In this paper, we argue for an understanding among different actors about methodological standards in the evaluation of school development programs that are implemented to reduce educational inequality. The aim of such an understanding would be to build shared knowledge about methodological issues and to reach a broadly accepted consensus on which research methods are considered useful and reliable for evaluating school development processes. We believe that, in addition to the process evaluations that have mainly been conducted to date, impact evaluations, and in particular randomized controlled trials, should be a central component in the evaluation of school-based programs.

Keywords
school development, research, evaluation, field experiment, randomized controlledtrial, education, inequality