Learning gains of programs that teach foundational numeracy and literacy are often measured through different types of tests. Two of the most prominent tests are ASER and EGRA/EGMA.

A common finding is that programs often lose effectiveness as they move beyond the controlled conditions of an original trial. Our experience with phone tutoring in a new paper shows another possibility: a learning curve – a virtuous cycle where implementers learn from experience.

This paper sets out a framework and research agenda for implementation science in education, focused on bridging the gap between evidence and effective delivery at scale. It calls for greater attention to scalability, equity, evidence uptake, service delivery and measurement—helping turn proven approaches into sustained learning for every child.

This paper presents findings from five randomized trials of ConnectEd across India, Kenya, Nepal, the Philippines and Uganda. Targeted phone tutorials delivered consistent learning gains including a 65% increase in learners mastering division, and remained effective when delivered by government teachers, demonstrating their potential to build resilient education systems at scale.

Ninety percent of ten-year-olds in the Philippines can't read and understand an age-appropriate text (Philippine Institute for Development Studies, 2023).

This article estimates the effect of sex education in a large-scale cluster randomized trial covering a third of Botswana that varied both the message and the messenger. Educational messages delivered by near-peers led to a statistically significant 40% reduction in adolescent pregnancy incidence, whereas the same messages delivered by government teachers showed no detectable effect.

This piece in SSIR focuses on how organizations can close the gap between measurement and implementation, by using A/B testing.

A jump-start guide to embedding rigorous, rapid, and regular testing in your organization. Our Iterative A/B Testing Toolkit distills a decade of field experience into practical steps, best practices, and tools to help any team learn faster and scale impact.

This policy brief synthesizes rapid, rigorous evidence from 12 A/B tests of the remote tutoring program ConnectEd. It highlights actionable insights on cost-effective and scalable program innovations, offering guidance for policymakers and practitioners.

This insight note shares lessons on how we have worked to scale agency, based on conversations at The Agency Summit: Expanding Opportunities to Act, Choose, and Thrive, co-hosted by The Agency Fund and New York University.