Welcome to RAND Education
Bringing accurate data and objective analysis to education policy
For over three decades, RAND Education has applied its expertise to almost every aspect of the education system. RAND Education's staff includes more than 70 experts from a wide range of disciplines. Sponsors of our research include government agencies, foundations, and private-sector organizations.
Our mission is to bring accurate data and objective analysis to education policy. We are a division within RAND, a nonprofit institute that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis.
RAND Helps Shape the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project's Final Report
At the heart of the effort to improve education is the need for accurate measurement; without reliable data generated by proven methods, it's impossible to tell what strategies hold the most promise for improving our schools. RAND Education researchers have contributed to the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which researches key issues in identifying effective teachers:
An accurate combined measure of teacher effectiveness would be the gold standard to capture and communicate information about the quality of educators. While the challenges to building such a measure are significant, research can help guide the way.
Using data from the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project, researchers developed a model to compile data from multiple sources that could be used to make inferences about a teacher's impact on student achievement.
Random assignment of students to teachers is crucial in controlling for variables apart from teacher influence that may influence student achievement. This report captures the technical methods, findings, and implications of the MET project's random assignment study of teaching effectiveness measures.
Many factors contribute to a student's academic performance, but research suggests that, among school-related factors, teachers matter most. What's less clear is how to measure an individual teacher's effectiveness. A new RAND Education website features fact sheets, blog posts, research briefs, and more on this important issue.
Blog
There’s plenty that parents can do at home to help their kids stay sharp until the new school year begins.
Announcement
To celebrate our first 60 years, we created
60 Ways RAND Has Made a Difference, an online book. On our 65th birthday, we share five more recent ways that RAND has made a difference. This includes impactful research on summer learning, education reforms, educator promotion and retention policy, and accountability systems.
Journal Article
Colleges often offer remedial education to students who need help to succeed in the classroom. In fact, nearly one-third of freshmen take remedial courses. However, there is little evidence that remediation improves academic or labor market outcomes.
Event
Numerous RAND Education researchers will present at the American Educational Research Association 2013 Annual Meeting, in San Francisco, CA April 27 through May 1, 2013. The theme of this year's meeting is “Education and Poverty: Theory, Research, Policy and Praxis.”
Blog
If we want testing to exert beneficial effects on teaching and learning, we need to advocate for higher-quality tests and for evaluation and accountability systems that use multiple measures and do not rely exclusively on test scores, write Laura Hamilton and Gabriella C. Gonzalez.
Qatar
The leadership of the Arabian Gulf nation of Qatar sees education as the key to Qatar's economic and social progress. Long concerned that the country's education system was not meeting the needs of its society, the Qatari leadership approached the RAND Corporation in 2001, asking it to examine the kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) education system.
Journal Article
Qatar's education system now includes independent schools, internationally-accredited and well-respected private schools, and a tuition vouchers program that may spur further expansion of the private school system.
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