This paper compares retrospective and prospective analyses of the effect of flip charts on test scores in rural Kenyan schools. Retrospective estimates that focus on subjects for which flip charts are used suggest that flip charts raise test scores by up to 20 percent of a standard deviation....

A randomized evaluation suggests that a program which provided official textbooks to randomly selected rural Kenyan primary schools did not increase test scores for the average student. In contrast, the previous literature suggests that textbook provision has a large impact on test scores....

Developing countries spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year on schools, educational materials and teachers, but relatively little is known about how effective these expenditures are at increasing students' years of completed schooling and, more importantly, the skills that they learn...

Advocates of teacher incentive programs argue that they can strengthen weak incentives, while opponents argue they lead to teaching to the test.' We find evidence that existing teacher incentives in Kenya are indeed weak, with teachers absent 20% of the time. We then report on a randomized...

This paper presents a Lagrange multiplier test of the normality assumption underlying the ordered probit model. The test is presented both for the standard ordered probit model and a version in which censoring is present in the dependent variable. The test is then compared to normality tests...

As part of the restructuring of the education system since doi moi or Renovation in 1989, the government of Vietnam has implemented several policy changes. These include transforming some public institutions into private ones, promoting the establishment of "people's" and community educational...