An Analysis of the Value Added by Secondary Schools in England: Is the Value Added Indicator of Any Value?*
| Author | Anh Ngoc Nguyen,Jim Taylor |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0084.2006.00159.x |
| Date | 01 April 2006 |
| Published date | 01 April 2006 |
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An Analysis of the Value Added by Secondary
Schools in England: Is the Value Added
Indicator of Any Value?*
Jim Taylor and Anh Ngoc Nguyen
Department of Economics, Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
(e-mail: jim.taylor@lancaster.ac.uk; a.nguyen@lancaster.ac.uk)
Abstract
This paper argues that the value added score published for all publicly funded
secondary schools in England is an unreliable indicator of school perform-
ance. A substantial proportion of the between-school variation in the value
added score is accounted for by factors outside the school’s control. These
factors include several pupil-related variables such as the proportion of pupils
on free school meals, the authorized absence rate of pupils and the proportion
of pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds. The value added score is also
related to several school characteristics such as the school’s admission policy
and its subject specialism. The main policy recommendation of this paper is
that the value added score should not be used as a performance indicator, but
should be used to gain a better understanding of why the value added score
varies between schools.
I. Introduction
Successive UK governments since the early 1990s have introduced a series
of reforms that have led to the creation of a quasi-market in education
*The authors are grateful to the Department for Education and Skills for providing the data used in
this paper. Anh Nguyen is grateful to the ESRC for support under its Post-doctoral Fellowship
Scheme. We are also grateful for helpful comments at the staff seminar in the Department of
Economics at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and to John Mangan, Colin Wren, Lynne
Carruthers and an anonymous referee for very helpful comments on an earlier draft. The authors
alone are responsible for all errors and omissions and for the opinions expressed in this paper.
JEL Classification numbers: H4, I21, I28.
OXFORD BULLETIN OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS, 68, 2 (2006) 0305-9049
203
Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2006. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
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