Making Schools Work

Eric A. Hanushek

doi:10.5771/9780815717683

Summary

Educational reform is a big business in the United States. Parents, educators, and policymakers generally agree that something must be done to improve schools, but the consensus ends there. The myriad of reform documents and policy discussions that have appeared over the past decade have not helped to pinpoint exactly what should be done.

The case for investment in education is an economic one: schooling improves the productivity and earnings of individuals and promotes stronger economic growth and better functioning of society. Recent trends in schooling have, however, lessened the value of society's investments as costs have risen dramatically while student performance has stayed flat or even fallen. The task is to improve performance while controlling costs.

This book is the culmination of extensive discussions among a panel of economists led by Eric Hanushek. They conclude that economic considerations have been entirely absent from the development of educational policies and that economic reality is sorely needed in discussions of new policies. The book outlines an improvement plan that emphasizes changing incentives in schools and gathering information about effective approaches. Available research and analysis demonstrates that current central decisionmaking has worked poorly. Concentrating on inputs such as pupil-teacher ratios or teacher graduate degrees appears quite inferior to systems that directly reward performance. Nonetheless, since experience with such alternatives is very limited, a program of extensive evaluation appears to be in order.

Attempts to institute radical change on the basis of currently available information involve substantial risks of failure. Many people today find proposals such as charter schools, expanded use of merit pay, or educational vouchers to be appealing. Yet there is little evidence of their effectiveness, and widespread adoption of these proposals is sure to run into substantial problems of im

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2010
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8157-3426-0
ISBN-Online: 978-0-8157-1768-3
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 195
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. 1. Why Worry about Schools? No access
  2. Needed Changes No access
  3. Altered Roles No access
  4. An Overriding Perspective No access
1. Pressures on the Schools No access
2. Motivation for this Study No access
3. A Critical Juncture No access
4. The United States with and without Educational Reform No access
5. A Unique Viewpoint No access
1. 1. The Pattern and Importance of Schooling No access
  2. School Quality No access
  3. Some Cautionary Views No access
  4. Bibliographic Notes No access
2. 1. The History of Overall Cost Growth No access
  2. Instructional Staff Expenditure No access
  3. Other Expenditure No access
  4. Conclusions about Costs No access
  5. The History of Performance Decline No access
  6. Bibliographic Notes No access
3. 1. Bibliographic Notes No access
1. 1. Resource Usage No access
  2. Decisions, Resources, and Performance No access
  3. Disadvantaged Students and Distributional Issues No access
  4. Computers, Television, and Other Technologies No access
  5. The Special Case of Teachers No access
  6. Evidence and Policy No access
  7. Bibliographic Notes No access
2. 1. Performance Incentives No access
  2. Incentive Frameworks within Existing Schools No access
  3. Altering the Basic Structure of Schools: Choice No access
  4. Incentives for Students and Parents No access
  5. Technology and Costs No access
  6. Nurturing Experiments No access
  7. Issues of Implementation No access
  8. Financing Improved Performance No access
  9. The Essentials of Performance Incentives No access
  10. Bibliographic Notes No access
3. 1. The Varied Uses of Performance Assessments No access
  2. Key Ingredients of Performance Measurement for Management No access
  3. Forms of Testing and Measurement No access
  4. National Standards and Testing No access
  5. Evaluation Approaches and Randomized Assignment Experimentation No access
  6. Governmental Responsibilities No access
  7. The Burden of Testing and Evaluation No access
  8. Information for Parents No access
  9. Institutional Learning No access
  10. Bibliographic Notes No access
4. 1. The High Priority of Improvement No access
  2. What Is Missing, What Is Needed No access
  3. The Costs of Reform No access
  4. New Roles and Responsibilities No access
  5. Comprehensive Reform No access
  6. Bibliographic Notes No access
Selected Bibliography No access Pages 177 - 195