This series of reports was produced by Omidyar Network’s Education initiative, whose mission is to unlock human potential through learning by catalyzing people, ideas, and systems – so every individual thrives and contributes in a changing and interdependent world. The Omidyar Network team included Eliza Erikson, Erin Simmons, Rebecca Hankin, and Eshanthi Ranasinghe. The data underpinning this report come from interviews, surveys, site visits, and desk research by a team of researchers and EdTech practitioners led by RTI International, drawing on local expertise in each of the case study countries. The team conducted more than 100 interviews with teachers, school principals, education administrators, policymakers, and EdTech experts. This study sought to understand the conditions that have thus far enabled EdTech initiatives to scale in the USA. This case study involved interviewing and surveying more than 20 EdTech stakeholders in the US. These experts provided recommendations on which states or districts could serve as examples of effective EdTech scale-up (at the access, use, or impact level). Suggestions included Utah, California, Maine, Rhode Island, New York, North Carolina, and Florida. Two specific ‘deep dives’ are included in this report: the state of North Carolina and the Miami-Dade County public school district in the state of Florida. Both North Carolina and Florida have, in the past decade, aggressively transformed education and implemented policies and initiatives to improve education opportunities for all students with the help of EdTech.

This series of reports was produced by Omidyar Network’s Education initiative, whose mission is to unlock human potential through learning by catalyzing people, ideas, and systems – so every individual thrives and contributes in a changing and interdependent world. The Omidyar Network team included Eliza Erikson, Erin Simmons, Rebecca Hankin, and Eshanthi Ranasinghe. The data underpinning this report come from interviews, surveys, site visits, and desk research by a team of researchers and EdTech practitioners led by RTI International, drawing on local expertise in each of the case study countries. The team conducted more than 100 interviews with teachers, school principals, education administrators, policymakers, and EdTech experts. This study sought to understand the conditions that have thus far enabled EdTech initiatives to scale in China. The study found that there is a multibillion dollar business opportunity for EdTech entrepreneurs that leverage widespread access to mobile internet and performance pressure generated by cultural values and government standards. Reaching rural and ethnic minority schools with equal access to high quality lessons through virtual teaching and blended models of instruction.

This series of reports was produced by Omidyar Network’s Education initiative, whose mission is to unlock human potential through learning by catalyzing people, ideas, and systems – so every individual thrives and contributes in a changing and interdependent world. The Omidyar Network team included Eliza Erikson, Erin Simmons, Rebecca Hankin, and Eshanthi Ranasinghe. The data underpinning this report come from interviews, surveys, site visits, and desk research by a team of researchers and EdTech practitioners led by RTI International, drawing on local expertise in each of the case study countries. The team conducted more than 100 interviews with teachers, school principals, education administrators, policymakers, and EdTech experts. This study sought to understand the conditions that have thus far enabled EdTech initiatives to scale in Chile. This case study is the result of more than 20 interviews and site visits and a document review conducted in Chile over a 2-month period in 2018. The case demonstrates that long-term, top-down vision implemented in partnership with university networks or other NGOs who specialize in adaptive management, active learning and knowledge sharing.

This series of reports was produced by Omidyar Network’s Education initiative, whose mission is to unlock human potential through learning by catalyzing people, ideas, and systems – so every individual thrives and contributes in a changing and interdependent world. The Omidyar Network team included Eliza Erikson, Erin Simmons, Rebecca Hankin, and Eshanthi Ranasinghe. The data underpinning this report come from interviews, surveys, site visits, and desk research by a team of researchers and EdTech practitioners led by RTI International, drawing on local expertise in each of the case study countries. The team conducted more than 100 interviews with teachers, school principals, education administrators, policymakers, and EdTech experts. This study sought to understand the conditions that have thus far enabled EdTech initiatives to scale in Indonesia. Focusing on K–12 education, and drawing on interviews with 22 practitioners in the field, we found that Indonesia is paving the way for modern learning using digital and connected technology. As Indonesia overcomes the challenge of access to EdTech, the near future will require greater attention to its impact through research, evaluation, and evidence-based product design.

