Unless otherwise noted, all presentations will begin at 12:00 noon in room S-050 on the Concourse Level of the CGIS South Building, which is located at 1730 Cambridge Street, Harvard University (map). The series is free to all in the Harvard community; others please RSVP to pepg@fas.harvard.edu. A light lunch will be provided.

February 20
The Non-Cognitive Returns to Class Size
Martin R. West
Assistant Professor of Education and Political Science, Brown University (bio)

Recent studies suggest that “noncognitive” skills play a key role in students’ academic and economic success. However, we have little evidence on how key educational inputs affect the development of important noncognitive skills. Using experimental data on elementary school students from Project STAR and nationally representative data on 8th graders from the National Educational Longitudinal Study, we estimate the effects of class size on a range of noncognitive outcomes and consider the implications of our results for debates over the cost-effectiveness of class-size reduction.

March 5
Hiring & Firing, Opening & Closing: How Inflows and Outflows of People and Schools Can Dramatically Shift the Performance Curve in Public Education
Bryan Hassel
Co-Director, Public Impact (bio)

Across many domains of public policy, a key imperative is to shift the curve of human performance dramatically in a positive direction. Whether we are trying to boost student learning in schools, reduce street crime, or rebuild a country after a war, a central question is how to elicit better execution from the people or organizations entrusted with carrying out the public’s work. Yet too often, we do not think clearly enough about the current shapes of these curves and what policy and management levers have the best chance of producing positive changes. “Working the Curve” is a new analytical framework designed to help researchers, policymakers, and practitioners make smarter decisions about where to invest limited reform energy and resources to get the best results. In this presentation, Dr. Hassel will explain the framework and use two high-profile education policy debates to illustrate its value: teacher quality and charter schools.
Download a PDF of the presentation

April 2
The School Funding Dilemma: Myths and Realities
Daphne A. Kenyon
Visiting Fellow, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
*Time Change - Begins at 12:30pm

This talk is based on a recent Lincoln Institute report entitled “The Property Tax-School Funding Dilemma,” which includes a comprehensive review of research on both the property tax and school funding, and case studies of seven states—California, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, and Texas. This talk will focus on school funding myths and the Massachusetts case study.
Download a PDF of the presentation

Wednesday, September 26
Heterogeneity in Public and Private Sector Effects on Elementary Student Performance: Results from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey
Elena Llaudet
Research Fellow, Program on Education Policy and Governance
Paul E. Peterson
Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government, Harvard University (bio)

The paper estimates the relative impact of public and private schooling on a nationwide sample of U.S. elementary school students.

Thursday, October 4
What Americans Think about Their Schools
William G. Howell
The Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago (bio)
*Location Change - Room S250, CGIS South (map)
*Time Change - Begins at 11:30am

Americans both care about their schools and want them to improve, but what are they willing to invest in public education and how confident are they that investing more will improve student learning? How open are they to a host of school reforms ranging from high-stakes student accountability to merit pay for teachers to school vouchers? And tax credits that would give low-income families greater access to private schools? Do they back reauthorization of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and school accountability? What do Americans think of market-based reforms? What are their thoughts on charter schools?

All this—and more—is answered by a new national survey of U.S. adults conducted under the auspices of Education Next and the Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) at Harvard University. We report the opinions of both the public at large and three ethnic subgroups (whites, African Americans, and Hispanics). We also distinguish the views of those who have worked for the public schools from those who have not. The main findings from the Education Next-PEPG survey are based on a nationally representative stratified sample of 2,000 adults (age 18 years and older).

Wednesday, October 17
Innovations in Education
Clayton M. Christensen
Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School (bio)

The root causes for why our schools have struggled to improve, and how to solve these problems.

