Landmark Education Report Confirms that Schools Need More Money
A landmark series of 22 reports examining California's educational system was released this week. The two year, $3 million project, called "Getting Down to Facts," was commissioned by the governor, legislative leaders and the state education department. Many teachers and principals say the reports confirm what they've known all along: Schools with poor and minority students need more money. Educators at one struggling middle school in San Diego say that if it was up to them, they would spend all their money hiring more teachers to meet the needs of their diverse student population.
On today's Planet Money: We hear and read stories of corruption every day, but finding cold hard data on the subject is so hard that MIT economics professor, Ben Olken, had to go dig up roads in Indonesia to get some. Olken and his team set out to measure the amount of raw materials that went missing when the government gave local villagers money for projects like building roads. The study not only required the researchers to dig up roads -- but also to build a few of their own. Download the podcast; or subscribe. Music: Broken Bells' "High Road." Find us: Twitter/ Facebook/ Flickr.