Value-added Indicators Research Articles

An Investigation of U.S. Undergraduate Business School Rankings Using Data Envelopment Analysis With Value-Added Performance Indicators

Bloomberg Businessweek ranks U.S. undergraduate business programs annually. These rankings provide a convenient overall measure of quality, which is important in today's environment of concern about higher education costs and employment after graduation. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has advantages over previous regression approaches in characterizing value added. The authors use a DEA approach to estimate relative efficiencies based on starting salaries and recruiter surveys, identifying some schools as overachievers relative to their Bloomberg Businessweek rankings. In particular, DEA-based reranking highlights the ability of some public institutions facing high student–faculty ratios to turn out well-regarded graduates with high starting salaries.

In Search of Value Added in the Case of Complex School Effects

In traditional studies on value-added indicators of educational effectiveness, students are usually treated as belonging to those schools where they took their final examination. However, in practice, students sometimes attend multiple schools and therefore it is questionable whether this assumption of belonging to the last school they attended can be made. Furthermore, the schools attended earlier by students might have long-term effects on their subsequent performance. Using data from Dutch primary and secondary schools, multiple membership models and cross classification multilevel models were estimated to explore the effects of student mobility and long-term primary school effects on the estimated value added of secondary schools. Long-term effects of primary schools did not change the estimated value added of secondary schools. On the other hand, allowing students to be a member of multiple secondary schools changed the estimated effectiveness of these schools especially for schools in the middle range of effectiveness.

Associations Between Student Achievement and Student Learning

Accountability systems that measure student learning rather than student achievement have the potential to more accurately evaluate school quality. However, one methodological concern has remained surprisingly absent from discussions of value-added modeling. Standardized assessments that exhibit either positive or negative correlations between achievement and achievement gains will produce value-added estimates that contradict actual patterns of school effectiveness. This study uses student-level state assessment data to explore the ramifications of these relationships for value-added indicators. Within this state’s assessment, the author finds strong negative relationships between achievement and subsequent achievement gains—initially low-scoring students appeared to gain more than their high-achieving peers. Because students are not randomly assigned to schools by achievement, these child-level correlations strongly influence school-level value-added estimates, in some cases quite dramatically. However, the manifestation of these relationships varies across four different analytic techniques, depending on how a particular approach modeled the associations between initial status and gain.

On the stability of value added indicators

This paper shows how relevant concepts in educational effectiveness can support public policy in order to improve the performance of educational systems. Specifically, value-added indicators and the property of their stability over time is addressed with reference to application to school/teacher improvement. Findings of a longitudinal study developed in Portugal concerning primary education in mathematics are presented. Variance component models are fitted in order to obtain those indicators yearly to class-school units. Results of this study reveal that value-added indicators can be a useful instrument for progressive improvement in education, particularly in countries with high rates of student retention and evasion. The novelty of this paper is to measure value added over a single year rather than all stage of schooling that refers to more than 1 year.

Value Added in English Schools

Value-added indicators are now a central part of school accountability in England, and value-added information is routinely used in school improvement at both the national and the local levels. This article describes the value-added models that are being used in the academic year 2007–8 by schools, parents, school inspectors, and other professionals in local and national governments. The article outlines the development of value-added models in England following the introduction of national testing at ages seven, eleven, and fourteen in the 1990s. It describes the current “contextual” value-added models in detail, looking at the mathematical specification of the multilevel models and discussing the practical choice of explanatory attainment and contextual variables. The article also describes various uses of the value-added models, including in the published school achievement and attainment tables and in the RAISEonline system that supports schools in their self-evaluation and development planning and informs external inspection.

Exploring the Impact of Aspects of the London Leadership Strategy

This article discusses the methodology adopted for the formative evaluation of aspects of the London Leadership Strategy (LLS). The LLS is an ambitious example of a program designed and supported by the National College of School Leadership in England (NCSL) to enhance leadership and management so as to improve the quality of education and raise standards in London schools. The evaluation adopts a mixed-methods strategy to explore impact and identify good practice. Varied sources of evidence are examined including national value-added and attainment indicators, inspection evidence, and the perceptions and experiences of participants. The evaluation focuses on the impact of LLS programs on London secondary schools and has implications for the study of the improvement of urban schools, particularly those in challenging contexts.

