|
|
Dropout
Effectiveness1
No studies of the High School Puente Program that fall within the scope of the Dropout Prevention review protocol meet What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards. The lack of studies meeting WWC evidence standards means that, at this time, the WWC is unable to draw any conclusions based on research about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the High School Puente Program.
Program Description2
The High School Puente Program aims to help disadvantaged students graduate from high school, become college eligible, and enroll in four-year colleges and universities. The program consists of the following components: 1) a 9th- and 10th-grade college preparatory English class that incorporates Mexican-American/Latino and other multicultural literature; 2) a four-year academic counseling program for students; and 3) student leadership and mentoring activities with volunteers from the local community. High School Puente is open to all students and is targeted to students from populations with low rates of enrollment at four-year colleges. Students are identified for the program at the end of their 8th-grade year through an application and selection process. Each High School Puente site is implemented by a team consisting of an academic counselor and an English teacher. These team members receive intensive initial training in program methodologies, along with ongoing training and support for as long as they implement the program. In addition to High School Puente, the Puente Program has a community college program model. The community college program does not fall within the WWC Dropout Prevention protocol.
|
The WWC identified 11 studies of the High School Puente Program that were
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|
Two studies are within the scope of the review protocol but do not meet WWC evidence standards because they use a quasi-experimental design in which the analytic intervention and comparison groups are not shown to be equivalent. Nine studies are out of the scope of the review, as defined by the Dropout Prevention protocol, for reasons other than study design. Two studies did not include an outcome within a domain specified in the protocol, and seven studies did not examine the effectiveness of an intervention. |
1 The studies in this report were reviewed using WWC Evidence Standards, Version 2.0 (see the WWC Procedures and Standards Handbook, Chapter III).
2 The descriptive information for this program was obtained from publicly available sources: the program’s website (http://www.puente.net/programs/hsprogram.html, downloaded April 2009) and Gándara (1998). The WWC requests developers to review the program description sections for accuracy from their perspective. Further verification of the accuracy of the descriptive information for this program is beyond the scope of this review.
Disclaimer|
|Institute of Education Sciences