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Families looking to receive grants and loans for college must complete the FAFSA (Federal Application for Federal Student Aid), a particularly challenging document that requires detailed financial information from students and (often) their parents. To alleviate the burdens of completing this form the federal government passed the FAFSA Simplification Act, which shortened and simplified the form along a number of dimensions in order to smooth the process of aid applications and increase FAFSA submission and re-submission rates. Unfortunately, the rollout of the new “Better FAFSA” has been plagued by legal, technical, and logistical challenges, which has led to a significant decline in current submissions relative to prior years and is predicted to have lasting impacts on college enrollment. In this project, Oded Gurantz and Erik Whitfield use quantitative methods to provide an in-depth examination of how application rates have changed as a result of the Better FAFSA implementation, deeply identify the characteristics of which types of students and families have been most affected by the new FAFSA, use these findings to identify specific communities in California most harmed by the process in order to think about ameliorating potential negative impacts.

Elena Diaz-Bilello, Kaitlin Nath, and Catalina Henríquez are collaborating with the to provide technical assistance and evaluation of the Colorado Multi-Tiered System of Supports (COMTSS). COMTSS is a prevention-based framework designed to help districts establish systems for increasing academic and behavioral outcomes for all students. In this project, the CADRE team serves as a thought partner around outcome measures and program improvement and also fulfills the role of the external evaluator for the that funds the work.

Benjamin Shear, Elena Diaz-Bilello, Kaitlin Nath, and Erik Whitfield are working with members of the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) Accountability Unit in an on-going collaboration. This work provides technical assistance to CDE by investigating statistical and psychometric issues related to implementing the state school accountability system and monitoring educational opportunities for students in Colorado. Current topics include evaluating statistical methods for reporting data for small schools, how to weight different components factoring into school ratings, and understanding the language development of multilingual learners across Colorado.

Elena Diaz-Bilello and other team members at CADRE have embarked on a new multi-year partnership with Pueblo 60 to employ multi- and mixed-methods to evaluate a new district project-based learning (PBL) initiative focused on STREAM Education in an elementary, middle, and high school. Key goals for implementing this PBL/STREAM learning model include: using the Gold Standard PBL Model by the Buck Institute for Education to motivate and engage students in their own learning and building the capacity for teachers to grow their expertise in enacting authentic learning experiences for and with students.

A CADRE team (PI: Elena Diaz-Bilello; Advisor: Mimi Engel) is partnering with Adams 12 Five Star Schools and the School Transformation Network