Question

1) What are the roles of government in the market for education?

2) The test scores of US children are low in comparison to other countries with similar levels of wealth and development. This cannot be explained by spending, as the United States spends more per child than most other countries. What are two explanations for the lagging achievement of US students?

Answer 1

1. Today, education is largely paid for and funded almost exclusively by government or non-profit institutions. This condition has gradually developed and is now taken so much for granted that little specific focus is no longer devoted to the reasons for the special treatment of education even in countries where organizational and intellectual enterprise is largely open. The consequence was an indiscriminate prolongation of policy liability.

A prosperous and democratic society is unlikely without the broad acceptance by most people of some common set of values and without a minimum degree of literacy and education. Learning is a part of both. Consequently, the benefit from a child's education accrues not only to the child or his parents but to other members of the society; by fostering a healthy and democratic society, my child's education contributes to the welfare of others. However, it is not feasible to identify the individuals (or families) who have benefited or the money value of the benefit, and thus to charge for the services rendered. Therefore the "neighborhood influence" is important.

Only certain forms of education can be justified on those grounds by government subsidies. They do not justify, to anticipate, subsidizing purely vocational education that increases the student's economic productivity but does not train him for citizenship or leadership. To draw a sharp line between these two forms of education is clearly extremely difficult. Some general education adds to the student's economic value— however, literacy has ceased to have a marketable value only in modern times and in a few countries.

2. The U.S. ranks fifth in per student spending. Spending more per student on Austria, Luxembourg, Norway and Switzerland alone. Only put this in context: The Slovak Republic spends $53,000 per student, ranking similarly to the U.S. $115,000 is invested by the U.S. OECD countries

The U.S. scored below the math average and ranks 26th out of 34 OECD countries. The U.S. math score does not vary significantly from the following countries: Norway, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Russia, Slovak Republic, Lithuania, Sweden, and Hungary.

Fifteen per cent of variation in American performance is explained by student socio-economic differences. More than 10 per cent of Finland, Hong Kong, Japan, and Norway score variations are due to socio-economic differences. The U.S. also has a lower than average "resilient student" level.