Wednesday, November 7
The Peculiar Incentives of U.S. Teacher Pension Systems
Michael Podgursky
Professor of Economics, University of Missouri-Columbia (bio)

Public school teachers in the U.S. are nearly universally covered by defined benefit (DB) pension plans and roughly 30 percent are not in the social security system. These retirement benefit systems absorb large and growing shares of K-12 education spending. Yet there has been little analysis of their effect on teacher workforce quality, recruitment, and retention. Defined Benefit pension plans often generate odd time patterns for accrual of pension wealth. One typical pattern exhibits low accrual in early years, accelerating in mid-late years, followed by dramatic decline, or even negative returns in years that are relatively young for retirement. We identify key factors in the defined benefit formulas that drive such patterns and likely consequences for employee behavior.

States also have provisions for re-employment after “retirement,” which have become more important as benefit formulas have increasingly favored early retirement. These provisions allow teachers to receive a pension and salary at the same time, under varying restrictions. They enhance the incentives to retire early (since one does not have to stop working). Equally as important, this phenomenon calls for a careful reconsideration of the standard data on teacher compensation, as the line between current and deferred compensation is blurred.

We examine the efficiency and equity consequences of these systems and lessons that might be drawn for pension reform. This was a joint work with Robert M. Costrell, Professor of Education Reform, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

Wednesday, December 5
School Choice Impacts: Initial Results from the Latest Voucher Experiment
Patrick J. Wolf
Professor and 21st Century Chair in School Choice, University of Arkansas (bio)

School choice remains an important part of the national discussion on education reform strategies and their benefits. While a variety of policies encourage parents’ selection of schools for their children vouchers that allow students to attend a private school have received the most attention. The U.S. Congress’ passage of the District of Columbia School Choice Incentive Act of 2003 in January 2004 provided a unique opportunity not only to implement a system of private school choice for low-income students in the District, but also to rigorously assess the effects of the program on students, parents, and the existing school system via experimental methods.

This paper describes the first-year impacts of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program on those who applied for and were given the option to move from a public school to a participating private school of their choice. After about seven months of participation in the program, the members of the treatment group evidenced substantially higher levels of parental satisfaction with their child’s school as well as much higher perceptions of school safety. Although no significant achievement impacts were detected overall, the members of the treatment group who were better prepared academically at baseline – because they were not attending a public school in need of improvement or were performing in the top two-thirds of the applicant test-score distribution – showed signs of early voucher gains in math. The paper concludes by placing these newest voucher findings within the context of previous rigorous analyses of what happens when more low-income inner-city parents are allowed to enroll their children in private schools of choice by way of K-12 scholarships or vouchers.

Wednesday, February 21
Should We Care about Cognitive Skills?
The Role of Education Quality in Economic Growth
Ludger Woessman
Visiting Scholar, Program on Education Policy and Governance;
University of Munich and Ifo Institute for Economic Research (homepage)

A standard response to the country's poor performance on international student achievement tests is - "So what? Who cares about these kind of cognitive skills in our modern world? Our schools should care about other things."

Is such a response warranted? In his talk, professor Woessmann will present joint work with Eric Hanushek which empirically evaluates the role of education in promoting economic well-being, with a particular focus on the role of educational quality. He will review the evidence on the relationship between the cognitive skills of the population on the one hand and individual earnings, the distribution of income, and economic growth on the other hand.

Based on newly expanded data on an extensive set of international comparisons of cognitive skills, the evidence will also address more detailed questions. For example, is it a few "rocket scientists" at the very top of the distribution who are needed to spur economic growth, or is it "education for all" that is needed to lay a broad base at the lower parts of the educational distribution? Does any effect of education quality on economic growth depend on other complementary growth-enhancing policies and institutions? Does a look at school enrollment and attainment provide a proper picture of the true skill deficits of developing countries?

Download the paper for this event.

Thursday, April 26
Public Opinion on Education Reform: Experimental Findings
William Howell, University of Chicago - Harris School
* Location Change: Room N354, CGIS North ( map)

With the No Child Left Behind Act up for renewal this year, current public opinion on K-12 education could prove to be vitally important in shaping the future of federal education policy. In order to take America's pulse on education, PEPG, with the help of a national polling firm and some of the foremost scholars on survey design, recently conducted a national survey of American opinion on education. The survey included an experimental component: the wording of several questions was altered so that researchers could observe how sensitive certain opinions are to slight alterations in language.

