The REL Mid-Atlantic Webinar discussed the elements in a positive school climate and shared different methods for assessing school data, including the Comprehensive School Climate Inventory. The Q&A presented in this document address the questions participants had for Dr. Cohen following the webinar. The webinar recording and PowerPoint…

The research assessment framework is an unstable reality in many countries. While few would disagree that there is a need to measure and reward research excellence, there has been little investigation of how assessment mechanisms relate to knowledge itself. With a focus on the arts and humanities and writing from an Australian perspective, this…

This Research & Policy Brief addresses the aspect of the teacher support system that is perhaps the most important and often the most weakly implemented: teacher learning and development. This brief includes the following to help state and district leaders select professional learning activities that are worth the allocation of scarce resources:…

Methodological rigor consists of a series of elements that, in combination, determine the confidence with which conclusions can be drawn from the evaluation results. These elements include evaluation design, conceptualization of constructs, measurement strategies, time frames, program integrity, and others. The authors examine the factors that…

This article examines the contribution of the Education for All-Fast Track Initiative (EFA-FTI) global partnership in strengthening aid effectiveness in the education sector, and specifically how the implementation modalities of the EFA-FTI Catalytic Fund (CF) have contributed to this strengthening. The empirical findings are based on a review…

The "Closing the Achievement Gap" series explores the Casey Foundation's education investments and presents stories, results, and lessons learned. This publication describes efforts to develop a flexible but rigorous results measurements system that enables the Foundation and its grantees to reflect on practice and course-correct as…

The basic philosophy underlying many contemporary developments in educational theory and practice is the concept of "equal opportunity" within an education system as distinct from the older concept of "equal education" for all. This research project investigated alternative educational environments that could be designed to…

The role of equity in determining how higher education should be supported is considered, along with several approaches for measuring benefits and costs of public subsidies, and conclusions from the literature. Attention is directed to equity in financing higher education because higher education is often advocated as a mechanism for providing…

This paper focuses on the systematic investigation of the influence of the quasi-experimental projects on possible changes in inequality in access to higher education in Russia. While intuition points toward a positive effect of introduction of the standardized tests and educational vouchers on the decrease in inequality in access to higher…

This publication presents performance data and the concomitant standards of performance that form the basis of school improvement in Maryland. The Data-Based Areas section of this report describes essential tools for measuring how well schools, school systems, and the state are preparing every student for higher education and successful careers…

The UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities (CHCFC) has developed the School Readiness Critical Pathways (SRCPs) as an evidence-based conceptual model that links related outcomes and strategies. This helps to organize an array of broad and diffuse evidence regarding the strategies that produce school readiness outcomes for…

A study was conducted to obtain pilot evidence that could serve as a basis for developing convincing methods for individual Australian companies to use in determining their returns from investment in training. The study attempted to replicate survey results from significant overseas surveys by using information collected on more than 90 Australian…

Recent Australian and overseas studies on evaluation of enterprises' return on training investment (ROTI) were reviewed to identify key issues in encouraging increased evaluation of training benefits by enterprises and successful approaches that may inform future "enterprise-friendly" studies of ROTI. It was concluded that more…