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.
NEWS RELEASE
"Darleen Opfer has excelled as a teacher, working with policymakers, and in academia, where she has explored education policy and school improvement," said RAND President and CEO James A. Thomson.
REPORT
Despite a range of legislative and policy interventions, the trade in illicit art and antiquities continues to flourish, resulting in damage to the arts, scholarship, and heritage. RAND Europe explored new ways of curtailing the illegal trade in cultural property.
REPORT
A focus on children, whose ideas are still being developed, may be more effective in promoting tolerance and critical thinking in the Arabic–speaking world than efforts directed toward adults, whose attitudes are already established.
REPORT
In 2008, the Minnesota Early Learning Foundation created the Saint Paul Early Childhood Scholarship Program, a pilot program to provide families with scholarships to cover the cost of high-quality early childhood education (ECE) programs. This report provides detailed cost and program data for a sample of 12 ECE programs participating in the scholarship program, including the per-child per-hour cost for participation of children in the…
RESEARCH BRIEF
Shares results of a RAND analysis of programs participating in Minnesota's Saint Paul Early Childhood Scholarship Program, which provides scholarships to cover the cost of high-quality early childhood education programs.
REPORT
A restructuring of the Ford Foundation's Collaborating for Education Reform Initiative yielded functioning collaboratives with varying abilities to meet their goals, depending on such factors as strong leadership and a positive funding environment.
REPORT
Reviews the controversy over the true high school graduation rate in the United States, provides a comprehensive review of the debate, discusses shortcomings of current methods, and proposes new methods that address those shortcomings.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Performance-based teacher evaluations should incorporate multiple measures of performance. Use of student test scores must support valid, reliable inferences. Evaluating teachers of nontested subjects/grades may require supplemental assessments.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This article provides the first analysis aimed at reducing the family-specific omitted variable bias pertaining to measures of absences in their influence on standardized testing achievement.
PERIODICAL
It has been a year since the devastating earthquake. The question now is how to use international aid and assistance wisely. This RAND Review cover story describes actions that could yield positive outcomes in Haiti in three to five years.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
We develop the "generalized persistence" (GP) model, a Bayesian multivariate model for estimating teacher effects that accommodates longitudinal data that are not vertically scaled by allowing less than perfect correlation of a teacher's effects across test administrations.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
We assemble the first comprehensive, national, school-level dataset concerning detailed performance measures used to calculate Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).
JOURNAL ARTICLE
In this article, the author examines two school districts that are highly decentralized to understand the central-office roles: (1) Edmonton, Canada; and (2) Lake Wales Charter Schools District in central Florida.
REPORT
This report presents results from a multisite, quantitative evaluation of the international Success for Kids (SFK) after-school program. A nonreligious program, SFK seeks to build resilience in children. Interestingly, the authors found that the program positively affected not just social and internal outcomes but also school-related outcomes, even though SFK is not an academic intervention.
REPORT
The authors analyze the systems of three districts and two states that have begun or are planning to incorporate measures of student performance into teacher evaluations. They examine how the systems are addressing assessment quality, evaluating teachers in nontested subjects and grades, and assigning teachers responsibility for particular students. The authors also discuss measurement challenges for policymakers to consider.
REPORT
The Post-9/11 GI Bill increased the higher education benefits available to eligible individuals, but its implementation presented challenges to both student veterans and campus administrators.
NEWS RELEASE
Data on the experiences of student veterans and campus administrators during the first year of the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
RESEARCH BRIEF
The Post-9/11 GI Bill increased the higher education benefits available to eligible individuals. Offering benefits to nearly 2 million veterans, it is more generous than previous bills but beneficiaries report challenges in using the new benefits.
REPORT
Coordinating the work of the many different institutions involved in after-school activities—including schools, nonprofits and municipal agencies like parks and libraries—holds the promise of making programs better and more accessible to urban children and teens who need them.
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