Proving Ground's collaboration with Palm Beach County Schools to improve student attendance is featured in the following article by the Palm Beach Post.
This year, the district is one of eight across the country that have sought the help of Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research and what researchers there call their “Proving Ground.”
Proving Ground helps districts test-drive a number of potential solutions quickly, and do it in a way once reserved for clinical trials with comparisons between test groups and control groups. The Harvard researchers then crunch the numbers and review the results with the district.
Together, they will plot the next move.
“It’s a whole new world in education. ... Success is looking at an intervention and deciding if it works. And if it doesn’t work, they stop wasting their time,” said Proving Ground Director Bi Vuong.
The partnership is due to last at least three years and is being paid for with grants from the Pew Family Foundation and Proving Ground’s grant resources, Vuong said.
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