1. Diplomas Now helps schools and communities enable their most vulnerable students succeed in school

2. The Diplomas Now Approach
Diplomas Now combines improvements for entire schools with enhanced student support guided by early-warning system. It brings together three nonprofits to partner with highest-need schools and districts to get the right support to the right students at the right time:
Johns Hopkins University’s Talent Development Secondary provides curriculum/instruction support and early warning system.
Communities In Schools provides case-managed support to students with the highest needs.
City Year’s “near peer” AmeriCorps members provide individualized and whole-class academic and social-emotional support.
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3. Diplomas Now Addresses Early Warning Indicators
Future Dropouts Can Be Identified as Early as 6th Grade
Research shows sixth-graders with one of these early warning signs have 25 percent or lower graduation rates:1 Poor attendance, behavior and course performance (English and math).
Diplomas Now identifies those students early, provides targeted support and helps them get on track.
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1 Robert Balfanz, "Putting Middle Grades Students on the Graduation Path," Keynote Address, National Middle School Association, 2009, slide 7

4. Investing in Innovation (i3)
In 2010, Diplomas Now won federal Investing in Innovation (i3) grant to implement model across 11 school districts and validate its impact on students through a randomized control trial. Rigorous study involved:
62 low-performing secondary schools & 40,000 low-income students
32 schools randomly assigned to Diplomas Now.
30 schools did not have Diplomas Now but other reforms.
PepsiCo Foundation provided matching grant.
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5. NEW, EARLY IMPACT FINDINGS To Be RELEASED JUNE 21, 2016 Results embargoed until then
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6. Diplomas Now Reduces Early-Warning Indicators
Diplomas Now schools had positive, statistically significant increase in percentage of sixth- and ninth-graders with no early-warning indicators (poor attendance, poor behavior and failing math and English).
This is key metric Diplomas Now was designed to improve.
Why this matters:
Eliminating such indicators can triple students’ odds of graduating from high school from 25% to 75% 1
Gaining positive, statistically significant results after only first year of multi-year intervention under challenging conditions is encouraging.
Statistical significant, positive impacts in randomized control trials are rare. (Only 1 in 10 such education studies produces positive, meaningful results2)
This percentage includes both students kept on track and recovered.
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1 Robert Balfanz, "Putting Middle Grades Students on the Graduation Path," Keynote Address, National Middle School Association, 2009, slide 14,
2 Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, “Randomized Controlled Trials Commissioned by the Institute of Education Sciences Since 2002: How Many Found Positive Versus Weak or No Effects,” July 2013.

7. Particularly Strong and Important Impact in the Middle Grades
Diplomas Now middle schools achieved positive, statistically significant impact on reducing:
Percentage of students with early-warning indicators.
Chronic absenteeism.
Why this matters:
Robust results achieved even when sample size was cut in half to include only middle schools.
First rigorous evidence that chronic absenteeism can be reduced in high-poverty middle schools by using early-warning system and student support.
Helps validates using Diplomas Now strategies in major efforts, such as White House’s My Brother’s Keeper Student Success Mentor Initiative.
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8. Summary: Key Takeaway
The study’s early results provide initial evidence to support the Diplomas Now theory of action: Combining improvements for entire schools with enhanced student support guided by an early-warning system strengthens the nation’s most challenged schools and keeps more of the most vulnerable students on-track to high school graduation. To learn more, visit
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9. How Will Diplomas Now Use New Findings?
New federal education law – Every Student Succeeds Act – emphasizes evidence-based initiatives and includes new tiers of evidence for a program to be used in low-performing schools and qualify for federal Title I school improvement funding.
“Strong evidence” – the most rigorous tier – means a program has had at least one randomized study that shows a statistically significant effect on student outcomes.
As states and districts craft new improvement plans, Diplomas Now will leverage its strong evidence – to work with more high-needs schools and students.
Apply for scale-up grant in final round of Investing in Innovation (i3) program.
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