[PDF][PDF] On Equality of Educatio11al Opportunity

F Mosteller - 1972 - hanushek.stanford.edu
1972hanushek.stanford.edu
Equality of Educational Opportunity has been part of the public record since. July, 1966.:!
The best known" finding" of the Report is that quantity and quality of school inputs (facilities,
curriculum, and personnel) have little or no bearing on achievement; home environment and
the student's peers are what really count.=• Obviously, such a finding has far-reaching
implications for educational policy. At the very least, it raises serious questions about the
efficacy of the billions of dollars now spent on public education. Yet in our opinion, serious …
Equality of Educational Opportunity has been part of the public record since. July, 1966.:! The best known" finding" of the Report is that quantity and quality of school inputs (facilities, curriculum, and personnel) have little or no bearing on achievement; home environment and the student's peers are what really count.=• Obviously, such a finding has far-reaching implications for educational policy. At the very least, it raises serious questions about the efficacy of the billions of dollars now spent on public education. Yet in our opinion, serious doubts must be raised about this and se\· eral other" findings" attributed to the Report.~ These doubts result both from the methods of empirical analysis and their interpretation. While we are not the first to raise questions about the Report's analysis, we feel that the subject is both important and complex enough to merit further discus-• Support for preparation of this paper was pro\'ided by the llnr\'nrd Program on Hegional and Urban Economics. This program is supported primarily by grants from the Office of Economic Research of the Economic Development Administration in the Department of Commerce, Project Number OER-ot5-G-fi8-i, and the Program on Technology and Society conducted at Har\'ard University under n grant from the International Business Machines Corporation. Many of the ideas included in this paper were initially developed through participation in the Hun· anl Seminar on the EIJUality of Educational Opportunity Heport (SEEOR). In addition the under· lying research was partially financed by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to that seminar.
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