Leckie, G;
Goldstein, H;
(2017)
The evolution of school league tables in England 1992-2016: 'Contextual value-added', 'expected progress' and 'progress 8'.
British Educational Research Journal (BERJ)
, 43
(2)
pp. 193-212.
10.1002/berj.3264.
Preview |
Text
Leckie_et_al-2017-British_Educational_Research_Journal.pdf - Published Version Download (414kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Since 1992, the UK Government has published so‐called ‘school league tables’ summarising the average General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) ‘attainment’ and ‘progress’ made by pupils in each state‐funded secondary school in England. While the headline measure of school attainment has remained the percentage of pupils achieving five or more good GCSEs, the headline measure of school progress has changed from ‘value‐added’ (2002–2005) to ‘contextual value‐added’ (2006–2010) to ‘expected progress’ (2011–2015) to ‘progress 8’ (2016–). This paper charts this evolution with a critical eye. First, we describe the headline measures of school progress. Second, we question the Government's justifications for scrapping contextual value‐added. Third, we argue that the current expected progress measure suffers from fundamental design flaws. Fourth, we examine the stability of school rankings across contextual value‐added and expected progress. Fifth, we discuss the extent to which progress 8 will address the weaknesses of expected progress. We conclude that all these progress measures and school league tables more generally should be viewed with far more scepticism and interpreted far more cautiously than they have often been to date.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The evolution of school league tables in England 1992-2016: 'Contextual value-added', 'expected progress' and 'progress 8' |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1002/berj.3264 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3264 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Social Sciences, Education & Educational Research, contextual value-added, expected progress, progress 8, school league tables, ENGLISH SCHOOLS, PERFORMANCE, CONSEQUENCES, LIMITATIONS, INCENTIVES, CHOICE |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health > Population, Policy and Practice Dept |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10058758 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
