Includes bibliographical references and index.

Overview and new directions / Robert Boruch and Frederick Mosteller -- The politics of random assignment : implementing studies and affecting policy / Judith M. Gueron -- The importance of randomized field trials in education and related areas / Robert Boruch, Dorothy de Moya, and Brooke Snyder -- Resources, instruction, and research / David K. Cohen, Stephen W. Raudenbush, and Deborah Loewenberg Ball -- Missing in practice? Development and evaluation at the U.S. Department of Education / Maris A. Vinovskis -- Objecting to the objections to using random assignment in educational research / Thomas D. Cook and Monique R. Payne -- Randomized field trials for policy evaluation : why not in education? / Gary Burtless -- What to do until the random assigner comes / Carol H. Weiss.