The effects of resources across school phases: a summary of recent evidence

This report provides an overview and discussion of the past decade of academic evidence on the causal effects of resources in schooling on students’ outcomes. Early evidence lacked good strategies for estimating the effects of schools resources, leading many people to conclude that spending more on schools had no effect. More recent evidence using better research designs finds that resources do matter, but the range of estimates of the impacts is quite wide. The review devotes special attention to differences across the early years, primary and secondary phases. Theoretical work has indicated that interventions early in a child's life may be more productive than interventions later on. However, although there are more examples of good quality studies on primary schooling, the existing body of empirical work does not lead to a conclusive case in favour of early interventions

Gender and Student Achievement in English Schools

The widening gap between the average educational achievement of boys and girls has been the subject of much discussion. This gap is especially controversial for students taking national exams at the end of their compulsory education. However, the gender gap is also apparent at earlier and at later stages of education. In this paper, we analyse changes over time in the gender achievement gap at the different stages of compulsory education. We first use a combination of data sources to paint a picture of how gender gaps have evolved over time and in what context they are most marked. Then we consider possible explanations for the observed gender gaps. We look at the relevance of school inputs, teaching practice and the examination system for explaining the gender gap. We also discuss the potential influence of wider social and economic changes as reflected, for example, in the much higher education of mothers relative to those of previous generations. Analysis of this issue is important in the context of research on the gender wage gap. However, it is also raises policy-relevant issues in relation to whether changes in the school system can effect a change in the gender gap in educational achievement.Gender, Educational Achievement

Large benefits, low cost.

Is the government's National Literacy Strategy effective? Stephen Machin and Sandra McNally look at the evidence from the pilot project.

The Literacy Hour

Literacy matters. One in five adults in the UK is not functionally literate and this has serious implications for their well-being and economic circumstances, as well as for national productivity. To ensure that this problem does not beset future generations, attention must be given to how best to educate the young to read and write. While economists have much to say about the influence of changing school resources on pupil attainment, there is very little economic research about the effect of changing the content and structure of teaching. In this paper, we evaluate the effect of "the literacy hour" in English primary schools on pupil attainment. This was first introduced in the context of the National Literacy Project (NLP) in September 1996, before it was implemented nationally from September 1998 onwards in the context of the National Literacy Strategy. The central idea is to raise standards of literacy in schools by improving the quality of teaching through more focused literacy instruction and effective classroom management. We evaluate the literacy hour for schools in the National Literacy Project (NLP), which was undertaken in about 400 English primary schools in the school years 1996-97 and 1997-98. We compare the reading and overall English attainment of children in NLP schools as compared to a set of control schools at the end of primary school education (age 11). We find a large increase in attainment in reading and English for pupils in NLP schools as compared to pupils not exposed to the literacy hour over this time period. A further aspect of this policy is its potential impact on the gender gap in pupil attainment. For many years, the attainment of boys in literacy-related activities has been considerably lower than that of girls. We find some evidence that at age 11, boys received a greater benefit from the literacy hour than girls. Finally, we consider the cost-effectiveness of the policy. The benefits of the policy (in terms of standard deviations) are comparable to much more expensive policies such as a class size reduction. We estimate the wage return likely to arise from the increase in reading attainment as a consequence of the literacy hour. The per-pupil cost of the NLP is only a small fraction of the estimated benefits. Hence, the policy is extremely cost effective. These findings are of strong significance when placed into the wider education debate about what works best in schools for improving pupil performance. The evidence reported here suggests that public policy aimed at changing the content and structure of teaching can significantly raise pupil attainment.Education Literacy

New Technology in Schools: Is There a Payoff?

information and communication technology (ICT), pupil achievement

Does Additional Spending Help Urban Schools? An Evaluation Using Boundary Discontinuities

Improvement of educational attainment in schools in urban, disadvantaged areas is an important priority for policy - particularly in countries like England which have a long tail at the bottom of the educational distribution and where there is much concern about low social mobility. An anomaly in the spatial dimension of school funding policy in England allows us to examine the effect of increasing school expenditure for schools in urban areas. This anomaly arises because an 'area cost adjustment' is made in how central government allocates funds to Local Authorities (school districts) whereas, in reality, teachers are drawn from the same labour market and are paid according to national pay scales. This is one of the features that give rise to neighbouring schools on either side of a Local Authority boundary being allocated very different resources, even if they have very similar characteristics. We find that these funding disparities give rise to sizeable differences in pupil attainment in national tests at the end of primary school. This finding lends adds to the evidence that school resources have an important role to play in improving educational attainment and has direct policy implications for the current 'pupil premium' policy in England.Urban schools, education, resources,

New technology in schools: is there a payoff?.

Economists have typically been sceptical that computers improve educational outcomes. But research by Stephen Machin, Sandra McNally and Olmo Silva finds evidence that new technology can have a positive effect on pupils' performance.

Resources and Standards in Urban Schools

Despite being central to government education policy in many countries, there remains considerable debate about whether resources matter for pupil outcomes. In this paper we look at this question by considering an English education policy initiative - Excellence in Cities - which has been a flagship policy aimed at raising standards in inner-city secondary schools. We report results showing a positive impact of the extra resources on school attendance and performance in Mathematics (though not for English) but, interestingly, there is a marked heterogeneity in the effectiveness of the policy. Its greatest impact has been in more disadvantaged schools and on the performance of middle and high ability students within these schools. A simple cost-benefit calculation suggests the policy to be cost-effective. We conclude that additional resources can matter for children in the poorest secondary schools, particularly when building on a solid educational or ability background. However, small changes in resources have little or no effect on the 'hard to reach' children who have not achieved a sufficiently strong prior level.Education, Resources, Evaluation, Disadvantage

CEE Special Report: The Children's Workforce: A Data Scoping Study. A Report for the Department of Children, School and Family (DCSF)

There has been much policy interest on the theme of children's services in recent years. For example, the 1998 National Child Strategy explicitly aims to ensure good quality, affordable childcare for children aged 0 to 14 in every neighbourhood, including both formal childcare and support for informal arrangements. The sector has a changed a lot in recent years and a there are a range of data sets that explore aspects of how it works. This report explores and describes available data sources on the early years children's workforce, focusing particularly on childcare. We have investigated what administrative or survey data sets are available and how the data sources could be linked together. We start the report with a general introduction to what we mean by the children's workforce' and the sort of questions that could be asked. We summarise the data sets we have looked at, briefly commenting on how they could be used in research. In a detailed appendix, we discuss each of these data sets in turn, highlighting key strengths and limitations. In the core of the text, we provide an analysis of the children's workforce in the Labour Force Survey (occasionally supplemented with information from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings). Finally, we discuss future directions for research in this context.childrens services , National Child Strategy, education