School resources and student achievment: worldwide findings and methodological issues

Abstract

The issues raised in the Education Production Function literature since the US 1966 Coleman Report have fuelled high controversy on the role of school resources in relation to student performance. In several literature reviews and some self estimates, Erik Hanushek (1986, 1997, 2006) systematically affirms that these two factors are not associated one to another – neither in the US nor abroad. In recent cross-country analyses, Ludger Woessmann (2003; 2005a; 2005b) links international differences in attainment to institutional differences across educational systems – not to resourcing levels. In the opposite direction, Stephen Heyneman and William Loxley (1982, 1983) tried to demonstrate in the 1980’s that, at least for low income countries, school factors seemed to outweigh family characteristics on the determination of students’ outcomes – although other authors show evidence that such a phenomenon may have existed only during a limited period of the 20th Century. In the 1990s, meta-analyses raised the argument that school resources were sufficiently significant to be regarded as pedagogically important. The turn of the Century witnessed a new movement: the recognition that endogenous determination of resource allocation is a substantial methodological issue. Therefore, efforts have been made to incorporate the decision-making processes that involve families, schools and policy-makers in economic models. This implies changes in research designs that may affect the direction of future policy advices patronised by international development and educational organisations.