Assessing the Value-Added of Schools: Enhancing Fairness and Equity

The previous chapter presented a summary of the main issues surrounding student assessment options, and considered the challenges and opportunities regarding the ENLACE assessment in Mexico. For education systems that conduct periodic standardised student assessments, however, performance data provide an opportunity not only to present a cross-sectional “snapshot” of where students are performing based on raw test scores, but also to explore student growth over time. Evidence shows that students’ backgrounds can largely influence performance (McCall, Kingsbury and Olsen 2004 OECD, 2008). Assessments that fail to account for this run the risk of having the top and low performers merely reflect the socio-economic conditions of students and families, as well as linguistic or ethnic characteristics.