Improving Education Outcomes in North America

Education is often described as a pathway to mobility, yet schools in the United States continue to fall short on key indicators of a quality education, and low-income students and students of color are disproportionately left behind.

J-PAL North America’s Education work focuses on identifying strategies that improve learning outcomes in the United States, particularly for students facing barriers to quality education. Our goal is to generate a playbook of evidence-based practices to improve student learning and reduce disparities in educational access, opportunity, and achievement in the United States. 

We catalyze rigorous research through our various requests for proposals, connect innovative education organizations with researchers to discuss evaluation design, and synthesize the existing rigorous education evidence for a broad audience. 

Focus areas include, among others: 

• Tutoring 
• Education technology 
• Family engagement 
• Access to college 

See below for education evidence syntheses, policy products, news coverage of J-PAL North America education research and outreach, and past and ongoing education research projects.