Symposium on school quality and educational outcomes: Introduction

The Symposium on School Quality and Educational Outcomes contains several papers attempting to resolve conflicts in the literature on the effect of school inputs on achievement and earnings. The articles replicate past studies, reconcile their results, and/or examine their robustness to specification. The papers identify several key issues which account for major differences in findings, including whether (1) school input effects have declined secularly, (2) the analysis is conducted at the aggregate state level or the disaggregate school district or school level, and (3) family-specific effects such as those captured in sibling studies are adequately controlled.