IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jorssa/v172y2009i4p835-851.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The limitations of using school league tables to inform school choice

Author

Listed:
  • George Leckie
  • Harvey Goldstein

Abstract

Summary. In England, so‐called ‘league tables’ based on examination results and test scores are published annually, ostensibly to inform parental choice of secondary schools. A crucial limitation of these tables is that the most recent published information is based on the current performance of a cohort of pupils who entered secondary schools several years earlier, whereas for choosing a school it is the future performance of the current cohort that is of interest. We show that there is substantial uncertainty in predicting such future performance and that incorporating this uncertainty leads to a situation where only a handful of schools’ future performances can be separated from both the overall mean and from one another with an acceptable degree of precision. This suggests that school league tables, including value‐added tables, have very little to offer as guides to school choice.

Suggested Citation

  • George Leckie & Harvey Goldstein, 2009. "The limitations of using school league tables to inform school choice," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 172(4), pages 835-851, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jorssa:v:172:y:2009:i:4:p:835-851
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-985X.2009.00597.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-985X.2009.00597.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-985X.2009.00597.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Afshartous & Michael Wolf, 2007. "Avoiding ‘data snooping’ in multilevel and mixed effects models," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 170(4), pages 1035-1059, October.
    2. Stephen W. Raudenbush & JDouglas Willms, 1995. "The Estimation of School Effects," Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, , vol. 20(4), pages 307-335, December.
    3. Harvey Goldstein & David J. Spiegelhalter, 1996. "League Tables and Their Limitations: Statistical Issues in Comparisons of Institutional Performance," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 159(3), pages 385-409, May.
    4. John F. Y. Brookfield, 2001. "Predicting the future," Nature, Nature, vol. 411(6841), pages 999-999, June.
    5. Harvey Goldstein & Michael J. R. Healy, 1995. "The Graphical Presentation of a Collection of Means," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 158(1), pages 175-177, January.
    6. Harvey Goldstein & Sally Thomas, 1996. "Using Examination Results as Indicators of School and College Performance," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 159(1), pages 149-163, January.
    7. Sheila M. Bird & Cox Sir David & Vern T. Farewell & Goldstein Harvey & Holt Tim & Smith Peter C., 2005. "Performance indicators: good, bad, and ugly," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 168(1), pages 1-27, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Isabella Sulis & Mariano Porcu, 2015. "Assessing Divergences in Mathematics and Reading Achievement in Italian Primary Schools: A Proposal of Adjusted Indicators of School Effectiveness," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 122(2), pages 607-634, June.
    2. Deborah Wilson & Anete Piebalga, 2008. "Accurate performance measure but meaningless ranking exercise? An analysis of the English school league tables," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 07/176, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    3. Anders Skrondal & Sophia Rabe‐Hesketh, 2009. "Prediction in multilevel generalized linear models," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 172(3), pages 659-687, June.
    4. David Afshartous & Michael Wolf, 2007. "Avoiding ‘data snooping’ in multilevel and mixed effects models," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 170(4), pages 1035-1059, October.
    5. George Leckie, 2022. "A celebration of Harvey Goldstein’s lifetime contributions: Memories of working with Harvey Goldstein on educational research and statistics," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 185(3), pages 758-762, July.
    6. Nicholas Tibor Longford, 2016. "Decision Theory Applied to Selecting the Winners, Ranking, and Classification," Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, , vol. 41(4), pages 420-442, August.
    7. Giuseppina Guagnano & Maria Rita Sebastiani, 2018. "Away from Dissatisfaction, Closer to Well-Being: A Multidimensional Synthetic Measure," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 136(3), pages 977-997, April.
    8. Pickery, Jan, 2002. "Contextual effects on the vote in Germany: A multilevel analysis," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Institutions and Social Change FS III 02-202, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    9. Bruno Arpino & Arnstein Aassve, 2014. "The role of villages in households’ poverty exit: evidence from a multilevel model for rural Vietnam," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 2175-2189, July.
    10. repec:lan:wpaper:991 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. David I. Ohlssen & Linda D. Sharples & David J. Spiegelhalter, 2007. "A hierarchical modelling framework for identifying unusual performance in health care providers," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 170(4), pages 865-890, October.
    12. Sylvia Richardson, 2022. "Statistics in times of increasing uncertainty," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 185(4), pages 1471-1496, October.
    13. Adnett, Nick & Bougheas, Spiros & Davies, Peter, 2002. "Market-based reforms of public schooling: some unpleasant dynamics," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 323-330, August.
    14. Jill Johnes, 2006. "Measuring Efficiency: A Comparison of Multilevel Modelling and Data Envelopment Analysis in the Context of Higher Education," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 75-104, April.
    15. Nick Adnett & Peter Davies, 2005. "Competition between or within schools? Re-assessing school choice," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 109-121.
    16. Luis Alejandro Lopez-Agudo & Oscar David Marcenaro Gutierrez, 2016. "Identifying effective teachers: The case study of Spain," Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación volume 11, in: José Manuel Cordero Ferrera & Rosa Simancas Rodríguez (ed.), Investigaciones de Economía de la Educación 11, edition 1, volume 11, chapter 18, pages 349-366, Asociación de Economía de la Educación.
    17. Li Mingliang & Tobias Justin, 2005. "Bayesian Modeling of School Effects Using Hierarchical Models with Smoothing Priors," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(3), pages 1-33, September.
    18. Kathleen Carey, 2000. "A multilevel modelling approach to analysis of patient costs under managed care," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(5), pages 435-446, July.
    19. Mathieu Goudard & Michel Lubrano, 2013. "Human Capital, Social Capital And Scientific Research In Europe: An Application Of Linear Hierarchical Models," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 81(6), pages 876-903, December.
    20. J Taylor, 2007. "The impact of the specialist schools programme on exam results," Working Papers 582526, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    21. Maria Ferrão, 2012. "On the stability of value added indicators," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 627-637, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jorssa:v:172:y:2009:i:4:p:835-851. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rssssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.