ERC Evaluation: EduCare’s ACE Initiative Has a Significant Positive Impact on Student Success
9th grade students at a 3-day ACE workshop in September 2021
We are delighted to announce that a recent ERC evaluation of EduCare Foundation’s ACE (Achievement and Commitment to Excellence) Initiative found that EduCare’s Heartset® Education approach resulted in significant academic success outcomes for students.
Heartset Education is EduCare’s social-emotional learning (SEL) program, designed to assist students as they learn to improve attitudes and self-care behavior while learning to manage emotional imbalance.
ERC’s evaluation looked at the ways school-based, universal SEL programs can improve the school success of a high-poverty, mostly Hispanic high school student population.
EduCare’s ACE Initiative
ACE Initiative (AI) is a full-time, year-round school support program that provides students with SEL, academic and college access assistance, and holistic support services. AI also offers professional development trainings for teachers and afterschool staff, and customized workshops for parents to encourage more active participation. In addition, school administrators are given tools and resources encouraging them to create caring school cultures, supporting student achievement, engaging parents, and supporting teacher development.
ACE Initiative is currently providing services to over 10,000 students at 14 public high schools across Los Angeles.
Effectively Fostering a Strong Base of Support
The study found that EduCare’s AI successfully provided a foundation for students to develop social and emotional skills, and that the skills they learned then helped them to overcome uncertainties and challenges while excelling academically.
These positive outcomes were further advanced by the holistic approach that EduCare’s AI takes by working throughout the full school day, year-round, to support both students and the adults who care for them. In workshops for parents, for example, they learn how to effectively support their child’s development and pursuits. Further, AI supported teachers in focusing on their own social-emotional needs, in addition to those of students.
EduCare Advances Student Success
Providing SEL and character-building programs that emphasize the development of positive attitudes and wise decision-making results in better behavior, relationships and improved academic performance. And the study found that the academic impact of these programs was significant. Across all measures of academic success, students in an EduCare AI school significantly outperformed peers at non-AI schools.
ERC provides evaluations for K-12 school districts, county offices of education, institutions of higher education, and professional and community-based organizations. ercdata.com
Figure 1. High school students who participated in EduCare Foundation’s AI program had a significantly higher Grade Point Average (GPA) than a similar cohort of students who did not participate in the AI program.
Figure 2. EduCare Foundation’s AI students advanced towards graduation more rapidly than a similar cohort of students who did not participate in the ACE program.
Figure 3. Students in EduCare Foundation’s AI students also showed higher attendance rates in school than students in a similar non-AI school.
LEARN MORE
You can download a PDF of the full ERC report here.
Click here to learn more about EduCare’s ACE Programs and ACE Initiative.
Check out the 2021 Learning Policy Institute evaluation of ACE Initiative here.
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