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Assessing the Effects of School Resources on Student Performance: An Update

Author/s: 
Eric A. Hanushek
Published Date: 
Summer 1997
Publication: 
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
Details: 
19(2)
Pages: 
pp. 141-164

The relationship between school resources and student achievement has been controversial, in large part because it calls into question a variety of traditional policy approaches. This article reviews the available educational production literature, updating previous summaries. The close to 400 studies of student achievement demonstrate that there is not a strong or consistent relationship between student performance and school resources, at least after variations in family inputs are taken into account. These results are also reconciled with meta-analytic approaches and with other investigations on how school resources affect labor market outcomes. Simple resource policies hold little hope for improving student outcomes.