Improving Education: How Large are the Benefits? How can it be Done Efficiently?

Abstract

[Excerpt] The Problem: The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reports that 92 percent of high school seniors cannot "integrate specialized scientific information" and do not have "the capacity to apply mathematical operations in a variety of problem settings." (NAEP 1988a p. 51, 1988b p. 42) According to the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey, only 23 percent of adults are able to reliably determine correct change using information from a menu (National Center for Education Statistics, 1994 Table 1.3).