The search for a fairer way of comparing schools’ examination results

Abstract

The basic question we address in this paper is a straightforward one. How can ‘fairer’ comparisons be made between the results of individual secondary schools? This is a question which has preoccupied researchers of school effectiveness over much of the past decade. It is one, however, which has assumed still greater importance in the light of the recent requirement of the 1980 Education Act, in a climate of demands for greater ‘accountability’ in the public sector, that schools should publish their examination results. The paper explores some of the prevailing approaches to judging schools’ effectiveness, with particular reference to the use and interpretation of public examination results as measures of school performance, and utilizes data that have been collected from a small number of local education authorities to demonstrate the current ‘state‐of‐the‐art’. It concludes that although judgements about schools’ performance and effectiveness abound, appropriate frameworks for the comparison of their effectiveness have yet to be constructed in the vast majority of local education authorities. It follows from this proposition that judgements of the schools’ and teachers’ effectiveness in these authorities must, at present, be inappropriately grounded.

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