Who wins and who loses from school accountability? The distribution of educational gain in English secondary schools

Simon Burgess (), Carol Propper, Helen Slater and Deborah Wilson

The Centre for Market and Public Organisation from The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK

Abstract: In 1988 the UK government introduced greater accountability into the English state school sector. But the information that schools are required to make public on their pupil achievement is only partial. The paper examines whether accountability measures based on a partial summary of student achievement influence the distribution of student achievement. Since school ratings only incorporate test results via pass rates, schools have incentives to improve the performance of students who are on the margin of meeting these standards, to the detriment of very low achieving or high achieving pupils. Using pupil level data for a cohort of all students in secondary public sector schools in England, we find that this policy reduces the educational gains and exam performance in high stakes exams of very low ability students.

Keywords: school accountability; high stakes exams; educational value added (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D23 I20 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2005-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hrm and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (29)

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Working Paper: Who wins and who loses from school accountability? The distribution of educational gain in English secondary schools (2005)
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