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

The magnitude of New Heights’ impacts 
New Heights has statistically significant impacts on students’ outcomes, but statistical 
significance does not necessarily mean that the impacts are substantively meaningful. For 
example, although we find that the impact on credit accumulation for program participants is 
statistically significant, it might not be apparent whether an increase of 1.4 credits per year is a 
meaningful change for parenting females. 
11
Significantly different from zero at the .01 level, two-tailed test. 
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RAISING THE BAR: IMPACTS AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NEW HEIGHTS PROGRAM
 
To assess whether the impacts of New Heights are 
substantively
significant (not just 
statistically significant), we compare the magnitude of the New Heights impacts for program 
participants to the gap in outcomes that existed between parenting and nonparenting females 
before the New Heights expansion using those outcomes for which a 
narrowing 
of the gap is the 
primary objective—days attended per semester, credits earned per year, and the semester 
graduation rate. Lipsey et al. (2012) recommended this type of benchmarking to gain a better 
understanding of the substantive importance of evaluation findings. This outcome gap is a highly 
relevant benchmark for assessing the impact of New Heights—the ultimate success for New 
Heights would be to close the gap between parenting and nonparenting females as much as 
possible on days attended and to eliminate it for credits per year and the semester graduation 
rate. 
We find that the impact of New Heights contributed to a substantial narrowing of the 
outcome gap between nonparents and parents, particularly the gap in credits earned each year 
(Table IV.3). The impact on credits earned per year represents closing 99 percent of the gap 
between nonparents and parents before expansion. In other words, New Heights helps parenting 
students progress through school at the rate of their nonparenting counterparts. The impact on 
days attended represents closing 28 percent of the gap between nonparents and parents before 
expansion. Considering that parenting females will be absent for the birth of their babies, for 
several weeks thereafter, and when their children are ill or child care falls through, it is 
unreasonable to expect that New Heights would completely close this gap. The impact on the 
semester graduation rate, though only marginally statistically significant, represents closing 50 
percent of the gap between nonparents and parents before expansion.