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Signaling The Competencies Of High School Students To Employers, John H. Bishop
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
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[...]
Vocational Education For At-Risk Youth: How Can It Be Made More Effective?, John H. Bishop
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
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
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
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 …
Workforce Preparedness, John H. Bishop
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 …
Job Performance, Turnover And Wage Growth, John H. Bishop
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
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 …
The Incidence Of And Payoff To Employer Training: A Review Of The Literature With Recommendations For Policy, John H. Bishop
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 …
The Productivity Consequences Of What Is Learned In High School, John H. Bishop
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 …
Are Early Investments In Computer Skills Rewarded In The Labor Market? , Ferran Mane, John H. Bishop
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.
Is The Test Score Decline Responsible For The Productivity Growth Decline?, John H. Bishop
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.
Employer Training And Skill Shortages: A Review Of The State Of Knowledge With Recommendations For Future Research By The Department Of Labor, John H. Bishop
Employer Training And Skill Shortages: A Review Of The State Of Knowledge With Recommendations For Future Research By The Department Of Labor, John H. Bishop
John H Bishop
"This report proposes that the Department of Labor undertake a program of research designed to inform the policy debate related to skill shortages and the role of employer training in ameliorating them. The paper reviews the currently available evidence and then proposes new research on seven questions."
Does The Targeted Jobs Tax Credit Create Jobs At Subsidized Firms?, John H. Bishop, Mark Montgomery
Does The Targeted Jobs Tax Credit Create Jobs At Subsidized Firms?, John H. Bishop, Mark Montgomery
John H Bishop
This paper uses the results of a survey of more than 3500 private employers to determine whether use of the Targeted Jobs Tax Credit (TJTC) alters the level of a fIrm's employment and/or whom the fInn hires. We estimate that each subsidized hire generates between .13 and .3 new jobs at a participating fIrm. Use of the program also appears to induce employers to hire more young workers (age 25 and under). Our results suggest, however, that at least 70% of the tax credits granted employers are payments for workers who would have been hired even without the subsidy. Such …
The Motivation Problem In American High Schools, John H. Bishop
The Motivation Problem In American High Schools, John H. Bishop
John H Bishop
American high school students devote much less time and energy to their studies than the students of other nations. The cause of the lack of motivation is the lack of rewards for studying hard and for taking rigorous courses. This occurs for four reasons. First, the u.S. economy fails to give academic achievement its due reward in the labor market and rewards instead credentials that signify time spent, rather than competencies acquired. In most other countries credentials are more closely related to competencies obtained, so school achievement is a more important determinants of prestige and income as an adult than …
What's Wrong With American Secondary Schools: Can State And Federal Governments Fix It?, John H. Bishop
What's Wrong With American Secondary Schools: Can State And Federal Governments Fix It?, John H. Bishop
John H Bishop
[Excerpt] The poor performance of American students is sometimes blamed on the nation's "diversity". Many affluent parents apparently believe that their children are doing acceptably by international standards. This is not the case. In Stevenson, Lee and Stigler's (1986) study of 5th grade math achievement, the best of the 20 classrooms sampled in Minneapolis was outstripped by every single classroom studied in Sendai, Japan and by 19 of the 20 classrooms studied in Taipeh, Taiwan. The nation's top high school students rank far behind much less elite samples of students in other countries. In mathematics the gap between Japanese and …
Some Thoughts On The Cost Effectiveness Of Graduate Education Subsidies, John H. Bishop
Some Thoughts On The Cost Effectiveness Of Graduate Education Subsidies, John H. Bishop
John H Bishop
[Excerpt] How much should doctorate training be subsidized? The answer proposed is, "Doctorate training should be subsidized to the extent and only to the extent that it produces externality or public benefits – i.e. benefits received by people other than the one receiving the diploma." This value judgment derives from three propositions: (1) In general, an adult knows better than anyone else what is best for himself; (2) the price (measured in both time and money) he is willing to pay for graduate education is the best measure of how much he values it relative to other offerings; and (3) …
Why Are Wage Profiles So Flat During The First Year On A Job?, John H. Bishop, Suk Kang
Why Are Wage Profiles So Flat During The First Year On A Job?, John H. Bishop, Suk Kang
John H Bishop
This paper presents evidence that productivity net of general training costs rise 4 or 5 times more rapidly than wage rates during the first 2 years on a job. This occurs for three reasons. First, sorting, high job search costs and the reputational damages that result from premature separations cause workers to prefer front loaded compensation packages which reduce the likelihood of involuntary terminations. Second, due to progressive income taxation and poor access to credit, workers discount the future more heavily than employers. Front-loading compensation is, therefore, a relatively cheap way for employers to attract top quality new hires. Finally, …
Occupational Competency As A Predictor Of Labor Market Performance, John H. Bishop
Occupational Competency As A Predictor Of Labor Market Performance, John H. Bishop
John H Bishop
[Excerpt] The paper examines the suitability of occupational competency measurement as a device for enhancing the accountability of vocational education programs. In order for occupational competency tests to be used as program performance measures, they must be demonstrated to be valid predictors of labor market outcomes like earnings and wage rates and of job performance in appropriate occupations. The paper undertakes this task.
