Does Money Matter?

Gary Burtless

doi:10.5771/9780815707134

Summary

Many believe that American education can only be improved with a sizable infusion of new resources into the nation's schools. Others find little evidence that large increases in spending lead to improvements in educational performance. Do additional school resources actually make any difference?

The evidence on this question offers a striking paradox. Many analysts have found that extra school resources play a negligible role in improving student achievement while children are in school. Yet many economists have gathered data showing that students who attend well-endowed schools grow up to enjoy better job market success than children whose education takes place in schools where resources are limited. For example, children who attend schools with a lower pupil-teacher ratio and a better educated teaching staff appear to earn higher wages as adults than children who attend poorer schools.

This book, which grew out of a Brookings conference, brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines to discuss the evidence on the link between school resources and educational and economic outcomes. In a lively exchange of views, they debate whether additional spending can improve the performance of the nation's schools.

In addition to editor Gary Burtless, the contributors include Eric Hanushek, University of Rochester; James Heckman, University of Chicago; Julian Betts, University of California, San Diego; Richard Murnane, Harvard University; Larry Hedges, University of Chicago; and Christopher Jencks, Northwestern University.

Dialogues on Public Policy

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2011
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8157-1274-9
ISBN-Online: 978-0-8157-0713-4
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 296
Product type: Edited Book

1. Contents No access
2. Contributors No access
1. School Differences and Student Achievement No access
2. Educational Resources and Earnings No access
3. Reconciling the Results No access
4. The Evidence in This Book No access
5. School Resources and Student Performance No access
6. The Relation between School Resources and Student Performance No access
7. Evidence from Fifteen Schools in Austin No access
8. Labor Market Effects of School Quality No access
9. Is There a Link between School Inputs and Earnings? No access
10. Does Measured School Quality Really Matter? No access
11. Conclusion No access
12. References No access
1. The Aggregate Story No access
2. Approaches to Analyzing the Use of School Resources No access
3. Educational Production Function Estimates No access
4. Wage Determination Models with School Resources No access
5. Conclusions No access
6. References No access
1. Aggregate Data No access
2. Educational Production Function Estimates No access
3. Improving Research on Resource Utilization No access
4. References No access
4. Evidence from Fifteen Schools in Austin, Texas No access Pages 93 - 96
1. A Theoretical Model of School Quality, Education, and Earnings No access
2. Summary of the Literature No access
3. Lessons from the Experiences of Southern-Born Blacks No access
4. Conclusions No access
5. References No access
1. The Direct Impact of School Inputs on Earnings No access
2. Five Hypotheses to Explain the Observed Patterns No access
3. The Impact of School Inputs on Educational Attainment No access
4. Suggestions for Future Research No access
5. Conclusion No access
6. Appendix A: A Response to Card and Krueger No access
7. References No access
1. The Empirical Plan and the Framework for Organizing the Evidence No access
2. A Comparison of the Aggregate- and Individual-Level Data Approaches No access
3. Migration: The Source of Identifying Information in Aggregate-Data Models No access
4. Testing Monotonicity of the Quality-Earnings Relationship No access
5. An Empirical Exploration of Two Representative Models No access
6. Conclusion No access
7. Appendix A: Description of the Analysis Samples No access
8. Appendix B: Schooling Quality Data Sources No access
9. Appendix C: Additional Tables No access
10. Appendix D: Rejoinder to David Card and Alan Krueger No access
11. References No access
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