Promoting College Match for Low-Income Students: Lessons for Practitioners

Most high school reform efforts understandably focus on boosting the success of low-income students who are underachieving academically, but in every school district where students struggle, there are academically capable low-income and minority students who do graduate prepared for college. Yet each year, many of these students choose to attend nonselective four-year colleges where graduation rates are distressingly low. Others enroll at two-year colleges, where degree completion and transfer rates are even lower. Many more do not attend college at all. In 2010, MDRC and its partners pilot-tested an innovative advising program, College Match, in three Chicago public high schools. This practitioner brief presents practical lessons from that program. It offers five strategies that show promise, that could be widely applicable, that counselors and advisers can integrate into their existing college guidance activities, and that can be implemented in college advising settings in and out of schools

Building Principle-Based Strategic Learning: Insights From Practice

Strategic learning is a powerful tool for foundations to achieve greater impact, yet foundations have struggled to create practices and behaviors that effectively support them in learning about strategy. Given that many foundations are engaged in strategic philanthropy, where they have specific conditions in the world they are trying to change, it is critical that they have the capacity to effectively learn about and improve their strategies. This article offers three principles for strategic learning, informed by the field of strategic learning and insights from practice across three foundations. Each principle is explored in terms of what it means and why it is important, along with examples from how it could look in practice. By taking a principle-focused approach to strategic learning, this article offers a base from which to build a rigorous practice of strategic learning in any organization and to tailor the specifics of that practice to the organization’s unique context and culture

Brochure: Kresge Learning and Evaluation

A summary of the foundation's Learning and Evaluation strategy, its premise and approach to collecting and sharing knowledge gained and lessons learned by Kresge's programs and practices in their work

for Low-Income Students: Lessons for Practitioners

Most high school reform efforts understandably focus on boosting the success of low-income students who are underachieving academically, aiming to help them graduate ready for the rigors of college. But in every school district where students struggle, there are academically capable low-income and minority students who do graduate from high school and are well prepared for college. Yet each year, many of these students choose to attend nonselective four-year colleges where graduation rates are distressingly low. Others enroll at two-year colleges, where degree completion and transfer rates are even lower. Many more do not attend college at all. 1 This phenomenon — called “undermatching” — was first examined by Melissa Roderick and her colleagues at the Consortium on Chicago School Research. 2 Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson confirmed that students are more likely to graduate college when they attend the most academically demanding institution that will admit them. 3 More recently, a study by Caroline Hoxby and her colleagues gained popular attention for demonstrating that it was possible to increase the rate at which very high-achieving, low-income students enrolled in the most selective colleges and universities by providing them with tailored information about opportunities there. 4 In 2010, MDRC and its partners pilot-tested an innovative advising program, College Match, in three Chicago public high schools. It took on the undermatch challenge directly by delivering crucial information to help a broad range of academically qualified students and their parents make thoughtful decisions about college enrollment. College Match has now expanded to New York City. This practitioner brief presents practical lessons from the College Match Program in Chicago. It offers five strategies that show promise, that could be widely applicable, that counselors and advisers can integrate into their existing college guidance activities, and that can be implemented in college advising settings in and out of schools

Understanding regeneration through proteomics

Articles in International JournalsRegeneration is a complex cellular process that, rather than simply forming a scar following injury, the animal forms a new functional tissue. Regeneration is a widespread process among metazoa, although not uniformly. Planaria, starfish, and some worms can regenerate most of their body, whereas many other species can only regenerate parts of specific tissues or fail to accomplish a functional regrowth, as is the case of mammals CNS. Research in regenerative medicine will possibly culminate in the regeneration of organs/tissues originally not prone to this process. Despite the complexity of the interactions and regulatory systems involved, the variety of tissues and organs these cells differentiate into has so far impaired the success of direct transplantation to restore damaged tissues. For this reason, a study, at the molecular level of the regeneration mechanisms developed by different animal models is likely to provide answers to why these processes are not readily activated in mammals. Proteomic-based approaches are being recognized as extremely useful to study of regeneration events, also because there is a relevant contribution of posttranscriptional processes that involve frequently the occurrence of a broad range of PTMs. The present review focuses on the significant knowledge brought up by proteomics in diverse aspects of regeneration research on different animal models, tissues, and organs

Comprehensive genomic characterization of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas

The Cancer Genome Atlas profiled 279 head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) to provide a comprehensive landscape of somatic genomic alterations. Here we show that human-papillomavirus-associated tumours are dominated by helical domain mutations of the oncogene PIK3CA, novel alterations involving loss of TRAF3, and amplification of the cell cycle gene E2F1. Smoking-related HNSCCs demonstrate near universal loss-of-function TP53 mutations and CDKN2A inactivation with frequent copy number alterations including amplification of 3q26/28 and 11q13/22. A subgroup of oral cavity tumours with favourable clinical outcomes displayed infrequent copy number alterations in conjunction with activating mutations of HRAS or PIK3CA, coupled with inactivating mutations of CASP8, NOTCH1 and TP53. Other distinct subgroups contained loss-of-function alterations of the chromatin modifier NSD1, WNT pathway genes AJUBA and FAT1, and activation of oxidative stress factor NFE2L2, mainly in laryngeal tumours. Therapeutic candidate alterations were identified in most HNSCCsclose9