Impact of Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools Program on High School Completion

• In Event: Programs With Emerging Evidence for Improving School Completion and Post-School Employment for Students With Disabilities

Abstract

Despite increasing special education enrollment over the past two decades, high school completion rates among students with disabilities remain low compared to their peers without disabilities. An important factor contributing to this high school completion gap is students’ social experiences at school (Wagner et al., 2006). The quantity and quality of social interactions with peers contributes greatly to students’ willingness to stay in school (Christenson, Sinclair, Lehr, & Hurley, 2000; Reschly & Christenson, 2006). While some interventions have focused on fostering social inclusion for students with disabilities, many of these programs employ a one-on-one engagement approach, which may not address the entire school community in a holistic manner.
The Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools (UCS) program follows a whole school approach to create an inclusive school environment aiming to eliminate bullying and exclusion of any group of students and challenge negative perceptions and stereotypes about students with intellectual disabilities. The program aims to raise disability awareness and student engagement through an equal participation of students with and without intellectual disabilities in sports, fitness activities, and leadership roles across other school activities. In addition, the program aims to provide schoolwide awareness and education activities that promote inclusion and reach most of the school population. Since its inception in 2008, the UCS program has reached over 3.6 million young people (Special Olympics, 2018). Studies have shown that the program was associated with an improvement in students’ attitudes towards and social interactions with peers with disabilities, and also helped students with and without disabilities to navigate the transition from middle school to high school smoothly by creating a sense of belonging (Jacobs et al., 2018; Siperstein et al., 2017).
However, there is currently no evidence on whether these positive relationships also lead to potentially positive spillover effects on school completion . This presentation will discuss the impact of the UCS program on school-level graduation rates for all students and for students with disabilities using data from the U.S. Department of Education and Special Olympics, Inc., from school years 2010–11 through 2015–16. Using a robust quasi-experimental design, this study first employs propensity score matching to select a comparison group of schools that are similar to UCS schools in terms of their observed school characteristics. Next, the study employs a difference-in-differences methodology tracking all treated and matched comparison schools over three years prior to and three years after intervention. Results indicate that the UCS program has a significant positive impact on overall graduation rates, leading to a 1.3% increase in annual graduation rates among all students, and a 2.6% increase for students with disabilities. The results from this study, combined with earlier evaluation results on social outcomes, present a compelling evidence base for the ongoing expansion of the program both in the United States and internationally.

Authors

• Michelle Yin, Northwestern University

• Garima Siwach, American Institutes for Research

• Yulia Belyakova, American Institutes for Research