Based on the individual-level data of the PISA 2000 study, this note provides a detailed econometric analysis of the way that reading test scores are associated with individual and family background information and with characteristics of the school and class of the 15 to 16 year old respondents...

International comparative studies of student performance have initiated political discussions in countries all over the world on how to improve the educational achievement of students. The empirical evidence suggests that central exams help to achieve higher student performance. Central exams...

The paper suggests that international differences in educational institutions explain the large international differences in student performance in cognitive achievement tests. A microeconometric student-level estimation based on data for more than 260,000 students from 39 countries reveals that...

In many low-income countries, teachers do not master the subject they are teaching, and children learn little while attending school. Using unique data from nationally representative surveys of schools in seven Sub-Saharan African countries, this paper proposes a methodology to assess the effect...

We study the origins of what has become one of the most radical and encompassing programmes of school reform seen in the recent past amongst advanced countries – the introduction of academy schools to English secondary education. Academies are state schools that are allowed to run in an...

It is still taken for granted that (early) ability tracking increases the impact of social origin on achievement in (lower) secondary education, but without gains in the overall level. This contribution addresses the question of whether this common conviction is really correct. The various...