‘Which ranking? The impact of a ‘value added’ measure of secondary school performance’
Public Money and Management, 24 (1): 37-45
Analyses the likely impact of the new ‘value added’ school performance indicator (introduced to UK secondary school performance tables in 2003).
Raw test result indicators have been criticised on the grounds that they may be measuring differences in schools’ intakes as well as differences in their performance.
The value added indicator incorporates a proxy for intake (performance at age 14), so should better isolate the actual performance of a school with regard to the progress of its pupils between age 14 and 16.
Key results:
Uses a national dataset of exam results to show that the key pre-2002 performance indicator (the percentage of pupils gaining 5 or more GCSEs at grade C or above) is not highly correlated with the new value added indicator.
Focuses on the Bristol LEA, and shows that the ranking of schools in league tables is highly sensitive to the performance indicator used.
Concludes that the value added indicator does provide a more accurate measure of school performance and hence should help parental choice – with the caveat that a single indicator representing a school average value added score, may not be sufficiently informative.