At this talk, Professor Howell will discuss the results of the survey, including the findings that were garnered from the experimental portion of the questionnaire. He will also report on public attitudes toward a range of education reforms, such as vouchers and accountability.

Wednesday, October 11
Removing the Barriers to Private Sector Innovation in Public Education
Steven Wilson, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (bio)

At this colloquium, Wilson will chronicle and analyze the first decade of private management of public schools as detailed in his recent book, Learning on the Job (Harvard, 2006). Founder and former CEO of an urban charter school management company, Wilson will share his and other leaders' insights on the prospects of private education management organizations (EMOs). Distilling common misapprehensions and missteps taken by the first generation EMOs, Wilson will propose a provocative thesis about how our schools could benefit from the next generation of private management efforts.

Wednesday, November 1
From Dollars to Darwin:
How Public Opinion and Institutions Shape Education Policies
Eric Plutzer, Penn State University(bio)

Most educational policies are enacted by state governments or by school boards. Federalism and localism should contribute to educational policies that not only vary, but vary systematically so that policies reflect the preferences of local citizens. However, the correspondence between citizen opinions and policy – policy responsiveness – is not a given. Rather, the efforts of mobilized interest groups, the structure of intergovernmental relations, the type of issue, and the design of political institutions can all enhance or retard (often deliberately) policy responsiveness. In this talk, Plutzer will examine responsiveness for one financial issue (per pupil spending / tax effort) and one social issue (the teaching of evolution in public schools). Findings will be drawn from Ten Thousand Democracies* (Georgetown, 2005) and ongoing, unpublished research (both with Michael Berkman). In so doing, he will provide a framework for understanding responsiveness to the public more generally.

* Linked page includes a free PDF of the book's first chapter.

Wednesday, December 6
Getting Farther Ahead by Staying Behind?
A Second-Year Evaluation of Florida's Policy to End Social Promotion
Jay P. Greene, Department of Education Reform, University of Arkansas (bio)

Social promotion has long been the normal practice in American schools. Critics of this practice, whereby students are promoted to the next grade regardless of academic preparation, have suggested that students would benefit academically if they were made to repeat a grade. Supporters of social promotion claim that retaining students (i.e, holding them back) disrupts them socially, producing greater academic harm than promotion would.

At this colloquium, Greene will discuss the effects of Florida’s test-based promotion policy on student achievement two years after initial retention. Building upon his and Marcus Winter's prior research of the policy, he will examine whether the initial benefits of retention observed in the previous study continue in the second year after students are retained. Furthermore, he will examine whether discrepancies between his evaluation and the evaluation of a test-based promotion policy in Chicago are caused by differences in how researchers examined the issue, or by differences in the nature of the programs.

Wednesday, February 15
Can Teacher Quality Be Effectively Assessed?
National Board Certification as a Signal of Effective Teaching
Dan Goldhaber, University of Washington and the Urban Institute (bio)
Download a PDF of the full report

With the No Child Left Behind Act requirement for 'a qualified teacher in every classroom,' a great deal of attention is being paid to the teacher certification programs used by states to determine whether or not a teacher will be deemed qualified. At this seminar, professor Goldhaber will describe the results of his study assessing the relationship between the certification of teachers by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) and elementary-level student achievement. This will include examinations of whether NBPTS assesses the most effective applicants, whether certification by NBPTS serves as a signal of teacher quality, and whether completing the NBPTS assessment process serves as catalyst for increasing teacher effectiveness.

