演講者簡介 : Prof. Eric A. Hanushek為Ph.D. in Economics，Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1968)。
現為Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow，Hoover Institution, Stanford University。
其主要研究領域為Educational Policy (specializing in the Economics and Finance of Schools)。
演講摘要 : Considerable controversy surrounds the impact of schools and teachers on the achievement of students. This paper disentangles the separate factors influencing achievement with special attention given to the potential problems of omitted or mismeasured variables and of student and school selection. Unique matched panel data from the UTD Texas Schools Project permit the identification of teacher quality based on student performance along with the impact of specific, measured components of teachers and schools. Nonparametric lower bound estimates of the variance in teacher quality based entirely on within-school heterogeneity indicate that teachers have powerful effects on achievement, though little of the variation in teacher quality is explained by observable characteristics such as education or experience. First and second year teachers are systematically less effective than more experienced peers, and students do benefit from smaller classes, particularly in grades 4 and 5. The effects on mathematics and reading achievement of a very costly ten student reduction in class size similar to that undertaken in a variety of U.S. states are smaller than the benefit of moving one standard deviation up the teacher quality distribution, highlighting the importance of teacher effectiveness in the determination of school quality.
