Family Life Key to Academic Success? - James Heckman

Description: Complete video at: fora.tv Economist James Heckman argues that public schooling has very little to do with increasing or decreasing educational gaps among American students. "The major determinant of school performance ... is the family environment that supports the children in the school," he says. ----- Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman delivers a talk titled "Schools, Skills, and Synapses: An Economists Perspective on Early Childhood Education and Development" at the 2009 Chautauqua Institution Summer Lecture Series. - Chautauqua Institution James J. Heckman is the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at The University of Chicago where he has served since 1973 and where he directs the Economics Research Center and the Center for Social Program Evaluation at the Harris School. His work on the use of microeconomics for development of public policy garnered the 2000 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (with Daniel McFadden). Heckman's recent research focuses on human development and lifecycle skill formation, with a special emphasis on the economics of early childhood. This work has given policymakers important new insights into such areas as education, job-training programs, minimum-wage legislation, anti-discrimination law and civil rights.