Scientific Illiteracy: Causes, Costs And Cures, John H. Bishop
Scientific Illiteracy: Causes, Costs And Cures, John H. Bishop
John H Bishop
[Excerpt] This article examines the causes of the learning deficits in science, math and technology, evaluates their social costs and then recommends policy measures for remedying the problems identified. Following the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Science for All Americans report, I define the domain of "science" very broadly to include mathematics and technology along with the natural sciences. To avoid confusing readers accustomed to the narrower definition of science, broadly defined science is referred to as science, mathematics and technology.
Why Students Don't Study: How You Can Make Studying Pay Off For Them, John H. Bishop
Why Students Don't Study: How You Can Make Studying Pay Off For Them, John H. Bishop
John H Bishop
American high school students devote much less time and energy to their studies than the students of other nations. The cause of the lack of motivation is the lack of rewards for studying hard and for taking rigorous courses. This occurs for four reasons. First, the U.S. economy fails to give academic achievement its due reward in the labor market and rewards instead credentials that signify time spent, rather than competencies acquired. In most other countries credentials are more closely related to competencies obtained, so competencies acquired rather than just time spent are a more important determinant of prestige and …
Employment Testing And Incentives To Learn, John H. Bishop
Employment Testing And Incentives To Learn, John H. Bishop
John H Bishop
Employment tests predict job performance because they measure or are correlated with a large set of malleable developed abilities which are causally related to productivity. Our economy currently under-rewards the achievements that are measured by these tests. Consequently, economic incentives to study hard in high school are minimal and this absence of incentives has contributed to the low levels of achievement in math and science. The paper concludes with a discussion of ways in which employment tests can strengthen incentives to learn.
The Federal Role In Education Reform, John H. Bishop
The Federal Role In Education Reform, John H. Bishop
John H Bishop
[Excerpt] The analysis of the causes of the American apathy regarding teaching and learning has important implications for the curriculum. Many of the weaknesses of math and science curricula--the constant review and repetition of old material, the slow pace and minimal expectations--are adaptations to the low level of effort most students are willing to devote to these subjects. When considering proposed revisions of the curriculum, one must remember that motivating students to take tough courses and to study hard must be a central concern.
Vocational And Academic Education In High School: Complements Or Substitutes, Suk Kang, John H. Bishop
Vocational And Academic Education In High School: Complements Or Substitutes, Suk Kang, John H. Bishop
John H Bishop
[Excerpt] A number of blue ribbon-panels have called for increases in the number academic courses required for graduation from high school and for lengthening the school day and the school year. Most states have adopted the first of these recommendations but not the second. With the amount of time a student spends in school remaining constant, increases in the number of required academic courses force reductions elsewhere. Which activities should be reduced? Should the reduction be made in study halls, music and fine arts,physical education, and life skills courses or should it come in vocational education? The answer to this …
Do Empoyers Share The Costs And Benefits Of General Training?, John H, Bishop
Do Empoyers Share The Costs And Benefits Of General Training?, John H, Bishop
John H Bishop
This paper presents evidence that during the first year or so of a worker's tenure, wages rise more slowly than productivity net of training costs when training is predominantly general and that many employers are, in effect, induced to share the costs and benefits of general on-the-job training with their employees. This occurs for three reasons. First, sorting, high job search costs and the reputational damages that result from premature separations make a dismissed worker's next best alternative decidedly unattractive and this causes workers to prefer front loaded compensation packages which reduce the likelihood of involuntary terminations. Second, since most …
Improving Education: How Large Are The Benefits? How Can It Be Done Efficiently? , John H. Bishop
Improving Education: How Large Are The Benefits? How Can It Be Done Efficiently? , John H. Bishop
John H Bishop
[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).
Overeducation, John H. Bishop
Overeducation, John H. Bishop
John H Bishop
According to manpower requirements economists, "overeducation" occurs when an individual has more schooling than is "required" by their job. Studies have found that men (but not women) who exceed the schooling norm for their job by 4 or more years are more dissatisfied with their current job and more likely to look for a better one, but that they are not more likely to be politically alienated or to support left wing causes. Individuals whose schooling achievement (competence in reading and math) exceeds the norm for their job are significantly more productive than coworkers. This implies that a greater supply …
Do Some Employers Share The Costs And Benefits Of General Training?, John H. Bishop, Suk Kang
Do Some Employers Share The Costs And Benefits Of General Training?, John H. Bishop, Suk Kang
John H Bishop
[Excerpt] One of the central propositions of the human capital theory of on-the-job training is that workers pay all the costs and receive all the benefits of general training (see Ehrenberg and Smith 1996, Filer, Hammermesh and Rees 1996, Borjas 1996, Kaufman 1986). Since general training raises a worker's ability to be productive in other organizations as well as the one providing the training, the training firm must pay a wage commensurate with the trained worker's new higher level of productivity if they are to prevent the loss of their trained workers. Since the workers, not the firm, get the …
The Worsening Shortage Of College Graduate Workers, John H. Bishop, Shani Carter
The Worsening Shortage Of College Graduate Workers, John H. Bishop, Shani Carter
John H Bishop
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projections of occupational employment growth have consistently underpredicted the growth of skilled occupations. BLS currently projects that professional, technical and managerial jobs will account for 44.5 percent of employment growth between 1988 and 2000, while we project they will account for 70 percent of employment growth. Between March 1988 and March 1991 these occupations, in fact, accounted for 87 percent of employment growth. The BLS's projections of the supply/demand balance for college graduates have also been off the mark--predicting a surplus in the 19808 when in fact relative wage ratios for college graduates were rising …