This website is dedicated to providing you— superintendents, principals, school contacts, and teachers— with up-to-date information on the What Makes Schools Work research project. We invite you to visit as the project unfolds. From here, you can track its progress and access excerpts of the latest reports.
What Makes Schools Work is examining practices and policies that promote success in schools, classrooms, and students. During the first two years of the study, researchers surveyed principals and teachers in about 500 schools, collecting data about what they are doing to help students learn. This year, researchers are using a new survey in about 150 schools, asking math teachers about what and how they teach. The survey is unique because it benefits not only research but the classroom. As soon as teachers submit their completed surveys, they receive reports showing their results and how they align with state standards and assessments.
What Makes Schools Work is a project of Vanderbilt University's National Center on School Choice, in association with the Northwest Evaluation Association, the Wisconsin Center on Education Research, and Mountain Measurement. The project is sponsored by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. If you have any comments or suggestions for the research study or this website, please send us an email.
