Improving America's Schools

Improving America's Schools

The Role of Incentives

  • Author: Jorgenson, Dale W.; Hanushek, Eric A.
  • Publisher: National Academies Press
  • ISBN: 9780309054362
  • eISBN Pdf: 9780309521970
  • Place of publication:  United States
  • Year of digital publication: 1996
  • Month: November
  • Pages: 279
  • DDC: 507
  • Language: English

Reform of American education is largely motivated by concerns about our economic competitiveness and American's standard of living. Yet, few if any of the public school reform agendas incorporate economic principles or research findings. Improving America's Schools explores how education and economic research can help produce, in the words of Harvard's Dale W. Jorgenson, "a unified framework for future education reform." This book presents the perspectives of noted experts, including Eric A. Hanushek, author of Making Schools Work, on creating incentives for improved school and student performance; Under Secretary of Education Marshall S. Smith on the Clinton Administration's reform program; and Rebecca Maynard, University of Pennsylvania, on the education of the disadvantaged. This volume explores these areas:

  • The importance of schooling to labor market success.
  • The prospects for combining school-based management with teacher incentives to gain the best of both approaches.
  • The potential of recent innovations in student achievement testing, including new "value-added" indicators.
  • The economic factors involved in maintaining an adequate stock of effective teachers.

The volume also explores why, despite similar standards of living, France, the Netherlands, England, Scotland, and the United States produce different levels of education achievement. Improving America's Schools informs the current debate over school reform with a fresh perspective, examples, and data. This readable volume will be of interest to policymakers, researchers, educators, and education administrators as well as economists and employers—it is also readily accessible to concerned parents and the larger community.

  • Front Matter
  • Contents
  • Preface
  • CHAPTER 1 Introduction
  • CHAPTER 2 Research-Based School Reform: The Clinton Administration’s Agenda
  • CHAPTER 3 Outcomes, Costs, and Incentives in Schools1
  • CHAPTER 4 Changes in the Structure of Wages1
  • CHAPTER 5 The Effects of School-Based Management Plans
  • CHAPTER 6 Management Decentralization and Performance-Based Incentives: Theoretical Consideration for Schools
  • CHAPTER 7 Signaling, Incentives, and School Organization in France, the Netherlands, Britain, and the United States
  • CHAPTER 8 Public School Partnerships: Community, Family, and School Factors in Determining Child Outcomes1
  • CHAPTER 9 Using Student Assessments for Educational Accountability1
  • CHAPTER 10 Value-Added Indicators of School Performance*
  • CHAPTER 11 Economics of School Reform for At-Risk Students1
  • CHAPTER 12 Staffing the Nation’s Schools with Skilled Teachers1
  • Index

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