Tackling educational inequality - CentreForum

Tackling educational inequality
:
2. Understanding the drivers of
educational performance
Since the 1980s, discussion of educational performance has largely
focused on school level variables, such as teaching, governance and
organisational models, and curriculum. Each of these is important, but
the emphasis on them has tended to crowd out discussion of important
pupil level variables. 1
The first major study of school effectiveness, the Coleman Report of
1966, concluded that the home environment was more important to
educational achievement than the quality of the school. Coleman found
that school factors accounted for only 10 per cent of the variation in
student achievement between schools.
The Coleman findings have been subject to challenge and revision but
have broadly stood the test of time. 2 Two recent studies estimated that
variation in pupil intake explains between 80 and 90 per cent of the
differences between schools. 3 To accept these findings is not in any
way to diminish the importance of good teaching – quite the opposite.
As more examples of ‘high poverty, high performance’ schools emerge,
and as best practice spreads, so the relative weight of school effectiveness
variables will rise. But it is important first to understand the nature
of pupil level problems in order to identify and spread good practice at
the school level. The policy implications which flow from this analysis
will be addressed in parts 3 and 4.
2.1 PUPIL LEVEL VARIABLES
Educational failure is correlated with a number of interconnected pupil
characteristics. These are set out below.
Socioeconomic Status
A considerable body of research has demonstrated the persistence of a
positive correlation between educational attainment and socioeconomic
status (SES). 4 By the age of six, children with a low SES who performed
well in early tests (at 22 months) have been overtaken by higher
SES children who performed less well in early tests (see figure 13).
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