Impact evaluation for school-based management reform

This report is designed to provide guidance on the design of impact evaluations of school-based management (SBM) initiatives in developing countries. SBM is a reform movement that consists in allowing schools more autonomy in decisions about their management; that is, in the use of their human, material, and financial resources. Many governments and international agencies are increasingly interested in finding ways to boost learning outcomes and get maximum benefit from their education investments, especially in developing countries. Indeed, education quality continues to be very low in middle- and low-income countries despite the success in expanding schooling access and enrollment in the last decades. Education systems in developing countries are usually highly centralized and have very strong teacher unions. Hence, reliable and well-conducted evaluations of SBM programs that can lend empirical support to the various claims on the advantages of SBM are needed; and more so, given the increasing number of countries that are adopting these reforms. Ideally, the evaluation of the SBM reform should not only focus on final educational outcomes (student learning) but should also examine whether the reform has transformed the relationships amongst school principals, teachers, parents, and government officials and the school operations and decision-making processes.