Explore the evidence
8 of 88 decisions · clear everything
Teacher quality is the largest within-school lever — 1 SD of teacher ≈ 0.10–0.15 SD/yr, worth more than ten fewer students — and credentials predict none of it. Select; don't workshop.
strong supportconf: highgc: lowTeacher quality — selection over credentials and workshops · teachers · ages 4–18 · structure
Curriculum is nearly free, so choosing beats not choosing — but the payoff is avoiding a demonstrated loser, not finding a magic winner. Content is the high-upside bet.
mixedconf: highgc: lowCurriculum choice as a school-level lever · curriculum · ages 4–14 · structure
Most measured 'home environment' effects are parents' genes: three-quarters of parent-child transmission isn't rearing, and a whole better childhood buys ~4 IQ points.
mixedconf: highgc: lowThe early home environment — what parents can and cannot causally move · early-childhood · ages 4–10 · input
Later bells buy adolescents 40+ measured minutes of sleep — the best-identified positive effect in the archive; the achievement payoff is real but far smaller.
strong supportconf: mediumgc: lowDo later school start times increase adolescent sleep, and does that raise achievement? · health · ages 11–18 · input
Diagnose what a child already knows: teachers cut 40–50% of curriculum for high-ability children and achievement ROSE. The payoff is skipping, not monitoring.
moderate supportconf: mediumgc: mediumPlacement and mastery diagnosis — deciding what to teach next from evidence of current skill · assessment · ages 5–18 · structure
Correcting a real deficiency moves cognition (iron in anaemic children: 0.79 SD); supplementing already-fed children moves nothing (35 RCTs, 19,343 children).
mixedconf: mediumgc: lowBreakfast, school meals, and micronutrients — what feeding children actually buys · health · ages 4–18 · input
A missed day costs little (~0.005 SD); interventions reliably buy days back cheaply, but nobody has shown the recovered days move achievement.
mixedconf: mediumgc: mediumChronic absenteeism — does raising attendance raise achievement? · time · ages 4–18 · input
Classroom order is causally worth a great deal — one disruptive peer costs classmates 3% of adult earnings — yet no branded behaviour programme reliably delivers it and exclusion makes things worse.
mixedconf: mediumgc: lowHow should a school run its classrooms and its discipline system? · behavior · ages 4–18 · structure
- Does working-memory or brain training transfer to intelligence and achievement?
- Physical activity as an input — dose, fitness, and school outcomes
- Homeschool socialisation — the most-asked question, and the least answerable one
- Does matching instruction to a child's "learning style" improve learning?
- Brain Gym, Whole Brain Teaching, and the smaller classroom brain fads
- Should Gardner's multiple intelligences be used as a basis for instruction?
- School starting age, relative age, and academic redshirting
- Vision — outdoor time against myopia, and screening and correction for achievement
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