Cash for Answers: The Association between School Performance and Local Government Finance

One of the reasons that the publication and content of secondary school performance tables in England is such a controversial political issue is the introduction of quasi-market models in public services in the 1980's and 1990's. These models assume that the outcome of the educational process in schools can be separated from the inputs - the background of the pupils - and that schools are able to affect poor performance. Any research that shows that the examination results are associated with parental background attacks the concept of choice that is a major rationale for these models, and confronts the quasi-market approach, since it suggests that the outcomes are exogenous to the educational process. The paper suggests that the present approach to performance indicators is contradictory and confused. The paper offers a comprehensive examination of the association between socio-economic background and school examination results at the local authority level. It uses three measures of socio-economic status derived from local government finance, and shows a strong association between these and the five published indicators of educational performance, in an analysis covering the whole of England for the last three years. The evidence strongly suggests that that the tables reflect the background of pupils rather than the effects of educational professionals and local education authorities. It also offers critiques of the alternative indicators of improvement and ‘value-addition’, which are currently being developed. Since these performance tables are an element in the new performance-related pay of teachers, the study implies a critique of both UK educational policy and policy on pay. It also suggests the current trend to expand performance indicators to other public sectors is misdirected.