New York City's Teen ACTION Program: an Evaluation Gone Awry Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

This case explores how an impact evaluation for a promising after-school program in New York City went awry. In 2006, New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg created the Center for Economic Opportunity (CEO). Designed as an innovation fund, CEO tested anti-poverty programs by employing an evidence-based approach. One of the programs of CEO, Teen ACTION, was designed to provide at-risk youth with after school service-learning opportunities. Teen ACTION's model was based on a rigorously evaluated program which had proven to significantly reduce rates of teen pregnancy and class failure among participants compared to a control group. But when it came time to evaluate the impacts of Teen ACTION, CEO ran into significant hurdles.

New York City's Teen ACTION Program an Evaluation Gone Awry Case Study Solution

With unfound frankness, CEO officials, Kristin Morse and Carson Hicks discuss on video how shortcomings in the program's appraisal strategy, attached with random unpredicted events such as the Swine Flu, the evaluation results hardly utilizable. HKS Case Number 2027.0. The case includes a short backgrounder on Teen ACTION and two videos (totaling approximately 9 minutes) designed to be utilized during the class to frame special discussion pastures. In the very first video, Kristin Morse, the Deputy Executive Director of CEO, and Carson Hicks, Director of Programs and Evaluation at CEO, describe the assessment design as well as the implementation challenges the team confronted. The 2nd video shows what the CEO team determined to do once they realized the initial evaluation's results were flawed. Case number 2027.0

PUBLICATION DATE: August 26, 2014 PRODUCT #: HKS896-PDF-ENG

This is just an excerpt. This case is about STRATEGY & EXECUTION