Analysis of complementary methodologies for the estimation of school value added

Abstract

This paper analyses the value added (VA) of a sample of Portuguese schools using two methodologies: data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the methodology used presently by the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). The VA estimates obtained by the two methods are substantially different. This reflects their different focus: DEA emphasizes on best-observed performance, whereas the DCSF method reveals average performance. The main advantage of the methodology used by the DCSF is its simplicity, although it confounds pupil effects with school effects in the estimation of school VA. In contrast, the DEA methodology can differentiate these effects, but the complexity may prevent its use in a systematic way. This paper shows that the two methods provide complementary information regarding the VA of schools, and their joint use can improve the understanding of the relative effectiveness of schools regarding the progress that pupils make between educational stages.

Keywords:

• efficiency
• DEA
• value added
• secondary schools

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Fundação Manuel Leão, in particular professor Joaquim Azevedo, for allowing the use of the AVES data in this study, and for useful comments on the paper. The authors also acknowledge the financial support of the programme POCI 2010 (POCI/EGE/60561/2004) co-financed by the Portuguese government through foundation for science and technology (FCT) and the European Union through FEDER.