RAND's research on pre-K, K-12, and higher education covers issues such as assessment and accountability, choice-based and standards-based school reform, vocational training, and the value of arts education and policy in sustaining communities and promoting a well-rounded community.
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.
This report recounts the development of Qatar's internationally benchmarked standards-based assessment system, providing important lessons learned for Qatar and other countries that are seeking to implement standards-based educational reforms.
Critically examines current efforts to reuse digital training content as a strategy to reduce the cost of its development, and provides recommendations regarding how the reuse option might be further encouraged.
Reform-minded leaders of Qatar, who have embarked on a sweeping reform of their nation's education system, asked RAND to evaluate the education finance system that has been adopted and to offer suggestions for improvements.
The first multi-dimensional effort to quantify the disparities faced by African-American and Latino boys and men in California across a broad spectrum of health and social factors provides a disquieting outlook for their lives.
Facing serious funding challenges, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh needs to explore new ways to secure adequate and stable funding, engage patrons and other stakeholders, and evaluate what services it offers.
The summary discusses some of the greatest socioeconomic, health, safety, and school readiness disparities for boys and men of color in California and reviews strategies to reduce disparities, including effective programs, practices, and policies.
Creating more-cohesive policies and initiatives to improve instructional leadership in schools appears to be a promising approach to developing school principals who are engaged in improving instruction.
Overview of the education and labor market initiatives under way in four Arab nations -- Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates -- to address the challenges of developing their human capital for the 21st century global economy.
England reformed its elementary math curriculum in 1999 to improve educational outcomes. Evaluations of the reforms were generally positive, but the evidence of success and value for money was more difficult to confirm.
State arts agencies — key players within the U.S. system of public support for the arts — face a wide varitey of challenges to their typical roles as grantmakers. The author concludes that future state arts policy is likely to focus more on efforts to develop the creative economy and to grow the audience for the arts.
This study assesses the state of the art in determining the economic value of social programs for use in benefit-cost analysis (BCA). It finds that rarely are the benefits of social programs consistently or accurately monetized and suggests ways to advance the use of BCA in evaluating social programs' economic returns.
This update to a 2007 study on provides an additional year of data on the strategies states, districts, and schools are using to implement standards-based accountability under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and how these strategies are associated with classroom practices and student achievement in mathematics and science.
Education and labor market initiatives are under way in four Arab nations -- Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates -- to address the challenges of developing the human capital of their populations for the 21st century global economy, though better evaluation of the implemented reforms will be needed to determine their efficacy.
A detailed review of five Los Angeles home-based programs determines how their current practices compare with the literature on best practices in corrections, and assigns scores to each for their ability to deliver quality interventions and services for offenders.
Assesses the current awareness and attitudes of stakeholders in three case study institutions of higher education regarding digital repositories for their intellectual assets.
Although child-care quality rating and improvement systems have widespread appeal and are being adopted in many states, there is a dearth of practical knowledge on how to develop and implement them. A review of early-adopter programs highlights lessons learned and offers recommendations.
In support of recruitment, readiness, and retention goals, this paper suggests that the U.S. Department of Defense may wish to expand its child care benefits to cover more military families and a broader set of child care needs.
Policymakers have underestimated the critical role of arts learning in supporting a vibrant nonprofit cultural sector. Despite decades of effort to make high-quality works of art available to Americans, demand for the arts has failed to keep pace with supply.
The August issue of Policy Insight discusses the growing use of randomized trials to determine the effectiveness of development programs in low-income countries, suggesting that similar methods should be used to assess the cost-effectiveness of education interventions in these countries.
A review of existing research prepared for a group of Santa Monica community and school leaders finds strong evidence of a positive correlation between education and community health, as measured through data on crime, employment and earnings, housing values and tax revenues.
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