Richard Murnane on the importance of quality education for upward mobility

Richard Murnane, Thompson Research Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, discusses his early education, his studies on the relationship between a quality education and upward mobility, and his thoughts for equipping children to thrive in a changing economy.  

In this episode, Murnane and Ashenfelter discuss:

• Murnane’s early life and the impact his father, a high school principal who stressed the importance of education, had on him. “...father was an immigrant… but [he]... got to the University of New Hampshire [and it] totally changed his life. So, the idea that education could play an important role in upward social mobility was central to my growing up...” 
• His undergraduate years at Williams College, how he spent a year in Germany on a Fulbright Scholarship, and lessons learned as a high school math teacher at a Jesuit school during the Vietnam War before his graduate career at Yale. 
• How he collected his own data for his dissertation, an unusual practice for economists in the 1970s, to explore the impact of school resources, especially teachers, on student achievement. “...there were enormous differences among teachers in their effectiveness… I also found [that a] kid’s parents’ education made a big difference.”
• Teaching at the University of Pennsylvania and Yale before joining Harvard as a permanent faculty member. “I got to teach about education and about the role of economics in contributing to good education, and that was a real joy for 30 years.”
• Coauthoring a book withJohn Willets: “Methods Matter: Improving Causal Inference in Educational and Social-Science Research.”  “...we realized that there were good books on econometrics, but they weren't really tailored to the needs of our students, and many of them were too technical, so we decided we should write one.”
• What he considers his most important findings: “... high quality education is a critical path to upward mobility, even more important than families having money.”
• His thoughts on why merit-based pay is not an effective strategy for improving schools.
• His research with Frank Levy on principles for equipping children to thrive in a changing economy. “...a critical feature of the assessment was how well individuals were able to work productively with people from different backgrounds.” 

Richard Murnane earned his Ph.D. from Yale in 1974. He is the Juliana W. and William Foss Thompson Professor of Education and Society at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is renowned for his significant contributions to the study of relationships between the U.S. economy and the U.S. educational system. "The Work Goes On"—a podcast produced by Princeton's Industrial Relations Section (IR Section)—is an oral history of industrial relations and labor economics hosted by Princeton's Orley Ashenfelter.