Measuring Education Policy reforms

The Centre for the Economics of Education at London School of Economics published a paper on the effects of the following reforms:

1. Market reforms
2. Curriculum reform
3. Raising participation in Post-Compulsory Schooling
4. Higher Education reform

A significant conclusion was:

Of course knowing what works in education is not sufficient to inform policy. As economists, we need to inform policy-makers about what works and at what cost, relative to alternative policy options. Yet there remains a deficiency of good cost benefit evaluations in the field of education.

Yet, if you cannot effectively measure results there is no basis for planning further improvements.