TheChallengesofMeasuringSchoolQuality:ImplicationsforEducationalEquity

HelenLadd

SusannaLoeb

Section1:Introduction

Nearly all countries, including the United States, view elementary and secondary

educationassoimportantforthewellbeingofbothindividualsandsocietythattheymake

schooling compulsory through some age, whether that be 14 as in many developing

countriesor16or18asinvariousU.S.states.Inaddition,thereisaworldwideconsensus

thatallstudents,butespeciallythoseinprimaryschool,shouldhaveaccesstofree,publicly

financed schools with no required school fees. In practice many countries, especially

developingcountrieswithlimitedresources,donotmeetthislatterrequirement,andoften

permit schools to charge fees that in some cases canbe substantial (see Ladd andFiske

2008: ch. 16). The policy throughout the United States has been clear: public schools,

includingbothtraditionalschoolsandpubliclyfundedcharterschools,arenotpermittedto

require parents to pay school fees for their children to enroll in the school. Compulsory

schooling, supportedby full public funding, reflects theobservation that elementary and

secondary education provides not only private benefits to thosewho attend school and

theirfamiliesbutalsopublicbenefitstothebroadersociety.

Among the private benefits are consumption benefits to the enrolled students of

being in a safe, engaging and potentially enjoyable school environment; consumption

benefits to their parents in the form of child care and satisfaction in their children’s

development; and, importantly, investment benefits in the form of future returns to

students in the form of higher paying jobs, better health and amore fulfilling life (Card

2001;HavemanandWolfe1984).Theseprivatebenefits–boththeconsumptionandthe

investment benefits – can also be categorized as intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic benefits

arisewheneducationisvaluedforitsownsakesuchasthepleasureofbeingabletosolvea

complex problem or appreciate artistic expression, and extrinsic benefits arise when

educationservesasaninstrumentfortheattainmentofothervaluedoutcomessuchasthe

higher income forworkingparents that is facilitatedbyhavingchildren in school,or the

potential for the recipients of education to seekhigherpaying jobs and fulfilling careers

thanwouldotherwisebepossible.Regardlessoftheclassification,itisclearthateducation

providesavarietyofdifferenttypesofprivatebenefits,manyofwhichaccruelongafterthe

studentshavebeeninschool.

If theonlybenefitswereprivate,onemightexpect familiestopayforasignificant

partoftheirchild’seducation,asistypicallythecaseatthehighereducationlevel.Evenin

thecaseofexclusiveprivatebenefits,however,therewouldbeacompellingargumentfor

making education compulsory and providing public support. The argument rests on the

government’sresponsibility forprotectingthe interestsofvulnerablegroups, in thiscase

children,whoarenotinapositiontoprotecttheirowninterests.Thus,itcanbeviewedas

bothunfair andundesirable for childrenwhose families invest little in their education –

regardless of whether that reflects limited resources or weak preferences for education

(seeessaysby theSuárez‐OrozcosandHarris in thisvolume for thedebate)– tobekept

fromgainingaccess to theskillsandorientationsneeded to leadaproductive lifeand to

unlocktheirpotential.

Clearly,however,thebenefitstoschoolingaccruetomorethanjustthechildandthe

child’sparents.

Amongthepublicbenefitsofschoolingareshortrunbenefits forothersthatarise

from keeping idle children off the streets and away from crime or other antisocial

behaviors, and the longer run benefits of having an educated citizenry capable of

participatinginthedemocraticsystemandaworkforcethatisproductiveandinnovative.

Theselongerrunbenefitsaccruenotonlytotheresidentsofthelocalcommunityinwhich

thechildrenlive,butalsotothebroadersociety.Loweducationalinvestmentsinstudents

in one jurisdiction have spillovers to other jurisdictions because people move across

jurisdictions, citizensparticipate in the political life of the nation aswell as that of their

local community, and the productivity of one geographic area of the country can affect

overallproductivity.

Evenwithoutgovernmentfinancingofeducation,familieswouldhaveanincentive

to invest in the education of their children in order to generate future benefits for

themselves. Parents gain directly from their children’s future earnings if those children

care for themwhen they are elderly. Parents also gain from investing in their children’s

education whenever having flourishing, happy children increases their own happiness.

Many families, however, would invest less thanwould bemost beneficial for the larger

community because theywould not take into account the benefits thatwould accrue to

others.Suchunder‐investmentsarelikelytobelargestforlowincomefamilies,forwhom

thepublicbenefits,includingthecreationofconditionsforthedemocraticparticipationof

thecitizenry,ofeducatingtheirchildrencouldbelargerelativetotheirperceptionsofthe

privatebenefits.Inaddition,theymayhavelessinformationaswellasfewerresourcesto

investcurrentlyforfuturereturns.

Governments have the potential to overcome some of these under‐investments.

They can raise taxes and make schooling less expensive to individuals so that these

individuals invest more to account for the externalities of education, the benefits that

othersgetfromanindividual’sschooling.Governmentscanalsogiveloanstomakeiteasier

forfamiliestoinvest,andtheycanrequireattendance.

Given thebenefitsof education, almost all societies invest inaneducation system

and the vast majority provides free education to young children. In so doing, each

government needs tomakemany choices about how to fund and govern schools. These

decisions have implications for the quality of schools and the educational opportunities

availabletochildren.Informingthesechoiceswellrequiresacleardefinitionofeducation

qualityandanunderstandingofhowtomeasureit.

In this paper, we explore the complexity of defining and measuring education

qualityinawaythatcanhelppublicdecisionmaking.Wediscusscommonapproachesto

measuring education quality and explore the advantages and disadvantages of each

approach in terms of accuracy and reliability. We then turn to a discussion of the

distribution of education quality in relation to the normative standards of equal quality

schooling,equaleducationalopportunity,andadequacy,andwehighlightthemeritsofthe

differentapproachestomeasuringschoolqualitywithrespecttoeachequitystandard.

 

Section2:Whatiseducationquality?

Initssimplestformeducationqualitycanbeconceptualizedastheinvestmentand

consumptionvalueoftheeducation.Theinvestmentportioncapturesbenefitsintheform

of higher earnings, better health, contributions to the arts, effective participation in the

democratic process, and other outcomes that education enhances. The consumption

portionofeducationqualitycapturesthebenefitstochildrenandtheir familiesofhaving

safe,supportive,andhappyenvironments.Takenfromtheperspectiveofthecommunity,

the quality of an education system refers not only to the sum of the investment and

consumptionbenefits,butalsotohowtheyaredistributedacrossindividuals.Thevalueof

any particular pattern is likely to differ across societies. For example, highly unequal

patterns of educational consumption across individuals may be unacceptable in some

societies while in others it may be more acceptable provided all children receive a

minimum floor of consumption. As another example, some communities may look for

equalityintheinvestmentbenefitsofeducationwhileothersmaydesiretoprovidegreater

investment benefits to students whose families are less able to provide them, thereby

compensating these children for low family resources. The distribution of both

consumption and investment benefits may also affect the robustness of the democratic

process and the degree of societal cohesion, both of which are valued in a democratic

society.

