The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on education systems worldwide, leading to significant learning loss, exacerbating existing educational inequalities and disproportionately affecting disadvantaged students. Governments around the world have begun to invest in large-scale tutoring initiatives as a key component of their…

School voucher programs are scholarship initiatives -- frequently government funded or incentivized -- that pay for students to attend private schools of their choice. This study is the first formal meta-analytic consolidation of the evidence from all randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating the student-level math and reading test score…

Since the first charter school law passed in Minnesota in 1991, over 40 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws allowing the publicly funded, privately managed, and semiautonomous schools of choice. Ever since the first charter school opened in Minnesota in 1992, the battle for fair funding has raged across the land. On the one hand,…

Limited research has been done to date on the extent of public funding of Open Educational Resources (OER) within basic education (K-12 equivalent) in South Africa. As claims have been made about the potential cost reductions that come with using OER, this study aimed to establish a benchmark of public spending on educational resources, uncover…

Recent demographic, economic and political trends have drawn attention to the issue of effectiveness and efficiency in the use of resources in the education sector. In the context of the renewed interest for the optimisation of resource use, this paper attempts to review the literature on budgeting and accounting in OECD education systems. The…

We meta-analyze for impact and cost-effectiveness 94 studies from 47 conditional cash transfer programs in low- and middle-income countries worldwide, focusing on educational outcomes that include enrollment, attendance, dropout, and school completion. To conceptually guide and interpret the empirical findings of our meta-analysis, we present a…

The paper examines issues related to analysis of cost effectiveness in human service research. Distinctions are made between cost-effectiveness analysis and cost-benefit analysis. A review of research focuses on 214 cost effectiveness studies in three human service program areas: early intervention for handicapped children, mental health programs,…

Many discussions of school size tend to concentrate on secondary sources, such as other literature reviews. Although this review does examine some secondary sources, it focuses on empirical research. Recent research suggests that smaller schools may be linked to improved attendance and participation in school activities. Some studies claim that…

Reanalyzes literature on the effect of class size on student achievement, showing that results of quantitative summaries of the literature depend critically on whether studies are accorded equal weight. Performs a cost-benefit analysis of class size reduction using data from the Tennessee STAR class size experiment. Results suggest that the…

A preliminary report by the Department of Agriculture shows that school lunches are still fattier and saltier than they should be. Cites examples of how some nutrition-conscious school dietitians are improving school lunches. Lists statistics about the National School Lunch Program. (MLF)

The use of educational cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is now widely accepted, not least in connection with the development of education systems in Third World countries. It has much to recommend it and is widely seen as preferable, both in theory and in practice, to the major alternative techniques, namely manpower planning and the social-demand…

Discusses and identifies reasons for the gap between those who research the curriculum and those who manage the curriculum. Reasons include the decentralized nature of educational decision making, the fact that practitioners are relatively impervious to the influence of contemporary theorists, and the fact that educational decision making is not…

A special report on school food service discusses the following: (1) new directions in the federal commodities program; (2) cafeteria etiquette strategies; (3) menus and management for school breakfast programs; (4) balancing nutrition and cost effectiveness; and (5) recycling cafeteria waste. (MLF)

Although class size reductions are often proposed as a way to improve student learning, research does not indicate that smaller classes will necessarily produce improved student achievement. Class size effects on student learning vary by grade, pupil characteristics, subject area, teaching method, and other learning interventions. References…

Tough new environmental laws, coupled with fluctuating oil prices, are likely to prompt hundreds of school systems to examine alternative fuels. Literature reviews and interviews with 45 government, education, and industry officials provided data for a comparative analysis of gasoline, diesel, natural gas, methanol, and propane. (MLF)