City Connects is improving outcomes for students from the heart of Boston to the nation’s heartland. While decades of evidence point to City Connects’ significant impacts on students in Massachusetts, new research highlights how this unique model of integrated student support is improving academic achievement and attendance in Indiana.
“We’ve accumulated a lot of evidence of City Connects’ impact in the context of Massachusetts schools, especially in Boston. We know that Indiana is a very different state politically and when it comes to education policies like school choice. Our new findings are a testament to the idea that this intervention can be robust and work to improve student outcomes under very different contexts and policy backgrounds,” said Haibin Jiang, Researcher at Boston College’s Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children.
City Connects has been steadily growing over the last two decades, beginning in one school in Boston and now reaching thousands of students across six states and Ireland. In 2021, City Connects expanded its reach to Indiana and is now embedded in more than 40 Indiana public, private, and charter schools from Indianapolis to Shackamack, City Connects’ first rural school setting.
With support from an Institute of Education Sciences grant, the Center for Thriving Children has been studying the expansion of City Connects in Indiana, producing a series of papers examining the impact on student achievement and attendance, the realities of adapting to a rural setting, and the evolving perceptions of school leaders. The team has been selected to present this work at the American Educational Research Association’s annual meeting on April 10 in Los Angeles. Their symposium, From the Coast to the Heartland: Scaling Integrated Student Support Systems in the Post-Pandemic Era, will be chaired by Lynch School of Education and Human Development Professor Deoksoon Kim and include remarks from Indiana State Representative Robert Behning.
Jiang will present findings from a study he led examining the impact of City Connects on standardized test scores in Indiana. The study, Narrowing the Achievement Gap Through Integrated Student Support: Evidence From City Connects in the Heartland, finds that students who participated in City Connects for at least one year demonstrated sizable improvements of 0.062 standard deviations in Math and 0.045 standard deviations in English Language Arts, which can be translated to up to 40 days of in-school instruction. The gains were even larger among Black students and students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch.
Students who participated in City Connects for at least one year demonstrated sizable improvements of 0.062 standard deviations in Math and 0.045 standard deviations in English Language Arts, which can be translated to up to 40 days of in-school instruction. The gains were even larger among Black students and students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch.
“This is very important in terms of showing that integrated student support can narrow the opportunity gaps between historically underserved students and their peers,” said Jiang.
Yan Leigh, Director of Research and Evaluation at the Center for Thriving Children, will discuss findings on the impact of City Connects on attendance in Indiana. Since the pandemic, schools across Indiana and the nation have been struggling to combat high rates of chronic absenteeism—defined as missing at least 10% of school days. This study, Re-engaging Students: The Impact of City Connects on Attendance in a Midwestern State, finds that Indiana students in City Connects schools are 7% less likely to be chronically absent. This impact was largely driven by the effects of City Connects on economically disadvantaged student groups, offering evidence that integrated student support can help build more equitable and responsive education systems.
Indiana students in City Connects schools are 7% less likely to be chronically absent.
“As we know, if students aren’t attending school, it’s impossible for them to learn or to build relationships with teachers and peers. So all states, including Indiana, are eager to address this attendance issue. This finding that the City Connects intervention can increase attendance is very encouraging,” said Jiang, a co-author of the study.
Nan Yang, Survey Researcher at the Center for Thriving Children, will share findings from Evolving Leadership Perspectives on Integrated Student Support Implementation: Insights from a Midwestern Context, which unpacks three years of survey data from City Connects school principals. The results demonstrate a strong positive change in principal perceptions of the program particularly when it comes to benefits related to City Connects’ core practices and its impact on students’ non-academic needs.
At the symposium, Jee Hun Yoo, Researcher at the Center for Thriving Children, will share insights from a case study on City Connects expansion to its first rural school setting. The study, Adapting Integrated Student Support for Rural Schools: A Case Study of Community-Driven Implementation, found that despite the initial anticipation that community partner options may be limited, City Connect Coordinators were able to establish relationships with 93 partners. The case study also highlights the strengths of this rural community whose close-knit nature played an important role in expanding student support options.
Researchers say that together, these studies illuminate what it takes to implement integrated student support with depth and integrity across diverse schools, and they hope their work can inform researchers, practitioners, and policymakers committed to building education systems where every child is seen, supported, and set up to thrive.
