Reports initial findings from a synthesis and reanalysis of all available evidence on whether quasi-experimental evaluation designs produced unbiased estimates of the impacts of education, training, and welfare programs. This methodological paper tries to understand conditions under which...

Recommends that an upcoming study on the effectiveness of education interventions focus on reading comprehension in grades 3 to 5 and allow for inferences about selected groups of students (such as students with limited English proficiency or with very low reading skills). Other recommendations...

Randomized experiments are desirable but not always possible for social policy research, so "quasi-experiments" have become popular alternatives. This article reports on a systematic review of nearly three decades of methodological research to address the question of whether there is evidence...

Describes the program, framework and design for the national evaluation, and data and methods to be used in the implementation and impact studies.

Describes how various components of Mathematica's complex study fit together and explains perspectives and principles related to 1) distinguishing implemented programs from intended ones, 2) ensuring broad coverage to explore competing theories of effective programming, 3) collecting...

The first-year findings reveal that while the 21st Century Community Learning Centers changed where and with whom students spent some of their after-school time and increased parental involvement, they had limited influence on academic performance, no influence on feelings of safety or on the...

Describes the program, framework and design for the national evaluation, and data and methods to be used in the implementation and impact studies.

Every year, thousands of new teachers pass through hundreds of different teacher preparation programs and are hired to teach in the nation’s schools. In recent years, alternative programs have expanded rapidly. Despite the expansion of these new routes into teaching, little research exists to...

Describes how various components of Mathematica's complex study fit together and explains perspectives and principles related to 1) distinguishing implemented programs from intended ones, 2) ensuring broad coverage to explore competing theories of effective programming, 3) collecting...

Every year, thousands of new teachers pass through hundreds of different teacher preparation programs and are hired to teach in the nation’s schools. In recent years, alternative programs have expanded rapidly. Despite the expansion of these new routes into teaching, little research...