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The Impacts and Implementation of the i3-Funded Scale-Up of Success for All study examined the implementation and impacts of a whole-school reform model, Success for All (SFA), which seeks to increase reading proficiency among students in elementary schools serving low-income children, as this model was scaled up under an Investing in Innovation (i3) grant from the United States Department of Education. The impact evaluation used a cluster random assignment design in which 37 schools in five school districts were selected at random either to implement SFA (the program group schools) or to put in place their business-as-usual reading program (the control group schools). This collection contains Parts 1 to 7 for public use; and Part 8 for restricted use only.

In Part 1: Primary Student Sample data, children who began kindergarten in sampled schools and remained in them through second grade were assessed using standardized assessments of phonics skills, reading fluency, and comprehension. In Part 2: Auxiliary Sample, additional analyses examined third-year impacts on reading skills for all second graders, whether or not they remained continuously enrolled in the study schools, and for students in grades 3 through 5. The analysis also examined impacts for subgroups defined by ethnicity, early literacy skills measured upon entry into kindergarten, and other variables.

Part 3: School Achievement Snapshot Data contain implementation data for analysis using an instrument created by SFA's developers that measures the extent to which program elements were put in place at each program group at the end of each year. This instrument was utilized to assess fidelity to the program model. The implementation analysis was also informed by principal (Part 5: Principal Survey) and teacher surveys (Part 4: Teacher Survey) in all schools, as well by logs (Part 6: Teacher Log) that asked teachers to document their instructional practices in early reading classes. These data, collected in all three study years, make it possible to measure implementation over the study period and to compare program group schools and control group schools on a variety of dimensions.

Part 7: Scale-Up Sample Data provided data on the schools that adopted SFA (and those which were approached, but did not adopt), and schools that adopted before the Investing in Innovations grant. Part 8 is the restricted version of Part 7, which retains geographic location variables.

The Improving Literacy Instruction for Adults study commenced in 2005 as a project of the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. Research for the project was undertaken with three aims: (1) to identify relationships among reading component skills and global literacy outcomes for adults with low literacy; (2) to design adult literacy interventions based on findings from the first aim (1); and (3) to examine the efficacy of these interventions on learner outcomes in authentic settings. This release contains descriptive datasets from the first aim; data related to the second and third aims will be made available in the future.

Initiation of the study involved the collection of reading assessments from volunteer participants at 13 adult education sites throughout Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri. Data were collected using a number of adult literacy evaluation methods, including but not limited to: General Educational Development (GED) tests, the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests (WRMT), the Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency (TOSWRF), the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE), the Tests of Adult Basic Education (TABE), the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS), the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP), the Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT), the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF), and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Study participants also completed a background questionnaire designed to assess students' learning goals, motivations for seeking adult education classes, and any barriers or difficulties faced while pursuing adult education. Background questions also gathered demographic and personal information, including participant age, gender, ethnicity, language, education level, employment status and history, marital status, number of children, religious participation, health issues, and drug and alcohol abuse.

The Social Capital and Children's Development data were collected in a study of the causal effects of social capital on levels and inequalities of children's social and cognitive development during the early elementary years. The study included 52 schools in Phoenix and San Antonio, including 3,084 first graders and their families, and over 200 teachers, with half the schools randomly selected for the intervention and half serving as controls. Children from low-income Latino families were a special focus of the study. The experimental design of this study allowed for testing of the causal role of social capital. Social capital here refers to trust and shared expectations embedded in social networks of parents, teachers, and children. For young children, social capital operates primarily through their relationships with their parents, enhancing development through mechanisms of social support and social control.

The research design was experimental: social capital was manipulated through a well-tested randomized intervention, Families and Schools Together (FAST), that enhanced social capital among parents, teachers, and children through an intensive after-school program and a 2-year follow-up program. FAST is intended to reduce parental isolation, enhance family engagement with schools, and strengthen family functioning; that is, to increase social capital between families and schools, among families, and within families to improve children's education and life-long outcomes. Key aspects of child development were assessed, including (a) social skills and problem behavior from standardized behavioral ratings by parents and teachers, and (b) grade retention, attendance rates, and third-grade reading and mathematics scores from school records. Social capital was measured with repeated surveys of teachers and parents that address the extent of social networks, parent involvement, trust, and shared expectations among parents, between parents and schools, and between parents and children. Demographic variables of this study include native language, years in the United States, date of birth/age, race/ethnicity, gender, and household composition.