As originally envisioned, charter schools were intended to be laboratories of innovation. Offered broad flexibility in exchange for performance-based accountability, they were well-positioned to test, validate, and adopt new practices in a public school environment. Thus far, however, charter schools have only partly delivered on this mission.…

This report is an evaluation of the Investing in Innovation (i3) program, a tiered-evidence grantmaking initiative at the U.S. Department of Education. The program's primary purpose is to support the development, testing, and scaling of field-initiated programs for high-need students in K-12 education. This report reviews the program's early…