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This paper aims to discuss the issues surrounding educational monitoring systems.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to discuss the issues surrounding educational monitoring systems.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is a general review of the situation in Greece.
Findings
This paper suggests that a superior educational monitoring system aiming to alleviate educational and social inequalities as well as discrepancies between schools and/or between classrooms would rely on both attainment and progress criteria, as these criteria operate differently and allow to bring into the fore different aspects of problems/educational inadequacies.
Originality/value
The benefits and pitfalls associated with the employment of different criteria for educational monitoring are discussed, so that a new monitoring system can be suggested for the Greek setting of public primary and secondary schools.
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Keywords
Penny Lacey and Jeanette Scull
There has been a policy for including pupils with severe, profound and multiple learning difficulties in mainstream schools in England since the 1980s. However, effective…
Abstract
There has been a policy for including pupils with severe, profound and multiple learning difficulties in mainstream schools in England since the 1980s. However, effective inclusive education has proved to be very difficult to achieve in practice. Currently, there is a mixed economy of special and mainstream schools offering inclusive education, and we argue that the place of education is less important than the quality of that education. Ideally, pupils with S/PMLD would be educated in their own local communities, alongside their non-disabled peers, but this situation is not yet established in English schools.
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David Marsden and Richard Belfield
The introduction of performance-related pay with performance management in the state school sector of England and Wales represents a considerable change in the school management…
Abstract
The introduction of performance-related pay with performance management in the state school sector of England and Wales represents a considerable change in the school management system. After 2000, all teachers were subject to annual goal setting performance reviews. Experienced teachers were offered an extended pay scale based on performance instead of seniority, and to gain access to the new upper pay scale, teachers had to go through a ‘threshold assessment’ based on their professional skills and performance. This paper reports the results of a panel survey of classroom and head teachers which started in 2000 just before implementation of the new system, and then after one and after four years of operation. We find that both classroom and head teacher views have changed considerably over time, from initial general scepticism and opposition towards a more positive view, especially among head teachers by 2004. We argue that the adoption of an integrative bargaining approach to performance reviews explains why a growing minority of schools have achieved improved goal setting and improved pupil attainments as they have implemented performance management. Pay for performance has been one of the measures of organisational support that head teachers could bring to induce changes in teachers’ classroom priorities. We argue that the teachers’ case shows that a wider range of performance incentives than previously thought can be offered to employees in such occupations, provided that goal setting and performance measurement are approached as a form of negotiation instead of top-down.
Pallavi Banerjee and Luke Graham
The skillsets of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) graduates are widely recognised to be important for economic prosperity. At the same time, it is broadly…
Abstract
Purpose
The skillsets of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) graduates are widely recognised to be important for economic prosperity. At the same time, it is broadly accepted that in England there is a need to increase the number of people studying STEM degree courses and working in STEM. However, despite decades of interventions post-16, STEM participation rates remain lower than projected requirements. Some research reports suggest a lack of positive attitudes towards these subjects and aspirations amongst some social groups. As these debates continue, official reports such as those released by the Department for Education show these patterns from the labour market and higher education (HE) extend to both attainment and participation in science and math in school.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, the authors summarise the authors' findings from the analysis of official reports, policy documents and major research reports focussing on attainment in school science and math and post-compulsory STEM participation.
Findings
The authors identify the problematic ways in which STEM subject choices are made across the student life cycle and then discuss how the leaky pipeline metaphor can be ambiguous and needs to be used with caution.
Research limitations/implications
Some aspects identified here warrant further research and will be of particular interest to researchers, practitioners and policymakers.
Originality/value
In this new report, the authors identify the problematic ways in which STEM subject choices are made across the student life cycle in England and then discuss how the leaky pipeline metaphor can be ambiguous and needs to be used with caution.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the willingness of households to pay for academic and deprivation-compensating components of the Contextual Value Added (CVA) indicator…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the willingness of households to pay for academic and deprivation-compensating components of the Contextual Value Added (CVA) indicator of school quality used in England in order to locate themselves in the catchment area of state schools. Deprivation-compensating school performance, defined as the difference in the disadvantaged intake between two schools with the same academic performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical analysis, based on data drawn from three independent UK data sources, used parametric and non-parametric analysis approaches. The analysis conducted separately for primary and secondary schools, because household behaviour can differ between these two levels of education.
Findings
Consumers are willing to pay for houses in the catchment area of primary and secondary schools with high academic achievement, as measured by the mean score; whereas, the component of the CVA indicating deprivation-compensating aspects of school performance is found to have a positive effect only on the price of houses in the catchment area of primary schools in London; its impact on the price of houses elsewhere is mostly negative.
Practical implications
The analysis in this study suggested that the recently adopted practice of using CVA as a measure of school quality in England can encourage government and Local Authorities to pay more attention to raising the deprivation-compensating aspects of school performance of their schools.
Originality/value
This is the first study to explore the value which households attach to deprivation-compensating outcomes, at a given level of academic performance using the CVA indicator.
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