Charter schools offer something that public school systems, parents, and teachers need: a way to experiment with alternative ways of teaching, motivating students, organizing schools, using technology, and employing teachers. While people came down on both sides of support for or against charter schools, everyone was surprised by how difficult it was to assess charter school performance. The first part of this book focuses on how to improve estimates of charter schools' performance, especi...

The past decade has seen increased attention to cost-effectiveness and benefit-cost analysis in education as administrators are being asked to accomplish more with the same or even fewer resources, philanthropists are keen to calculate their "return on investment" in social programs, and the general public is increasingly scrutinizing how resources are allocated to schools and colleges.This text (titled Cost-Effectiveness Analysis in its previous editions) is the only full...

How can educators make sense of the complexities of research?Making Sense of Research brings together the best of two worlds—the "real" world where education is practiced daily and the "ivory tower" world where research is ongoing. The authors have written this book for practitioners at all levels, from teachers making site-specific decisions such as allocating time, to administrators making schoolwide and policy decisions such as reducing class s...