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

Using the most rigorous design feasible, the study found the program is effective at 
improving academic outcomes. 
The expansion of New Heights in 2011 created a natural 
experiment. Just like in an experiment designed by researchers (which was not feasible for the 
study of this program after the 2011 expansion), we calculate the impacts of New Heights as the 
difference in outcomes between a treatment group and a comparison group. The treatment group 
in this experiment comprised parenting females in the study schools after New Heights 
expansion; parenting females attending the same schools before New Heights was available to 
them made up the primary comparison group. The group of nonparenting females in the same 
schools as the parenting females comprised a second comparison group. We subtracted any 
improvement in outcomes that we observed among nonparenting females over the same time 
period from the improvement that we observed among parenting females, resulting in our 
estimate of New Height’s impact on parenting females.
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The expansion of New Heights led to significantly better outcomes among parenting females 
on measures of school engagement and credit accumulation. We also saw a marginally 
significant impact on graduation rates. Nearly three-quarters of the parenting females in the study 
schools attended New Heights, meaning the program succeeded in recruiting most of the 
parenting females in the schools. After adjusting the impacts for the proportion of the sample 
who attended the program (75 percent), the magnitude of the impacts increases by about 1.33. 
The New Heights program also produced substantively important impacts by nearly eliminating 
the gap in credits earned between parenting and nonparenting females, and cutting the gap in the 
semester graduation rate in half. 
The program coordinators and program leaders do what it takes to create a supportive