Eric Hanushek, who participated in the Show-Me Institute’s conference on school finance, appears this week on Econ Talk. He discusses several court cases, and compares U.S. public education with education systems in East Asia.

Hanushek makes some particularly good points during the last 10 minutes of the podcast, when he describes how current funding systems reward failure by directing resources to failing schools — in essence, giving schools an incentive to fail. He also discusses the complex relationship between choice and accountability and explains why one can’t succeed without the other.

The podcast and a list of related readings are available online.