National Academies Press: OpenBook
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×

IMPROVING AMERICA'S SCHOOLS

The Role of Incentives

Edited by

Eric A. Hanushek and Dale W. Jorgenson

Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy

National Research Council

NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
Washington, D.C.
1996

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×

NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
2101 Constitution Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20418

NOTICE: The conference from which the papers in this publication were drawn was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members come from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the board responsible for the project were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.

This publication was supported by the Kellogg Endowment of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine and by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Improving America's schools : the role of incentives / edited by Eric A. Hanushek and Dale W. Jorgenson.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-309-05436-2 (alk. paper)

1. School management and organization—United States. 2. Educational change—United States. 3. School improvement programs—United States. I. Hanushek, Eric Alan, 1943- . II. Jorgenson, Dale Weldeau, 1993- .

LB2805.I434 1996

371.2\00973—dc21 96-44606

CIP

Cover: The emblem appearing on the cover of this publication is an illustration of the bronze medallion in the floor of the Great Hall in the National Academy of Sciences building in Washington, D.C. the medallion is the wellhead placed in the floor when the spectroscopic case over which the Foucault pendulum swings is lowered below floor level. The design is based on a map of the solar system published in 1661 by Andreas Cellarius Palatinus. The array of the planets is the Copernican system as known to Galileo.

Copyright 1996 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×

BOARD ON SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND ECONOMIC POLICY

Chairman

A. Michael Spence Dean,

Graduate School of Business Stanford University

John A. Armstrong

Amherst, Massachusetts

James F. Gibbons Dean,

School of Engineering Stanford University

George N. Hatsopoulos President and CEO

Thermo Electron Corporation

Karen N. Horn Chairman and CEO

Bank One Cleveland

Dale Jorgenson Frederic Eaton Abbe Professor of Economics

Harvard University

Ralph Landau Consulting Professor Economics

Stanford University

James T. Lynn Advisor

Lazard Freres

Burton J. McMurtry General Partner

Technology Venture Investors

Ruben Mettler Chairman and CEO (retired)

TRW, Inc.

Mark B. Myers Senior Vice President

Xerox Corporation

Donald E. Peterson Chairman and CEO (retired)

Ford Motor Company

James M. Poterba Professor of Economics

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

George M. Whitesides Professor of Chemistry

Harvard University

Staff

Stephen A. Merrill Executive Director

Charles W. Wessner Program Director

Lena L. Steele Administrative Assistant

George Georgountzos Program Associate

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. On the authority of the charter granted to it by Congress in 1863, the Academy has a working mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.

The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. William A. Wulf is interim president of the National Academy of Engineering.

The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is the president of the Institute of Medicine.

The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy's purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The council is administered jointly by both academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts and Dr. William A. Wulf are chairman and interim vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×

Preface

With the exception of the Introduction, the papers in this volume were presented at a conference, "Improving the Performance of America's Schools: Economic Choices," held at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., on October 12 and 13, 1994, with the support of the Kellogg Endowment Fund of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This conference was organized under the auspices of the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy (STEP) of the National Research Council, by a committee that I chaired and that included Eric A. Hanushek, professor of economics and public policy at Rochester University, and Stephen A. Merrill, executive director of the board.

The STEP board was established in 1991 as a long-delayed response to a decision by the National Academy of Sciences to admit economists as members almost three decades ago. The principal objective of the new board was to harness the interests and abilities of economists, industrial technologists, and scientists in advising policymakers on issues of science, technology, and economic policy.

The first report of the STEP Board, Investing for Productivity and Prosperity, was published in June 1994. It called for policies that foster investment in the nation's future economic capacity. The main focus of the report was the taxation of income from capital. The principal recommendation was to shift the base for taxation from income to consumption. This recommendation and the rationale presented in the board's report proved to be important harbingers of the recent revival of interest in consumption-based tax reform.

The conference on "Improving the Performance of America's Schools: Economic Choices" was the STEP board's second effort to articulate policies to

Page viii Cite
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×

enhance investment in human capital, in the economic jargon now fashionable among policymakers. The point of departure for the conference was the nearly contemporaneous publication of a report by a group of 13 economists, the Panel on the Economics of Education Reform (PEER), supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts and headed by Eric Hanushek. The intention of the PEER group's report, Making Schools Work: Improving Performance and Controlling Costs,1 was to initiate a serious intellectual debate over education policy by supplying a new, and previously absent, economic dimension. The chapters in this publication explore several aspects of that dimension, including the relationship of education to future earnings, the effects of school organization and management, school and community influences on student outcomes, measuring student achievement and school performance, and recruiting and retaining skilled teachers.

Dale W. Jorgenson

Cambridge, Massachusetts

1  

Eric A. Hanushek et al., 1994, Making Schools Work: Improving Performance and Controlling Costs, The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1994.

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×

Improving America's Schools

Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×
This page in the original is blank.
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×
Page R1
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×
Page R2
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×
Page R3
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×
Page R4
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×
Page R5
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×
Page R6
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×
Page R7
Page viii Cite
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×
Page R8
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×
Page R9
Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Research Council. 1996. Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5143.
×
Page R10
Next: 1 Introduction »
Improving America's Schools: The Role of Incentives Get This Book
×
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

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.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!