Wednesday, March 8
The "Third Way" of Education Reform:
Principal and Parental Assessments of Teacher Quality
Brian Jacob (bio)
Kennedy School of Government
Download "The 'Third Way' of Education Reform"
Download "When Principals Rate Teachers," Education Next (Spring 2006)

Education reformers agree on the need for high-quality teaching, but they disagree sharply on how to identify good and bad teachers. The 2002 No Child Left Behind Act ushered in a new era of standardized test-based accountability, with state statutes now rewarding and sanctioning school staff based on student performance and ten states directly linking teacher pay to test scores.
Many parents and educators, however, continue to view high-stakes testing as overly focused
on narrow educational goals.

Using a variety of data sources not normally available to researchers, Professor Jacob will examine the accuracy of principal assessments and parental satisfaction in identifying effective teachers. He will then discuss the viability of these measurements as alternative means for increasing the accountability of teachers, while also respecting a wider range of educational goals and the particular circumstances of each classroom and school.

Thursday, April 27
What Does Certification Tell Us About Teacher Effectiveness?
Evidence from New York City
Tom Kane, Harvard Graduate School of Education (bio)
Download a PDF of the research paper

Federal and state governments have traditionally regulated teacher quality with ex ante
certification requirements. To gain legal permission to teach, individuals are generally required
to study full-time for one or two years in an approved education program. However, recruiting
difficulties have forced many districts to hire large numbers of uncertified or alternatively
certified teachers. Despite the ubiquity of alternative teacher certification (AC) programs across
the country, there is little research on the relative quality of certified, uncertified, and AC
teachers. This is particularly regrettable given that AC teachers are more likely to work in urban
areas with low-income and low-achieving students. At this seminar, Professor Kane will discuss the results of reseach aimed to fill this gap in the literature with evidence from New York.

October 26
Retrospective Voting in Single Function Elections:
School Boards and Student Achievement
William Howell (bio)
Associate Professor of Government, Harvard University, and Deputy Director, PEPG
About This Event

November 2
*Kennedy School of Government, Taubman 275 (map)
Choice, Accountability, and Performance in Public Schools
Angus McBeath (bio)
Senior Fellow on Public Education at the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies
About This Event

November 16
The New Division of Labor: How Computers are Creating the Next Job Market
Richard Murnane (bio)
Juliana W. and William Foss Thompson Professor of Education and Society, Harvard Graduate School of Education
About This Event

December 7
Mayoral Leadership Matters: Lessons Learned from Mayoral Control of Big-City Districts
Kenneth Wong (bio)
Director of the Urban and Education Policy Program and the Walter and Leonore Annenburg Professor in Education Policy, Brown University
About This Event

March 22
Educational Adequacy in Massachusetts: Hancock v. Driscoll
Robert M. Costrell, Chief economist for the Commonwealth, in the Executive Office for Administration and Finance, and professor of economics (on leave) at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst
Access Costrell's Commonwealth Magazine Article: "Wrong answer on school finances"

April 19
The Efficacy of Choice Threats within School Accountability Systems: Results from Legislatively Induced Experiments
Paul E. Peterson, Director, Program on Education Policy and Governance
Martin R. West, Research Associate, Program on Education Policy and Governance
PDF of Paper Available for Download

October 6
Impact of Vouchers on Public Schools: Evidence from Milwaukee
Rajashri Chakrabarti, Post Doctoral Fellow, Program on Education Policy and Governance, Harvard University
PDF of Paper Available for Download

November 3
Charter Schools in Chicago: Evidence from a Randomized Field Trial
Caroline Hoxby, Professor of Economics, Harvard University
PDF of Paper Available for Download

December 15
The Economics of 'Acting White'
Roland Fryer, Harvard Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows, Harvard University
PDF of Paper Available for Download

Friday, March 19
Common Sense School Reform
Frederick Hess, American Enterprise Institute
Visit the Publisher's Webpage for this Book

Wednesday, March 24
Do Charter Schools Promote Student Citizenship?
Jack Buckley, Boston College Department of Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation
PDF of Paper Available for Download

Wednesday, April 7
School District Consolidation and Student Outcomes: Does Size Matter?
Christopher Berry, Program on Education Policy and Governance, Harvard University
PDF of Paper Available for Download