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Teachers, like all professionals, require ongoing professional development opportunities to improve their skills. This paper provides evidence on effective professional development characteristics and how at-scale programs incorporate those characteristics. The authors propose a standard set of 70 indicators-the In-Service Teacher Training Survey Instrument-for reporting on professional development programs as a prerequisite for understanding the characteristics of those programs that improve student learning. The authors apply the instrument to rigorously evaluated professional development programs in low- and middle-income countries. Across 33 programs, those programs that link participation to career incentives, have a specific subject focus, incorporate lesson enactment in the training, and include initial face-to-face training tend to show higher student learning gains. In qualitative interviews, program implementers also report follow-up visits as among the most effective characteristics of their professional development programs. The authors then apply the instruments to a sample of 139 government-funded, at-scale professional development programs across 14 countries. This analysis uncovers a sharp gap between the characteristics of teacher professional development programs that evidence suggests are effective and the global realities of most teacher professional development programs.

Economic Development --- Education --- Education Quality --- Education Reform and Management --- Lifelong Learning --- Professional Development --- Teacher Training

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This study evaluates the impacts of low-cost, performance-based incentives in Tanzanian secondary schools. Results from a two-phase randomized trial show that incentives for teachers led to modest average improvements in student achievement across different subjects. Further, withdrawing incentives did not lead to a "discouragement effect" (once incentives were withdrawn, student performance did not fall below pre-baseline levels). Rather, impacts on learning were sustained beyond the intervention period. However, these incentives may have exacerbated learning inequality within and across schools. Increases in learning were concentrated among initially better-performing schools and students. At the same time, learning outcomes may have decreased for schools and students that were lower performing at baseline. Finally, the study finds that incentivizing students without simultaneously incentivizing teachers did not produce observable learning gains.

Education --- Education For All --- Education Reform and Management --- Effective Schools and Teachers --- Incentive Program --- Learning Outcomes --- Secondary Education --- Student Achievement --- Student Learning --- Teacher Incentives

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What is the impact of greater teacher autonomy on student learning? This paper provides experimental evidence from a program in Brazil. The program supported teachers, through a combination of technical assistance and a small grant, to autonomously develop and implement an innovative project aimed at engaging their students. The findings show that the program improved student learning by 0.15 standard deviation and grade passing by 13 percent in sixth grade, a critical year of transition from primary to lower-secondary education. The paper explores two mechanisms: teacher turnover and student socio-emotional skills. Teacher turnover is reduced by 20.7 percent, and the impacts on student outcomes are concentrated in the schools with the largest reductions. The findings also indicate positive impacts on conscientiousness and extroversion among the students. The results suggest that increasing the autonomy of public servants can improve service delivery, even in a low-capacity context.

Education --- Education Outcomes --- Education Policy --- Education Reform --- Education Reform and Management --- Effective Schools and Teachers --- Secondary Education --- Socioemotional Skills --- Teacher Autonomy --- Teacher Effectiveness --- Teacher Motivation

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This paper presents the results of a large-scale randomized experiment conducted across 1,496 public primary schools in Mexico. The experiment identifies the impact on schools' managerial capacity and student test scores of providing schools with: (a) cash grants, (b) managerial training for school principals, or (c) both. The school principals' managerial training focused on improving principals' capacities to collect and use data to monitor students' basic numeracy and literacy skills and provide feedback to teachers on their instruction and pedagogical practices. After two years of implementing these interventions, the study finds that: (a) the cash grant had no impact on the student's test scores or the management capacity of school principals; (b) the managerial training improved school principals' managerial capacity but had no impact on students' test scores; and (c) the combination of cash grants and managerial training amplified the effect on the school principals' managerial capacity and had a positive but statistically insignificant impact on students' test scores.

Economics of Education --- Education --- Education Grants --- Education Quality --- Education Reform and Management --- Effective Schools and Teachers --- Managerial Training --- Primary Education --- Principals --- School Management --- Student Learning --- Test Scores

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Many studies have demonstrated that Mexico's conditional cash transfer program, PROSPERA, has substantial effects on educational attainment. Nevertheless, little evidence exists on whether increases in time spent in school have led to higher learning in the context of the poor areas where PROSPERA principally operates, which tend to have overall low school quality. This study combines data from nationwide achievement tests with administrative data on PROSPERA beneficiaries to estimate impacts on achievement tests. The analysis finds significant effects on learning, as measured by standardized achievement tests, on the order of magnitude of 0.05 to standard deviation, with larger effects for indigenous children. The analysis also confirms large effects on enrollment in secondary and high school, using administrative school enrollment data rather than self-reported household-level data, as generally used in previous studies. Finally, given the existence of several alternative tracks in secondary and high school, the study also examines where PROSPERA beneficiaries enroll. The findings show that most of the increase in enrollment occurs in tele-secondary schools and, at the high school level, in general high schools.

Conditional Cash Transfer --- Education --- Education Quality --- Education Reform and Management --- Effective Schools and Teachers --- Enrollment --- Indigenous Population --- Learning Achievement --- Poverty Reduction --- Secondary Education --- Standardized Test Scores --- Student Achievement