Early Childhood Education

Evaluating Programs and Impact within Promise Neighborhoods

Place-based education and community change interventions such as Promise Neighborhoods face distinct challenges designing and executing high-quality evaluations. Because these efforts attempt to create population-level change by using a comprehensive continuum of cradle-to-career programming, experimental evaluation methods may be impractical or inappropriate. Nevertheless, planning, formative, and quasi-experimental methods can be used to conduct rigorous and instructive evaluations of Promise Neighborhoods.

Creating the Foundation to Accelerate Results for Black Males

This document is Part I of a series of papers developed to help communities promote black male achievement in their neighborhoods. Part I provides a results-based framework for Promise Neighborhoods to systematically evaluate and respond to the particular needs of black male children in the community. Subsequent papers will offer programmatic and policy solutions that Promise Neighborhoods can employ within this framework to sustain and enhance their impact on this population.

From Cradle to Career: The Multiple Challenges Facing Immigrant Families in Langley Park Promise Neighborhood

With estimates predicting that immigrants and their children will account for most of U.S. population growth over the next 4 decades, it is critical to understand how to build ladders of opportunity for these families. This report is a complete assessment of the needs of Langley Park, an immigrant neighborhood outside Washington, DC. Langley Park families are resilient but experience substantial hardships that may stall the progress of subsequent generations. At six crucial life transitions, children lag behind on indicators of future success.

DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative: Needs Assessment and Segmentation Analysis

In October 2010, the DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative (DCPNI) became one of 21 recipients of a US Department of Education Promise Neighborhood planning grant. The Urban Institute partnered with DCPNI to act as the data analyst and local evaluator of this ambitious initiative. The Needs Assessment and Segmentation Analysis are intended to provide a timely understanding of the needs of the community and to inform the continuum of strategies developed by DCPNI and their workgroups.

Making Good on a Promise: Working to End Intergenerational Poverty in Kenilworth-Parkside

The DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative (DCPNI) is on a mission to end the cycle of intergenerational poverty in Kenilworth-Parkside, a geographically isolated community in Northeast Washington, DC. By partnering with local organizations to provide targeted, data-driven interventions to youth and parents, DCPNI is working to improve educational, economic, health, and socio-emotional outcomes within a community plagued by the effects of concentrated poverty.

Promise Neighborhood Target Setting Guidance

Promise Neighborhood implementation grantees are required to set and submit baselines, actual performance data, and targets for each GPRA indicator and for all five years of the grant program. While grantees were required to address targets in their applications, these targets were set before the Guidance Document was released and before complete baseline data was available at each site. This continuing guidance identifies several data sources, considerations, and methods sites may consider when setting targets.