Standards, designed to identify and measure the "value added of schooling," are instrumental, not an end in themselves. Every school district needs an academic audit, a systematic way to examine and analyze academic performance by relevant categories. Its purpose is to improve the allocation of district resources to increase academic…

Clear funding/achievement relationships are emerging from the recent body of production-function research. Money does matter in producing educational outcomes. Factors such as small class size and teacher experience can drive up instructional costs. Schools cannot operate efficiently with scanty resources. Equalizing quality resource inputs is a…

Clearly defining what rural means has tangible implications for public policies and practices in education, from establishing resource needs to achieving the goals of No Child Left Behind in rural areas. The word "rural" has many meanings. It has been defined in reference to population density, geographic features, and level of economic…

Using multiple births as an exogenous shift in family size, I investigate the impact of the number of children on child investment and child well-being. Using data from the 1980 US Census Five-Percent Public Use Micro Sample, 2SLS results demonstrate that parents facing a change in family size reallocate resources in a way consistent with Becker's…

A policy of reducing class size seems sensible, but might have costly, far-reaching implications for students, teachers, and public support for schools. The purpose of this research brief is to summarize 100 class size research studies from 1950 to 1985 and to regroup them into 18 areas of concern. The cluster analysis approach was designed to…

This speech on the International Project for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) discusses policy perspectives which could be aided by information such as: relationships between educational policy and social and economic policy, the structure of basic schooling, and the effects of school resources and instructional processes. (CTM)

Data on successful school desegregation is misleading. Schools claiming to be integrated have been subtly resegregated by manipulation of staffing and financing and by encouraging the attitude that black students do not have the ability for high academic achievement. (JD)

The development and validation of an indicator of educational need that would be suitable for guiding decisions concerning resource allocation to educationally disadvantaged schools in Australia is described. The data used came from national samples of records of student characteristics and from census information on district funding. (MSE)

In an effort to explore whether resources matter in Mississippi, this study investigates the relationship between: (1) student achievement; and (2) human and fiscal resources among school districts. In considering these relationships, it is important to recognize that the cost of providing an adequate education may vary with the socioeconomic…

As expectations rise for students to perform at higher levels, the question of how best to support student performance through resources becomes paramount. In determining new ways to better allocate resources, administrators must consider teacher input on what has/has not been effective in supporting increased student performance. Teachers…

This paper analyzes the distribution of resources and performance across 840 New York City elementary and middle schools. It presents empirical evidence on input and output of equity of expenditures, teacher resources, and academic achievement. Historically, researchers have studied interdistrict distributions, but given the large number of pupils…

This report describes an ongoing, large scale evaluation of First Things First (FTF), a district-wide comprehensive school reform initiative in Kansas City, Kansas. FTF is an example of a theory of change initiative, which entails specifying and sequencing each step required to achieve the desired outcomes in order to monitor early, intermediate,…

The Council of the Great City Schools proposes that Pennsylvania overhaul the formula for funding its public schools in order to provide Philadelphia and other poor and minority communities with resources equivalent to those in the highest achieving school districts in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The proposal has two goals: (1) to propose a…

This paper reports on a 1992 study of mathematics-assessment data by measuring key instructional resources and practices and by investigating the ways in which the resources and practices affect student learning in a multilayered, complex school system. The study examined research methods that assess the effectiveness of instructional resource…

An analytical report on educational policy in Zimbabwe, three associated commentaries, and a concluding summary describe ways in which the findings of educational research can be translated into policy in a developing nation. The emphases are on student achievement and equitable allocation of resources. (SLD)