Making Schools Work Improving Performance and Controlling Costs

by Hanushek, Eric A.

• ISBN13: 9780815734260
• ISBN10: 0815734263
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1994-09-01
• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

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 implementation. Instead of choosing the "right" approach, this book advocates a more systematic approach of experimentation, evaluation, and change.In addition to Hanushek, the contributors are Charles S. Benson, University of California, Berkeley; Richard B. Freeman, Harvard University; Dean T. Jamison, UCLA: Henry M. Levin, Stanford University; Rebecca A. Maynard, University of Pennsylvania; Richard J. Murnane, Harvard University; Steven G. Rivkin, Amherst College; Richard H. Sabot, Williams College; Lewis C. Solmon, Milken Institute for Job and Capital Formation; Anita A. Summers, University of Pennsylvania; Finis Welch, Texas A&M University; and Barbara L. Wolfe, University of Wisconsin.

Table of Contents

Summary Making Schools Work: Basic Principles	xv
Why Worry about Schools?	xvii
Needed Changes	xxi
Altered Roles	xxiii
An Overriding Perspective	xxvi
The Urgency of a Well-Focused School Reform	1	(12)
Pressures on the Schools	2	(2)
Motivation for this Study	4	(2)
A Critical Juncture	6	(1)
The United States with and without Educational Reform	7	(1)
A Unique Viewpoint	8	(5)
THE CONTEXT: Economic Performance of the Existing System
The Economic Returns from Educational Investment	13	(12)
The Pattern and Importance of Schooling	14	(4)
School Quality	18	(3)
Some Cautionary Views	21	(2)
Bibliographic Notes	23	(2)
Rising Expenditure, Falling Performance	25	(26)
The History of Overall Cost Growth	25	(3)
Instructional Staff Expenditure	28	(8)
Other Expenditure	36	(2)
Conclusions about Costs	38	(1)
The History of Performance Decline	39	(9)
Bibliographic Notes	48	(3)
Economic Principles: A Guide for Improvement	51	(10)
Bibliographic Notes	58	(3)
CHANGE: Economically Realistic Alternatives for Education in the Twenty-First Century
The Unperceived Range of Choices	61	(24)
Resource Usage	63	(9)
Decisions, Resources, and Performance	72	(1)
Disadvantaged Students and Distributional Issues	73	(2)
Computers, Television, and Other Technologies	75	(3)
The Special Case of Teachers	78	(4)
Evidence and Policy	82	(1)
Bibliographic Notes	82	(3)
Incentives: Linking Resources, Performance, and Accountability	85	(40)
Performance Incentives	87	(4)
Incentive Frameworks within Existing Schools	91	(12)
Altering the Basic Structure of Schools: Choice	103	(6)
Incentives for Students and Parents	109	(3)
Technology and Costs	112	(2)
Nurturing Experiments	114	(3)
Issues of Implementation	117	(3)
Financing Improved Performance	120	(1)
The Essentials of Performance Incentives	121	(2)
Bibliographic Notes	123	(2)
Turning Schools Themselves into Learning Institutions	125	(26)
The Varied Uses of Performance Assessments	127	(2)
Key Ingredients of Performance Measurement for Management	129	(3)
Forms of Testing and Measurement	132	(7)
National Standards and Testing	139	(3)
Evaluation Approaches and Randomized Assignment Experimentation	142	(3)
Governmental Responsibilities	145	(2)
The Burden of Testing and Evaluation	147	(1)
Information for Parents	147	(1)
Institutional Learning	148	(1)
Bibliographic Notes	149	(2)
Improvement: Necessary and Possible	151	(26)
The High Priority of Improvement	151	(2)
What Is Missing, What Is Needed	153	(15)
The Costs of Reform	168	(1)
New Roles and Responsibilities	169	(7)
Comprehensive Reform	176	(1)
Bibliographic Notes	176	(1)
Selected Bibliography	177