Studying
school quality, to fight inequality
New MIT
center examines education and its lifelong effects.
May 9, 2012
Education
has long been perceived as a great leveler in the United States, providing
opportunities throughout society. But at a time of economic struggle, millions
of people are wondering if the country’s schools can still provide a platform
for success.
“School
quality and human capital are major issues on the American policy agenda,” says
Josh Angrist, the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT, noting the emphasis
President Barack Obama placed on the issue during his most recent State of the
Union address.
Yet it is
hard for parents to make confident decisions about the subject. “A very
difficult question is finding out what is a good school for your child,” says
Parag Pathak, a professor in MIT’s Department of Economics. Moreover, state and
local civic leaders must continually evaluate schools as well.
That is one
reason Angrist, Pathak and economist David Autor have founded the School
Effectiveness & Inequality Initiative (SEII), a new center at MIT giving a
home to diverse studies of education and its effects on Americans throughout
their working lives.
Some of
those studies have already made headlines: Angrist and Pathak, working with
other scholars, have found that while some Boston charter schools outperform
the city’s other public schools, charter schools elsewhere in Massachusetts
fail to generate gains in student achievement. They have also found that some
highly regarded public schools — which use competitive test-based admissions —
may not improve the trajectory of the already-thriving students who are
accepted into them.