than 3%, coming in at 3.8%. Having started at 7.3%, this is a tremendous achievement. It reflects the hard work of many partners and it represents a promising start for hundreds of young people annually.

Over the coming year, we will be working with representatives of the Boston Public Schools, the Archdiocese of Boston and Boston's Charter public schools in partnership with the Boston Compact to set new five-year goals for each of the currently identified measures and collectively agree on common measures of progress. We will also work to identify a common measure for middle school, a critical time in the life of a young person that currently has no measure. These changes will enable all stakeholders—students, families, nonprofit partners and educators at all levels—to have a better understanding of the health of Boston's education pipeline and identify areas where we must redouble our efforts to ensure excellence in education for all Boston's students at all levels and in every system dedicated to serving them.