Ofcourse,itisunlikelythatallmembersofacommunitywillagreeonthevalueof

differentcomponentsofeducationqualityoronhowtheyshouldbedistributed.Children

andtheirparentsoftendifferonwhatisahigh‐qualitydayatschool.Familiesalsodisagree

onwhatishighqualityeducation–withsomevaluinginvestmentreturnsofonetypeand

otherfamiliesanothertype.Forexample,someparentsvaluethedevelopmentofartand

musicskillsandappreciationforitsownsakewhileothersvaluetheartsprimarilyfortheir

ability to motivate students to learn more math or develop better reading skills. In

addition, familiesdisagreewith respect to the values that children shouldbe learning in

school. Educators also often differ with children, with parents, and among themselves

aboutwhatareworthwhileoutcomesaswell aswhatareworthwhile typesofeducation

consumption.

Communities and their government representatives have to decide on how to

balance these differing perspectives, much the way they need to balance differing

perspectives in other areas of public decision making. Education may be particularly

sensitive because it touches on parenting, rights and values. It is further complicated in

federalist systems in which many different communities each have a say in public

education.CertainlyintheUnitedStates,local,stateandfederalgovernmentseachplayan

importantroleinthepubliceducationsystemandoftendisagreeonthebestapproachto

schooling. While many papers could be and are written about how best to govern and

financeeducationinafederalistsystem,thoseissuesarenotthesubjectofthispaper.We

have a more limited, but nonetheless challenging, goal of better understanding what

educationqualityisandhowtomeasureit.

In keeping with this discussion, ideally we would measure the quality of an

education system by the investment and consumption benefits it provides. Measuring

educationinthisway,however,isnotaneasytaskinpartbecausesomeofthebenefitsof

educationaredifficulttoquantifyandinpartbecauseinvestmentbenefitsdonotemerge

immediately.Wedonotknow,forexample,howmuchincomeafirstgradechildwillearn

twoorthreedecadesinthefuture.Moreover,evenifwecouldlookatdata30yearsafter

thechildattendedschool,wewouldbelearningaboutthequalityoftheeducationsystem

30yearsearlier,which isnotofmuchuse forcurrentdecisionmaking.Assuch,weneed

proxiesforeducationquality.Notsurprisingly,noneoftheavailableproxiesisperfect.

In what follows we discuss the relative merits of commonly used proxies for

educationquality.

Onesetofproxiesaimstocapturetheinputstoschoolsthatarethebuildingblocks

or ingredients for producing a high quality education system. Measures of resources –

either in the formof spendingperpupil or specific school inputs such as thenumberof

teachersperpupil–arethemostconcreteproxiesforschoolqualityandaretheonesmost

commonlyused.Althoughresourcesmaybenecessaryforahigh‐qualityschoolordistrict,

theymaynotbesufficientgiventhatsomeschoolsare likelytousetheirresourcesmore

effectivelythanothers.Thus,directmeasuresofschoolprocesses,asobservedbyexternal

evaluators,canserveasalternativemeasuresof schoolquality.Foranumberof reasons,

includingthecomplexityofschoolingandthedifficultyofstandardizingevaluators’ratings,

evenmeasuresof schoolprocessesare flawedasameasureofeducationquality.A third

type of quality measure uses proximal student outcomes such as test scores and

educational attainment. Although these measures do not fully capture the investment

outcomes of interest, they are often justified on the ground that they predict such

outcomes.Oneofthechallengesinusingoutcome‐basedproxiesforqualityisdetermining

whatstudentoutcomeswouldhavebeen in theabsenceof theschoolingsystemsoas to

uncoverthecontributionofschoolstotheoutcomesinquestion.

Section3:Proxiesforschoolquality

The threemost common proxies for school quality aremeasures of resources, of

internalprocessesandpractices,andofstudentoutcomes.Inthissection,wediscusseach

ofthesemeasuresandevaluatetheirstrengthsandweaknessesinlightoftheframework

justpresented.

Resources

Spending per pupil is an intuitively appealing rubric for measuring education

quality.Settingasideforthemomentthefactthatpricelevelsmaydifferacrossplaces,we

allhaveasenseofthescaleofadollar,whatitcanandcannotbuy.Suchameasurecanbe

interpretedasaweightedaverageofthevariousinputsusedbyaschool,withtheweights

beingthepricesofeachinput.Accordingtosuchameasure,aschoolordistrictwithmore

teacherswhoareexperienced (andhencehavehighersalaries)wouldbespendingmore

thanaschoolordistrictwith fewerexperienced teachers,allother factorsheldconstant.

Thus,totheextentthatthedifferentialsalariespaidtoteacherreflecttheirtruequality,a

measureofspendingperpupilappearstobeareasonablewaytocaptureboththequantity

andqualityoftheresourcesavailabletoaschool.

Anadvantageofspendingperpupilasameasureofschoolqualityisthatitisnotbasedon

anyspecificassumptionsaboutthebest,orpreferred,wayforschoolstoallocatetheirtotal

resourcesamongspecificinputs.Forexample,thesameamountof(perpupil)spendingin

twoschoolscouldbeusedforsmallerclasseswithlessexperiencedteachersinoneschool

andlargerclasseswithmoreexperiencedteachersintheother.Intheabsenceofevidence

thatcertainconfigurationsofresourcesarepreferredtoothersinallschoolsregardlessof

their context, it would be inappropriate to attribute higher quality to one school than

another.Finally, thissingle‐dimensionalmeasureallows forstraightforwardcomparisons

acrossschoolsordistrictswithstatementsoftheform:districtAspends40percentmore

thandistrictB,withanimpliedcomparablestatementabouttherelativequalityofthetwo

districts.

IntheUnitedStatesin2007,theaveragecurrentper‐pupilexpendituresforpublic

elementaryandsecondaryeducationequaled$9,683(U.S.DepartmentofEducation2007).

This average masks great variation in spending both across states and across districts

withinstates.Onaverage,forexample,schoolsinUtahspent$5,706perpupil,whilethose

inNewYorkStatespentanaverageof$15,546perpupil.Byoneestimate,about70percent

ofthevariationinper‐pupilspendingacrossU.S.schooldistrictsisattributabletovariation

acrossstatesandabout30percenttovariationacrossdistrictswithinstates(Corcoranand

Evans2008:Table19.2).Largelyasaresultoftheschoolfinanceandpropertytaxreform

efforts in many states that reduced both the within‐state and across‐ state variation,

spending inequality across schooldistricts throughout the countrydeclined substantially

between1972and2000butthenroseslightlyinsubsequentyears.1

There is far less information on the distribution of dollars across schools within

districts. Because of the single salary schedule and the associated well documented

propensityforthemoreexperienced—andhence,morecostly—teacherstoleaveschools

withhighproportionsoflow‐achieving, lowincomeandblackstudents,onemightexpect

spendingperpupiltobelowerintheseschoolsthaninmoreadvantagedschools.Working

in the other direction, these schools may receive more funds from state and federal

governments targetedtowardsneedystudentsof thesetypes.Asoneexample,NewYork

City public schools spent an average of almost $12,800 per pupil during the 2003‐2004

school year,with school‐level spending ranging from approximately $3,500 per pupil to

$24,500perpupil. In thisdistrict, schoolswithhigherproportionsofpoor students, low

achieving students, and especially special education students, spent more per pupil on

average than other schools though much of the variation across schools is not easily

explainedbystudentcharacteristics(Schwartz,RubensteinandStiefel2009).

