Performance tables - what are they good for (absolutely nothing?)

Professor Steve StrandInstitute of EducationUniversity of Warwick

Lambeth Raising Achievement: Making Use of Data and Good Practice Annual Conference, International House, 3

November 2011

Objectives of the session• Review the development of school performance

data in England: What are their objectives, do they meet them?

• How are performance tables (PTs) changing with the coalition government (White Paper, Nov 2010)? What is planned and what effects might the plans have?

• What are the conditions that can maximise the effective use of data for school improvement?

25 years of school performance data• What data was routinely available in the mid 1980’s

to evaluate school performance?

• All secondary schools required to publish their examination results from 1982, but no format specified, wide inconsistencies

• Widespread testing but by LA or individual school choice, rarely public

• LEA had option for inspection service but more often advisory services, no reports published, HMI typically restricted to thematic reports

The 1980’s• 1982: All secondary schools required to publish their

examination results, although the Regulations didn’t specify the precise form.

• 1987: Nationwide extension of TVEI for 14-18 year olds. Central curricula innovation was introduction of work experience. Split into local projects, carefully monitored to establish good practice – many performance indicators.

• 1988: Education Reform Act, Introduction of LMS, National testing 7-14, Governors detailed annual reports to parents, CIPFA & DES aide memoire, list of ‘100 PI’s in schools’

Sample of TVEI / CIPFA / DES PI’s

• % 5th year with 4+ GCE ‘O’ levels / CSE Grade 1 passes• % attendance• Total days exclusion• % Y11 who transfer to FTE post 16• PTR / class size by year group• % Staff qualified to degree level in their subject• % staff attendance• % school periods not taught by designated teachers• % staff involved in significant CPD• Number of formal parental complaints• % pupils whose parents attend parent consultation sessions• Capitation per pupil on books / Computers & IT / resources• Are incidents of internal vandalism increasing?• Are the schools objectives for community links being achieved?

Making sense of PIs

“Mere inspection of a list of indicators will not typically reveal all the intricacies of their inter-relationships … without a detailed knowledge of the trade off between inputs and outputs … policy making may simply be confused by these additional data”.

Mayston & Jesson (1988).

Timelines (1990’s)• May-1991 First Statutory KS1 tests published LA level (not intended)

• Nov-1992 First secondary performance tables published in England Government loose interest in PIs

• May-1993 First statutory KS3 tests

• Sep-1993 Start of secondary OFSTEDs (reports on web, summary to parents). Primary school OFSTEDs from 2004.

• May-1995 First Statutory KS2 tests

• Nov-1996 TIMSS International study (age 13) – England 16/25 in Maths ( (widely cited) 6/25 in Science (not widely cited!)

• Mar- 1997 First primary performance tables using 1996 results (England)

• Sep-1998 NLS introduced

• Sep-1998 First Statutory Baseline Assessment in Reception (age 4+)

• Jan- 1999 First OFSTED LEA Inspections

• Sep-1999 NNS introduced

• Nov-1999 First ‘Autumn Package’ published

Crucial thread of VA/CVA "Without a value-added dimension, the obvious

basis for judgement is that 'higher' scores represent better practice and 'lower' scores worse. This could lead to unwarranted complacency on the part of some schools whose pupil population comprise more able pupils and, conversely, to despair on the part of others, who, however hard they try can never expect to raise the absolute level of their pupils’ scores to those obtained in schools with more able pupils." (SEAC 1993 Dearing interim report, Annex. 5, par. 3).

Willms (1992)

analysis for 20 Scottish secondary

schools (p60)

Above/Below Floor Target 2010

Demographics Group 1 Group 2Odds-

ratio

% FSM (primary) 30% 16% 2.0

% FSM (secondary) 27% 14% 2.3

% primary in top third deprived (IDACI) 2009 77% <33% 1.7

% secondary in top third deprived (IDACI) 2009 70% <33% 1.8

% SEN KS2 28% 21% 1.5

% SEN KS4 33% 21% 1.9

Looked after KS2 & KS4 0.7% 0.4% 1.7

Persistent absence secondary (not FSM) 6% 3% 2.1

Mobility - % with >4% joining during Y6 42% 27% 2,0

BME secondary 21% 22% 1.0

CVA ? ? ?

Source: DFE (2011). Underperforming schools and deprivation: (RR141). London: DFE.

