Collective Bargaining, Teachers, and Student Achievement: Comment THOMAS T. SCHWEITZER* Economic Council of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario KIP 5 V6 In the Spring 1991 issue of this Journal, the article by Register and Grimes (1991) contains a potentially misleading paragraph: [W]e found that while the student-faculty ratio is negativelyand significantly related to achievement, expenditure per student is positively and significantly related to achievement. These outcomes were not expected, and they do relate to the ongoing debate over rebuilding the U.S. educational system. There could be some reverse causation here, but we can conclude that increased funding and the resulting decline in student-teacher ratio may improve student performance (pp. 105-106). But by how much will increased funding and reduced student-teacher ratios improve student performance? Register and Grimes (Table 1, p. 101) show that mean expenditures per pupil is $2,895.10 and the mean student-faculty ratio is 31.27 with standard deviations of 790.4 and 9.62, respectively. For purposes of exposition, assume an unrealistically large increase of $1,000 in expenditures per pupil. According to their regression results (Table 4, p. 105), this increase would raise the average college entrance examination score by 20 points or by about 0.1 standard deviation (Table 2, p. 103). This is equivalent to moving the median student to the 54th percentile (assuming that the scores are normally distributed). A reduction in the student-faculty ratio of ten, that is, by about one-third, would increase the average examination score by 11 points, an even smaller effect. Thus, as the title of the paper by Hanushek (1981), "Throwing Money at Schools," suggests, this policy would not be effective despite its enormous cost. Alternatively, Register and Grimes (Table 4, p. 105) report that taking an additional mathematics course increases the college entrance examination score by 81 points; taking the college preparatory curriculum increases the score by 65 points; and improving the student's grade point average from, say, C to B, increases the examination score by 76 points. These changes would take the median student to somewhere between the 65th and 85th percentile. These measures require hard work on the part of the student, good teaching by the faculty, and strong motivation by both. That is exactly what the U.S. educational system needs. JOURNAL OF LABOR RESEARCH Volume XII, Number 3 Summer 1991

Collective bargaining, teachers, and student achievement: Comment

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Collective Bargaining, Teachers, and Student Achievement: Comment

THOMAS T. SCHWEITZER*

Economic Council of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario KIP 5 V6

In the Spring 1991 issue of this Journal, the article by Register and Grimes (1991) contains a potentially misleading paragraph:

[W]e found that while the student-faculty ratio is negatively and significantly related to achievement, expenditure per student is positively and significantly related to achievement. These outcomes were not expected, and they do relate to the ongoing debate over rebuilding the U.S. educational system. There could be some reverse causation here, but we can conclude that increased funding and the resulting decline in student-teacher ratio may improve student performance (pp. 105-106).

But by how much will increased funding and reduced student-teacher ratios improve student performance? Register and Grimes (Table 1, p. 101) show that mean expenditures per pupil is $2,895.10 and the mean student-faculty ratio is 31.27 with standard deviations of 790.4 and 9.62, respectively. For purposes of exposition, assume an unrealistically large increase of $1,000 in expenditures per pupil. According to their regression results (Table 4, p. 105), this increase would raise the average college entrance examination score by 20 points or by about 0.1 standard deviation (Table 2, p. 103). This is equivalent to moving the median student to the 54th percentile (assuming that the scores are normally distributed). A reduction in the student-faculty ratio of ten, that is, by about one-third, would increase the average examination score by 11 points, an even smaller effect. Thus, as the title of the paper by Hanushek (1981), "Throwing Money at Schools," suggests, this policy would not be effective despite its enormous cost.

Alternatively, Register and Grimes (Table 4, p. 105) report that taking an additional mathematics course increases the college entrance examination score by 81 points; taking the college preparatory curriculum increases the score by 65 points; and improving the student's grade point average from, say, C to B, increases the examination score by 76 points. These changes would take the median student to somewhere between the 65th and 85th percentile. These measures require hard work on the part of the student, good teaching by the faculty, and strong motivation by both. That is exactly what the U.S. educational system needs.

JOURNAL OF LABOR RESEARCH Volume XII, Number 3 Summer 1991

Page 2: Collective bargaining, teachers, and student achievement: Comment

298 J O U R N A L OF L A B O R R E S E A R C H

N O T E

*The views expressed in this comment are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the Economic Council of Canada.

R E F E R E N C E S

Hanushek, Eric A. ' 'Throwing Money at Schools." Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 1 (Fall 1981): 19-44.

Register, Charles A., and Paul W. Grimes. "Collective Bargaining, Teachers, and Student Achieve- ment ." Journal of Labor Research 12 (Spring 1991): 99-109.