Class-size reduction (CSR) mandates presuppose that resources provided to reduce class size will have a larger impact on student outcomes than resources that districts can spend as they see fit. I estimate the impact of Florida's statewide CSR policy by comparing the deviations from prior achievement trends in districts that were required to…

Chapter 1 examines the effects of college quality on students' learning, employment and earnings in Colombia. Scores on a national college "entry" test solely determine admission to many selective Colombian universities, creating exogenous peer and resource quality variation near admission cutoffs. In one regression discontinuity (RD)…

This paper discusses a statistical analysis of the impact on student learning of socioeconomic characteristics, certain aspects of the school environment, and the amount of educational resources expanded on students. It is felt that the analysis is quite similar to what economists do when they estimate production functions for films; but that…

This study brings together and develops further methods of analyzing financial outlay on educational institutions. The main theme is the methodology of calculating unit outlay, i.e., examining and relating costs to a unit in nonmonetary terms. Unit outlay calculations have a dual aim: (1) to assess unit outlays and demonstrate outlay differentials…

The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the problems and prospects of applying production function or input-output analysis to the process of schooling. The cognitive aspect of schooling is discussed here and is restricted to those aspects readily measured by achievement tests. It is argued that education production function studies should…

Cost, resource utilization, and productivity were studied in 41 elementary schools using Individually Guided Education (IGE) and in 15 matched pairs of IGE and non-IGE schools. Instructional expenditures in IGE and non-IGE schools did not differ significantly. However, IGE teachers devoted significantly more time to individual instruction. A…