• Sep-2001 KS3 Strategy Introduced - (Pilot of science & TLF) First national targets for KS3 in 2004 (En, Ma, Sc, ICT)

• Jan- 2002 First full PLASC

• Nov-2002 First KS3 published tables First VA reported in secondary KS4 tables

• Sep-2003 Interactive AP becomes the PAT

• Jan -2004 David Milliband North England speech announces NRwS

• May-2005 Election of Labour for Third Term

• Sep-2005 NRwS (SEF, School Profile, SIA, ‘single conversation’)

• FFT exceptions reports

• Nov-2006 First CVA reported in Secondary A&A tables

• Jun- 2009 School Report Card proposed

• May-2010 Coalition Government formed

• Nov-2010 Schools White paper

• Nov-2011 CVA to be removed from tables

Timelines (2000’s)

Winning the argument, but…..• Value-added included in secondary performance

tables from 2002, but:

• ‘Median line’ methodology: ceiling effect means level 3->5 cannot show VA (similar for 5->7 KS3), introduced systematic bias against high baseline schools (Tymms, 2004)

• Prior attainment only: no other pupil / school context factors

• Narrow focus, still primarily on a single threshold measure (5*A-C)

• Absence of confidence intervals around school value-added estimates

However CVA arrived in 2006• Differentiated PA, regression methodology:

• KS1 average points score and divergence

• KS2 fine grades and divergence

• Levels 345= 48% chance 5+A*-C (1.4% of cohort) Levels 543= 75% chance 5+A*-C (0.3% of cohort)

• Pupil factors: FSM, Deprivation (IDACI), SEN, Gender, Age within year, mobility, in-care, ethnic group, EAL

• School composition

• School mean and SD of prior attainment

• With 95% confidence intervals

The aims of Performance tables1. Accountability as publically funded

institutions to government & public

2. To support parental choice of schools (market driven) aligned with open enrolment

3. To raise standards / support school improvement

1. Accountability• Strong parental support

• Parents should be able to compare one school’s performance against another (86%)

• Tests and exam results are one important measure of a school’s performance (87%)

• The performance of each school in tests and exams should be published and publically available (87%)

Nationally representative sample of 1,624 adults (including 550 parents of child 0-18) in England, November 2008. DCSF (2009). School accountability and school report card omnibus survey. DCSF-RR107. London: DCSF.

And among the media• All the major newspapers publish school (and

university) league tables (Times, Guardian, Telegraph etc).

• ”Education is a perfect media topic. It has heat and light. Heat because everybody cares about it ,and light because they all think that they understand it.” (Journalist, quoted in Earl 2001, p6).

• With such an alliance of parents and media, any Government is going to listen.

2. Parental ChoiceFactors that influenced choice of secondary %A visit to the school / open day 82Information from the school 74Other parents & carers 58Teachers 56School League/Performance tables 55Advice from previous school attended 51OFSTED / Inspectors report on the school 49Information from the LEA 36Reports in local media 36Government written information 26Government online informartion 18

Telephone survey of 3,005 parents in summer 2004. Wiseman et al (2005). London Challenge: Second survey of parents & carers 2004 (RR624). London: DfES.

Social gradient in choice• Academic outcomes was most common reason (43%)

offered by parents for wanting a place in their favoured school. But likelihood of citing ‘academic outcomes’ was significantly higher for:

• Owner Occupiers (2:1 relative to parents renting)

• Mothers in Social Class I & II (1.7:1 against manual)

• BME mothers (1.7:1 against White)

• Parents residing in London boroughs (2.5 times more likely not to apply to their nearest schools than parent in Shire LEAs)

• Increases social segregation by indirectly informing parents which schools have high concentrations of high SES students or democratises the information that high SES families are already aware of though their social networks?

2,170 parents of Y6 children in 2000. Flately, J., et al.(2001). Parents' experiences of the process of choosing a secondary school (RR 278).

3. School Improvement• Meta-studies from the US using independent

measures of attainment (NAEP, NELS) suggest a modest positive impact on average (ES=0.24), but studies provide mixed findings and tend to polarise between the extremes (Lee, 2008)

• Difficulty of disentangling school performance tables from other policies adopted at the same time (teacher certification; rewards/sanctions for schools e.g. teachers performance pay, school vouchers, school takeover threats etc.)

• But recent study from UK comparing Wales-England has had a substantial impact

The Wales ‘experiment’• Broad context is a substantial decline in Wales in

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores for maths, reading and science

Burgess, Wilson & Worth (2010)• Welsh Assembly announced it would cease publishing

secondary school performance tables in July 2001 (after exams taken). Natural experiment – otherwise similar to England in inspection regimes, exams, etc.

• Any change in school results in Wales vs. England from 2002 onwards?

• Controls for:

• prior attainment at KS3, entitled to FSM, Cohort size

• Pupil funding, population density, Church/Maintained

• Local competition (N schools with 5Km)

Results

Burgess conclusions• Decline for Wales seen for APS as well as 5+A*C &

congruent with PISA results – not gaming.

• Top 25% Welsh schools (by high PA or low poverty) not affected. Effect concentrated particularly for lowest performing schools falling furthest behind.