Book Review: Baseline Assessment and Monitoring in Primary Schools: Achievements, Attitudes and Value-Added Indicators

Book Review: Baseline Assessment and Monitoring in Primary Schools: Achievements, Attitudes and Value-Added Indicators

A Study on the Changes of Productivity and its Determinants:Based on Value-Added Indicators

A Study on the Changes of Productivity and its Determinants:Based on Value-Added Indicators

“WHAT GETS MEASURED GETS DONE”

English secondary schools operate within a performance management system, which includes league tables reporting school performance across a number of indicators. This article reports the results of an interview-based study, showing that head teachers care about their school's place in the league tables, and that they believe this system affects behaviour. The effects they identify include some unintended consequences, not necessarily related to improved overall school performance, including focusing on borderline students who can boost a pivotal indicator: the number of students gaining five A*-Cs at GCSE. This behaviour reflects, in part, the dual role played by headteachers: they are both educationalists (serving the interests of all pupils); and school marketers, concerned with promoting the school to existing and prospective parents. The behaviour is also consistent with economic theory, which predicts a focus on that which is measured, potentially at the expense of that which is important, in sectors characterised by incomplete measurement, by multiple stakeholders and containing workers with diverse objectives. We conclude that, given that performance indicators do affect behaviour, it is important to minimise unintended consequences, and we suggest how the use of value-added indicators of student performance may improve both what gets measured and what gets done in secondary schools.

Which Ranking? The Impact of a 'Value-Added' Measure of Secondary School Performance

This article analyses the impact of a value-added performance indicator (PI) on the rankings of secondary schools in the English league tables. School rankings are seen to be very sensitive to the type of PI employed, and the new value-added PI is likely to result in significant movements up and down the rankings. There is still scope for schools to try and game the system in order to improve their league table position. Value-added PIs reduce the incentives for schools to select their pupils, but the version currently employed in England may create an incentive for schools to distort effort away from those pupils at the top end of the distribution. The value-added PI is shown to provide a more accurate measure of school performance. However, in order for parents to be effective drivers for improvement in the education market, it may also be necessary for the government to measure the impact of differential value-added across different student types.

Vers un indicateur de croissance économique locale pour l'évaluation des politiques de développement rural

Résumé L’objectif du travail engagé est de réaliser une évaluation quantitative de la politique européenne de développement rural en Bourgogne et en Bretagne (programme de l’objectif 5b, 1991-1993). Dans ce papier, on propose l’utilisation de données fiscales, disponibles à l’échelle communale, pour construire un indicateur de croissance économique locale, mobilisable à une échelle infra-régionale. L’information utilisée est la base brute de la taxe professionnelle, qui, sous certaines conditions, peut être considérée comme un indicateur de valeur ajoutée. Cet indicateur est analysé et validé au niveau régional, puis utilisé pour caractériser l’évolution économique des différentes catégories d’espace et des zones aidées par le programme 5b, par comparaison avec celle des zones non éligibles. Sur la période étudiée (1981-1994), on montre une amélioration relative de la situation des zones rurales fragiles de Bretagne, qu’on ne retrouve pas en Bourgogne. Cette première approche nécessite d’être prolongée, notamment pour contrôler les « biais de sélection » qu’elle est susceptible d’engendrer.

Value-added indicators of school performance: A primer

The indicators commonly used to assess school performance-average and median test scores-are highly flawed. They tend to be contaminated by student mobility and by nonschool factors that contribute to student achievement (e.g. student, family, and community characteristics and prior t achievement). They also reflect information about school performance that tends to be grossly out of date. The conceptually-appropriate indicator of school performance is the value-added indicator. The value-added indicator measures school performance using statistical model that includes, to the extent possible, of all the nonschool factors that contribute to growth in student achievement. The objective is to statistically isolate the contribition of schools to student achievement growth from these other factors. The paper defines two types of value-added indicators, the total school and intrinsic school performance indicators. The two indicators are appropriate for purposes of school choice and school accountability, respectively.

Will 'joy' in work be helped or hindered by value-added indicators? Applying Deming to education

Will 'joy' in work be helped or hindered by value-added indicators? Applying Deming to education

Measuring Added Value in Schools

The measurement of the performance of schools is complicated by the need to adjust for difference in input mix. Even fairly refined value-added indicators may fail to take account of the fact that schools may have a differential effect on the performance of different types of pupil. Rather than a single performance indicator, a system of indicators is needed. Characteristics of a good indicator system are identified.

Measuring Added Value in Schools

The measurement of the performance of schools is complicated by the need to adjust for difference in input mix. Even fairly refined value-added indicators may fail to take account of the fact that schools may have a differential effect on the performance of different types of pupil. Rather than a single performance indicator, a system of indicators is needed. Characteristics of a good indicator system are identified.