In an attempt to improve the quality of educational research, the U.S. Department of Education%u2019s Institute of Education Sciences has provided funding for 65 randomized controlled trials of educational interventions. We argue that this research methodology is more effective in providing...

In an attempt to improve the quality of educational research, the US Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences has provided funding for 65 randomized controlled trials of educational interventions. We argue that this research methodology is more effective in providing guidance to...

Almost every state government in the U.S. has embraced standards-based reforms as a strategy to improve the quality of public education; this paper focuses on the impacts standards-based educational reforms have on minorities.

This paper analyzes the impact of a negative income tax experiment on the school performance of children in grades 4 through 10. The results indicate that the experimental program led to an increase in the average reading achievement of children in grades 4 through 6. This improved performance...

This paper describes four lessons derived from 115 rigorous impact evaluations of educational initiatives in 33 low- and middle-income countries. First, reducing the costs of going to school and providing alternatives to traditional public schools increase attendance and attainment, but do not...

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth for the years 1979–91, the authors investigate how school dropouts' acquisition of a General Educational Development certificate (GED) affected the probability that they would obtain training, post-secondary education, or military...

This paper investigates the extent to which variables describing the classroom behavior of teachers and variables describing teachers' backgrounds and training explain differences in the effectiveness of teachers in improving the vocabulary skills of inner-city black children in four elementary...

The relatively poor average performance of German students on the recent PISA international evaluations of 15- and 16-year-olds' literary skills (2000) and mathematical skills (2003) and the wide variation in performance, with low-income students scoring particularly poorly, have led to calls...