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Educating Urban Children

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  • Richard J. Murnane

Abstract

For a variety of reasons described in the paper, improving the performance of urban school districts is more difficult today than it was several decades ago. Yet economic and social changes make performance improvement especially important today. Two quite different bodies of research provide ideas for improving the performance of urban school districts. One group of studies, conducted primarily by scholars of organizational design, examines the effectiveness of particular district management strategies. The second, conducted primarily by economists, focuses on the need to improve incentives. Each body of research offers important insights. Each is somewhat insensitive to the importance of the insights offered by the other literature. A theme of this paper is that insights from both literatures are critical to improving urban school systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard J. Murnane, 2008. "Educating Urban Children," NBER Working Papers 13791, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13791
    Note: ED
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    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13791.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Brian A. Jacob & Steven D. Levitt, 2003. "Rotten Apples: An Investigation of the Prevalence and Predictors of Teacher Cheating," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 843-877.
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    4. Eric A. Hanushek & Steven G. Rivkin, 2006. "School Quality and the Black-White Achievement Gap," NBER Working Papers 12651, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Clotfelter, Charles & Glennie, Elizabeth & Ladd, Helen & Vigdor, Jacob, 2008. "Would higher salaries keep teachers in high-poverty schools? Evidence from a policy intervention in North Carolina," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1352-1370, June.
    6. Sean P. Corcoran & William N. Evans & Robert M. Schwab, 2004. "Women, the labor market, and the declining relative quality of teachers," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(3), pages 449-470.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. C. Kirabo Jackson, 2014. "Do College-Preparatory Programs Improve Long-Term Outcomes?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(1), pages 72-99, January.
    2. Lockheed, Marlaine E., 2014. "Teacher opinions on performance incentives : evidence from the Kyrgyz Republic," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6752, The World Bank.
    3. Birkenfeld, Florian, 2008. "Kleine Klassen und gute Luft: Warum sind die Grundschulen auf dem Land besser?," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-56-08, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    4. Wesley E. Marshall & Eric Dumbaugh, 2020. "Revisiting the relationship between traffic congestion and the economy: a longitudinal examination of U.S. metropolitan areas," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 275-314, February.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education

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