News-Letter

Despite being a template for remedial education programs across the country, the Hopkins-initiated Talent Development High School did not receive the top ranking in a report by the Institute of Educational Sciences.

Instead, the program was given second place. Despite this, students participating in the Talent Development program were still higher-achieving than their peers not in comparable programs. The What Works Clearinghouse of the Department of Education reports that while the Talent Development program is fairly efficient, the program does not do enough to address the issue of students who fail to complete their education.

The report itself rated a variety of programs on a six-level scale with a highest rating of six. According to the report published on the What Works Clearinghouse Web site, it considers the factors of "quality of the research design, the statistical significance of findings, the size of the difference between participants in the intervention and the comparison conditions and the consistency in findings across studies."

Primarily influencing Hopkins' program was the lack of emphasis on not only completing the high school program, but continuing on with higher education. All the studies used by the What Works Clearinghouse found that the Talent Development program to meets the remaining standards for staying in high school and progressing through successfully, and because the Talent Development program reaches these goals satisfactorily, the program will not implement any additional changes.

Co-founder of the Talent Development High School programs and research scientist at the Center for Social Organization of Schools Robert Balfanz was not available for comment, but has expressed pleasure on seeing that the program was rated initially as validation of past success in other publications.

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