Despitetheintuitiveappealofper‐pupilspendingasameasureofschoolquality,it

suffersfromseriousdrawbacksevenasameasureofaschool’sresources.Firstandmost

important, the costs of any given quality‐adjusted input often differ significantly across

districts andmay differ as well across schools within a district. As a consequence, at a

minimum, spending would need to be adjusted for the costs of inputs to be used as a

measureofaschool’sresources.Costsofinputsdifferforanumberofreasons.Thecostsof

facilities,ortheannualdebtserviceneededtofinancethem,arelikelytobehigherinlarge

citieswhere land prices are higher than in smaller cities or rural areaswith lower land

prices. Probablymost importantly, the fact that college educatedworkers earn different

wages in different parts of the countrymeans that districts in high‐wage areas typically

have to pay higher salaries to attract teachers than districts in low‐wage areas. As an

example,TaylorandFowler(2006)findthat in1999‐2000startingteachersalarieswere

27percenthigherinCaliforniathaninKansas($32,190versus$25,252).Becausemostof

this difference was attributable to the higher wages for college educated workers in

California, the cost‐adjusted teacher salaries in the two states were almost the same

($29,481and$29,528,respectively).

Cost differences for teachers also arise across districts or across schoolswithin a

districtbecause teachersprefer to teach in someneighborhoodsandwith some typesof

students than in and with others (Boyd et al. 2010; Jackson 2009; Clotfelter, Ladd and

Vigdor, 2011). In particular, schools serving educationally advantaged or high achieving

students may be able to recruit higher quality teachers at any given salary level than

schools serving less advantaged or lower achieving students. Disadvantaged schools are

likely to end upwith lower quality teachers unless they are able to override the single

salaryscheduleandraisethesalariesofteachersintheirschools.Onerecentstudyshows

thattheadditionalsalaryrequiredtoretainhighqualityteachersindisadvantagedschools

atthesamerateasinmoreadvantagedschoolscouldexceed50percent,withtherequired

salary differential depending on the extent of school segregation (Clotfelter, Ladd and

Vigdor2011).

Giventhe imperfectionsofper‐pupilspendingasameasureofschoolresources, it

maybetemptingtomeasureresourcesdirectly.Forexample,onecouldlookatthenumber

ofteachersperpupilinaschool,accesstocomputers,thelengthoftheschooldayoryear,

and/or theavailabilityofafter‐schoolprograms. InU.S.publicelementaryandsecondary

schoolsin2007therewere15.7studentsperteacheronaverage,downfrom17.9students

per teacher20yearsearlier in1987(U.S.DepartmentofEducation2009).Aswithother

resources, the number of teachers per student varies substantially across and within

schoolsanddistricts.Themainbenefitofusingspecificschoolresourcesasameasureof

schoolqualityisthatbyquantifyingresourcesinsteadthedollars,oneavoidsthedifficulty

ofhavingtoadjustforcostdifferences.

Aswehavealreadysuggested,whenusingresourcesasameasureofschoolquality,

onemustmeasurethequalityaswellasthequantityofresources.Clearly,notallclassroom

books or computers are the same. Similarly, not all teachers are the same. Two schools

mightemploy the samenumberof teachersperpupilbut these teachersmaycomewith

verydifferentskillsandknowledgethataffecttheirteachingability.Unfortunately,justasit

isdifficulttomeasurequalityoftheoveralleducationsystem,itisdifficulttomeasurethe

qualityofteachersforgeneratingeducationalbenefits.Instead,untilrecently,moststudies

of the distribution of teachers across schools used proxies such as teachers’ experience,

certification, and academic ability (as typicallymeasured by licensure test scores)when

assessing differences in the quality of teachers serving different students. While these

proxies are not ideal measures, they are likely to capture differences in the appeal of

teaching in different places and thus, at least in part, adjust for differences in quality.

Studies using suchproxies inNorthCarolina andNewYork found that regardless of the

proxy used, schools serving the high poverty student populations had far higher

proportionsofteacherswithweakcredentialsthandidtheschoolsservingmoreaffluent

students(Clotfelter,LaddandVigdor2007;Lankford,LoebandWyckoff2002).

Although using school inputs to measure education quality has some advantages

relativetoper‐pupilspending, ittoohasdrawbacks.First,asdiscussedabove,thereisno

consensusonthecorrectmeasureofqualityformanyeducationresources,particularlyfor

the key human resources in schools – teachers and other staff. Second, the best

configurationofresourcesprobablydiffersacrossschoolsand,again,thereisnoconsensus

ontheseoptimalconfigurations.Third,measuresofschoolresourceseitherfocusononly

one of the relevant inputs or, if they are intended to represent a bundle of inputs, the

questionarisesofhowtoweighttheinputswithinthebundle.Thatbringsusbacktosome

formofspendingmeasure,withtheelementsofthebundleweightedbytheirprices.

As a measure of education quality, however, cost‐adjusted spending still suffers

fromtwoadditionalproblems.First,ittakesnoaccountofdifferencesintheeffectiveness

orefficiencywithwhichdollarsarespent.Attheextreme,someschoolleaderssimplymay

be corrupt and not use the dollars to benefit students. Even without corruption, more

knowledgeable and effective leaders can achieve greater education quality for the same

cost‐adjusted spending level by implementing school processes and practices directed

towardthevaluedoutcomes.

Second,cost‐adjustedspendinglevelstakenoaccountofthefactthatsomeschools

need more resources than other schools to offer equivalent schooling. For example,

consider two schools, oneofwhichhas a farhigherproportion than theotherof special

needs students whose legallymandated individual education plans require that they be

taughtinsmallclasses.Comparedtothesecondschool, thefirstschoolwouldneedmore

teachersperstudentonaveragetoprovideanequivalentqualityofschoolingtothenon‐

special needs students within the school. For a more general example, consider two

students,A andB,whoare similar except that they attenddifferent schools. If theother

studentsintheschoolattendedbyAaremorelikelytobedisruptiveorthevariationinthe

achievementlevelsofstudentsinthatschool ismuchgreaterthanintheschoolattended

byB,theschoolservingAmayneedmoreresources,eitherintheformofmoreteachersor

more teacherswith special qualifications, toprovide studentAwith aneducation that is

equivalenttothatreceivedbystudentBintheotherschool.

