MDRC is a

nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

nonpartisan Nonpartisanism is a lack of affiliation with, and a lack of bias towards, a political party. While an Oxford English Dictionary definition of ''partisan'' includes adherents of a party, cause, person, etc., in most cases, nonpartisan refers sp ...

education and social policy research organization based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

;

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

; and

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

and

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

History

In 1974, the Ford Foundation and six government agencies together created the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation. Its purpose was to implement and document the results of new programs intended to help the poor. In the 1980s and 1990s, it became known for its evaluations of state

welfare-to-work The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) is a United States federal law passed by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The bill implemented major changes to ...

programs. It formally retired its original name and adopted "MDRC" as its registered corporate identity in 2003. MDRC works across the United States, in Canada, and in the United Kingdom. Their 2021 budget is $66 million, which they derive from government contracts, foundations, corporations and individuals.

Projects

MDRC projects are in these main areas: *

Preschool A preschool, also known as nursery school, pre-primary school, or play school or creche, is an educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they begin compulsory education at primary school ...

through twelfth-grade education *

Postsecondary education Tertiary education, also referred to as third-level, third-stage or post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank, for example, defines tertiary education as including univers ...

Disconnected youth Disconnected youth is a label in United States public policy debate for NEETs, young people "Not in Education, Employment, or Training". Measure of America's March 2017 report says disconnected youth (defined as aged 16 to 24) number 4.9 million i ...

* Work and income security * Low-wage workers and communities *

Criminal justice Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the Rehabilitation (penology), rehabilitation of o ...

Behavioral science Behavioral sciences explore the cognitive processes within organisms and the behavioral interactions between organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behavior through naturalistic o ...

Data science Data science is an interdisciplinary field that uses scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge and insights from noisy, structured and unstructured data, and apply knowledge from data across a br ...

Accomplishments

MDRC helped pioneer the use of

random assignment Random assignment or random placement is an experimental technique for assigning human participants or animal subjects to different groups in an experiment (e.g., a treatment group versus a control group) using randomization, such as by a chan ...

to test social programs. Its evaluations of welfare work programs influenced the welfare reform of the 1990s. In the 1990s and 2000s, MDRC's evaluation of the Career Academies high school reform model, which showed impacts on participants' earnings eight years after graduation, influenced the expansion of the model around the nation. MDRC was the intermediary for the first

social impact bond A social impact bond, also known as pay-for-success financing, pay-for-success bond, social benefit bond or simply a social bond, is one form of outcomes-based contracting. Although there is no single agreed definition of social impact bonds, mo ...

demonstration in the United States, a project to reduce

recidivism Recidivism (; from ''recidive'' and ''ism'', from Latin ''recidīvus'' "recurring", from ''re-'' "back" and ''cadō'' "I fall") is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of th ...

among 16- to 18-year-olds incarcerated at

Rikers Island Rikers Island is a island in the East River between Queens and the Bronx that contains New York City's main jail complex. Named after Abraham Rycken, who took possession of the island in 1664, the island was originally under in size, but has ...

. MDRC's study of the City University of New York's Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) has demonstrated that the program has doubled the three-year graduation rate of students who begin college requiring remedial education.Scrivener, Susan, Michael J. Weiss, Alyssa Ratledge, Timothy Rudd, Colleen Sommo, Hannah Fresques (February 2015)
text''Doubling Graduation Rates: Three-Year Effects of CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) for Developmental Education Students.''
New York: MDRC.

Leadership

* Virginia Knox, President * Jesús Amadeo, Senior Vice President * Dan Bloom, Senior Vice President * Rose Kob, Vice President and General Counsel * John Martinez, Vice President

Affiliated people

* Judith M. Gueron * Cecilia Rouse * Bridget T. Long

References

External links

* {{Authority control Research Public policy Non-profit organizations based in New York (state) Non-profit organizations based in California