Improving the Performance of America's Schools (1995) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 1-8
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The mechanism for translating investments in human capital into impacts on economic growth is well understood. Although these investments do not create
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economic growth over the postwar period.) Investments in human capital, especially through formal education, are a very significant source of U.S.
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economic growth. The year 1983 also marked the publication of the federal government's report on the state of America's schools, A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983~.
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It is important to emphasize that the debate over the role of economic considerations in education policy reflects intellectual more than political disagreements. There has been a bipartisan consensus on the importance of clear objectives for national education policy, embodied in Goals 2000 and the ESEA legislation, if not for assigning the federal government partial responsibility for achieving the goals.2 The first contribution to the present volume is by Under Secretary of Education Marshall S
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While previous school reforms have not been notably successful, the diagnosis given by Smith and his colleagues is that teacher training and educational assessments have not been properly aligned to support reform. This will be remedied under systemic school reform by inculcating content standards through teacher training and aligning assessments with performance standards.
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Although they can conceive of research on school performance that could support the systemic approach, this has not been carried out because of the unavailability of appropriate measures of school performance or "output" and because of deficiencies in existing measures of school resources or "inputs." Smith and his colleagues conclude that school performance research revised along the lines they suggest would support systemic school reform. A properly aligned system would provide a clear focus through state education standards.
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Under Goals 2000, federal education policy charges states with standard setting. Hanushek would have states promote incentive schemes for performance as well as establish standards and set overall education policy.
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Incentive schemes are notable by their absence from the resulting program for school reform. The conclusions of economic research on education summarized by Hanushek and the conclusions of education research summarized by Smith and his colleagues represent different ways of abstracting from the same reality about American education.
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