This annotated bibliography, originally created as a supplement to a research poster, compiles the output from an RTI internal research and development (IR&D) award. Each fiscal year, RTI considers staff-submitted proposals for innovative products or services that would advance a field of research but are not likely to be covered by external sources, and selects some to receive IR&D grants. Beginning in 2016, staff of RTI’s International Education division took on the challenge of significantly increasing the unit’s internal funding, production, and publication of peer-reviewed research. The urgency was driven by three significant factors: (1) Omission from meta-analyses—During the previous 10 year period, several broadly distributed retrospectives were published on “what works” in learning assessment and improvement—none of which covered RTI’s extensive experience, because it was available only as gray literature (primarily reports for the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID). Thus, a decade of learning from the administration and analysis of Early Grade Reading and Mathematics Assessments (EGRA and EGMA), in particular, was not well accounted for. (2) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—In 2015, the global community adopted the SDGs and began determining metrics to monitor progress. Unless RTI moved to publish its findings on potential use of alternative assessments, including EGRA and EGMA, country-driven approaches to measurement for low- and lower-middle-income countries could be excluded from options for monitoring and tracking progress toward the new global goals. (3) Absence of external funding—The primary sponsor of the relevant project work, USAID, did not have funding to support following up with additional analyses, particularly those involving multicountry comparisons. The IR&D award responded to these gaps. As led by Dr. Amber Gove, the primary intent of the effort was to ensure that the Institute would lead the field in using and disseminating EGRA and EGMA data, the majority of which RTI had collected and analyzed. The IR&D funding covered multiple years, and the result by late 2019 was 16 peer-reviewed publications, with several more submitted and under review. Some key lessons learned during the process—as reflected in the listed works—were: (1) Start with client-funded reports and analyses; (2) pair first-time authors with more experienced writers; (3) ask key questions across countries and/or languages; (4) collaborate with colleagues from other organizations; and (5) prioritize broad (open) access. More information: Amber Gove, e-mail: agove@rti.org; Twitter: @AmberGove

There is an abundance of research about the costs of measuring the SDGs. Institutions with the mandate to measure the SDGs are busy estimating costs and making plans to improve both reporting and capacity within countries. However, some observers and commentators are skeptical about the benefits of measurement. This CIES 2019 presentation takes a “value of information” approach to calculating the benefits of having and using information by asking: what is the social (monetary) benefit of running an education system with full information versus running the same education system with only limited information?

At CIES 2019, Dr. Benjamin Piper reflected on the use of experimental and implementation research to inform the scale-up and success of the USAID Tusome Early Grade Reading Activity in Kenya.

There is growing demand for policy based on rigorous evidence. Many consider the strongest evidence to come from studies that identify causality with high internal validity - such as RCTs - and systematic reviews of these studies. If policies are based strictly on such rigorous evidence there is a risk of bias towards simple, discrete, measurable interventions and away from complex interventions. Rigorous evidence is also better suited to some questions than others. Evaluations may provide stronger conclusions about impact than about the mechanisms, implementation, context, generalisability and scaling of interventions. For these reasons, policy-making does – and should – consider issues for which there is no conclusive evidence. However, there is little guidance as to how and when such inconclusive evidence can be used. We present a framework for considering inconclusive evidence applied to examples from evidence-based education in low- and middle-income countries. The framework involves a systematic consideration of the estimated costs, benefits and potential harm of a policy, along with the uncertainty in those estimates. This analysis is conducted using standard decision theory and an examination of the utility of policies. We argue that it is rational to pursue a policy with uncertain outcomes if there is a reasonable probability of large positive utility (compared to the cost of the intervention) and a low probability of negative utility. The decision to act under uncertainty is influenced by a number of other considerations including: the potential to improve the evidence base, the urgency of the decision and the analysis of alternative options. The framework also calls for systematic analysis of uncertainty associated with all components of a policy decision. For example, some interventions may have robust evidence of impact but considerable uncertainty associated with the generalisability of the evidence to a new context, or with the scalability of the intervention. We discuss our approach to measuring and reducing uncertainty in policy decisions and its implications for evaluation and research. The overall aim of this work is to make evidence-based decision-making more effective and applicable to a wider range of problems.

Over the course of four years (ending in 2016), the Department of Education (DepEd) in the Philippines grew increasingly self-sufficient at managing all aspects of early grade reading assessments (EGRAs). As DepEd’s capacity developed over time, the role of the technical assistance provided through the Education Data for Decision Making project (EdData II) shifted, diminished, and then disappeared altogether. International development professionals sometimes cite the cliché, “If we were truly successful, we would be working ourselves out of a job.” That sentiment now informs USAID’s goal to help each country on a journey to self-reliance. The EdData II project’s work in the Philippines provides some examples of what such a journey might include.