Social Policy Report on School-based Mentoring to be Featured at National Press Corps Sept 9

Next week on Sept 9th, 2010, the Washington DC Press Corps will hear from David Dubois of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Marc Wheeler and Tom Keller of Portland State University, who will discuss their new Social Policy Report on the effectiveness of school-based mentoring (see attached advisory). Social Policy Report (SPR) is a journal devoted to promoting joint understanding of policy and research for informed decision-making, and the new report takes a deeper look at the three large national studies on school-based mentoring that have been much in the news (one of them led to the President's elimination of the US DOE mentoring program from his budget). The authors use meta-analytical tools, secondary data-analysis and other means to review the findings from the studies side-by-side, and discuss in-depth what should (and should not) be our take-away messages regarding school-based mentoring as an intervention.

The report has a lot to interest anyone involved in communicating about, and being informed consumers of, social research and practice. It is very interesting to hear how the different research designs, measures, and application of criteria for statistical significance led to results being reported and publicly interpreted in different ways. The authors and commentators grapple with ways to communicate findings effectively. Many issues are raised about what constitutes "gold-standard" research, how outcomes are measured and reported in mentoring programs, and what is a "significant impact." It gives an interesting window into how social research is conducted that is sure to be informative.

The press conference is hosted by MENTOR/the National Mentoring Partnership.

You can download a policy brief about the report here.

You can download the Social Policy Report here.

You can download the meta-analysis the authors conducted here.