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The Job Creation Tax Credit: Dismal Projections For Employment Call For A Quick, Efficient, And Effective Response, John H. Bishop Nov 2009

The Job Creation Tax Credit: Dismal Projections For Employment Call For A Quick, Efficient, And Effective Response, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] Given the extraordinary scope of the current economic crisis, no single policy can fully address the challenge of job creation. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has spurred job creation substantially, but the deterioration in economic prospects since it was passed demands a renewed focus on job growth in the near term. A well-designed temporary federal job creation tax credit should be an integral part of the effort to boost job growth. Besides having broad-based, bipartisan political support, the best argument for a job creation tax credit is simply that it will create almost 3 million jobs in 2010 …


Underinvestment In Employer Training: Is A Mandate To Spend On Training The Answer?, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Underinvestment In Employer Training: Is A Mandate To Spend On Training The Answer?, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

American employers and their workers under invest in employer training. Under investment occurs because training generates externalities, because the tax system is biased against training investments, and because most workers are unable to finance general training because they lack access to loans to finance consumption during periods of heavy investment in training. School based occupational training ameliorates the under investment problem somewhat but it is not a complete answer to the problem. The French approach of requiring firms to spend at least 1.4 percent of their wage bill on continuing training of employees (if they are to avoid paying a …


Signaling The Competencies Of High School Students To Employers, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Signaling The Competencies Of High School Students To Employers, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] The fundamental cause of the low effort level of American students, parents, and voters in school elections is the absence of good signals of effort and accomplishment and the consequent lack of rewards for learning. In most other advanced countries mastery of the curriculum is assessed by examinations that are set and graded at the national or regional level. Grades on these exams signal the student's achievement to employers and colleges and influence the jobs that graduates get and the universities and programs to which they are admitted. Exam results also influence school reputations and in some countries the …


Achievement, Test Scores And Relative Wages, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Achievement, Test Scores And Relative Wages, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] This article examines the causal connections between these two phenomena: changes in the academic achievement of high school graduates and changes in the payoff to college. Four specific questions are addressed. The questions and the answers generated by our examination of the data are outlined below[...]


Impacts Of Tougher Graduation Requirements On Course Selection And Learning In High School And Post High School Experiences Of Vocational Students, John H. Bishop, Ferran Mane Oct 2009

Impacts Of Tougher Graduation Requirements On Course Selection And Learning In High School And Post High School Experiences Of Vocational Students, John H. Bishop, Ferran Mane

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] The paper began with an examination of the effects of tougher graduation requirements on course taking patterns in high school. High school graduation tests reduced the number of occupational vocational courses taken by students and lowered their likelihood of becoming vocational concentrators. While this finding confirms the hypothesis we specified at the start, the rest of our findings contradict conventional wisdom and our initial hypotheses. Increased course graduation requirements did not decrease vocational course taking. Indeed, students in states with above average Carnegie unit graduation minimums took significantly more vocational education courses than students in states with low minimums. …


Toward More Valid Evaluations Of Training Programs Serving The Disadvantaged, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Toward More Valid Evaluations Of Training Programs Serving The Disadvantaged, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

The paper challenges the widespread assumption that the wage effects of federal training programs are reliable and unbiased estimates of productivity effects and social benefits. Evidence is presented that the reputations of government training programs are unreliable and that employers stigmatize those eligible for TJTC and CETA OJT contracts. Graduates of classroom training programs which are known to be funded by JTP A are likely to be similarly stigmatized. TJTC eligibles are seriously underpaid by employers and JTPA graduates may experience a similar fate. Consequently, the true effects of JTP A on the productivity of disadvantaged workers may be considerably …


Strengthening Incentives For Student Effort And Learning: Michigan’S Merit Award Program?, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Strengthening Incentives For Student Effort And Learning: Michigan’S Merit Award Program?, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] One of the primary reasons American students learn a good deal less during secondary school than students in other industrialized nations is that they devote less time and intellectual energy to the task.1 Accountability systems designed to get teachers to try harder and set higher standards will not produce more student learning if [as one high school teacher put it] “students are sitting back in their desks, arms crossed, waiting for their teachers to make them smart (Zoch, 1998, p. 70).” Learning is not a passive act; it requires the time and active involvement of the learner. In a …


The New York State Reform Strategy: Raising The Bar Above Minimum Competency, John H. Bishop , Ferran Mane Oct 2009

