Author
Eric A. Hanushek
Articles
The Achievement Gap Fails to Close
Half century of testing shows persistent divide between haves and have-nots
Do Smarter Teachers Make Smarter Students?
International evidence on teacher cognitive skills and student performance
It Pays to Improve School Quality
States that boost student achievement could reap large economic gains
What Matters for Student Achievement
Updating Coleman on the influence of families and schools
U.S. Students from Educated Families Lag in International Tests
It’s not just about kids in poor neighborhoods
Evidence-based Debates on Teacher Quality
The world of education is moving steadily toward reliance on evidence, even with the possibility for misinterpretation.
School Leaders Matter
Measuring the impact of effective principals
Is the U.S. Catching Up?
International and state trends in student achievement
Grinding the Antitesting Ax
More bias than evidence behind NRC panel’s conclusions
Are U.S. Students Ready to Compete?
The latest on each state’s international standing
Valuing Teachers
How much is a good teacher worth?
Teaching Math to the Talented
Which countries—and states—are producing high-achieving students?
An Effective Teacher in Every Classroom
A lofty goal, but how to do it?
Total Student Load
Review of William Ouchi’s The Secret of TSL
Many Schools Are Still Inadequate, Now What?
Is court involvement in school spending essential to reform, or can we use education funding to drive reforms that promise better outcomes for students?
Education and Economic Growth
It’s not just going to school, but learning something while there that matters
The Confidence Men
Selling adequacy, making millions
RAND versus RAND
What Do Test Scores in Texas Tell Us? by Stephen P. Klein et al.
Deconstructing RAND
Improving Student Achievement: What NAEP State Test Scores Tell Us by David W. Grissmer et al.
The Seeds of Growth
The United States became the world’s economic superpower over the course of the 20th century. But can today’s education system be counted on to fertilize growth in the future?
Lost Opportunity
Increased economic growth, fueled by improvements in student performance, might have funded the nation’s entire K–12 education budget by now
High-Stakes Research
Accountability works after all
The Revolving Door
A path-breaking study of teachers in Texas reveals that working conditions matter more than salary
Pseudo-Science and a Sound Basic Education
Checked: “The New York Adequacy Study: Determining the Cost of Providing All Children in New York an Adequate Education,” American Institutes for Research and Management Analysis and Planning (March 2004). “Resource Adequacy Study for the New York State Commission on Education Reform,” Standard & Poor’s School Evaluation Service (March 2004). “Report and Recommendations of the […]
Blog Posts/Multimedia
What Do Test Scores Really Mean for the Economy?
Test scores today say a lot about what our labor force will look like over the coming decades.
Apprenticeship Programs in a Changing Economic World
In a knowledge-based economy, early employment gains with vocational training may lead to later problems when specific skills become obsolete and workers lack the ability to adjust to a changed economic environment.
Emulating Germany’s Apprenticeship System Won’t Make America Great Again
Trump’s apprenticeship expansion will not substitute for our failing K-12 schooling system.
American Teachers Unions Oppose Innovative Schools—in Africa
Bridge Academies show promising results in Kenya and Uganda, but unions see them only as a threat.
Student Achievement and Every State’s Economic Future
Vast economic gains are likely to accrue to any state that can improve the quality of its schools.
Reason for Despair, Reason for Hope
For the first time in the past half century there appears to be a strong possibility that we will serve all of our students and that we will restore the strength of the U.S. workforce.
Not in the Right Ballpark
A continuation of the debate over a study on the impact of school spending by C. Kirabo Jackson, Rucker C. Johnson, and Claudia Persico
Money Matters After All?
A response to Boosting Educational Attainment and Adult Earnings by C. Kirabo Jackson, Rucker C. Johnson, and Claudia Persico
Universal Basic Skills and Sustainable Development Goals
A new report examines the economic impact of meeting a goal of bringing all children up to a level of basic skills.
Teachers Union in New York City Pushes Property Tax Change to Boost Teacher Hiring
By going back to the tried-and-true rhetoric of class size reduction, the teachers union would like to distract attention from any alternative school improvement policies.
