School Qualities, Education Policy, and the Distribution of Educational Benefits

丹尼斯·埃普和 Richard E.卡耐基梅隆大学 本研究将从理论的角度对公立学校政策进行研究。 与理论模型并行的计算模型被开发并用于探索模型的性质和研究政策预测。 我们比较了有居住要求的地方（社区学校）的结果与公立学校之间有一定程度的选择的结果。在公立学校中进行无成本选择的结果将与昂贵的公立学校选择结果（例如通勤费用）进行对比。在实践中，当学校系统引入选择计划时，他们经常对不同学校的入学施加选择标准;研究将调查这种“控制选择”政策如何影响均衡结果。这些社区学校和选择的替代方案将被认为是在集中的学校财政和分散的财政环境。 我们分析了只有公立学校的环境，然后当有公立和私立学校的选择。该研究的特点，确定在所有学校的所有变量的模型的支出的因素。公立学校的支出将由多数决定，利用我们早期的工作，在有私人选择的情况下，投票决定公立学校的支出。 本研究开发的模型具有以下特点。学生的特点是能力水平和家庭收入。一个学生的教育成就是在自己的能力，每个学生的教育支出，并在学生的同学的能力（同龄人群体效应）增加。学生家庭收入中对教育成就的需求正在增加。 该项目的最后部分将加强学校质量的表征，包括教师与学生的比例和教师技能的等级。教育成就函数将被扩大，以允许平均教师质量和师生比例影响成就。教师的效用函数将取决于收入，学生的质量，教师同行的质量，并可能，教师/学生的比例。这一模式也将有助于分析学院和大学教育。 我们将研究替代政策如何影响不同能力和收入水平的学生的成绩，学生的能力和收入在学校之间的分布，学生的福利，学校税收和支出，私立学校的财政援助政策，教师的能力在学校之间的分布，以及所有学校教师工资的确定。

Dennis Epple and Richard E. Romano Carnegie Mellon University SBR-9601207 This research will study public school policy from a theoretical perspective. A computational model paralleling the theoretical model is developed and used to explore properties of the model and investigate policy predictions. We compare outcomes in localities that have residency requirements (neighborhood schools) with outcomes where there is some degree of choice among public schools. Outcomes with costless choice among public schools will be contrasted to outcomes with costly exercise of public school choice (e.g. commuting costs). In practice, when school systems introducing choice programs, they often impose selection criteria for admission to various schools; the research will investigate how such "controlled choice" policies affect equilibrium outcomes. These neighborhood school and choice alternatives will be considered in environments with centralized school finance and with decentralized finance. We analyze settings with only public schools, then when there are both public and private school alternatives. The research characterizes the factors that determinate expenditures in all schools in all variations of the model. Public school expenditures will be determined by majority rule, exploiting our earlier work on voting over public provision when there are private alternatives. The model developed in this research has the following features. Students are characterized by an ability level and household income. A student's educational achievement is increasing in own ability, educational expenditure per student, and in the abilities of the student's classmates (a peer-group effect). The demand for educational achievement is increasing in the student's household income. The final part of the project will enhance the characterization of school quality to include faculty-student ratios and a hierarchy of faculty skills. The educational achievement function will be broadened to allow average faculty qu ality and faculty-student ratios to affect achievement. The utility function of faculty will depend on income, student quality, quality of faculty peers, and, possibility, the faculty/student ratio. This model will serve to permit analysis also of college and university education. We will investigate how alternative policies affect the achievement of students of varying ability and income levels, the distribution of students by ability and income across schools, the welfare of students, school taxes and expenditures, private school financial aid policies, the distribution of faculty by ability across schools, and determination of faculty salaries in all schools.