Human Capital: The Issues, Enablers and Blocks in Institutional Change.

In the last decade, unprecedented rates of job growth and improvements in adult education were accompanied by increased numbers of children living below the poverty line and a decline in real income for most families. There are several possible explanations: (1) a kind of job growth that produces disincentives for a significant number of people to invest in human capital; (2) an excessively narrow public and political definition of human capital and, therefore, less-than-optimal human capital investments; and (3) the absence of a mutually reinforcing "mix" of institutions (policies) that would provide greater incentives for public and private human capital investments and produce a greater return on investments made. This paper suggests that narrow policy definitions of human capital (as educational attainment) and institutional change (as school reform) are barriers to necessary human capital production. Public policy education can contribute to human capital production by providing the relatively accessible audience of local educational policymakers with research findings and knowledge that counter prevailing misconceptions about effective public education. The policy education process also includes encouraging an approach that integrates education and local community and economic development efforts. Contains 30 references. (JAT)