INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH

SAGA Innovations: High-Intensity, Individualized Math Tutoring. Most attempts to improve academic outcomes for disadvantaged adolescents have yielded disappointing results. This has led some to argue that improving the academic outcomes of children in poverty is too difficult and costly once they reach adolescence. A recent study by Guryan and colleagues at the UChicago Education Lab has shown that this conclusion may be premature. Very few interventions have targeted a key barrier to school success: “mismatch” between what is being taught and the academic level of youth, particularly those far behind grade level. In partnership with SAGA Innovations and the Chicago Public Schools, Guryan and his Education Lab colleagues have shown that providing individualized, one-on-two math tutoring for an hour a day during the regular school day can substantially improve outcomes for youth. Students who participated in this tutoring program gained one to two additional years of math knowledge in a single year, equivalent to reducing the black-white achievement gap by roughly a third. This evidence has led Chicago and New York City to invest public resources to bring this promising intervention to thousands of young people in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Reducing Violence and Increasing Graduation: The Becoming a Man Program. The majority of homicides in Chicago stem from altercations that turn into tragedies because someone overreacts to a provocation. Often the provocation seems quite minor, while the response seems very impulsive—almost automatic. How can we help youth avoid the kinds of automatic behavior that can be dangerous or deadly in some urban neighborhoods? Youth Guidance’s Becoming a Man (BAM) program has been highly effective in addressing the sort of impulsive, automatic responses that can lead to violence. BAM offers youth weekly group sessions during the school day and uses cognitive behavioral therapy to help youth slow down in high-stakes situations. In two randomized controlled trials, Guryan, along with several co-authors and colleagues at the UChicago Crime Lab, found that BAM cuts violent-crime arrests among youth in half and boosts the high school graduation rates of participants by nearly 20 percent. The program and this rigorous evidence of effectiveness were key inspirations for President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative aimed at improving the lives of young men of color, and Chicago policymakers and the Chicago Public Schools are now scaling BAM as part of the city’s violence reduction strategy.