ArgumentssimilartothesehavebeenusedbytheDutchto justifytheirsystemof

weightedstudentfunding.Eversince1917withtheextensionofpublicfundingtoreligious

schools, the Dutch objective has been to provide equal quality schools, regardless of

whethersuchschoolswereoperatedbyRomanCatholics,Protestantsorthegovernment.

Historically, that meant providing equal funding for each school. With the influx of low

skilledimmigrantsinthe1960sand1970sandtheresultingconcentrationsofimmigrant

children in some schools, however, the Dutch realized that equal resources did not

translate into equalquality.Thus, starting in1985, they implementeda system inwhich

immigrantchildrenwhoseparentshadloweducationwouldbringwiththemalmosttwice

asmuch funding to the school they attended aswould native Dutchwithwell‐educated

parents(LaddandFiske2009).

Importantly,thisargumentfortheneedformoreresourcesinoneschoolrelativeto

another is based on the goal of providing equivalent quality education to each student,

regardlessoftheschoolheorsheattends.Itisnotgroundedintheviewthateducationally

disadvantagedstudentsmayrequirehigherqualityeducationinordertohaveequal–or,

possibly, adequate – educational opportunity. Questions of how best to distribute

educationqualityacrossstudentsraiseadifferentsetofissuesthanthoseofinterestinthis

discussion of how to define andmeasure school quality.We address the arguments for

providing different quality of education to different students in the final section of the

paper.Fornow,wearestillworkingonhowtomeasurequality.

ObservationalMeasuresofInternalProcessesandPractices

As suggestedby someof theexamples in theprevioussections, even schools–or

broader education systems –with similar cost‐adjusted levels of resourcesmaydiffer in

termsofqualitybecauseofthewaytheyusethoseresources.Analternativeapproachto

measuring education quality is to observe what goes on within classrooms, schools,

districtsorbroadereducationsystems.Suchmeasurestypicallyfocusoninternalprocesses

and practices. The best quality measures of this type would be generated by trained

observers and would be based on formal rubrics or protocols designed to produce

consistentmeasuresacrossunits.

Examples of processmeasuresof educationquality include evaluationsof teacher

quality based on observations of their practices in the classroom (Grossmanet al. 2010;

Kaneetal.2010)andinspectoratereportsonindividualschools.Suchreportsaretypically

basedonvisitsbyexternalreviewteamstoindividualschoolsonaperiodicbasis.Although

multiple countries around theworlduse suchanapproach, it is less common in theU.S.

Only recently have some states and cities begun experimenting with school or district

inspectionssystemsofthistype.TheNewYorkCityDepartmentofEducation,forexample,

currentlysendsreviewteamsto individualschoolsaspartof its largereffort topromote

schoolquality,andMassachusettshashadvariouspermutationsofastatewidesystemfor

evaluating both districts and individual schools for several years. Interest in charter

schoolshasinducedsomestates,includingMassachusetts,tosendreviewteamstoalltheir

charterschoolstoevaluatethequalityoftheschool,bothearlyinthelifeoftheschooland

justpriortothereauthorizationdecision.

Thisobservationalapproachisadvantageousinthatitcanprovideamorenuanced

and comprehensive measure of quality than can resource‐based or spending‐based

measures.Moreover, by highlighting areas of quality shortfalls, such information can be

usefultotheobservedunitsinthatitprovidesguidanceonareasinneedofimprovement.

For observational measures to provide valid measures of school quality, however, the

observedmeasuresmustbecloselylinkedtoeducationaloutcomesofvalue.

Onearea inwhichobservationalmeasuresofqualityarerelativelywelldeveloped

andwell justifiedbyresearch is in theareaofearlychildhoodeducation. In thiscontext,

research documents that how teachers interact with children in the classroom affects

children’s learning and development (Pianta et al. 2004, 2007). Classroom observations

canthereforeprovidemorevalidinformationonthequalityofapre‐schoolprogramthan

simplemeasuresofresources,suchasthenumberoreducationalachievementofteachers.

This example illustrates not only the potential for observational measures to be useful

measures of quality, but also suggests that the case for using direct observation ismost

compellingwhenitisdifficulttogetcrucialinformationonqualityinotherways.

Evenwiththeirpotentialbenefits,observationalmeasuresarerarelyusedatalarge

scaleateithertheearlyeducationorK‐12levelsintheUnitedStates.Boththeearlystageof

development of most of the measures and cost of effectively implementing a system of

assessment based on observationalmeasures limits their current use. The experience of

NewZealandisillustrativeofthechallengesinvolvedinmeasuringschoolqualitywiththe

useofdirectobservation.Aninnovativepartofthecountry’sreformpackageoftheearly

1990s, which turned operating responsibility over to individual schools, was the

establishment of an Education Review Office (ERO) designed to monitor school quality

throughperiodicschoolvisits.Theinitialintentwastoevaluateeachschoolintermsofits

ownmissionstatement,butthevaguenessofthemissionstatementsmadethatapproach

unworkable.TheERO instead turned itsattention tohowwell theschoolwascomplying

withnationalguidelinesforschoolpoliciesandalsotohowwelltheschoolitselfwasusing

informationonstudentperformancetomakeinternalpolicy.DespiteEROeffortstofocus

on learning outcomes, the reviews often became mechanistic, were heavily focused on

management procedures and did not necessarily foster better educational outcomes.

Starting in 2003, the country introduced a new planning and reporting framework for

schools. Under this new system, the ERO now focuses on the process questions of the

following type:Howwell is informationonstudentachievementused,both formallyand

informally,todevelopprogramstomeettheneedsof individualsandgroupsofstudents;

howwell is available timeused for learningpurposes;howeffective are the systems for

identifying and meeting staff professional development needs; and how well does the

schoolestablishpartnershipsaroundlearningwithitscommunity(Ladd2010).Thefocus

isnotonlearningoutcomesthemselvesbutratherontherobustnessandcoherenceofthe

internal processes and practices that policy makers believe are associated with good

outcomes.

Thefocusonhowwellschoolsmakeuseofdataonstudentachievementtoallocate

resourceswithinschoolsandonthecoherenceofpoliciesforsupportingstudentlearning

emergeascentralcomponentsofalltheinspectoratesystemsofwhichweareaware.The

logicunderlyingsuchevaluationsystemsisatonelevelquitecompelling.Becauseschools

differ so dramatically in terms of their students and, in many cases, in the resources

available to them, itmakes intuitivesense to judgequalitybasedonhowwell theschool

usesthoseresourcestomeettheneedsofthestudentsitserves.

