Category Archives: Economics of Education

Do big uni classes hurt students?

Posted on January 11, 2010 by

I’ve written in the past about the close-to-zero impacts of class size on school students’ performance (at least once classes are below 30). But what about huge university classes? I stumbled today across a new UK study that finds effects, … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Education, Universities | 4 Comments

Do school teachers send their children to government schools?

Posted on January 10, 2010 by

I’ve often wondered whether teachers more or less likely to send their children to private schools, and in surfing through back issues of the Australian Education Researcher, I found at least a partial answer. A 2008 paper by Helen Proctor, … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Education | 5 Comments

The most sobering sentence I’ve read this week

Posted on January 8, 2010 by

From the NYT: “We’ve got to figure out how to break the cycle of poverty, and the way we’re doing it now isn’t working,” said Hank M. Bounds, the Mississippi commissioner of higher education and, until recently, the state superintendent … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Education, Economics of the Family, Inequality | 3 Comments

What Should we Teach Teachers?

Posted on January 7, 2010 by

A couple of new articles on teacher training: Charter school founders create a new ‘Teacher U’ The ongoing influence of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed in conventional university teacher education curricula A great piece from The Atlantic on Teach … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Education

Merit Pay Effects

Posted on December 16, 2009 by

For the most part, economics analyses of merit pay programs (with either individual or group incentives) have tended to find positive effects. So it’s interesting to see a new study by Pedro Martins using data from Portugal that observes the … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Education | 1 Comment

Tax and Skills

Posted on December 9, 2009 by

Earlier this year, the Henry tax review (aka AFTS) commissioned me to write a paper on the tax treatment of education. They’ve now posted it on their website. Here’s the executive summary (click on the title for the full paper). … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics of Education, Tax | 1 Comment

Radical Hope: A Response

Posted on December 7, 2009 by

In October, Noel Pearson wrote a Quarterly Essay on Indigenous education titled “Radical Hope: Education and Equality in Australia”. In the December issue, I have a letter published in response. Full text over the fold.

Posted in Economics of Education, Indigenous Policy, Randomisation | 2 Comments