The Echo

Individual interventions intended to improve academic skills, such as the popular Advancement Via Individual Determination, or AVID, program, may not secure a student’s path to graduation and college without a schoolwide structure to support it, according to a study from the Consortium on Chicago School Research.

In a report set for release in the fall and previewed at the American Educational Research Association convention in New Orleans in April, researchers analyzed how AVID, a study-skills intervention for middle-achieving students, played out in 14 Chicago high schools. They found AVID participants in 9th grade gained little advantage that year over peers not taking part in the program, and remained off track for graduation and college.

The study highlights a potential pitfall for the dozens of student-based interventions aiming to scale up nationwide through private support and programs like the federal Investing in Innovation, or i3, program: As programs move out of the schools for which they were originally developed, their success becomes increasingly dependent on individual schools’ context and capacity.

“We’re not really trying to say, does AVID work or doesn’t it, but what has been its impact in the Chicago context,” said Jenny Nagaoka, the Chicago Consortium’s associate director and postsecondary-studies manager, and a study co-author. “It’s not a transformative experience for the AVID student; it’s not doing enough to change the trajectory of these students for graduation.”