At thesametimetherearesomepotentialdrawbacks to thisapproach.One is the

dangerofplacingemphasisonprocesses thatare in factnotultimatelyrelated tovalued

educational outcomes, either insofar as the processes have not been validated in the

literature as being linked to those outcomes or insofar as the validation is based on

measuresofqualitythatarethemselvesimperfectornarrow.Forexample,ifthereviewers

place a lotof emphasison theuseofdata, and thosedata are allbasedon testsofbasic

skillsinmathandreading,thentheobservationalmeasuremayprovideanarrowmeasure

ofschoolquality.Workingintheotherdirection,thereviewprotocolcouldbesobroadthat

the reports are not useful for distinguishing between those processes that contribute

significantly toqualityandthosethatare lessdirectlypredictiveofquality.Furthermore,

because it is based on human judgment, the observational approach may be subject to

variation in ratings that reflect differences across reviewers rather than differences in

education quality. Unless the reviewers are well trained, and the reports tested for

reliability across reviewers, the system could providemisleading information on school

quality.

While thevalidityofmanycurrentobservationalmeasurescanbequestioned, the

most common concern about the observational approach is its high cost. As the school‐

basedapproachhasbeenimplementedinpractice,costsincludethetimeofthereviewers

and the costs of their training as well as the time of school officials for preparing for

reviews and responding to them. These costs depend on the nature of the program

including the size of the review team for each visit, the salaries of the reviewers, the

frequency of visits and the costs of training high quality reviewers and of assuring

reliability.Offsettingsomeofthesecosts,however,areanyschool improvementsthatthe

processgenerates.

The well‐developed English inspectorate system as it operated in the 1990s was

very expensive, with visits to primary schools costing about $20,000 and to secondary

schools,about$37,500(KoganandMaden1999–convertedfrompoundstodollars).The

smaller scale system in Charlotte/Mecklenburg, North Carolina (CMS) that built on the

Englishmodelbutmadegreateruseof internalpersonnelwasfar lessexpensivewithan

estimated cost of each school evaluation below $9,000. The program of charter school

evaluationsinMassachusettshasanaveragecostpercharterschoolvisitofabout$3,500.

Thepotentiallyhighcostsof theobservationalapproachtendtomakeU.S.policymakers

waryofthisapproachandskepticalofthepotentialfortakingittoscale.Atthesametime,

many other countries have historically made much greater use of the observational

approachandhaveused it forall theirschools. Insomecountries,mostnotablyEngland,

however,theschoolvisitshavebecomelessextensiveandcomprehensiveinrecentyears

asemphasishasshiftedtoagreaterrelianceonoutcomemeasures,andmostprominently

ontestscores.

The processes approach to measuring school quality, while potentially better at

measuring the quality of schooling than purely resource‐based measures, requires an

understanding of how the benefits of education are produced. For example, in order to

measureteacherqualityorthequalityofschoolleadership,observersneedtoknowwhat

good teachingandgood school leadership look like.Although school systemshavemade

substantial recent progress in measuring processes, most education processes have no

protocols for observation,much lesswell‐validated protocols. To the extent that schools

continuetodiversify—forexamplethroughmultiplepathwaystohighschoolcompletion,

home schooling, or distance learning – the job of directlymeasuring education practice

becomesmorechallenging.Giventhecomplexitiesofmeasuringqualitythroughtheinputs

(eitherresourcesorprocesses),itisappealingtoconsiderwhetheritisfeasibletomeasure

theoutcomesofeducationdirectly.

StudentOutcomes

As described above, education quality encompasses the consumption and

investment benefits of schooling. These benefits could include general satisfaction,

earnings,non‐pecuniaryjobbenefits,health,lowcrime,andrangeofotheroutcomes.Most

ofthereturnstoeducationaccruelongafterstudentshavecompletedschoolandcertainly

too far in the future to provide meaningful measures of the current state of education

qualityortoserveasusefulmeasuresforeducationdecisionmakers.

More immediate measures of student outcomes such as achievement and

educationalattainmentmayproxyfortheselateroutcomes.Ampleevidenceconfirmsthat

student test performance is associated with higher educational attainment and with

earnings(JohnsonandNeal1998).Thecontributionofcognitiveskills,asmeasuredbytest

scores,tofutureearningsalsoappearstohaverisenovertime(Murnane,Willett,andLevy

1995).Giventhis linkbetweentestperformanceandsubsequentearnings,onemightuse

measuresofthestudentachievementgainsattributabletoschoolingasaproxyforschool

quality. This approach to measuring school quality is currently popular in the United

States,arisingfromstate‐leveltest‐basedaccountabilityprogramsintroducedinthe1990s

andcurrentlyrepresentedbytheNoChildLeftBehindActatthenationallevel.

Thebenefitsofusingoutcome‐basedmeasuresofschoolqualityareclear.Directly

measuringoutcomesnegatestheneedtoknowhoweducationisorshouldbeproduced.If

wemeasurequalitybyhowmuchastudentlearns,wedonotneedcarefulanalysesofhow

toadjustspendingforcostsacrossregionsoracrossschoolsservingdifferentpopulations

ofstudents,orcarefulobservationalmeasuresofgoodteaching.Ifitwereeasytomeasure

educationqualitydirectlythroughobservation,thisadvantageofoutcome‐basedmeasures

wouldnotbeimportant,butmeasuringeducationqualitydirectlyisdifficultandcostly.

Not surprisingly, the use of student outcomes as a measure of education quality

bringswithitmeaningfuldrawbacks.First,measuresofstudentoutcomesusedincurrent

education systems do not capture the breadth of student outcomes that individuals and

societyvalueandthat thereforearecentral to theconceptofschoolquality.Byrequiring

thatallstatestestallstudentsingrades3‐8annuallyinmathandEnglishlanguagearts,No

Child Left Behind (NCLB) has dramatically increased the availability of student test

performance in those two subjects, and has required that those test scores serve as the

basisofmeasuresofschoolquality.Thosetwosubjects,however,representonlyaportion

ofthecontentareasthatmaygeneratefutureeducationbenefits.Theyignorecompletely

other skills and dispositions that could, at least in principle, bemeasured at the time of

schoolingand thatare likely tobe important for futureoutcomes–suchas theability to

workeffectivelyingroupsandtoempathize,aswellasachievementinscience,historyand

the arts (see Rothstein, Jacobson, and Wilder 2008 for a fuller discussion). Moreover,

currenttestsdonotevenattempttomeasuretheconsumptionbenefitsofeducation,such

as studenthappinessandhealth.Evenwithin thedomainsofmathandEnglish language

arts,testsfocusonskillsthataremoreeasilytestedandthusemphasizetheimportanceof

somecontentoverother content, creatingoutcomeweights thatdonotnecessarilyalign

with society’s values. While the tests may be highly reliable measures of student

achievementinthetestedcontent,theyareunlikelytobevalidmeasuresofthefullsetof

educationgoals.

