I’m digging into studies on remedial education for research guidance on how to help kids catch up after the coronavirus pandemic. Interventions for older students often have mixed results but I thought it would be interesting to note the key elements of an Israeli high school program that produced both immediate and long-lasting results for teens into their early 30s. 

The Israeli study, “Does Remedial Education at Late Childhood Pay Off After All? Long-Run Consequences for University Schooling, Labor Market Outcomes and Inter-Generational Mobility,” was conducted by Israeli economist Victor Lavy of the University of Warwick with two other researchers at Brown and Northwestern universities and is slated to be published in 2022 in the Journal of Labor Economics.

• Initially, students who participated in the after-school remedial program were able to pass a series of difficult high school matriculation exams, which are required for university admittance, in higher numbers. 

• Long-term benefits included more college completed, higher wages and more adults rising above their family’s economic station to enter the middle class.  

• The expensive program recovered costs after eight years because participants paid more taxes on larger incomes in their working years.

• Classroom teachers worked longer days and were paid overtime to tutor some of their students after school in small groups of two to five students. 

• The program targeted lower income but average students, not the weakest, who were at the cusp of being college material.

1. Lavy, Victor and Kott, Assaf and Rachkovski, Genia, "Does Remedial Education at Late Childhood Pay Off After All? Long-Run Consequences for University Schooling, Labor Market Outcomes and Inter-Generational Mobility", National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series 25332. December 2018.  
2. Lavy, V., Schloser, A. 2005. Targeted Remedial Education for Underperforming Teenagers: Costs and Benefits, Journal of Labor Economics, Volume 23, Number 4. 
3. Mark Dynarski & Philip Gleason, 1998. "How Can We Help? What We Have Learned from Evaluations of Federal Dropout-Prevention Programs," Mathematica Policy Research Reports Mathematica Policy Research.