The New York State Reform Strategy: Raising The Bar Above Minimum Competency, John H. Bishop , Ferran Mane

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] Educational reformers and most of the American public believe that teachers ask too little of their pupils. African-American and Hispanic parents, in particular, criticize the low expectations and goals that teachers and school administrators often set for their children. These low expectations, they believe, result in watered down curricula and a tolerance of mediocre teaching and inappropriate student behavior. The result is that the prophecy of low achievement becomes self-fulfilling. The problem of low expectations is not limited to minority students or lower income communities. It’s endemic. High school subjects are taught at vastly different levels. Research has shown …


Educational Reform And Technical Education?, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Educational Reform And Technical Education?, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] Even though educational reform marches under a banner of economic renewal, the school subjects that appear to be most directly related to worker productivity-- business education, vocational education, economics, computers--have received little attention from reformers. The five "core" subjects proposed for periodic assessment are English, mathematics, science, history/civics and geography. Yet, if competitiveness is the objective, it is not clear why geography, a subject that is not taught in most American universities, has higher priority than subjects like computers, economics, management and technology? Some of the reform reports have expressed doubt about the economic benefits of vocational education (Committee …


Signaling, Incentives And School Organization In France, The Netherlands, Britain And The United States: Lessons For Education Economics, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Signaling, Incentives And School Organization In France, The Netherlands, Britain And The United States: Lessons For Education Economics, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] What causes differences in secondary school achievement across these four nations? The first two sections of the paper describe the achievement differences among the four countries and examine the proximate causes of the differentials. I conclude that these achievement differentials are caused by differences in the quality of teachers and of student time and effort inputs devoted to academic achievement.


Is Standards-Based Reform Working? … And For Whom?, John H. Bishop, Ferran Mane, Michael Bishop Oct 2009

Is Standards-Based Reform Working? … And For Whom?, John H. Bishop, Ferran Mane, Michael Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] Three presidents, the National Governors Association, numerous blue ribbon panels and national teachers unions have called for states to develop content standards for core subjects, examinations assessing student achievement aligned with the content standards and accountability mechanisms for insuring that students achieve these standards. In 1999 eighteen states had minimum competency exam (MCE) graduation requirements, 19 rewarded successful schools, 19 had special assistance programs for failing schools, 11 had the power to close down, take over or reconstitute failing schools.


Vocational Education For At-Risk Youth: How Can It Be Made More Effective?, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Vocational Education For At-Risk Youth: How Can It Be Made More Effective?, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] Minority youth and non-minority youth from economically disadvantaged backgrounds have great difficulty finding steady jobs that provide real training and advancement opportunities. In October 1986, only 32 percent of black youth who had recently dropped out of high school had a job and only 42 percent of the previous June's graduates not attending college had a job. For Hispanics, only 46 percent of recent drop outs had a job and only 65 percent of graduates not attending college had a job. While the employment rates among white youth were higher (47 percent for drop outs and 71 percent for …


Is It Wise To Try To Force Employers To Pay All The Costs Of Training At The Workplace?, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Is It Wise To Try To Force Employers To Pay All The Costs Of Training At The Workplace?, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] This article explores the effects that these regulations have on: (a) the form of labor contracts and on training outcomes such as: (b) who pays for work place training of non-exempt employees, (c) whether training is obtained at schools or firms, (d) how much training non-exempt employees get? The evidence on who gets and who pays for training is consistent with the proposition that these regulations are having the effects that economists would predict for them. Many other explanations fit the data just as well, however, so causal connections between these regulations and training outcomes cannot be proved beyond …


Are National Exit Examinations Important For Educational Efficiency?, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Are National Exit Examinations Important For Educational Efficiency?, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

“This paper analyses effects of national or provincial exit examinations on education quality. On theoretical grounds, the paper argues that such examinations should increase high school achievement, particularly in examination subjects, and that teachers and students and parents and school administrators should focus more on academic achievement when making school-quality decisions. On the negative side, exit examinations may lead to a tendency to concentrate on learning facts, rather than understanding contexts.”