The focus of current testing programs on math and English language arts stems

from a variety of sources. It is impractical to measure all outcomes of interest for all

students each year, even if the outcomes are limited to current (in contrast to future)

knowledgeand skills.The timenecessary tomeasureeachdomain reliably is simply too

great. To get a sense of the success of an overall education system, one couldmeasure

differentoutcomes fordifferent studentsor indifferentyears,but this approach ismore

complex and sacrifices some comparability across students and over time. In addition,

while reliablemeasures of student outcomes span areas broader thanmath and English

language arts, many important outcomes are not as easy to measure with currently

available instruments. Whether a broader approach to testing would better capture

educationoutcomes(bothconsumptionandinvestmentbenefits)ofinterestisanempirical

question that has yet to be answered. Logically, tests covering broader content should

captureabroadersetofvaluedoutcomes,andshouldalsoreducethetendencyofnarrow

teststoleadtonarrowcurriculum.Atthesametime,thoughseeminglybroader,thetests

maysimplypickupskills similar to thosemeasuredby thecurrent tests (usingdifferent

questions), whether those be test‐taking skills or skills important for future success.

Broadertestsmaysacrificebothtimeandreliability for littlegain if theydonot improve

our ability to measure the consumption and investment benefits that characterize high

quality education. Although we cannot directly measure the long‐run outcomes of

education,we can judge a testing regime that aims tomeasure education quality on the

extenttowhichitappearstomeasuretheoutcomesofultimatevalue.

A seconddifficulty of using student outcomes as aproxyof school quality is that,

evenifcurrentstudentoutcomessuchastestscoreswellrepresentthelong‐runoutcomes

ofinterest,itisoftendifficulttocorrectlyattributetheportionofastudent’soutcomethat

isduetoschools.Wehavedefinedschoolqualityasthebenefitsthatstudentsandsociety

get from their schooling. The benefits of interest arise, however, not only from the

schooling itself but also in part from other parts of their lives, particularly from their

familiesbutalsofromtheircommunitiesandotherexperiences.Ifwesimplyusestudent

testperformanceas themeasureof schoolquality,wewould falselyattribute to schools’

differencesinperformanceduetoabilityandtofamilybackground.Afirststepistolookat

gainsinperformanceofstudentsinsteadoflevels,soastoseparatethedifferencesatthe

startofschoolingfromthechangesduringschooling.Infact,however,theevidenceshows

thatabilityandfamilybackgroundaffectgainsaswellaslevels.Despitethedevelopmentof

sophisticatedapproachestoestimatingtheeffectsofschoolsonstudentoutcomes,eventhe

most well considered does not cleanly isolate school effects from other effects. For

example,mostempiricalmodelsofstudentoutcomesadjuststatisticallyfordifferencesin

achievementgainsbyfamilybackground,buttheseadjustmentsinappropriatelyeliminate

any components of school quality that are systematically associated with family

background.Thatis,someofthedifferenceintheachievementgainsofstudentsinschools

withahigherproportionofstudentsinpovertyisduetofewereducationalopportunities

outside of school, but some of the difference is probably due to lower quality schools.

Statistical adjustments eliminate both of these sources of lower achievement from the

measure of school quality when, ideally, the differences in achievement due to lower

quality schoolswould remain in themeasureof schoolquality.Themodels couldbe run

without adjustments, but then we would inappropriately attribute differences in

educationalopportunitiesoutsideofschoolstotheschools.Thebottomlineisthatitisvery

difficult to separate the contributions of differences in average quality of schools across

groups from those of differences in other inputs to the variation in student outcomes

across groups. As we discuss further below, if the goal is to understand the quality of

educationalopportunitiesavailabletostudentsoverall(bothinsideandoutsideofschool),

then this difficulty of attribution is not important. However, if the goal is to assess the

qualityofschoolsthemselves,thenattributionisbothimportantanddifficult.

Section4:Educationqualityinthecontextofeducationequity

Thus far we have introduced the concept of education quality and different

approachestomeasurement:resources,observationalmeasuresofinternalprocessesand

practice, and proximal outcomes. Each of these measures has advantages and

disadvantages. In the context of equity discussions, the relative salience of these

advantages and disadvantages depends on how one conceptualizes educational equity.

Setting aside the voluminous literature by philosophers, lawyers, public finance

economists, and education researchers,we focus here on only three concepts: equity as

access to equal quality schools, equity as equal educational opportunity, and equity as

adequacy.

Equityasaccesstoequalqualityschools

Oneplausibleequitygoalisthatallschoolsshouldbeofequal,orequivalent,quality.

BythiswemeanthatstudentAwoulddoequallywell,orbadly,bygoingtoschoolX,Y,or

Z. Average student outcomes would probably still differ across schools but those

differenceswouldbeattributabletodifferencesintheabilities,motivations,andoutside‐of‐

schoolsupportsofthestudentsineachschoolandnottodifferencesinschoolquality.This

definition of equal guarantees that a student would receive equal quality schooling

regardlessofwhichschoolheorsheattends;itdoesnotguaranteethatallstudentsreceive

the same quality education since education quality can vary between students within a

school.Oneconsequenceofthisequitystandardisthatthesystematicsortingofstudents

acrossschools(forexample,asaresultofresidentialsegregationbyincomeorrace)would

not increase achievement gaps between groups beyond those associated with the

backgroundcharacteristicsofthestudentsthemselves.Nor,however,wouldschoolsserve

tonarrowthosegaps.

Our goal here is to consider the relative merits of the different approaches to

measuring school quality in the context of this equity standard. As discussed above,

resource measures can take the form of cost‐adjusted spending or direct measures of

resources. There is very little merit to spending measures that do not include cost

adjustments. On the one hand, although appropriate cost adjustments can be difficult to

estimate,cost‐adjustedspendingmeasuresmaybepreferredtodirectresourcemeasures

becausetheyallowfordifferencesintheallocationoffundstomeettheneedsofstudents,

needs thatmay varywidely across contexts. On the other hand, cost‐adjusted spending

measures will not capture differences in school quality due to inefficiency (including

corruption)intheuseofdollars.Schoolsmayappeartobeofequalqualityoncost‐adjusted

spendingbutmaynotbeondirectmeasuresofresources iftheydiffer inhoweffectively

theyareabletousetheirmoneytobuyresources.Directmeasuresofresources(suchas

thenumberofequalqualitycomputersorequalqualityteachers)woulduncoversomeof

the differences in quality due to ineffective use of funds, as long as the measures of

resourcesappropriatelyidentifythequality,aswellasthequantity,ofresources.

Thequalityoftheschoolisafunctionnotonlyofthequalityofthespecificresources

butalsoofhow those resourcesareutilized together; thus,directmeasuresof resources

willnotidentifyallqualitydifferencesacrossschoolseveniftheyareabettermeasurethan

cost‐adjustedspendingforassessingthequalityoftheindividualresources.Observational

measuresofprocesses inschoolsaimtocarefullymeasurequalitydifferencesnotonly in

each specific resource but in how the resources are used. In theory, these observational

measures would be a productive way to determine whether the quality of education

provided is equal across schools. However, the technology for measuring the quality of

processesisjustemerging,anditiscurrentlyimpracticaltomeasurethequalityofallofthe

keyschoolingprocesses.Althoughinstrumentsareindevelopment,itislikelytobemany

years before comprehensive measurement of schooling is feasible. Finally, the third

measure, proximal student outcomes, may at first appear to have some advantages. As

discussedfurtherbelow,however,thedifficultyinattributingoutcomestoschoolslimitsits

usefulnessforassessingwhetherthequalityofeducationisthesameacrossschools.

