Search

Intersectionality highlights that different aspects of individuals' identities are not independent of each other. Instead, they interact to create unique identities and experiences, which cannot be understood by analysing each identity dimension separately or in isolation from their social and historical contexts. Intersectional approaches in this way question the common classification of individuals into groups (male vs. female, immigrant vs. native etc.), which raises important implications for the policy-making process. In education, analyses with an intersectional lens have the potential to lead to better tailored and more effective policies and interventions related to participation, learning outcomes, students' attitudes towards the future, identification of needs, and socio-emotional well-being. Consequently, as elaborated in this paper, some countries have adjusted their policies in the areas of governance, resourcing, developing capacity, promoting school-level interventions and monitoring, to account for intersectionality. Gaps and challenges related to intersectional approaches are also highlighted.

Calls for increased monitoring and evaluation of education policies and practices have not, so far, included widespread and consistent assessments of the inclusiveness of education settings. Measuring inclusion in education has proven to be a challenging exercise, due not only to the complexity and different uses of the concept, but also to its holistic nature. Indeed, measuring inclusion implies analysing a variety of policy areas within education systems, while also considering the different roles of the system, the school and the classroom. This paper discusses the application of the input-process-outcome model to the measurement of inclusion in education, and key indicators that can be adopted by education systems and schools to this end. It makes considerations relevant to policy makers when designing indicators to measure inclusion, such as the extent of their application, the constraints related to data disaggregation and the relevance of intersectional approaches to inclusion.

Principals (policy makers) have debated the progress in U.S. student performance for a half century or more. Informing these conversations, survey agents have administered seven million psychometrically linked tests in math and reading in 160 waves to national probability samples of selected cohorts born between 1954 and 2007. This study is the first to assess consistency of results by agency. We find results vary by agent, but consistent with Flynn effects, gains are larger in math than reading, except for the most recent period. Non-whites progress at a faster pace. Socio-economically disadvantaged white, black, and Hispanic students make greater progress when tested in elementary school, but that advantage attenuates and reverses itself as students age. We discuss potential moderators.

Students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex or somewhere else on the gender/sexuality spectrum (LGBTQI+) are among the diverse student groups in need of extra support and protection in order to succeed in education and reach their full potential. Because they belong to a minority that is often excluded by heteronormative/cisgender people, they are often the targets of physical and psychological harassment. Such discrimination can place them at risk for isolation, reduced academic achievement, and physical and mental harm. This paper provides a brief history of how the LGBTQI+ population has often been misunderstood and labelled in order to understand challenges faced by students who identify as a part of this population. It continues by considering supportive educational policies and programmes implemented from national to local levels across OECD countries. Finally, the paper considers policy gaps and discusses policy implications to strengthen equity and inclusion for LGBTQI+ students.

This paper studies the contribution of parental influence in accounting for cross-country gaps in human capital achievements. We argue that the cross-country variation in unobserved parental characteristics is at least as important as the one in commonly used observable proxies of parental socio-economic background. We infer this through an indirect empirical approach, based on the comparison of the school performance of second-generation immigrants. We document that, within the same host country or even the same school, students whose parents come from high-scoring countries in the PISA test do better than their peers with similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Differential selection into emigration does not explain this finding. The result is larger when parents have little education and have recently emigrated, suggesting the importance of country-specific cultural traits that parents progressively lose as they integrate in the new host country, rather than of an intergenerational transmission of education quality. Unobserved parental characteristics account for about 15% of the cross-country variance in test scores, roughly doubling the overall contribution of parental influence.

The OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030 (E2030) project's overall goal is that of looking to the future in terms of how school curricula should evolve given the technological advances and other changes that societies are now facing. Towards that end, the E2030 project centres on the idea that education needs to equip students with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values they need to become active, responsible and engaged citizens. Mathematics is considered a highly relevant subject for achieving the above stated goals, as such it requires further and more detailed analysis. As a result, it has been chosen as one of the E2030 project's subject-specific analyses. The project has been named the Mathematics Curriculum Document Analysis (MCDA) study as per the request of participating countries. This working paper presents the findings of the MCDA study, which involves participants from 19 countries and jurisdictions.

Since UNESCO's Salamanca Declaration in 1994, inclusive education has progressively attracted attention in international debates around education policy. While some evidence exists on the positive impact that inclusive education reforms can have on the academic and personal outcomes of diverse students -- and in particular of students with special education needs -- limited information is available on the economic sustainability of such reforms. Starting from the literature on the correlations between education and individuals' life outcomes, this paper reviews the existing evidence on the potential benefits and costs of inclusive education reforms. Specifically, the paper discusses the evidence on the shortcomings of current education settings for diverse groups of students -- with specific sections on students with special education needs; immigrant and refugee students; ethnic groups, national minorities and Indigenous peoples; gifted students; female and male students; and LGBTQI+ (which stands for 'lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex') students. It highlights the individual and societal costs deriving from the low academic, social and emotional outcomes of these students and the socio-economic costs these yield for societies. Where possible, the paper also presents evidence on the effects of inclusive education reforms on diverse student groups.

