Making Schools More Efficient: an Economic Perspective

The costs of public education have spiraled in recent years, while the general quality of schooling has been subject to mounting criticism. The media are filled with stories on the appalling proficiency levels of pupils in the most fundamental areas-reading, writing, and arithmetic. At the same time, budget freezes and cutbacks have become the norm. To reduce costs, large cities such as Washington, New York, and Chicago have employed increases in class size, slashes in interscholastic sports and other extracurricular activities, decreases in staff through attrition and reductions in hiring and rehiring, and cuts in pupil transportation. At the extreme, some school systems have actually had to close down entirely. Although budgets are diminishing, however, demands for higher quality education and greater opportunity for the disadvantaged remain.