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acknowledged. Any errors, opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF, the Fisher Center, or any of my advisors. Good Principals or Good Peers?

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This essay reviews progress in empirical economics since Leamer’s (1983) critique. Leamer highlighted the benefits of sensitivity analysis, a procedure in which researchers show how their results change with changes in specification or functional form. Sensitivity analysis has had a salutary but not a revolutionary effect on econometric practice. As we see it, the credibility revolution in empirical work can be traced to the rise of a design-based approach that emphasizes the identification of causal effects. Design-based studies typically feature either real or natural experiments and are distinguished by their prima facie credibility and by the attention investigators devote to making the case for a causal interpretation of the findings their designs generate. Design-based studies are most often found in the microeconomic fields of Development, Education, Environment, Labor, Health, and Public Finance, but are still rare in Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics. We explain why IO and Macro would do well to embrace a design-based approach. Finally, we respond to the charge that the design-based revolution has overreached.

The culture-only (0 % genetic–100 % environmental) and the hereditarian (50% genetic–50 % environmental) models of the causes of mean Black–White differences in cognitive ability are compared and contrasted across 10 categories of evidence: the worldwide distribution of test scores, g factor of mental ability, heritability, brain size and cognitive ability, transracial adoption, racial admixture, regression, related life-history traits, human origins research, and hypothesized environmental variables. The new evidence reviewed here points to some genetic component in Black–White differences in mean IQ. The implication for public policy is that the discrimination model (i.e., Black–White differences in socially valued outcomes will be equal barring discrimination) must be tempered by a distributional model (i.e., Black–White outcomes reflect underlying group characteristics). Section 1: Background Throughout the history of psychology, no question has been so persistent or so resistant to resolution as that of the relative roles of nature and nurture in causing individual and group differences in cognitive ability (Degler, 1991;

Much of the traditional and prevailing dogmas surrounding ‘factors’ affecting students ’ experiences and outcomes of schooling throughout their primary and secondary years – especially socio-cultural and socio-economic factors – are now understood to be products of methodological and statistical artefact, and amount to little more than ‘religious’ adherence to the moribund ideologies of biological and social determinism. Moreover, post-modernist perspectives espoused by academics promoting the deconstruction of gender-specific pedagogy and ‘middle-class’ curricula, are equally unhelpful. Above all, a good deal of this ‘discourse ’ is not supported by findings from evidence-based research. In this paper, key findings are presented highlighting ‘real’ effects from recent and emerging local and international research on educational effectiveness. For example, whereas students ’ literacy skills, general academic achievements, attitudes, behaviors and experiences of schooling are influenced by their background and intake characteristics – the magnitude of these effects pale into insignificance compared with class/teacher effects. That is, the quality of teaching and learning provision are by far the most salient influences on students’ cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes of schooling –

widespread school segregation in the United States created inequality of educational opportunity. This study examines whether racial and socioeconomic segregation, which is on the rise in the United States, is still contributing to the achievement differences among students. The study used data from the National Education Longitudinal Survey of 1988 to estimate multilevel models of achievement growth between Grades 8 and 12 in mathematics, science, reading, and history for a sample of 14,217 students attending a representative sample of 913 U.S. high schools. The study found that the average socioeconomic level of students ’ schools had as much impact on their achievement growth as their own socioeconomic status, net of other background factors. Moreover, school socioeconomic status had as much impact on advantaged as on disadvantaged students, and almost as much impact on Whites as on Blacks, raising questions about the likely impact of widespread integration. The impact of socioeconomic composition was explained by four school characteristics: teacher expectations, the amount of homework that students do, the number of rigorous courses that students take, and students ’ feelings about safety. The results suggest that schools serving mostly lower-income students tend to be organized and operated differently than those serving more-affluent students, transcending other school-level differences such as public or private, large or small. This article then addresses the question of whether such school characteristics can be changed by policies to reform schools and funding systems versus policies to desegregate schools. The social composition of the student body is more highly related to achievement, independent of the student’s own social background, than is any school factor. FColeman et al., 1966, p. 325

Performance standards have been at the center of recent debate on educational reform. Many states have implemented new performance standards, often based on student test scores, and a district’s state aid is sometimes linked to its success in meeting the standards (see Clotfelter and Ladd, 1996). National politicians have debated the merits of a nationwide testing program, which

provided exceptional research assistance. The usual caveat applies. 1 Other explanations for the achievement gap range from the genetic inferiority of minorities (Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, 1994) to active discrimination on the part of teachers or schools (Elizabeth Haller, 1985). 265 Fifty years after the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, racial disparities in achievement are a robust empirical reality. Black children enter kindergarten lagging behind white children, and these differences grow throughout the school years (James S. Coleman et al., 1966; Fryer and Steven D.