Charles Kenny

The Ultimate Resource is Peaking

A CGD Working Paper. Julian Simon argued that more people were associated with more prosperity: human talents were the “ultimate resource” and the force behind rising living standards. The last 30 years have been consistent with that view. But, globally, we are making fewer workers—and, more importantly, fewer potential innovators. In rich countries, human capital is growing considerably more slowly than in the past. Meanwhile innovation per researcher appears to be dropping as the population of researchers ages, while it takes longer to get to the knowledge frontier and more collaboration to expand it. Combined with the fact we are increasingly intolerant of risk and increasingly desirous of innovations in sectors where it is particularly hard to increase productivity, it is little surprise that productivity growth is indeed declining. To extend our two-century era of comparatively rapid progress, we need radically reduced discrimination in the global opportunity to innovate.

Your World, Better

Your World, Better: Global Progress and What You Can Do About It is a book written for the smart and engaged middle school student.  It looks at how America and the World has changed since the reader's parents and grandparents were young: what has happened to health and wealth, homes, school and work, rights and democracy, war and the environment, happiness and depression.   It talks about the things that have gotten better, the sometimes-intensifying challenges that remain, and what readers can do about them. 

Your World Better is optimistic, but it doesn’t shy away from the considerable problems we face: from inequality through discrimination and depression to climate change and infectious threats.  It is meant to encourage kids to help make the world better themselves: tip them from a sense of powerlessness toward action, not into complacency.

The pdf of Your World Better is available to download here for free.  Or you can buy a kindle version for 99 cents or a hard copy for $8.10 on Amazon (or six pounds on UK Amazon here).  Any author royalties from those sales will be donated to UNICEF (so far, a bit more than $800 has been donated, thanks!). I talk about the book to Marian Tupy for the Human Progress podcast and to two (fantastic) middle schoolers for NPR.  Then I did a Slack chat with five middle schoolers for Slate. A CGD discussion about the book and talking to children about progress is here. And here's a fifteen minute video about the book (or try it on Youtube).  I am happy for the *text* (not pictures) to be copied or redistributed in any medium, and/or remixed or transformed for any purpose, with attribution.

"Everyone, no matter how old, or how young, should read this. I’m sending to grandkids and their parents." --Nancy Birdsall

"Great read for middle school kids who want to understand how the world is getting better -- and can become even more so!" --Parag Khanna

"How can you pass up a free book?! And one that is so relevant for today? If you know a middle school student or teacher, pass this along! Incredibly fresh and honest." --Karen Schulte 

"Kids are taught that everything's getting worse and we're all doomed--factually incorrect, and a message that leads to cynicism & fatalism, not constructive action. An antidote: Charles Kenny's new Your World, Better..." --Steven Pinker

 

Why America lost so many of its black teachers

In the Economist: desegregation led to the rise of teacher testing, which has depressed the number of African American teachers.

The benefits of pre-schooling may extend for generations

Me, in The Economist, on pre-K.

Meeting the Sustainable Development Goal Zero Targets: What Could We Do?

A working paper for CGD with Mallika Snyder.  The Sustainable Development Goals are an ambitious set of targets for global development progress by 2030 that were agreed by the United Nations in 2015. Amongst the 169 targets are a number that call for universal access, universal coverage, or universal eradication. These include ending extreme poverty and malnutrition alongside preventable under-5 deaths, ending a number of epidemics, providing universal access to sexual and reproductive health services, primary and secondary education, a range of infrastructure services, and legal identification. These have often been labeled “zero targets.” A review of the literature on meeting these zero targets suggests very high costs compared to available resources, but also that in many cases there remains a considerable gap between financing known technical solutions and achieving the outcomes called for in the SDGs. In some cases, we (even) lack the technical solutions required to achieve the zero targets, suggesting the need for research and development of new approaches.

Does More Education Lead to Less Religion?

Nope.  For @BW.

Child Labor Is Still Prevalent Around the World. Here's How to Eliminate It

Getting richer reduces child labor.  For @BW.

