Raising the Bar: Impacts and Implementation of the New Heights Program for Expectant and Parenting Teens in Washington, dc

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RAISING THE BAR: IMPACTS AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NEW HEIGHTS PROGRAM
 
IV. IMPACT FINDINGS: DEMONSTRATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF NEW 
HEIGHTS 
New Heights is intended to support expectant and parenting students to stay in school and 
graduate. In this chapter, we present our main impact estimates of the effect of New Heights on 
outcomes related to these objectives across three domains: (1) school engagement, which 
includes unexcused absences per semester, excused absences per semester, and days attended per 
semester; (2) credit accumulation, measured as credits earned per year; and (3) the semester 
graduation rate. 
As described in Chapter III, we compare outcomes of a treatment group consisting of 
parenting females attending study schools from fall 2011 through spring 2015 to a comparison 
group consisting of parenting females attending study schools from fall 2007 through spring 
2011. We refer to the difference between these groups as the post-pre difference among 
parenting females. Because this difference combines the effect of New Heights with any other 
school- or district-wide changes that might influence outcomes for all students, we compare it 
with the post-pre difference among nonparenting females to disentangle effects of New Heights 
from unrelated time trends. Assuming that no unobserved district-wide trends differentially 
affect the outcomes of parenting females, and that nonparenting females are not affected by New 
Heights but are affected by other school- and district-wide changes, this difference-in–
differences—the difference between the post-pre difference among parenting females and the 
post-pre difference among nonparenting females—estimates the true New Heights impact. 
In this chapter, we first present impacts of New Heights on all parenting females, including 
New Heights participants and nonparticipants. We next present program impacts on New 
Heights participants and the sensitivity of our findings to different approaches to calculating 
impacts. Finally, we discuss the magnitude of the observed impacts by describing the extent to 
which New Heights closed the gap between parenting and nonparenting females.