Reports initial findings from a synthesis and reanalysis of all available evidence on whether quasi-experimental evaluation designs produced unbiased estimates of the impacts of education, training, and welfare programs. This methodological paper tries to understand conditions under which...

Randomized experiments are desirable but not always possible for social policy research, so "quasi-experiments" have become popular alternatives. This article reports on a systematic review of nearly three decades of methodological research to address the question of whether there is evidence...

Alternative routes to teaching have been promoted during the past decade because of concerns about teacher shortages and teacher quality. Mathematica's new five-year study of the Passport to Teaching program, developed by the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence, is analyzing...

Do alternatively certified teachers produce student achievement gains on par with other teachers? This study used propensity score matching to identify a comparison group of teachers in Florida to address this question for the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE). Using...

The Teacher Advancement Program (TAP), a whole-school intervention that aims to improve schools by raising teacher quality, provides teachers with opportunities for professional growth, promotion to school leadership roles without leaving the classroom, structured feedback, and performance-based...

Comprehensive teacher induction provides novice teachers with carefully selected and trained full-time mentors, as well as a curriculum of intensive and structured support. This report presents the first round of results from a large-scale randomized controlled study of the effects of two...