Why Educators' Wages Must Be Revamped Now

Does inefficiency in current school spending imply that we can simply cut back on spending without harming students? This surely is a key question that will come up this spring in statehouses across the nation as they face another tough budget year. District officials, if they are wise, will not just rely on the same old belt-tightening maneuvers. Indeed, perhaps the only viable option is seriously addressing policies toward educator salaries.

Improving outcomes—either with fewer or more resources—requires significant change. It will be virtually impossible to get such change without active state policies that push for the alignment of salary budgets with classroom performance.

Education Week, February 6, 2013
School Leaders Matter

School Leaders Matter: Measuring the impact of effective principals

It is widely believed that a good principal is the key to a successful school. Yet until very recently there was little rigorous research demonstrating the importance of principal quality for student outcomes, much less the specific practices that cause some principals to be more successful than others. This study provides new evidence on the importance of school leadership by estimating individual principals’ contributions to growth in student achievement. Our results indicate that highly effective principals raise the achievement of a typical student in their schools by between two and seven months of learning in a single school year; ineffective principals lower achievement by the same amount.

Education Next, Winter 2013
Is the U.S. catching up?

Is the U.S. catching up? International and state trends in student achievement

To find out whether the United States is narrowing the international education gap, we compare learning gains over the period between 1995 and 2009 for 49 countries from most of the developed and some of the newly developing parts of the world. We extend this comparison to 41 states within the United States, allowing us to compare each to these states to the 48 other countries. In absolute terms, the performance of U.S. students in 4th and 8th grade on the NAEP in math, reading, and science improved noticeably between 1995 and 2009. Yet when compared to gains made by students in other countries, progress within the United States is middling, not stellar.

Education Next, Fall 2012
Education is the Key to a Healthy Economy

Education is the Key to a Healthy Economy

In addressing our current fiscal and economic woes, too often we neglect a key ingredient of our nation’s economic future—the human capital produced by our K-12 school system. An improved education system would lead to a dramatically different future for the U.S., because educational outcomes strongly affect economic growth and the distribution of income. Over the past half century, countries with higher math and science skills have grown faster than those with lower-skilled populations. In the chart nearby, we compare GDP-per-capita growth rates between 1960 and 2000 with achievement results on international math assessment tests. If we accept our current level of performance, we will surely find ourselves on a low-growth path.

Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2012

Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses: Solving the Funding-Achievement Puzzle in America's Public Schools

Spurred by court rulings requiring states to increase public-school funding, the United States now spends more per student on K-12 education than almost any other country. Yet American students still achieve less than their foreign counterparts, their performance has been flat for decades, millions of them are failing, and poor and minority students remain far behind their more advantaged peers. In this book, Eric Hanushek and Alfred Lindseth trace the history of reform efforts and conclude that the principal focus of both courts and legislatures on ever-increasing funding has done little to improve student achievement. Instead, Hanushek and Lindseth propose a new approach: a performance-based system that directly links funding to success in raising student achievement.
School Leaders Matter
Is the U.S. catching up?
Education is the Key to a Healthy Economy