Schoolhouses and Courthouses: Does Court-Driven School Reform Deliver?

Since the late 1980s, state court judges across the country have derived authority from the "education clauses" of their state constitutions, deemed state funding for K–12 schools inadequate, and required states to channel vast new sums into education. The underlying assumption is that more resources will lead to better outcomes. Indeed, increased funding has led to additional programs and personnel and to new and improved facilities--but has it led to commensurate gains in student achievement? If not, what would it take for these investments to deliver? Stanford University's Eric A. Hanushek and Alfred A. Lindseth, a senior partner in the law firm of Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, will discuss these and related questions, drawing from their recent volume, Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and Statehouses: Solving the Funding-Achievement Puzzle in America's Public Schools (Princeton University Press, 2009). Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, will offer a response. AEI's director of education policy studies Frederick M. Hess will moderate.

About the Author

 

Frederick M.
Hess



  • An educator, political scientist and author, Frederick M. Hess studies a range of K-12 and higher education issues. He is the author of influential books on education including “The Same Thing Over and Over,” “Education Unbound,” “ Common Sense School Reform,” “ Revolution at the Margins” and “Spinning Wheels,” and he pens the Education Week blog, Rick Hess Straight Up. His work has appeared in scholarly and popular outlets such as Teachers College Record, Harvard Education Review, Social Science Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, American Politics Quarterly, Chronicle of Higher Education, Phi Delta Kappan, Educational Leadership, U.S. News & World Report, National Affairs, The Washington Post, New York Times, The Atlantic and National Review. He has edited widely cited volumes on education philanthropy, stretching the school dollar, the impact of education research and No Child Left Behind.  He serves as executive editor of Education Next, as lead faculty member for the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program, on the review boards for the Broad Prize in Urban Education and the Broad Prize for Public School Charters as well as on the boards of directors of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, 4.0 SCHOOLS and the American Board for the Certification of Teaching Excellence. A former high school social studies teacher, he has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University, Rice University and Harvard University. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University as well as an M.Ed. in Teaching and Curriculum.


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  • Email: rhess@aei.org
  • Assistant Info

    Name: Lauren Aronson
    Phone: 202-862-5904
    Email: lauren.aronson@aei.org
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