Education Next – Eric A. Hanushek
“The Coleman Report, “Equality of Educational Opportunity,” is the fountainhead for those committed to evidence-based education policy. Remarkably, this 737-page tome, prepared 50 years ago by seven authors under the leadership of James S. Coleman, still gets a steady 600 Google Scholar citations per year. But since its publication, views of what the report says have diverged, and conclusions about its policy implications have differed even more sharply. It is therefore appropriate—from the Olympian vantage point a half century provides—not only to assess the Coleman findings and conclusions but also to consider how and where they have directed the policy conversation. It must be said from the outset that the Coleman team relied on a methodology that was becoming antiquated at the time the document was prepared. Almost immediately, econometricians offered major critiques of its approach. But even with these limitations, as an education-policy research document, the report was breathtakingly innovative, the foundation for decades of ever-improving inquiry into the design and impact of the U.S. education system.”(more)