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Washington State Institute for Public Policy
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Harlem Children's Zone - Promise Academy® K-12 Charter Schools

Pre-K to 12 Education
  Literature review updated June 2020.

The Harlem Children's Zone - Promise Academy® K-12 Charter Schools (Promise Academy) offers extended day, extended year education to elementary, middle, and high school students. Promise Academy includes after-school tutoring and additional classes on Saturdays for children who need remediation in mathematics or English language arts skills. Promise Academy emphasizes the recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers and uses extensive data-driven monitoring to track student progress and refine instruction. Additionally, Promise Academy provides students with extensive wraparound services such as free medical and dental services, incentives for achievement, nutritious cafeteria meals, and parental engagement and support.

Students were 11 years old on average in the included study and attended Promise Academy schools for 3.4 years
 
ALL
META-ANALYSIS
CITATIONS

Meta-analysis is a statistical method to combine the results from separate studies on a program, policy, or topic to estimate its effect on an outcome. WSIPP systematically evaluates all credible evaluations we can locate on each topic. The outcomes measured are the program impacts measured in the research literature (for example, impacts on crime or educational attainment). Treatment N represents the total number of individuals or units in the treatment group across the included studies.

An effect size (ES) is a standard metric that summarizes the degree to which a program or policy affects a measured outcome. If the effect size is positive, the outcome increases. If the effect size is negative, the outcome decreases. See Estimating Program Effects Using Effect Sizes for additional information on how we estimate effect sizes.

The effect size may be adjusted from the unadjusted effect size estimated in the meta-analysis. Historically, WSIPP adjusted effect sizes to some programs based on the methodological characteristics of the study. For programs reviewed in 2024 or later, we do not make additional adjustments, and we use the unadjusted effect size whenever we run a benefit-cost analysis.

Research shows the magnitude of effects may change over time. For those effect sizes, we estimate outcome-based adjustments, which we apply between the first time ES is estimated and the second time ES is estimated. More details about these adjustments can be found in our Technical Documentation.

Meta-Analysis of Program Effects
Outcomes measured No. of effect sizes Treatment N Effect sizes (ES) and standard errors (SE) Unadjusted effect size (random effects model)
ES SE Age ES p-value
High school graduation
On-time completion of high school with a diploma (excluding GED attainment).
 11 1 446 0.268 0.075 17 0.268 0.001
Test scores
Standardized, validated tests of academic achievement.
11 1 403 0.254 0.080 17 0.254 0.001

Citations Used in the Meta-Analysis

Dobbie, W., & Fryer, R.G. (2015). The medium-term impacts of high-achieving charter schools. Journal of Political Economy, 123(5), 985-1037.