Insummary,ifthegoalistoassesstheextenttowhichschoolsareofequalquality,

then some combination of the resources measures and processes measures would

constitutethebestapproachinmostsituations.

Equityasequalopportunity

A second standard, equity as equal opportunity, goes beyond the “do no harm”

principle and calls for schools to compensate for, or redress, background disadvantages

that children bring with them to school so that all children have the opportunity to

participateequally in thepolitical andeconomic lifeof the community.According to this

more demanding equity standard, social disadvantage would not be an excuse for

differentialoutcomes.Becausestudentscometoschoolwithdifferentfamilybackgrounds

anddifferentcapacitiestolearn,theprovisionofequalqualityschoolswouldnotmeetthis

equal opportunity standard. Instead, some schools would have to offer higher quality

schooling than others to compensate for the differences that society deemed as

unacceptablecontributorstounequaloutcomes.

Because this standard focusesoneducational outcomes, the relativemerits of the

threeapproachestomeasuringeducationalqualitychange.Inparticular,thedifficultiesof

attributing educational outcomes to schools become less problematic. Consider first an

extreme — and admittedly unrealistic — example in which the community defines

educationalequityasequaloutcomesforallstudentsInthiscase,thecauseorattribution

oftheoutcomesisirrelevant.Allthatmattersiswhethertheoutcomesdiffer,notwhythey

differ.Ofcourse,anylimitationsassociatedwiththeuseofasetofoutcomemeasuresthat

donot reflect the full rangeof investmentoutcomesofactual interest remainaproblem.

Definingeducationalequityinthisextremewayofequaloutcomesforallstudentsmayin

fact,beanundesirableconceptionofequity,forthereasonsemphasizedbyAmyGutmann

(1987).Childrendifferintheiraptitudesandinterests,andrequiringthemalltoreachthe

same level on each outcome of interest is unrealistic. Moreover, the equalization of

outcomesat the levelof the individualwouldundoubtedlyrequirea levelofgovernment

interventionintofamilylife,andperhapsintothegenepool,thatmostpeoplewoulddeem

inappropriate

Asomewhatmorerealisticconceptionofthisequitygoalwouldrequireequalityof

averageoutcomesacrossgroupsofstudentsdefinedbytheirdemographiccharacteristics

(Roemer1998).Forinstance,equitycouldrequiresimilaroutcomesonaverageformales

andfemales,blacksandwhites,southernersandnortherners,orchildrenfromlowincome

andmoreaffluenthouseholds.Thisinterpretationoftheequitygoalmayrequiretoomuch

ofschoolsalonetobefullyachievableinpractice,butit,atleast,providesguidanceabout

backgrounddifferencesforwhichschoolswouldneedtoprovidehigherqualityeducation

andthusprobablyrequiregreaterinputs.Onceagain,though,becausethisequityconcept

isbasedonoutcomes, theproblemofattributingoutcomes toschools is lesssalient than

whentheequitystandardisequalqualityschools.

An equity concept that is based on educational outcomes, rather than on school

inputs,isappealingbecauseitalignswellwithanultimategoalofanequitabledistribution

ofoutcomessuchas incomeandhealth.Suchanequityconcept,however, isnotby itself

very useful to educational policymakers. Becausemany factors in addition to schooling

contribute to educational outcomes, policy makers need information on the schooling

component if they are to make wise policy decisions that balance schooling, income

redistribution,housingprograms,individualincentives,andotherpotentialapproachesto

equalizing individual or group outcomes. As such, some direct measures of education

quality–intheformofcost‐adjustedspendingmeasuresandobservationalprotocols–are

warrantedincombinationwithoutcomes‐basedmeasures.

Equityasadequacy

Yetathirdstandardofeducationalequityshiftsthefocusawayfromequalitytothe

sufficiencyoradequacyoftheeducationsystem.Accordingtoanadequacystandard,every

childshouldreceivealevelofeducationqualitysufficienttoachievesomespecifiedgoalor

goals.Oncethatstandardweremet,itwouldbeacceptable,fromanormativeperspective,

for some children to receive a far higher quality than others. Thus, adequacy need not

requireequality.

Theconceptofadequacycanbeappliedeitherdirectlytoeducationalinputsor,as

more common in practice, to educational outcomes. As applied to inputs, the standard

mightrequireschoolstohavequalifiedteachersandmanageableclasssizes,andtoprovide

safe and healthy learning environments. As one part of the first phase of the New York

Campaign for FiscalEquity (CFE) case, for example, the court specified that children are

“entitled to minimally adequate physical facilities and classrooms,” “reasonably current

textbooks,” an adequate number of qualified teachers, and schools inwhich “reasonably

up‐to‐datecurriculasuchasreading,writing,mathematics,science,andsocialstudies”are

being taughtaccording to “minimallyadequate” standards (Campaign forFiscalEquityv.

State of New York, 295 A. D. 2d 1 2002: 317). Measuring educational quality for the

purposes of assessing compliance with this equity standard would clearly require

information on the specific inputmeasures of interest, including information on teacher

quality,andmightwellrequiresomeattentiontoschoolprocesses.Themainfocuswould

beonlyonwhetherschoolsdidordidnotmeet the threshold.Theoutcomeapproach to

measuringeducationalqualitywouldbeneitherusefulnornecessary.

TheCFEcasealsodefinedadequacyintermofoutcomesforstudents,ashasbeen

doneinmanyothercourtcases.Interpretedintermsofoutcomes,theadequacystandard

raisesthecentralquestionof,“adequateforwhat?”Oneanswermight lie intheRawlsian

concept of primary goods and the notion that every student attains a minimum set of

educationaloutcomesconnectedtohisorherlong‐termlifechances(Rawls2001:57‐61).

AnothermightdrawonphilosopherAmyGutmann’sconceptofademocraticthreshold.In

herview,theprimaryroleofeducationistopromoteademocraticsociety,characterized

by deliberative and collective decision‐making, and hence the threshold is that level at

whichapersonhastheability toparticipateeffectively in thepoliticalprocess(Gutmann

1987;seealsodiscussioninLaddandHansen1999:102‐06).Combiningthesetwoviews,

an adequate education may be conceived of as one that is sufficient for someone to

participate fully in both the economic and political life of the country (see also Allen,

forthcoming,forsuchacombinedview).

Ingeneralthedefinitionofeducationaladequacywouldallowfordisparitiesabove

the adequate threshold. To the extent that education is viewed as a “positional good,”

however,adequacydefinedintermsofoutcomesbecomesmorecomplicatedand, infact,

may require that educational outcomes be equalized. A positional good is one in which

one’spositioninthequeuemattersforone’soutcome.Inotherwords,“theabsolutevalue

ofthegoodoneholds,totheextentitispositional,canonlybedeterminedbyreferringto

one’s standing in the distribution of that good.” (Koski and Reich 2008: 45; Reich this

volume).Hence, if education is viewed as a positional good, the onlyway to assure that

everyone gets an adequate education is to make sure that educational outcomes are

similar.