• Public scrutiny through PT’s puts low performing schools in England under great pressure to improve, similar schools in Wales maybe ‘coasted’

• Removal of tables did not reduced school segregation and sorting (by FSM or by KS2 score) in Wales

Unintended consequences• Excellent review by Smith (1995) on eight

unintended consequences of PIs

• In school performance tables includes:

• Gaming: C/D boundary, GNVQ equivalents, switching exam boards, SEN school action, etc.

• Depressing baseline scores

• Teaching to the test

• Selective student admissions / removing “difficult” students

• Always happens in the school up the road! Little information on whether these work in long term.

Should they stay or should they go?• One of the least evidence-based areas of school policy,

but what evidence there is suggests PTs may be a driver/energiser of improvement

• Both political left and right support, but for different reasons (Markets, FOI/Openess/Empowerment)

• Better than the alternatives? (remember the 1980’s)

• Have achieved a level of consensus among school leaders based on ‘moral’ argument around CVA and fairness: “Every school, regardless of the SES circumstances in which it operates, must have a fair opportunity of achieving a good score” DFE (2009) A school report card, par.47.

• Tamper with this at peril

How are the PT’s changing?• Addressing some of the gaming issues: In 2004, when

recognised as equivalent to GCSE, 1,882 gained level 2 passes, risen to 462,182 students in 2010 (see Wolf review). Also SEN SAP or above only.

• Ebacc- will it drive out vocational? 22% eligible in 2011, 33% in 2012 and 47% in 2013 (DFE survey of 692 schools)

• VA for low/mid/high prior attainment and for each Ebacc subject (though are PT’s the place for this? – see later)

• Widen the range of indicators (average PA, %FSM, %EAL etc). Broadly good, but remember fate of PI schemes. Some (e.g. university destinations) largely outside of schools control?

New website (GoCompare)

http://www.education.gov.uk/researchandstatistics/stats-search

Removal of CVA• Took from 1992 – 2006 to get CVA, now discarded,

why?

• “The CVA measure is difficult for the public to understand... It is morally wrong to have an attainment measure which entrenches low aspirations for children because of their background. For example, we do not think it right to expect pupils eligible for FSM to make less progress from the same starting point as pupils who are not eligible for FSM”. (DFE, 2010, Schools White Paper, p68).

Fundamental misunderstanding• Confuses student level expectations from school

level accountability. Pupils on FSM not only have lower attainment but DO make less progress at school.

• However this does not mean lower expectations for students, target setting and progress measures are not adjusted (and never were) for pupil background.

• The point is factors that are outside a schools control (gender, deprivation, EAL, ethnicity, SEN, mobility) need to be included in a school accountability indicator.

Suggested replacements• Two levels of progress – but highly subject to

threshold effects

• Alternative approach to contextualisation through “families of 10 to 15 schools with similar intakes for all regions of the country” (DFE, 2010, p76), but:

“CVA, because it is based on individual pupil characteristics and their attainment, is not prone to the biases that can be created by comparisons based on school-level similarities. We therefore believe that some form of CVA is the best means of contextualising pupil progress.” (DFE 2009, School Report Cards, par.77).

Options for schools?• Does data speak for itself, like dials on the

dashboard of a car? Does feedback always lead to improvement? Is providing data in PTs the best way of securing school improvement?

• There are a wide range of School Performance Data Services: PIPs/MidYIS/ALIS, FFT, NFER-PASS, RAISE online, LA services like Lambeth

• Data is inevitably more detailed than that needed for performance tables (see following examples) but they also offer the training & support to use the data effectively

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Value added for different groups of pupils

• Are pupils who make significantly more, or significantly less, progress:

• boys/girls, SEN, EAL?

• Different ability levels?

• joined school recently?

• Alternatively, are they pupils:

• Who missed particular classes for long periods?

• With a particular teacher?

• In a particular set?

• Who had extra support / intervention?

• Who followed a particular scheme of work?

• Whose teachers used different teaching practices?

Conclusions• Accountability and PTs are here to stay

• Wales is reintroducing: Last week all secondary schools were told which of 5 “bands” they had been placed into as part of a new accountability regime (based on raw scores, VA, attendance). Parents and the media will get the information in December 2011. A primary school model is being developed and will follow next year. (TES, 23/09/11).

• We will see more and more data published and publically available (on the web, GoCompare style) but it will be harder and harder to make sense of it

Conclusions (Continued)• The credibility of the data is key to users (Saunders,

2000), removal of CVA breaks the trust, should publically oppose this change

• Resist the shift of the entire burden from the State to schools, keep a focus on the policy issues (like EMA and equity in University entry)

• PTs can provide the incentive (if seen as fair) for both low attaining and (if CVA included) high attaining schools (avoiding complacency)

• but for SI need much more detailed data, training & support: It should be a bright future for School Performance Data services!

End of Session – Thank you

Professor Steve StrandInstitute of EducationUniversity of Warwick

steve.strand@warwick.ac.uk

Tel. (024) 7652 2197