The publication of school rankings: A step toward increased accountability?

Can Public Rankings Improve School Performance? Evidence from a Nationwide Reform in Tanzania

“…Given parents' minimal awareness of the rankings and limited scope for school choice, this suggests that top-down pressure and bureaucratic reputational incentives are capable of driving learning improvements. This finding complements the existing literature on school rankings (or report cards) which focused on contexts where school choice was the primary driver of the impacts (Andrabi et al, 2017;Hastings and Weinstein, 2008;Koning and Van der Wiel, 2013;Nunes et al, 2015).…”

Performance rankings in education: Implications for policy and practice

“…This is useful to prospective students and interested parties in that it reveals the outcomes of the school"s core business that is academic achievement. Prospective students and interested parties assess schools, with statistics and measures which are obtained from the performance ranking data (Nunes et al, 2015). The publication of the performance ranking data is associated with a decrease in the number of students attending schools that are rated poorly and vice versa (Nunes et al, 2015).…”

“…Prospective students and interested parties assess schools, with statistics and measures which are obtained from the performance ranking data (Nunes et al, 2015). The publication of the performance ranking data is associated with a decrease in the number of students attending schools that are rated poorly and vice versa (Nunes et al, 2015). This comes about due to a more informed parent choice of schools for their children through performance ranking data.…”

Human Capital and Education: The State of the Art in the Economics of Education

“…Two other recent studies have evaluated the introduction of school accountability in Portugal and the Netherlands. In Portugal, Reis et al (2015) show that the publication of school rankings make a significant difference to parents' choice of schools and to schools' enrolment. Koning and van der Weil (2012) show that once school quality scores are published (following campaigning by a newspaper), the lowest ranked schools raised performance substantially.…”