18 pagesThe What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) is a federally funded program established in 2002
that evaluates educational interventions and publishes reports and summary ratings. The
reports have received extensive criticism, including concerns such as examining only a small
proportion of the available evidence, errors in the review process, and a lack of peer review
and comparisons of results to related literature. Two WWC reports issued in July 2013
illustrate the severe problems that can permeate the process and result in the
dissemination of erroneous conclusions. In one case, the WWC’s errors resulted in a positive
rating for a program that has been determined, by more inclusive and careful reviews, to be
ineffective and inefficient. In the other case the WWC’s errors resulted in a negative
conclusion regarding a program that has been judged, by more inclusive and careful
reviews, to be highly effective. In other words, the errors in the recent WWC reports result in
ratings that promote a program found in the established literature to be ineffective and
denigrate a program found in all other reviews to be highly effective. These errors illuminate
an enormous waste of the nation’s resources. But, the true losers are the nation’s children,
as their schools and educational policy makers are deprived of accurate information on
which they can make decisions
