Partners for After School Success (PASS) serves students in Dane County through academic tutoring and afterschool programming with the goal of supporting school engagement and academic learning. PASS is a multi-site AmeriCorps program run by Dane County Human Services in partnership with 13 community-based agencies. The PASS literacy tutoring model emphasizes building supportive relationships between tutors and students to encourage student engagement within schools and improve academic achievement.
Study Goals:
The purpose of this study is to provide an accessible, rigorous, and relevant assessment of program performance towards the ultimate goal of program improvement and progress along the evidence continuum. The evaluation used a mixed-methods design with a QED component. Specifically, the evaluation examined the alignment, implementation, outcomes, impact, and level of satisfaction with the PASS program.
Research Questions:
The research questions were:
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To what extent is PASS implementing its program process alignment to its proposed logic model and in a way that is responsive to the community and program context?
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Is PASS committing the necessary resources or inputs to programming?
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Are all PASS activities occurring as proposed, including both tutoring and ELP?
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Are participants receiving the proposed amount of outputs (i.e., hours of programming received by participating students)?
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What are the patterns in outcomes of participating students?
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Are students participating in PASS gaining knowledge and skills needed for active engagement in school and learning?
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Are students participating in PASS making academic gains in the desired content areas?
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What is the estimated impact of PASS ELP on student engagement in school compared to similar students not in PASS?
Findings:
The evaluation found the following:
- A vast majority of staff indicated that the tutoring program was well-organized, shows alignment to district priorities, and uses quality tutoring strategies. A large majority of staff also thought the program was culturally and linguistically relevant and thought the program works well in coordinating its activities.
- Overall, several sources suggest a positive outcome in the knowledge and skills needed for active engagement in school and learning associated with the program. While there are also perceptions of some academic gains for students, quantitative student-level data show mixed results.
- The findings show a positive impact of the program on attendance every year compared to the control group with statistically significant positive impacts in eighth grade in all years, seventh grade in 2016-17 and 2017-18, and sixth grade in 2017-18. The size of the significant impact ranged from approximately 1.5 to 2.0 higher percentage points in attendance rate.
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Full report
Further information
Program/Intervention
PASS AmeriCorps
Implementing Organization
Dane County Human Services
Intermediary(s)
Dane County Human Services
AmeriCorps Program(s)
AmeriCorps State and National
Age(s) Studied
6-12 (Childhood)
13-17 (Adolescent)
Focus Population(s)/Community(s)
Schools
Outcome Category
K-12 success
Study Type(s)
Outcomes
Impact
Other
Level of Evidence
Preliminary
Researcher/Evaluator
Wisconsin Evaluation Collaborative (Annalee Good, Ph.D., Grant Sim, M.P.A.)
Published Year
2016
Study Site Location (State)
Wisconsin