Center for Economic Evaluation | Resources
We are committed to rigorous and transparent economic analyses that generate evidence-based insights for more efficient and equitable systems, policies, and practices.
Resources
The Center for Economic Evaluation offers a collection of publications, tools, and other resources for those looking to learn more about methods and approaches used in economic evaluation.
Featured Resource
Standards for the Economic Evaluation of Educational and Social Programs (CASP)
AIR developed the CASP standards as part of the Cost Analysis Standards Project to help ensure economic evaluations of educational and social programs are both rigorous and comparable. The standards provide clear guidelines for researchers designing and conducting economic evaluations of educational and social policies and programs, and allow practitioners to evaluate the quality of evidence. The Institute for Education Sciences lists the standards as a key resource under its Standards for Excellence in Education Research.
Briefs & Commentaries
Standards for Economic Evaluations Address a 'Glaring Need'
In this Q&A, AIR Principal Research Economist Jesse Levin and Senior Researcher Amanda Danks discuss why the Center's new Standards for Economic Evaluation of Educational and Social Programs were developed, how they can be used, and what makes them particularly relevant now.
Emerging Pathways Into the Teacher Profession: Evaluating and Substantiating Their Effectiveness
In a new brief cowritten by AIR’s Center on Great Teachers and Leaders and the Center for Economic Evaluation, experts provide insights on how emerging pathways into the profession (e.g., Grow-Your-Own, teacher residency models, RTAPs) can be evaluated to determine their overall effectiveness (e.g., number of teachers produced and retained, decrease in high-need shortages, improved student outcomes) and associated costs (e.g., cost per teacher retained, cost-per-student measure of outcome).
Latest Journal Articles
Comparing the Costs of Online and Teacher-Directed Credit Recovery
In this research article, Center experts compared the costs of two credit recovery models: 1) a school-based online credit recovery model and 2) a more traditional teacher-directed credit recovery. The team used rigorous cost analysis methods to find that while comprehensive costs for the two models were similar, the cost differences for specific types of resources were substantial and statistically significant.
The Costs and Benefits of Early College High Schools
Center experts compared the costs and benefits of early college programs (ECs) with traditional high schools. The team examined impacts on postsecondary attainment, calculated the resulting monetary benefits and estimated the per-student costs. The study concluded that investment in ECs increased earnings for EC students, increased tax revenue, and decreased government spending.