There Is No War on Teachers
Tenure laws that protect grossly ineffective teachers actually harm better teachers, who are unfairly tarnished by association with unquestionably bad teachers.
More Easily Firing Bad Teachers Helps Everyone
Early, irreversible decisions about teacher tenure have real costs for students and ultimately all of society.
Kansas Courts Get It Right
Instead of deciding whether or not the Kansas legislature had dedicated sufficient funds to its local schools, the Kansas Supreme Court chose to highlight the importance of student outcomes.
Why the U.S. Results on PISA Matter
Other countries have shown that it is possible to improve. While changing achievement might be difficult, there is ample evidence that it is critical to the U.S. future.
America’s Schools Earn a ‘C’ on Their Report Card
NCLB needs a variety of (obvious) fixes, but abandoning accountability is not among them.
Schools Improve When Leaders Stop Rationalizing Mediocrity
If the superintendents of failing school districts were as adept at fixing schools as they are at making excuses for their poor performance, America would have the best education system in the world.
Playing in the Right League
Instead of being complacent about our international standings, we should focus on ways to get our students up to the top leagues.
Some Perspective on Common Core
I am not against having better learning standards, but I also believe that we cannot be distracted from more fundamental reform of our schools.
What Happened to 2007?
We need to return to the task of 2007 and to judge what might or might not usefully change in NCLB.
Why Educators’ Wages Must Be Revamped Now
Some districts are spending more than they need to spend, based on what other districts show is possible.
We Know the Answer, But What Is the Question?
We cannot paper over the fact that a large number of other countries have shown that it is possible to develop considerably higher skills in their youth than we are doing
Evaluating Teachers AND Administrators
The sheer magnitude of impact that effective and ineffective principals have underscores the need for a reliable and accurate system for evaluating principals.
The Role of Principals in Successful Schools
Eric Hanushek discusses his new study, School Leaders Matter, with Paul Peterson.
The California Student Lockout
“If you will not give the money we want for schools, we will close them down,” the state threatens.
International Benchmarking of Student Achievement
Most educational standard setting, performance assessment, and judgments about appropriate levels of achievement today are based on history and custom with a little bit of “professional dreaming.” The process generally lacks any context of what our international competitors are doing.
Is the Common Core Just a Distraction?
All of the intense pushing and shoving about the Common Core leaves one simple question: should we care?
Misplaced Optimism and Weighted Funding
Liberals and conservatives alike have made “weighted student funding” a core idea of their reform prescriptions. Both groups see such weighted funding as providing more dollars to the specific schools they tend to focus upon, and both see it as inspiring improved achievement through newfound political pressures. Unfortunately, both groups are very likely wrong.
Paying Attention to Classroom Reality
Continuing anachronistic regulatory and policy efforts aimed at input measures and credentials does not make sense when the alternative — a capacity to look at the varying levels of education that are actually being provided to our students — is available to us.
The Teacher Effectiveness Gap
It is difficult to ascertain how much variation in teacher quality there is between schools, but I don’t think answering that question is key to policy.
The Value of Releasing Value-Added Ratings of Teachers
The issue raised by the release of value-added information is simply how quickly and how assuredly we get to a more rational system of evaluations – for both teachers and administrators – and to a more rational personnel system that guarantees an effective teacher in every classroom.
Why Not Have Open Tests?
A more complete integration of testing, accountability, and teaching would be superior to dealing with the integrity of testing in isolation. Let’s put the tests out in the sun instead of trying to lock them up in more and more secure rooms.
The New Worst Way to Deal with Budget Problems
Of all of the options, reducing the length of the school year must be the absolute worst – at least from the perspective of students. But California, always proud of being a leader, has written into law that this is the preferred option if districts face budgetary shortfalls.
The NRC Judges Test-Based Accountability
“Incentives and Test-based Accountability in Education” is unlikely to clear up any issues. Indeed it is more likely to leave the casual reader with just the wrong impression. The remarkable conclusion to be drawn from the evidence presented in the report is how much can be gained from a flawed accountability system.