Regardlessofwhethereducationisorisnotviewedasapositionalgood,judgingthe

adequacy,defined in termsofoutcomes,of aneducation systemraisesmostof the same

issues for themeasurementofeducationqualityasdoes theequalopportunitystandard.

Specifically, because the focus is outcomes, one need not necessarily isolate the

contribution of schools to student outcomes tomeasure the quality of the system. Thus,

while equity as equal opportunity and equity as adequacydiffer conceptually, theuseof

proximal outcomemeasures of qualitymake them quite similar in terms of the relative

merits of different approaches to measuring quality. While U.S. policy makers have not

pursuedequalityofeducationaloutcomes,broadlydefined,asa seriouspolicygoal,both

the courts and the federal government have embraced outcome adequacy with various

degreesofambition.Somestatecourts, includingtheKentuckycourt ina1989adequacy

case, conceived of the outcome goals very broadly.2 In practice, however, adequacy is

typically definedmore narrowly. In the New York Campaign for Fiscal Equity case (see

Smith this volume), for example, the issue was whether an eighth grade education was

adequate(thoughthispositionlostandamuchhigherstandardwasadopted),andunder

thefederalNoChildLeftBehindActadequacyisdefinednarrowlyintermsofproficiency

onmathandreadingtests.

Asisthecasefortheequalopportunitystandard,whileproximaloutcomemeasures

may be necessary and useful for assessing the adequacy of an education system, that

approachaloneisnotsufficientforeducationalpolicymakersbecauseitshedsnolighton

thecontributionsofschoolsrelativetoothersourcestothegenerationoftheoutcomesof

interest. Even with an adequacy standard, therefore, some combination of the three

approachestoassessingschoolqualitywouldbeneeded.

Section5:Conclusion

Educationqualityhasbeenandcontinuestobethefocusofpolicydebates,aswell

as academic discussionswithin a range of disciplines frompolitical theory to economics

andsociology.Yet, thedefinitionofeducationquality inthesedeliberationsisoftenhazy,

relyingonexamplesofspendingpatternsorpatternsofspecificresourcesavailableacross

schools,observationsinschools,orstudenttestperformance.Noneoftheseapproachesto

measuringeducationqualityisperfect;eachbringswithitadvantagesanddisadvantages.

Inthischapter,webeginwithadefinitionofeducationqualityasthebenefitsofeducation

to students and other members of the community – benefits that can be described as

consumption and investmentbenefits, intrinsic and extrinsic benefits, private andpublic

benefits,orinavarietyofotherways. Higherqualityschoolsprovidemorebenefitsthan

dolowqualityschools.

Noneoftheavailablemeasuresofeducationqualityperfectlycapturethesebenefits

of schooling, at least in part becausemost education benefits accrue long after students

leave school. School spending adjusted for cost differences is an appealing measure of

quality because it is easy to understand and, as a ratio scale, it allows for quantitative

comparisons such as one school spending 25 percent more than another school.

Unfortunately, because of meaningful efficiency differences as well as unknown cost

differences across schools, school spending poorly approximates school quality. Direct

measures of education practices can account for efficiency and cost differences in ways

spendingmeasurescannot.Unfortunately,validatedobservationalmeasuresareavailable

foronlyaverylimitednumberofschoolprocesseswhichisespeciallyproblematic inthe

quickly changing and diversifying education sector. Using student test performance as a

measureofschoolqualityeliminatestheneedtounderstandoragreeonthebestwayto

teachortorunschools.Italsoisnotaffectedbyrapidlychangingapproachestoschooling.

Thus, measuring education quality by student test performance has benefits. However,

whilecurrenttestperformanceispredictiveoffuturejobmarketopportunities,itdoesnot

capture the full range of benefits of value. In addition, attributing the portion of test

performance that is due to schooling in contrast to educational opportunities outside of

schoolisnoteasy.

Given that none of the availablemeasures of school quality fully (or sufficiently)

captureactualquality,whichmeasureismostuseful?Theanswertothisquestiondepends

onthereasonformeasuringeducationquality. If thegoal isequaloradequateeducation

outcomes for students, as would be consistent with the normative standards of equal

educationalopportunityoradequacy,measuringqualityintermsofstudentoutcomesmay

beappealing.Thereasonisthatdeterminingwhetherstudentsachievespecifiedoutcomes

is more important than correctly attributing quality to particular schools. Even in the

contextofthisrelativelycompellingcaseforusinganoutcomes‐basedmeasure,however,

thelimitedrangeofmeasurablecontemporaneousoutcomesforstudentsmakesitusefulto

supplement the outcome measure of quality with information on school resources and

processes. In addition, resource and process measures can help policy makers choose

wheretotargetinvestmentsandinterventions.Thus,whilestudentoutcomemeasuresare

clearlyuseful forunderstandingtheextenttowhichequalopportunityoradequacygoals

areachieved,theyarebestsupplementedwithotherqualitymeasures.

Ifthenormativegoalisequalqualityschools,sothatastudent(andsociety)

receivesthesamelevelofbenefitsregardlessofwhichschoolthatstudentattends,then

attributionofoutcomestospecificschoolsisofgreatimportance.Consequently,the

advantagesofresourceandprocessmeasuresofeducationqualityincreaserelativeto

measuresbasedonstudentoutcomes.Thepointisthatallthreeapproachestomeasuring

qualityareimpreciseandeachhasitsownstrengthsandweaknesses.Allthreeare

potentiallyusefulbuthowmuchemphasistoputononeapproachrelativetoanother

differsdependingonthenormativestandardofinterest.

1.Thesizeofthedeclinebetween1972and2000dependsonthemeasureofvariation.Theginicoefficientdeclined by 20 percent and the coefficient of variation (defined as the standard deviation across districtsdividedbythemean)declinedby24percent(CorcoranandEvans,2008:Table19.2).2.Rosev.Council forBetterEducationdefinedadequacy intermsofseven learninggoals:(1)sufficientoraland written communication skills to enable students to function in a complex and rapidly changingcivilization;(2)sufficientknowledgeofeconomic,social,andpoliticalsystemstoenablethestudenttomakeinformed choices; (3) sufficient understanding of governmental processes to enable the student tounderstandthe issuesthataffecthisorhercommunity,state,andnation;(4)sufficientself‐knowledgeandknowledge of his or hermental and physicalwellness; (5) sufficient grounding in the arts to enable eachstudent to appreciate his or her cultural and historical heritage; (6) sufficient training or preparation foradvancedtrainingineitheracademicorvocationalfieldssoastoenableeachchildtochooseandpursuelifeworkintelligently;and(7)sufficientlevelsofacademicorvocationalskillstoenablepublicschoolstudentstocompete favorably with their counterparts in surrounding states, in academics or in the job market.(http://www.schoolfunding.info/states/ky/lit_ky.php3).