Impact Evaluation of the Minnesota Reading Corps K-3 Program

Minnesota Reading Corps (MRC) is the largest AmeriCorps State program in the country. The goal of MRC is to ensure that students become successful readers and meet reading proficiency targets by the end of the third grade. To meet this goal, the MRC program, and its host organization, ServeMinnesota Action Network, recruit, train, place and monitor AmeriCorps members to implement research-based literacy enrichment activities and interventions for at-risk Kindergarten through third grade (K-3) students and preschool children. Starting in 2011, the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) sponsored a randomized controlled trial (RCT) impact evaluation of over 1,300 K-3 students at 23 participating schools who were determined to be eligible for the MRC program during the 2012-2013 school year. The goal of the impact evaluation was to determine both the short- and long-term impacts of the MRC program on elementary students’ literacy outcomes