Reporting GCSE performance by groups is fraught with problems
This month the government is publishing school GCSE attainment data separately for groups of low (below L4 at KS2), middle (L4 at KS2) and high (above L4 at KS2) attaining pupils. This approach is to be commended and we recommended it in academic papers here and here because it provides information to parents on how a …
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“All we want is a good local school”
Rebecca Allen and Simon Burgess
Twoarticles in the Times Education Supplement (TES) last Friday nicely illustrate the debate on school choice and school competition.
The first reports results from the British Social Attitudes Survey (BSAS), citing research by Sonia Exley, at the LSE, showing that most respondents thought that school choice was not a priority.
A familiar refrain in the school choice debate is that “all we want is a good local school”. There should be little doubt that this is indeed what most parents do want. We have used data from the Millennium Cohort Study to estimate the relative weights that parents place on the characteristics of primary schools. Unsurprisingly, school academic quality is positively valued, and distance between home and school is highly negatively valued. This makes a lot of sense: many parents have to make this journey four times a day. So, yes, people, do…
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What are Free Schools for?
Rebecca Allen and Simon Burgess
As children start their lessons in the 24 Free Schools opening this week, a new experiment begins in English education. The founders and staff will have been working hard for this day over many months and no doubt all will wish the pupils and staff well. There has been a lot of politicalpassion on both sides of the debate, but what is the significance of the Free Schools experiment likely to be?
It is not an experiment because of the “free” part – Free schools will enjoy essentially the same freedoms as Academies do. It is an experiment because now anyone can propose to set up a school, and attract the same per-pupil funding from the state as other local schools. Anyone can propose … but the vetting process to check whether the applicants are “fit and proper” to run a school is…
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Revising the Draft School Admissions Code
Rebecca Allen and Simon Burgess
From next week, officials in the Department for Education are going to be busy sifting through responses to the consultation exercise around the new School Admissions Code.
Two important issues in the proposed code relate to the priority given to school staff, and to random allocation. We believe that as they currently stand, these provisions will set back the goals that the Government has set for its education policy.
1. Prioritising the children of staff
Paragraph 1.33 of the code says: “If admissions authorities decide to give priority to children of staff, they must set out clearly in their admission arrangements how they will define staff and on what basis children will be prioritised.”
This suggests that admissions authorities are to be allowed to prioritise the children of staff, reversing the policy of recent Admissions Codes.
One group very likely to be included in…
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Where do star teachers come from? (via CMPO Viewpoint)
Rebecca Allen and Simon Burgess This Sunday sees the culmination of the National Teachers Awards weekend, with a televised presentation of prizes. This seems very appropriate – in terms of the impact on learning outcomes, hardly anything matters as much as having a good teacher. This is not an empty platitude – research shows …
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Two observations on the National Audit Office’s Evaluation of Academies (via CMPO Viewpoint)
Simon Burgess and Rebecca Allen Much of the media comment on today’s National Audit Office’s (NAO) report on academies has rightly focussed on issues of governance and financial management. In this post, we dig a little deeper into some of the other claims in the report. We are less optimistic than the NAO – less …
Using Lotteries in School Admissions (via CMPO Viewpoint)
This blog post on CMPO's website (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/blog) gives an overview of our latest research into school admission reforms in Brighton and Hove. Rebecca Allen and Simon Burgess This week about half a million students are starting their first term in secondary school. For many of their families, the process of choosing that school will have …
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Why give free school meals to pupils who are not eligible?
I don’t know if a well-balanced and nutritious meal, rather than a Mars bar and chips, improves a child’s concentration, test scores or even their health. So, I cannot comment generally on the value of giving anyone a state-subsidised meal. However, if you want to use schools to improve the nutrition of children in poverty, …
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Copying Swedish Free School Reforms
England’s schools are currently facing the prospect of the most radical reform since the dismantling of selective schooling four decades ago with the Conservatives looking to replicate Sweden’s free school reforms. The work of Swedish economists used to support the argument that choice and competition has improved academic performance, is however less unambiguous than the …
Becky Allen 