Read the newest evaluation report from Policy Studies Associates.

Since 2001, Citizen Schools has engaged Policy Studies Associates, a national leader in non-profit evaluation, to conduct a longitudinal study of Citizen Schools' program and impact. The study compares students who participate in Citizen Schools after-school programs to similar students who do not participate, following both groups from middle school into high school.

PSA's findings demonstrate that Citizen Schools is effective in engaging at-risk middle school students and building a bridge to high school success.  The evaluation has reported that:

• Before entering Citizen Schools, participating students were at greater educational risk than Boston Public Schools students overall, based on performance on state exams in 4^th grade.
• 6^th and 7^th grade students who consistently attended Citizen Schools significantly outperformed a matched comparison group in 6 out of 7 indicators of school success (including grades, discipline issues, and standardized test scores).
• Citizen Schools participants were much more likely than their matched peers to select a high-quality high school (59% to 28%), and to persist in that school from 9^th to 11^th grade (72% to 41%).
• Former Citizen Schools participants consistently had higher school attendance rates than their matched peers, a difference that amounts to an additional 5-13 school days per year in high school.
• Throughout high school, former Citizen Schools participants were more likely to pass and to earn A or B grades in their math courses than matched nonparticipants. 
• Citizen Schools outperformed matched peers on the 10th grade state exams required for high school graduation.  Proficiency rates for Citizen Schools participants were 48% in English Language Arts and 53% in math, compared to rates of 39% and 40% for matched nonparticipants.
• For the cohort of Citizen Schools students whose graduation status is available, 75% graduated from high school in four years, compared to 58% for the district overall.  The gap is even larger when students attending Boston's competitive public exam schools are excluded; among non-exam school students, 76% of Citizen Schools participants graduated in four years compared to just 50% of BPS students overall.

Policy Studies Associates has concluded:

Overall, Citizen Schools is succeeding in moving a group of low-income, educationally at-risk participants towards its desired outcomes of successful high school completion, advancement to college, and full participation in the civic and economic life of their communities.

We know that much work remains to be done, but overall our results stand in stark contrast to several highly publicized evaluations of after-school programs, which found consistently far lower levels of participation and noted little change in students' school performance or trajectory. Our external evaluation sets a high standard for the field, in terms of both methodology and results.

Over the next three years, we plan to take major leaps in growing our evaluation work at the same pace as the Citizen Schools network.  As our organization becomes national in scope, so too must our evaluation. Citizen Schools will continue to share its learning, since our results are the centerpiece of our efforts to improve our impact. We believe our results convey the impact that Citizen Schools can make—and a level of rigor and accountability that is greatly needed across the after-school sector and the entire education landscape.

Please click here for the full Phase VI report.

Read previous reports from the Policy Studies Associates evaluation of Citizen Schools:

• Phase I
• Phase II
• Phase III
• Phase IV
• Phase V
  

Back to Our Results

Internal Evaluation