The digital revolution and automation are accelerating changes in the labour market and in workplace skills, changes that are further affected by fluctuations in international and regional economic cycles and employment opportunity. These factors pose a universal policy challenge for all advanced economies and governments. In the workplace, people seek to acquire contemporary and relevant skills to gain employment and retain transferable skills to maintain employment. The central purpose of this paper is to investigate how other nations or regions are dealing with these issues. What approaches are they taking to understanding the mix and dynamics of the skills attained by individuals and, more broadly, the totality of skills that in aggregate constitute a highly capable and adaptable labour force, one that supports firm viability and greater national productivity. This research has examined a range of initiatives and approaches being developed or in use in selected countries, including the United States, Singapore and New Zealand, and agencies/organisations; for example, the European Commission and the Skills for the Information Age Foundation. In doing so, it showcases the good practices used to ensure that occupational-level skills information remains current and widely accessible. [For "Identifying Work Skills: International Case Summaries. Support Document," see ED579875.]

Digital technologies offer immense potential for transforming teacher learning and the delivery of professional development activities throughout teachers' careers. As the COVID-19 pandemic has made face-to­-face professional learning challenging or impossible for teachers to attend in many contexts, online professional learning options for teachers have been receiving renewed attention. This paper puts forward research evidence on the effectiveness of various forms of online learning for teachers and adults, and examines prerequisite conditions for enhancing teacher learning through digital technologies. Teachers' engagement in online learning activities, as captured by OECD surveys, remained limited in many OECD countries before the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper provides a basis for investigating how policies can support teachers' engagement in professional learning using digital technologies and help strike a balance between system-level provision of online teacher professional learning opportunities and the facilitation of teacher-led initiatives.

Governments recognise that careers guidance, underpinned by accurate labour market information, can help learners make post-secondary education choices that match their interests, aptitudes and abilities, and lead to rewarding employment. For this reason, they have invested in building linked education/employment information systems and other information resources which are displayed on websites targeted to learners and their families. However, researchers and governments agree that these efforts are often ineffective in informing learners' decisions -- access to information is not sufficient to provide effective support to student choice. Drawing upon the insights of behavioural economics, this paper examines how learners access and use information, and what this implies for the design of public study and career choice websites that aim to effectively support student choice. The report also takes stock of the career guidance websites in use in the majority of OECD countries, and sets out to provide actionable advice for policy makers to guide the design of effective information policy levers that support student choice.

Are teachers and principals aligned in their perceptions of the core components of the theory of Leadership for Learning across countries, or are there subgroups of schools in which there is misalignment? The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which a congruency-typology model of leadership for learning is distributed across countries/economies using the TALIS 2018 dataset through examining the interaction of significantly different subgroups of teacher and principal responders through using multilevel latent class analysis (LCA) with a cross-level interaction. I analyse data from lower secondary schools of n=152 635 teachers in 9 079 schools and their principals across 47 countries/economies. Currently in the research literature on school leadership, leadership for learning has emerged as a framework to bring together managerial, transformational, distributed, and instructional leadership. Yet little is known about leadership for learning across national contexts. This study 1) maps the TALIS 2018 survey items to the current literature and surveys for leadership for learning, 2) then details the methods and analysis framework to examine if there are multiple significantly different types of teachers, principals, and schools from a leadership for learning theory framework. The final model 3) identifies a three-group teacher typology and a three-group principal typology, linking these types to school context, covariates, as well as teacher and principal training and experience. Results relate directly to the intersection of research, policy, and practice for training and capacity of school leaders across 47 countries/economies globally.

The recent refugee crisis has put many Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries under considerable pressure to accommodate and integrate large numbers of refugees. Refugee students are a particularly vulnerable group due to their forced displacement, but their needs are not always met by education systems, which can hinder the integration potential of these students. This poses considerable challenges as the integration of refugee students in education systems is important for their academic outcomes as well as their social and emotional well-being. The success (or lack of) integration in schools can also affect the future labour market and social integration potential of these children and youth. While there is a growing body of research on the integration of immigrants, policy-relevant research on refugee children and youth from an educational perspective is rather limited, fragmented and case specific. Detailed surveys and research projects focusing on the current wave of refugees that allow for cross-country comparisons are not yet available. Drawing on research from previous refugee waves, the paper examines key needs of refugee students and factors that promote their integration. It proposes a holistic model of integration in education that responds to the learning, social and emotional needs of refugee students. Furthermore, the paper examines what type of policies and practices are in place in OECD countries that support the integration of refugee students. Nonetheless, evaluations of practices and policies are often missing, which makes it difficult to assess whether they are successful. The paper finishes with some policy pointers on how to promote the integration of refugee students.

