We investigate how cost-effective management practices boost student learning through a randomised field experiment conducted with 31,760 students from 80 grade 1–9 public schools in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The inter- vention, delivered by municipal servants exclusively to school managers, involved one-to-one coaching and on-the-job training focused on implementing the World Management Survey’s “23 best management practices” for the education sector. We also conducted two