A BluePrint for Success: Case Studies of Successful - Educational ...

A Blueprint for Success
achieve its current high-performing preparation curriculum. In the initial course, the average overall
score improvement rate was eight percent, but the most recent data show average overall increases of
over 20 percent. The new curriculum was also designed to overcome stereotype threat bias. In addition
to program changes based on externally validated data, CB-STL has also responded to student
feedback by providing additional program enhancements, such as selection of courses and more information
on college majors.
Other key uses of data are two intervention programs – Attendance Intervention and Academic Intervention.
Attendance Intervention – “Missed Opportunities” — is a systematic procedure used to
get students ‘back on track’ if absences at College Bound St. Louis classes or events exceed three for a
given student. The Academic Intervention – “Lifting the Grade” – is an extensive quarterly program
that includes a series of interventions for students who are struggling academically in high school. A
comparable academic intervention program is implemented for collegians.
Evidence of Success
College Bound St. Louis exhibits positive outcome data to suggest that students who participate in
and graduate from the program are more likely to graduate from high school, and enroll and persist
in college. According to CB-STL, 100 percent of their students have graduated from high school for
four consecutive years. The same percentage has also completed FAFSA forms, received admission
to, and enrolled in a postsecondary institution.
One important caveat to note when looking at these results is that College Bound St. Louis sets “accountability
groups” for high school and college students from which they calculate success rates.
The high school accountability group is set on January 1 of a student’s junior year in high school.
Students may exit the CB-STL program and new students may enter the CB-STL program prior to
this time. Students exit the program either because they no longer wish to participate, because (after
multiple interventions with the school, family and student) CB-STL asks them to exit the program,
or because they have relocated out of the St. Louis area. There are no changes to student enrollment
once the accountability group is set, however, and statistics for high school graduation are based on
this number. Fifty-one students exited the CB-STL program since 2007 for reasons including: Attendance/Engagement
(student missed more than 50 percent of the classes and/or activities and did
not respond to interventions); Grades (student’s grades showed steady decline and student would not
accept academic or personal interventions); Self-removal (student chose to leave program); and External
circumstances (moving).
In 12th grade, students who decide to continue in College Bound St. Louis’s Persistence Program,
Complete U, (College Bound St. Louis works with students while they are enrolled in college until
they graduate) must sign a FERPA release form in order for CB-STL to validate their college performance,
enrollment, re-enrollment, and financial aid data. Students who sign the FERPA forms
are considered part of CB-STL’s college accountability group. Postsecondary persistence and com-
Educational Policy Institute 34 www.educationalpolicy.org