How expensive is a college degree? Usually, the answer is based on what students pay in tuition and fees compared to what they earn after graduation. Very little is known about the economic cost of running an electrical engineering program compared to, say, a history department, or the resource consequences of steering more students into these…

Upon assuming power for the first time in 1935, the Norwegian Labour Party delivered on its promise of a major schooling reform. The reform raised minimum instruction time in less developed rural areas and boosted the resources available to rural schools, reducing class size and increasing teacher salaries. We document that cohorts more…

The 2019 Student Opportunity Act creates a once-in-a-generation moment for Massachusetts students: the Commonwealth has committed $1.5 billion dollars over seven years to make good on the promise that best-in-the-nation education can be a reality for all Massachusetts children, especially English learners and students from low-income families. But…

The 2020-21 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) is a nationally representative sample survey of public and private K-12 schools, principals, and teachers in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. State-level data are also available for public schools, principals, and teachers. NTPS collects data on core topics including teacher and…

With the hopeful prospect of new money before them and the continued pressure to stretch every dollar, school districts face a choice: do more of the same, or seize this moment of change to re-envision schooling to better meet student needs. This means thinking strategically about the resources school systems have and ensuring new funds go toward…

Two seemingly different threads are in play on the issue of class size. The first is manifested in media reports that tell readers that class sizes are rising to concerning levels. The second thread appears in the work of some researchers and education leaders and suggests that repurposing class-size reduction funds to pay for other reforms may…

This brief presents the views of the members of the British Columbia Teachers' Federation on the provincial government's budget to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. It is a crucial time for public education in British Columbia and they take very seriously the chance to provide information and their perspective on…

An increase in teacher hiring in recent years has led some observers to posit a link to the waves of pink slips districts are now sending across the U.S. Between the 1999-2000 and the 2007-08 school years, the teacher force increased at more than double the rate of K-12 student enrollments. Hiring teachers to reduce class sizes remains a…

In this paper the author explores how colleges whose primary mission is undergraduate education can strategically allocate resources in a way that reduces costs and prioritizes teaching and learning. He starts from a provocative thought-experiment--what would it cost to educate undergraduates at a hypothetical college built from scratch?--and uses…

Research has shown that there is no greater influence on a student's success than the quality of his or her teacher. This book presents the research findings which demonstrate the connection between teacher effectiveness and student achievement. We've always known, at least intuitively, that teachers matter, but this book proves that teachers are…

"Education at a Glance" is the authoritative source for information on the state of education around the world. It provides key information on the output of educational institutions; the impact of learning across countries; the financial and human resources invested in education; access, participation and progression in education; and…

This is the 2011 edition of a biennial series of compendia describing key education outcomes and contexts of education in the Group of Eight (G-8) countries--Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The report is organized into five topical areas: population and school enrollment,…

Across OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, governments are having to work with shrinking public budgets while designing policies to make education more effective and responsive to growing demand. The 2011 edition of "Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators" enables countries to see themselves in the light of…

As the economic outlook continues to darken, school districts will be looking for ways to cut costs, and they will no doubt wrestle with some difficult issues. When does it make sense to keep classes small? When does it make sense to increase class sizes to cut costs? Such debates are often carried out in the absence of information about what…

As a consequence of the federal "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) law, there is tremendous pressure on school principals, teachers, school superintendents, district staff, state departments of education and governors to maximize the increase in student achievement that is obtained with every dollar of expenditure. Currently, teachers are…