Department Of Labor Testing: Seizing An Opportunity To Increase The Competitiveness Of American Industry And To Raise The Earnings Of American Workers, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Department Of Labor Testing: Seizing An Opportunity To Increase The Competitiveness Of American Industry And To Raise The Earnings Of American Workers, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] The professionalism that the American military recently exhibited in the Persian Gulf is in no small part due to care with which it selects, assigns and trains its soldiers. The military's success in preparing this highly skilled workforce was made possible by decades of research into occupational competency assessment, aptitude test development and validity research. The Department of Labor is also a world leader in the development and validation of employment aptitude tests and there is now an opportunity for this expertise to be implemented in ways that can enhance the nations's competitiveness and improve the standard of living …


Secondary Education In The United States: What Can Others Learn From Our Mistakes?, John H. Bishop , Ferran Mane, Michael Bishop Oct 2009

Secondary Education In The United States: What Can Others Learn From Our Mistakes?, John H. Bishop , Ferran Mane, Michael Bishop

John H Bishop

Secondary schools are the least successful component of the U.S. education system. Students learn considerably less than in other industrialized nations and dropout rates are significantly higher. This paper provides an explanation for this failure, describes the standards based reforms strategies that many states are implementing to attack these problems, and evaluates the success of these efforts.


Workforce Preparedness, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Workforce Preparedness, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] Concern about slackening productivity growth and deteriorating competitiveness has resulted in a new public focus on the skills and education of frontline workers. The introduction of Lean Production and Total-Quality- Management is apparently raising the cognitive demands placed on blue collar workers (Womack, Jones and Roos, 1990). Increasingly they are working in production cells in which every member of the team is expected to learn every job and to take on responsibilities formerly the sole province of supervisors, specialized technicians and industrial engineers. Higher order thinking and problem solving skills are believed to be in particularly short supply so …


Nerd Harassment And Grade Inflation: Are College Admissions Policies Partly Responsible?, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Nerd Harassment And Grade Inflation: Are College Admissions Policies Partly Responsible?, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] In the eyes of American parents, college admissions officers control the single most important gate their children will ever pass through. Nearly all parents hope their child will go to college. Perceptions of what it takes to get into preferred colleges and universities profoundly affect the courses students take, the standards teachers set and the effort students put out. Many (but not all) of the admissions selection criteria favored by American colleges and universities unwittingly create incentives for educationally dysfunctional behavior by secondary school students, teachers and administrators and by voters in school budget referendums. How can college admissions …


The Impacts Of School-Business Partnerships On The Early Labor-Market Success Of Students, John H. Bishop, Ferran Mane Oct 2009

The Impacts Of School-Business Partnerships On The Early Labor-Market Success Of Students, John H. Bishop, Ferran Mane

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] This chapter examines the effects of improved signaling of student achievement in high school on the labor market success of recent high-school graduates. The chapter is organized into three sections. In the first section, we reproduce the argument that Bishop put forth in 1985 that better signaling of student achievement to employers would improve the quality of the jobs that recent high-school graduates could obtain and strengthen incentives to learn. In the second section, we analyze longitudinal data on eight graders in 1988 and attempt to measure the effect of school-employer partnerships on their subsequent success in the labor …


Job Performance, Turnover And Wage Growth, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Job Performance, Turnover And Wage Growth, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

The paper tests and finds strong support for the hypothesis that in the nonunion sector of the economy, turnover is negatively selective on a worker's job performance. At establishments with about 17 employees, a worker who is one standard deviation (21 percent) less productive than average during the first few months on the job is 11 percentage points more likely to be laid off or fired and 7 percentage points more likely to quit during the succeeding year. At large nonunion establishments and in small labor markets, productivity has very large effects on risks of an involuntary separation but almost …


Why California Needs A High School Exit Examination System: Enrollment + Motivation + Engagement => Learning , John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Why California Needs A High School Exit Examination System: Enrollment + Motivation + Engagement => Learning , John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] The purpose of the educational enterprise is LEARNING. Engagement is essential to achieving this purpose. Students must come to school, pay attention, do homework, engage with the subject and construct their new knowledge in ways that allow them to retrieve it later. How are students induced to do all this hard work? Teachers try to make their subject interesting, but sixty–one percent of American students, nevertheless, say they “often feel bored” (OECD 2002 p. 330). Studies of time use in classrooms have found that American students actively engage in a learning activity for only about half the time they …


Privatizing Education: Lessons From Canada And Europe, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Privatizing Education: Lessons From Canada And Europe, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] Legislative proposals for vouchers for K-12 schooling have come before many legislatures and are a regular part of election year debates. Public support for vouchers is growing. When a representative sample of the population was recently asked “Do you favor or oppose allowing students and parents to choose a private school to attend at public expense?” 44 percent said yes up from 24 percent in 1993. A tax credit has even more support. When asked “Proposals are being made in a number of states to provide a tax credit that would allow parents who send their children to private …


