Videos

  • Equity and Excellence Commission Report

    Eric Hanushek and Paul Peterson discuss the Equity and Excellence Commission report issued in February 2013. School finance must insure sufficient funding, equitably distributed, and effectively and efficiently used.

  • Hanushek and Peterson on "The State of the Union in 2013"

    Eric Hanushek and Paul Peterson discuss education proposals in President Obama's State of the Union Address of 2013. The missing discussion of K-12 schools was remarkable, given the need to improve our schools. While pre-school and college readiness were mentioned, the federal government has little to do with these except for its Head Start program -- which has not been an effective educational program.

  • NRC Report on Test-Based Incentives

    Eric Hanushek and Terry Moe, Hoover senior fellows and members of the K--12 Education Task Force, discuss the recent report on school accountability by the National Research Council (NRC). That report neglected the scientific evidence when it concluded that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and high school exit exams were not good policies. By the NRC's own evidence, test-based accountability is valuable and investing in these programs has a rate of return that dwarfs that of virtually all governmental programs.

  • Hanushek and Peterson on the Importance of Good Principals

    School principals have an enormous impact on school achievement. Recently, Paul E. Peterson sat down with Eric A. Hanushek, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, to discuss his recent report on the measurable impact of principals in public schools, "School Leaders Matter" by Gregory F. Branch, Steven G. Rivkin and Hanushek. The report appears in the Winter 2013 issue of Education Next.

  • Terry Moe on teacher union power

    Eric Hanushek and Terry Moe, Hoover senior fellows and members of the K–12 Education Task Force, discuss Moe’s recent book on teacher union power titled Special Interest. Moe’s analysis pinpoints the self-interest of unions that leads them to block many education reform ideas. He concludes that “reform unionism” is unlikely to lead to any major policy changes and that improving schools requires curbing the power of unions.

  • Eric Hanushek - Impact of Educational Quality (Taub Center Conference)

    Prof. Eric Hanushek (Stanford University) presents at the Taub Center Singer conference on the Socioeconomic Impact of Education "Impact of Educational Quality" Jerusalem, September 18, 2011 

  • Should California Close Its Schools?

    Hoover senior fellows and members of the Koret Task Force on K--12 Education Eric Hanushek and Paul Peterson label California's answer to the potential cuts in school funding--reducing the school year-- as the worst possible policy. Hanushek and Peterson note that eliminating bad teachers could improve schools by ensuring a good teacher for everyone.

  • Hanushek and Peterson on International Achievement Growth

    Despite years and years of education reform, U.S. students are making gains that put them at the middle of the pack compared to students from other countries, according to a new report, Is the U.S. Catching Up? Two authors of that report, Eric Hanushek and Paul Peterson, discuss their findings in this video. “Doing well on these tests is not a matter we should be indifferent to,” explains Hanushek. If American students were making gains as large as those made by students in Germany, he notes, our country would experience much greater GDP growth over the next decades.

  • Fiscal Crisis of Schools is Unclear

    Eric Hanushek and Paul Peterson discuss how to interpret discussions about the fiscal problems facing schools. Short-run revenue problems are hard to solve just by wishful thinking, but the long-run problems caused by health care demands and unfunded retirement liabilities are real. 

  • United States schools fail international competition

    Hoover senior fellows and members of the Koret Task Force on K--12 Education Eric Hanushek and Paul Peterson describe how the United States compares to developed countries of the world in math achievement. On average US students place 32nd in the world in math, following Portugal. The best state, Massachusetts, is only 9th in the world; the most populous state (California) comes in 37th.