EDUCATIONAL-ACHIEVEMENT AND THE COST OF BUREAUCRACY

It is the purpose of this paper to test the following proposition: holding other important factors constant, does the size of the educational bureaucracy have any effect on the efficiency of school systems in producing educational achievement? The empirical results suggest that this is indeed the case. Using 1984 data from the states, we find that public school students in states having relatively large educational bureaucracies are less likely to graduate from high school, and those who do tend to perform more poorly on standardized achievement tests. © 1991.