To estimate the long-term effects of the Reading Recovery® intervention, a regression discontinuity design (RD) was implemented in a randomly selected sample of Reading Recovery schools during each year of the federally-funded i3 Scale-Up external evaluation (2011-2015) and also in one additional cohort during the 2016-2017 school year. Long-term…

Despite policy relevance, longer-term evaluations of educational interventions are relatively rare. A common approach to this problem has been to rely on longitudinal research to determine targets for intervention by looking at the correlation between children's early skills (e.g., preschool numeracy) and medium-term outcomes (e.g., first-grade…

English learners' (ELs) day-to-day experiences in school change when reclassified as fully English proficient. Prior research, however, is mixed on how reclassification influences outcomes. Many studies also do not or cannot explore key long-term outcomes or identify impacts over time. In this study, I leverage longitudinal student data in a…

Principals shape the academic setting of schools. Yet, there is limited evidence on whether principal professional development improves schooling outcomes. Beginning in 2008-2009, Pennsylvania's Inspired Leadership (PIL) induction program required that newly hired principals complete targeted in-service professional development tied to newly…

In this paper, we report results from a multisite, student-level randomized controlled trial that examined the impact of the Building Assets, Reducing Risks (BARR) model on ninth-grade students. The BARR model is a comprehensive, strength-based approach that uses eight interlocking strategies to build intentional staff-to-staff, staff-to-student,…

Growing literature documents the promise of active learning instruction in engaging students in college classrooms. Accordingly, faculty professional development (PD) programs on active learning have become increasingly popular in postsecondary institutions; yet, quantitative evidence on the effectiveness of these programs is limited. Using…

As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program received more than $3 billion with the goal of substantially improving student achievement. The SIG program's funding was to help states turn around the nation's persistently lowest-achieving schools using one of four school intervention…

In this paper we study the effect on the math gender gap from attending a coeducational school with single-sex classrooms versus attending a school with coeducational classrooms. That is, we compare the performance of girls versus boys within schools with single-sex classrooms compared to the performance of girls versus boys within schools with…

We estimated the effects of Norway's universal ECEC program - expanding access to 1- and 2-year-olds starting in the early 2000s - on standardized math and achievement tests in 5th grade (age 10) using a population-based survey sample (Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study, MoBa, n = 102,352), linked with national administrative records…

A vast majority of elementary students struggle with the core, pre-algebraic concept of mathematical equivalence. The Improving Children's Understanding of Equivalence (ICUE) intervention integrates four research-based strategies to improve outcomes for second grade students: (1) introducing the equal sign before arithmetic, (2) nontraditional…

We present experimental evidence on the impact of a multi-faceted program that integrates technology-aided instruction, teacher training and coaching, community ownership, and free primary education. Our setting is three districts in rural Zambia, where we randomly assigned the program across 30 treatment and 33 control schools. The results show…

The One-Village-One-Preschool (OVOP) initiative aims to guarantee early childhood education (ECE) to all children in high-poverty villages in China. A challenge to policymakers is to balance expanding the scale with lengthening service duration. Following 23,775 children from preschool (4-year-old) to fourth-grade (10-year-old) in a…

Comparative interrupted time series (CITS) designs evaluate impact by modeling the relative deviation from trends among a treatment and comparison group after an intervention. The broad applicability of the design means it is widely used in education research. Like all non-experimental evaluation methods however, the internal validity of a given…

Being able to understand and evaluate arguments in different modalities and in different disciplines is thought to be a key component of students' academic success in college. However, many students do not receive explicit instruction in the basic concepts and rules of argumentation. Using a difference-in-differences approach with a multicohort…

Grade retention, the practice of requiring a student to remain in the same grade the following year, disproportionately affects students with sociodemographic risk and facing academic challenges. Each year, the United States spends $20 billion on retention and two million children are retained. Extant studies examining early elementary grade…