School Accountability, Autonomy and Choice Around the World

Ifo Economic Policy series

Ludger Woessmann, Professor of Economics and Director, ifo Center for the Economics of Education, University of Munich, Germany, Elke Luedemann, KfW, Germany, Gabriela Schuetz, Ifo Institute for Economic Research, Germany and Martin R. West, Harvard Graduate School of Education, US

Accountability, autonomy and choice are now the watchwords of education reformers around the globe. This book presents new evidence from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test on whether students perform better in school systems with such institutional measures in place. It also provides a theoretical framework for considering these reforms and summarizes previous international evidence. The results confirm that various policies promoting accountability, autonomy and choice are strongly associated with higher achievement for students from both disadvantaged and advantaged backgrounds. In particular, choice through public funding for private schools is associated with both higher performance overall and higher equality of opportunity.

‘. . . the book is a valuable contribution to the literature by thoroughly analyzing the PISA 2003. Its analysis will be very important to future students and researchers as more international data sets become available to researchers.’
– Lisa M. Dickson, Eastern Economic Journal