Science Violated: Spending Projections and the "Costing Out" of an Adequate Education

Author/s
Eric A. Hanushek
Published Date
2006
Publication
Courting Failure: How School Finance Lawsuits Exploit Judges' Good Intentions and Harm Our Children
Details
Stanford, CA: Education Next Books
Pages
pp. 257-311
The recent movement to hold schools accountable for student performance has highlighted a simple fact: Many students are not achieving at desired levels.This simple fact has led people with widely varying reform perspectives to enter into the fray with plans and solutions. And a natural follow-on question is invariably “what will it cost?” To answer this important question, a series of very misleading methods for estimating the costs of an improved education have evolved, but the problems with these methods are generally unrecognized (or ignored) in the public and judicial debate.