Volume 8, Number 2 (Spring) 1973
Perl, Lewis J. 1973. "Family Background, Secondary School Expenditure, and Student Ability." Journal of Human Resources 8(2):156-180.
Data on a large sample of high school seniors are used to estimate the relationship between ability test scores and various dimensions of educational input. The inputs examined include measures of each student's family background, the background of other students at the high school attended, and components of expenditure per student at the high school attended. The results suggest that: (1) a number of components of educational expenditure are significantly related to ability test scores, (2) both school integration and compensatory education are capable of altering the relation between ability and family background, and (3) school integration by family income level raises the ability test performance of low-income students while lowering that of high-income students by an equivalent or greater amount.
The author is an Assistant Professor in the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University. The research on which this study is based was funded by the Carnegie Commission on the Future of Higher Education and Ford Foundation Grant #68-267. The author gratefully acknowledges this financial support and helpful comments of Lloyd Ulman, Fred Balderston, and Albert Fishlow on an earlier description of this research.
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