Alicia Menendez

Alicia S. Menendez is a Research Associate Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and a Senior Fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago. 

Dr. Menendez is a development economist. Her research interests include education and health, labor markets, and household behavior. Dr. Menendez has designed and managed numerous quantitative impact evaluations and qualitative evaluations and has developed tools and overseen surveys in numerous developing countries.

Menendez received her Ph.D. in economics from Boston University. Before coming to the University of Chicago, she was a lecturer in public and international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School and a researcher at the Research Program in Development Studies at Princeton University.

Ongoing Research

The Limits of a “Great Buy”: What Rigorous Evidence Reveals about Teaching at the Right Level

(with C. Ardington and Jack Thunde)

Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL), which targets instruction to students’ learning levels rather than grade level, has been widely promoted as a highly effective and cost-effective approach to improving foundational skills and has been classified as a “great buy” by the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel (GEEAP). This paper provides a critical reassessment of the evidence underlying this classification, focusing on studies that employ rigorous causal identification strategies and evaluate conventional TaRL models at the primary school level. The findings show that TaRL can improve foundational literacy and numeracy, particularly for students who are furthest behind. However, impacts are heterogeneous and often modest, with a substantial number of null results. The largest effects are concentrated in high-intensity models implemented with close supervision, while results are weaker in system-embedded programmes. Evidence on cost-effectiveness is limited and uneven. Overall, the available evidence is not sufficiently consistent or robust to support broad claims of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness across contexts. Rather, it suggests that TaRL is not a uniformly effective solution, but an approach whose impacts depend critically on implementation conditions, calling for more cautious interpretation in policy and funding decisions.

Older version at AFLEARN: https://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za/aflearn/articles/2026-01-21-paper-limits-great-buy-what-rigorous-evidence-reveals-about-teaching-right-level

Preventing School-Related Gender-Based Violence in Uganda: A Randomized Evaluation of the LARA Program

(with R. Nayyar-Stone, I. Rojas-Arellano and MC Schulte)

This study evaluates the impact of the Literacy Achievement and Retention Activity (LARA) school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) prevention activities on primary school outcomes in Uganda using experimental evidence from a randomized controlled trial (RCT). We examine effects on disciplinary practices, learner safety, reporting mechanisms, and early grade reading performance. Findings indicate modest and uneven effects. While we observe reductions in certain violent disciplinary practices and improvements in reporting environments, overall exposure to violence remains high.  Corporal punishment remains widespread, with a substantial share of teachers in treatment schools still using caning despite legal prohibitions. We do not find consistent evidence that LARA’s SRGBV activities translated into improvements in early grade reading performance. Qualitative and quantitative evidence point to implementation constraints, including limited time, resources, and follow-up, which restricted the program’s effectiveness. The results highlight the challenges of changing deeply embedded norms through short- to medium-term interventions implemented within existing education systems. We conclude that sustained, system-integrated approaches are needed to achieve meaningful reductions in SRGBV and improvements in learning environments.

Paths to Dropout: Barriers to School Continuation for Girls in Rural Malawi 

Using four years of longitudinal data on 1,823 students, combined with qualitative fieldwork, this study examines why many girls in rural Malawi do not complete primary school or transition to secondary despite near-universal enrollment. By early adolescence, nearly half of girls had dropped out, compared to one-third of boys. While poverty and distance affect both genders, pregnancy is the primary driver of girls’ dropout, whereas boys more often leave school for paid work. The findings identify distinct, gendered pathways out of school and highlight key intervention points including reducing grade repetition, expanding access to secondary schools, and strengthening re-entry and support for adolescent mothers.

Attrition in Randomized Control Trials: Evidence From Early Education Interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa

(with A. Ome and C. Ardington)

This study addresses the problem of attrition bias in longitudinal education RCTs by comparing multiple attrition correction methods. Our analysis of three early reading experiments in Zambia, Ethiopia, and South Africa shows that treatment status is generally not associated with attrition, while baseline reading skills are negatively correlated with it. We estimate bounds under alternative assumptions about the attrition process. Our main contribution lies in proposing guidelines for selecting appropriate correction methods based on data characteristics, including the extent of treatment-effect heterogeneity and the correlation of attrition with baseline characteristics. These guidelines incorporate a novel diagnostic for assessing the plausibility of the stochastic-dominance assumption. The findings offer practical direction for researchers on how to design, implement, and interpret evaluations where attrition poses risks to causal validity.

Final Evaluation of the Salud Mesoamerica Initiative

(with R. Nayyar-Stone, A. Ome, C. Echeverria-Estrada, I. Rojas-Arellano)

Understanding Improvements in Reading Performance in Liberia: The Centrality of Text

(with U. Hoadley and A. Solovyeva) Economic Development and Cultural Change

Improving early grade reading performance in Nepal: differences between Nepali and non-Nepali students

(with Gregory Haugan) Education Economics

Using SMS and parental outreach to improve early reading skills in Zambia

(with Alejandro Ome) Education Economics

Policy Briefs

The High Absenteeism of Teachers and Learners in Uganda

Why Lule Still Can’t Read at the End of P3?

School Absenteeism Needs Immediate Attention

Instructional Reading Practices in the Classrooms

Intracluster Correlations for Early Reading Evaluations

Teachers’ Implementation of an Early Grade Reading Program in Classrooms

The Students' Overage Problem