I had a great time presenting our research on *between*-school heterog. in foundational learning in LMICs (& its policy implications for thoughtful curr. design) at AEDC by @ADBInstitute this weekend in 🇰🇷. Great conference! If you haven't read the paper, please check it out ⤵️!

4) Finally, we show that when between-school heterog. *is* a serious challenge (e.g., some G3 classes at a G1 lvl, some at a G4 lvl), more-fine grain targeting of the curricular expectations can lead to a massive boost in the number of children reached by classroom instruction.

2) We find cases where within-class heterogeneity is a more serious challenge than between-school heterogeneity — suggesting very different policy prescriptions (e.g., cross-grade ability grouping-type interventions vs. differentiated curricula at the school-level).

In short, we find that 1) between-school heterogeneity *can* be a serious challenge to setting local curricula. Yet, this is not always the case, as sometimes kids in the same grade across a system are equally behind grade-level expectations.

How can policymakers set national or regional curricula, especially for foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) in LMICs, when learning outcomes vary significantly between schools? Savannah Tierney and I have a new working paper exploring this question. edworkingpapers.com/ai24-927