League tables health warning call

Raw results do not show everything a school does, say research

England's school test results should be published with a "health warning", a group of researchers have argued.

This was because raw test scores only measured part of what the school did and were coloured by factors beyond the school's control, they added.

The Teaching and Learning Research Programme study said league tables gave no details of pupils' backgrounds.

A government spokesman said parents should also look at Ofsted reports and data providing a context on a school.

But the study, by academics based in a number of English universities, said policy makers had a responsibility to be clear with the public about what raw test results can say about an individual school's performance and what it is designed to measure.

It said: "When school-by-school information is presented in performance tables to parents, these data clearly invite a judgment on the effectiveness of a particular institution. Policy-makers will need to ask whether the data support this judgment."

'Progress'

It added: "Policy-makers sometimes claim that the publication of national test results for each school is a value-neutral act of sharing information with the public.

"If the public then, on the basis of these data, makes judgments on the overall quality of each school, policy-makers might argue that this was not their intention.

"But this is disingenuous. Information will always be used in one way or another. A better system would acknowledge that there is a need to ensure that the public understands what these data can tell them, and what they cannot."

The report also argues that exam results should be published with information about the possibility that there could be errors in the marking.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said school league tables were just one measure of performance and that it was reforming the school accountability system.

He added: "The new School Report Cards will be a watershed in how parents judge schools and choose where their children go - for the first time it will properly reflect the range of what is going on in schools.

"Report Cards will give parents clear, externally assessed information about all aspects of their schools' performance, including how well schools are helping those pupils who have fallen behind to catch up, and stretching the most able - through better measures on progress and narrowing the attainment gap."