OECD Education Working Papers
This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected studies drawing on the work of the OECD Directorate for Education. Authorship is usually collective, but principal writers are named. The papers are generally available only in their original language (English or French) with a short summary available in the other.
- ISSN: 19939019 (online)
- https://doi.org/10.1787/19939019
School Accountability, Autonomy, Choice, and the Equity of Student Achievement
International Evidence from PISA 2003
School systems aspire to provide equal opportunity for all, irrespective of socio-economic status
(SES). Much of the criticism of recent school reforms that introduce accountability, autonomy, and choice
emphasizes their potentially negative consequences for equity. This report provides new evidence on how
national features of accountability, autonomy, and choice are related to the equality of opportunity across
countries. We estimate whether student achievement depends more or less on SES in school systems
employing these institutional features. The rigorous micro-econometric analyses are based on the PISA
2003 data for more than 180,000 students from 27 OECD countries.
The main empirical result is that rather than harming disadvantaged students, accountability,
autonomy, and choice appear to be tides that lift all boats. The additional choice created by public funding
for private schools in particular is associated with a strong reduction in the dependence of student
achievement on SES.
External exit exams have a strong positive effect for all students that is slightly smaller for low-SES
students. The positive effect of regularly using subjective teacher ratings to assess students is substantially
larger for low-SES students. The effect of many other accountability devices does not differ significantly
by student SES. School autonomy in determining course content is associated with higher equality of
opportunity, while equality of opportunity is lower in countries where more schools have autonomy in
hiring teachers. Autonomy in formulating the budget and in establishing starting salaries is not associated
with the equity of student outcomes. Inequality of opportunity is substantially higher in school systems that
track students at early ages.
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