The Upside of Class Size Reduction
When reducing class size, one must hire more teachers, which means that the school system will essentially get a random draw that is expected to yield an average teacher. But increasing class size means that some current teachers must be laid off, and here the schools have a tremendous advantage.
The New Unionism, Legislative Version
The unions can try to rebuild their image (while doing good for America) by actively participating in efforts to figure out how to evaluate teachers and how schools can make personnel decisions based on those evaluations.
The (Enormous) Economic Returns to a Good Teacher
If we could replace the bottom 5-8 percent of our teachers with average teachers, we could move our students’ achievement up to that of Canada
How Valuable Is an Effective Teacher?
Podcast: Rick Hanushek talks with Ed Next’s Paul Peterson about his new study estimating the economic impact of teachers who produce higher than average gains in student learning.
Looking for a Friend in Court
The courts are so used to measuring education in terms of spending that they tend to be swayed by horror stories without ever conceiving of reforming the way schools spend their money.
Feeling Too Good About Our Schools
Each time international tests of student achievement are released, there is a parade of glib commentators explaining why we should not pay much attention to the generally poor performance of U.S. students.
Improving the Evaluation of Teachers
In an unexpected action last summer, the Los Angeles Times published the ratings of teacher effectiveness for 6,000 teachers by name. The publication created a firestorm. Since my research started this development, I believe it is useful to share my perspectives on how we should judge this development and whether we should stop its spread.
Compared to Other Countries, Does the United States Really Do That Badly in Math?
Many Americans were shocked to learn how poorly U. S. students were doing when the Program on International Student Assessment released its study of math achievement for 2006. But educators were encouraged in December 2008 when another respected international survey, Trends in Mathematics and Science Study, released results from its math testing for 2007. Have we unfairly maligned our schools?
Why Is Reform So Hard?
Many people find it hard to believe that student performance has been flat for four decades when we have more than tripled funding for schools and when we have put into place a number of reform measures. The recent discussions in Congress, however, shed some light on this.
Research and Policy: Master’s Degrees
There are a variety of educational policies that simply conflict with research. One of the largest is pay for master’s degrees.
Florida Positions Itself at the Forefront
Over the past decade, Florida has shown its laser-focus on student performance. Beginning with Jeb Bush and his able and imaginative education team, Florida moved forward on a reform agenda. Now it is showing additional leadership by moving aggressively on issues of teacher quality.
A Clearer Picture on Charter Schools
The effectiveness of charter schools in raising student achievement has become an intensely debated issue. When we last considered this topic, the Department of Education was pushing charter schools but dueling studies introduced uncertainty. A new study by CREDO clears up the uncertainty.
What To Do About NCLB
Three separate lines of inquiry provide evidence that existing accountability systems have led to larger gains than expected in a world without them. At the same time, accountability is a relatively new invention, and it needs to be refined and improved.
Court Mandates on School Funding Sharply Decline
Since 2005, there have been important adequacy case decisions in over a dozen states, and in none of them have the courts required further funding increases. Several courts, when deciding new adequacy cases, have either dismissed them based on separation of powers grounds or have ruled against the plaintiffs on the merits following a trial.
Why are Some Environments Better than Others for Charter Schools? Today’s Policy Question
This has been a good year for evidence on the effectiveness of charters, highlighted by a major national study from CREDO and a new study in the continuing work from New York City. Nonetheless, understanding and interpreting the scientific research within the political and media environment is made more difficult by the political context.
The Supreme Court Gets School Funding Right
One sleeper in the flurry of decisions at the end of the last U.S. Supreme Court term has to be the decision in Horne v. Flores, a long-running Arizona case about funding special programs for English Language Learners (ELL). In overturning lower court decisions calling for continued court-ordered school spending without regard to student outcomes, the Court may lead to a new era of more rational and effective court involvement in school funding policies.
Will Horne v. Flores Affect School Finance Litigation?
Video: Eric Hanushek talks with Education Next about the recent Supreme Court decision on school spending in Arizona, and considers the ruling’s impact on state school finance litigation.
Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses
Video: Hoover Institution senior fellows and members of Hoovers Task Force on K12 Education Terry Moe and Eric Hanushek discuss Hanushek’s new book Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses.
