A Quasi-Experimental Evaluation of the Philadelphia Schools’ Kindness Implementation

October 2022 

Erin Chaparro
Evaluation Director 

DESCRIPTION: In fall 2021, 8 schools in communities with the highest rates of community and school violence in the Philadelphia School District received a KindR grant to teach kindness. The KindR activities would complement the already existing Positive Behavior Support System (PBIS). The district matched these 8 schools with 8 other schools (control group) based on similarity in demographics and in PBIS implementation status. Propensity score matching was used to identify 8 comparison schools that did not statistically differ from the PBIS Kindness schools. The district administered surveys district-wide to monitor student, staff, and parent/caregiver perceptions. The district provided the data from the surveys as aggregated data. Student-level data was not shared. With a sample of only 16 (8 experimental and 8 control) the power to detect an effect is severely limited.  

RESULTS: Responses from the KindR program schools were compared to those from the matched comparison schools. The following comparisons reached statistical significance: 

Students reported significantly lower bullying in intervention schools (p = 0.001).  

Parents reported significantly higher bullying in intervention schools (p < 0.001).  

Teachers in the KindR program schools reported 

• significantly lower classroom-level challenges to student learning (p < 0.001)  

• significantly lower external challenges to student learning (p = 0.044) 

• marginally lower school-level challenges to student learning (p = 0.08) 

This is clear evidence that the KindR Foundation’s intervention is beneficial, at the very least by decreasing classroom-level challenges to student learning and decreasing student perceptions of the frequency of bullying. Details of the analysis can be found at this link: Final Philadelphia public schools eval report.pdf