Wilson D, (2004)

‘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.
  

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