Student Mentoring Programs: Education's Monitoring and Information Sharing Could Be Improved
Highlights
As part of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) of 2001, the Congress authorized a 3-year, $17 million per year school-based mentoring grant program. For fiscal year 2004, Congress has increased funding to about $50 million to fund additional mentoring efforts. Congress requested that GAO provide information on the student mentoring program. To do this, GAO answered the following questions: (1) What are the basic elements, policies, and procedures of successful mentoring programs? (2) What are the key characteristics of NCLBA-funded mentoring efforts, including the extent to which they have the basic elements, policies, and procedures of successful mentoring programs? (3) How does the Department of Education monitor program implementation? (4) What are Education's and grantees' plans to assess program outcomes?
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Education | The Secretary of Education should explore ways to facilitate the sharing of successful practices and lessons learned to help new grantees more quickly and effectively implement their programs. |
Closed – Implemented
In September 2004, Education funded a technical assistance center for its mentoring grantees that would provide training and resources to help grantees with a range of activities. In addition, Education created a listserv for grantees that would enable them to share information and experiences.
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| Department of Education | The Secretary of Education should ensure that the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools uses grantees' single audit reports as part of its monitoring process to take advantage of all monitoring tools that could improve the identification of fiscal and programmatic weaknesses. |
Closed – Implemented
In February 2005, Education trained OSDFS program staff who monitor mentoring grants in the use of the Single Audit Clearinghouse database so that relevant single audit findings can be a part of the OSDFS monitoring process.
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| Department of Education | The Secretary of Education should undertake a national study of mentoring program outcomes and in doing so, explore the feasibility of examining the effectiveness of the mentoring program in improving youth outcomes and consider collecting limited, uniform data on the next wave of mentoring grantees that could be used as the basis for such study. |
Closed – Implemented
The Department of Education contracted with Abt Associates to conduct a national evaluation of the impact of its federally funded Student Mentoring Program. The evaluation is collecting and will provide systematic data about the effects of student mentoring programs on students' relationships with adults, as well as the impacts that are made on high-risk behaviors, such as substance use, delinquent or criminal activities, and gang involvement. The final report is scheduled for release in September 2008.
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