Gold Standard? The Use of Randomized Controlled Trials for International Educational Policy. Review of Abhijit V. Bannerjee and Esther Duflo, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty; Barbara Bruns, Deon Filmer, and Harry A. Patrinos, Making Schools Work: New Evidence on Accountability Reforms; Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel, More Than Good Intentions: How a New Economics is Helping to Solve Global Poverty

Edward Miguel and Michael Kremer Pioneered a new kind of development research in their 2004 study of a school deworming program in Kenya. Their experimental design incorporated the random assignment of primary school students to either a treatment or a control group for receiving medicine to eliminate intestinal parasites. Findings revealed significant benefits to the treatment group in not only improved health but also lowered school absences (Miguel and Kremer 2004). One policy consequence was an increased awareness for more evidence-based decision making under the banner of accountability reform in international development.1 The driving focus for such reform is rigorous scientific investigation — what some call the "gold standard" of methodology — that uses randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to establish a credible link between an intervention and a set of outcomes.