The Incidence Of And Payoff To Employer Training: A Review Of The Literature With Recommendations For Policy, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

The Incidence Of And Payoff To Employer Training: A Review Of The Literature With Recommendations For Policy, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] The theory of on-the-job training predicts that workers should pay the full costs of training that is useful at other firms. In fact, however, workers receiving training are not paid less than other similar workers and new hires who require extra training are paid only slightly less than new hires who require less than average amounts of training. Many employers offer workers the opportunity to learn general skills such as word processing and other computer applications programs on company time. Studies of the costs and benefits of apprenticeship training programs find that employers do not recoup their investment during …


Academic Learning And National Productivity, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Academic Learning And National Productivity, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] Concern about slackening productivity growth and deteriorating competitiveness has resulted, in many nations, in a new public focus on the quality and rigor of the elementary and secondary education received by the nation's front line workers. Higher order thinking and problem solving skills are believed to be in particularly short supply so much attention has been given to mathematics and science education because it is thought that these subjects are particularly relevant to their development.


The Productivity Consequences Of What Is Learned In High School, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

The Productivity Consequences Of What Is Learned In High School, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] Another way of evaluating American performance in math and Science is to make comparisons with the upper secondary students of other nations. In the 196Os, the low ranking of American students in such comparisons was defended by citing the fact that higher proportions of American youth took the international test. This is no longer the case. Figures 1 to 4 plot the scores in Algebra, Biology, Chemistry and Physics against proportion of the 18-year old population in the types of courses to which the international test was administered. Where large proportions of the age cohort took the test, lower …


Incentives To Study And The Organization Of Secondary Instruction, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Incentives To Study And The Organization Of Secondary Instruction, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] The Problem: The scientific and mathematical competence of American high school students is generally recognized to be low. 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). There is a large gap between the science and math competence of young Americans and their counterparts overseas, particularly at the end of high school. The Americans who participated in the Second International Math Study were high school …


Are Early Investments In Computer Skills Rewarded In The Labor Market? , Ferran Mane, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Are Early Investments In Computer Skills Rewarded In The Labor Market? , Ferran Mane, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

The paper assesses the relationship between investments in computer skills by adolescents and earnings at age 26. The heaviest investors earned 9 to 16 percent more than otherwise equivalent NELS-88 classmates. The payoff to early computer skills was substantial in jobs involving intense and complex uses of computers; negligible when computers were not used at work. It was non-gaming use of computers outside of school that enhanced future earnings, not playing video/computer games—which lowered earnings. Children in low SES families invested less in computer skills and thus benefited less from the job opportunities generated by the digital revolution.


Student, Staff, And Employer Incentives For Improved Student Achievement And Work Readiness, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Student, Staff, And Employer Incentives For Improved Student Achievement And Work Readiness, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

“This article proposes a strategy for banishing mediocrity and building in its place an excellent American system of secondary education. Before a cure can be prescribed, however, a diagnosis must be made.”


Employment In Construction And Distribution Industries: The Impact Of The New Jobs Tax Credit, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Employment In Construction And Distribution Industries: The Impact Of The New Jobs Tax Credit, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

Excerpt] The New Jobs Tax Credit (NJTC) offers a tax credit of fifty percent of the first $4200 of wages per employee for increases in employment of more than two percent over the previous year. Economic theory predicts that such a tax credit should stimulate employment, decrease hours worked per week, and reduce product prices of the subsidized industries. A time series analysis of the construction, retailing, and wholesaling industries finds strong support for these hypotheses. Our results suggest that the NJTC was responsible for 150,000-670,000 of the more than 1-million increase in employment that occurred between mid-1977 and mid-1978 …


Is The Test Score Decline Responsible For The Productivity Growth Decline?, John H. Bishop Oct 2009

Is The Test Score Decline Responsible For The Productivity Growth Decline?, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] The test score decline between 1967 and 1980 was large (about 1.25 grade-level equivalents) and historically unprecedented. New estimates of trend in academic achievement, of the effect of academic achievement on productivity and of trend in the quality of the work force are developed. They imply that if test scores had continued to grow after 1967 at the rate that prevailed in the previous quarter century, labor quality would now be 2.9 percent higher and 1987 GNP $86 billion higher.