In this article, we explore whether the evaluation instruments used in the teacher selection process in Peru are good predictors of teacher effectiveness. To this end, we estimate teacher value-added (TVA) measures for public primary school teachers and test their relationship with Peru's results of two rounds of the teacher evaluation (i.e., a…

This paper reviews overall student performance as well as the performance of student subgroups on the assessment system developed in response to the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 (MERA), the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). Comparing students in Massachusetts to students in the rest of the United States or against…

Over the last two decades, the school system in England has evolved from a local authority (LA) led-system to a system in which today nearly half of all schools have been academised. As academisation has progressed, the Government has promoted the formation of multi-academy trusts (MATs) (House of Commons Education Committee, 2017; Department for…

This report is an updated version of analyses undertaken in previous years (Gill and Crawford, 2016; Gill, 2017; Gill, 2018) looking at the impact of the introduction of new accountability measures (Progress 8) on the qualifications and subjects taken by students at the end of Key Stage 4 (KS4). The focus of this report is on changes to the uptake…

This paper studies whether pupil performance gains achieved by autonomous schools--specifically academy schools in England--can be attributed to the strategic exclusion of poorly performing pupils. In England there have been two phases of academy school introduction, the first in the 2000s being a school improvement programme for schools serving…

Why do some students learn more in some schools than others? One consideration receiving growing attention is school management. To study this, researchers need to be able to measure school management accurately and cheaply at scale, and also explain any observed relationship between school management and student learning. This paper introduces a…

This report is an updated version of an analysis undertaken last year (Gill, 2017) which looked at the impact of the introduction of new accountability measures (Attainment 8 and Progress 8) on the qualifications and subjects taken by students at the end of Key Stage 4 (KS4). It adds in data from the 2016/17 academic year, which was the second…

The recent introduction of new accountability measures in English schools, such as Progress 8, may have had an impact on the qualifications and subjects taken by students and offered by schools in England. The main headline measure by which schools are judged has been changed from the proportion of students achieving 5 or more GCSE grades A* to C…

London schools continue to constitute an extraordinary "success story." By common consent, the government school system in London achieves extremely good results compared to the rest of England, and students from disadvantaged backgrounds do particularly well. In 2014, the authors sought to document and provisionally explain the London…

Serbia's education system performs well compared to other countries in the Western Balkans. There have been improvements in access to education and Serbia has undertaken major institutional reforms in recent years, such as the introduction of achievement standards at the end of compulsory education, teacher standards and a school evaluation…

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) examines what students know in reading, mathematics and science, and what they can do with what they know. It provides the most comprehensive and rigorous international assessment of student learning outcomes to date. Results from PISA indicate the quality and equity of learning…

Performance measurement in the public sector is largely based on objective metrics, which may be subject to gaming behaviour. This paper investigates a novel subjective performance evaluation system where independent inspectors visit schools at very short notice, publicly disclose their findings and sanction schools rated fail. First, I…

Education is an area that is highly devolved in the UK, and the fact that all four constituent countries have pursued very different policies in the recent past provides a good testing ground to undertake a comparative review of the merits or otherwise of the education reforms that have taken place. There is, of course, an important policy context…

The authors analysed school performance data to review how well disadvantaged pupils achieve in academy chains. They included chains only if they had at least three academies in 2013, and two sponsored secondary academies for the whole period from September 2010 to July 2013. This means that academies are included in our analysis only when there…

The BRIGHT program was designed to improve the educational outcomes of children in Burkina Faso. It focused on girls in particular and was implemented in 132 rural villages throughout the 10 provinces of the country in which girls' enrollment rates were lowest. It consisted of constructing primary schools with three classrooms and implementing a…