PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Andrew J. Houtenville AU - Karen Smith Conway TI - Parental Effort, School Resources, and Student Achievement AID - 10.3368/jhr.43.2.437 DP - 2008 Mar 31 TA - Journal of Human Resources PG - 437--453 VI - 43 IP - 2 4099 - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/43/2/437.short 4100 - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/43/2/437.full SO - J Hum Resour2008 Mar 31; 43 AB - This article investigates an important factor in student achievement—parental involvement. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS), we estimate a value-added education production function that includes parental effort as an input. Parental effort equations are also estimated as a function of child, parent, household, and school characteristics. Our results suggest that parental effort has a strong positive effect on achievement that is large relative to the effect of school resources and is not captured by family background variables. Parents appear to reduce their effort in response to increased school resources, suggesting potential “crowding out” of school resources.