Why Education Spending Doesn't Lead to Economic Growth

They don't learn anything, they don't learn anything useful and there's nothing useful to do with what they've learned. In @BW.

The Best Way to Spread Democracy Abroad? Welcome Foreign Students

Yay, Fulbright.  In @BW.

Learning Curve

Private schools are a sign of hope in the developing world.  In @FP (my last regular column).

Why Johnnies Around the World Can’t Read

The crisis of learning in the developing world for @BW.  Its the short version of this CGD report.

For Better Schools, Start With the Evidence

A column for @BW about Justin Sandefur and Lant Pritchett's paper on RCT replicability.

Schooling Is Not Education! Using Assessment to Change the Politics of Non-Learning

A report of The CGD Study Group on Measuring Learning Outcomes --lots of kids are learning nothing in school.  Let's test them to see how little they know...  Here's a video of the launch event where Lant Pritchett tries to land me in trouble.

The Real Reason America's Schools Stink

On US education policy (I don't think America's schools stink). in @BW.

No Teacher Left Behind

An FP column on improving education in the developing world.

Learning About Schools in Development

Learning About Schools in Development is a CGD Working Paper.  It is a longer version of this, which itself was a revised version of this.   There has been considerable progress in school construction and enrollment worldwide. Paying kids to go to school can help overcome remaining demand-side barriers to enrollment. Nonetheless, the quality of education appears very poor across the developing world, limiting development impact. Thus we should measure and promote learning not schooling. Conditional cash transfers to students on the basis of attendance and scores, school choice, decentralization combined with published test results, and teacher pay based on attendance and performance may help. But learning outcomes are primarily affected by the broader environment in which students live, suggesting a learning agenda that stretches far beyond education ministries.

We Don't Need No Universal Education?

We Don't Need No Universal Education? was published online by the Harvard International Review.  The piece notes that there are multiple links in the chain between building schools and an economic impact to education, and argues that some of those links are often very weak, indeed.  It concludes that we might want to spend more time on improving the quality of education before we worry overmuch about its universal extent.

Learning About Schools in Development

Learning About Schools in Development is an unpublished short paper.  It briefly discusses a number of links in the chain between school construction and improvements in the quality of life –between construction and enrollment, between enrollment and learning, and between schooling and both economic growth and health outcomes.  Given what is suggested by the evidence regarding strength of those links, it asks ‘is education for all a good idea?’ and ‘can we improve the quality of education?’   While it suggests the answer to these two questions is ‘yes,’ that is dependent at the least on a significant, potentially politically complicated, focus on the question of quality.

The Global Expansion of Primary Education

The Global Expansion of Primary Education is an unpublished short paper.  In 1830, near-universal primary education was limited to a few states in the United States, and the great majority of the World’s children received no formal education at all. By 1870, somewhere between 12 and 23 percent of the World’s children aged 5-14 were enrolled in a school, and by 1950 this figure had increased to 47 percent. By 2002, global net primary enrollment was around 87 percent, with a gross enrollment ratio of around 100 percent. For countries in Western Europe and Western offshoots including the US and Canada, the period of rapid growth began as early as the 1800s, while for much of the rest of the World, it would take at least another 100-150 years to see the takeoff towards universal primary education. This paper discusses the timing and speed of the transition around the World and discusses the causal mechanisms behind the growth to global ubiquity of basic education.

A Short Review of Information and Communication Technologies and Basic Education in LDCs

A Short Review of Information and Communication Technologies and Basic Education in LDCs: What is Useful, What is Sustainable? was co-authored with Jeremy Grace and published in the International Journal of Educational Development 23 (2003). Information and communication technologies such as radio and television have long been used in education. The advent of the technology of the Internet has created pressure for Internet access in primary and secondary schools across the world. This paper reviews some of the available evidence on the impact and cost of such technologies in developing countries. It concludes that while there is strong evidence for the efficacy and efficiency of interactive radio instruction, the evidence on the impact of computer-supported education remains mixed, and costs are prohibitive for many LDCs (less developed countries).