Resilience refers to the capacity of individuals to prosper despite encountering adverse circumstances. This paper defines academic resilience as the ability of 15-year-old students from disadvantaged backgrounds to perform at a certain level in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in reading, mathematics and science that enables them to play an active role in their communities and prepares them to make the most of lifelong-learning opportunities. Using data from the most recent PISA cycles, this paper explores changes in the share of resilient students over time (2006-2015); highlights the importance of school environments and resources in mitigating the risk of low achievement for disadvantaged students; and identifies school-level factors that are associated with the likelihood of academic resilience among socio-economically disadvantaged students. Analyses reveal that several countries were able to increase the share of resilient students over time, reflecting improvements in the average performance of students, or a weaker relationship between socio-economic status and performance. In the vast majority of education systems examined, the likelihood of academic resilience among disadvantaged students is lower in schools where students report a negative classroom climate. The paper concludes by exploring school policies and practices that are associated with a positive classroom climate. [This work was supported by a contribution to the PISA programme of work from Vodafone Germany Foundation.]

The purpose of this study is to explore aspects and indicators most commonly used to assess the quality of education systems in different countries through the comparison of 12 national publications describing the state of the educational system. To compare indicators the CIPP model was chosen. This model is organized in four main parts: Context, Input, Process and Product. Each main part was then divided into categories based on the research literature (e.g., Input is divided into human, financial and material resources). Based on the CIPP model an electronic database for quality indicators comparison has been designed and implemented. This system is dynamic and easy to update. Using the database it is possible to compare countries according to several criteria (e.g., main parts and categories of the CIPP model, ISCED [International Standard Classification of Education] level, level of data collection). The database is available to the public and is designed for researchers and scholastic decision makers. A first comparison shows that processes at the classroom level are rarely considered, whereas public financial resources as well as achievement results are always included. The study concludes with a discussion of the findings of the comparison, as well as suggestions for future research aimed at further defining relevant indicators for the assessment of education quality." An appendix presents: "The on-line database: structure and functions. (Contains 5 figures and 7 footnotes.) [This paper was produced by INVALSI - National Institute for the Educational Evaluation of Instruction and Training.]

Growth in mixed-sector institutions offering both vocational and higher education qualifications is expected to increase given recent and predicted policy changes. This issues paper focuses on the provision and management of higher education in technical and further education (TAFE) institutes. Issues raised for discussion include the governance of mixed-sector institutions as well as ensuring access and maintaining progression to higher education without sectoral division in the institution. Implications arising from the Bradley review of higher education are canvassed and the authors are inviting discussion on a range of questions related to the nature of policies and practices influencing the provision of higher education in TAFE. A section listing the TAFE institutes that have been registered to offer higher education qualifications and their accredited higher education qualifications, at February 2009 is appended. (Contains 5 tables and 3 footnotes.) [Funding for this document was provided through the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.]

The paper examines between-country differences in the mechanisms through which education could promote generalised trust using data from 29 countries participating in the OECD's Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). Results indicate that education is strongly associated with generalised trust and that a large part of this association is mediated by individuals' literacy skills, income and occupational prestige. However, education gradients in levels of generalised trust and in the extent to which they are due to social stratification mechanisms or cognitive skills mechanisms vary across countries. Differences across countries in birthplace diversity and income inequality are correlated with how strongly education is associated with trust in different countries, as well as in the relative magnitude of direct and indirect associations. In particular, the relationship between literacy skills and generalised trust is stronger in the presence of greater birthplace diversity but is weaker in the presence of greater income inequality.

This project on national standards and accreditation of career practitioners is set against a background of unprecedented interest by governments nationally and internationally in the provision of career guidance services. Currently more is known about the policy and delivery of career guidance than at any other time in history. There is growing interest in the relationship between career guidance and public policy because the benefits of career guidance to individuals, society and the economy have been recognised. In this regard, strategic alliances are being formed between career guidance practitioners and policy makers in order that policy commitments relating to the provision of quality career services are enhanced. Such an alliance is evidenced in the collaboration between the Department of Education, Science and Training and the Career Industry Council of Australia on this project. This project constitutes a very necessary step in a move towards a quality industry. The purpose of this scoping paper is to: (1) identify current standards guiding career practitioners in Australia; (2) review international work on standards including examples of best practice and advise on how this work might be relevant to the development of national standards and accreditation in the Australian context; (3) be informed by outcomes of national workshops, forums, and conferences 2000-2004; (4) identify the current membership requirements of professional career associations and bodies both nationally and internationally; (5) assess how prior learning or qualifications might be recognised and developed to fit within and meet the requirements of the quality standards; and (6) identify the issues that need to be addressed in the development of national standards. To achieve this purpose, this paper is structured around four main sections--international quality standards, national quality standards, standards guiding Australian professions, and the Australian career industry. Following this a number of themes related to the development and implementation of quality standards will be elaborated. A number of issues relating to the development and implementation of quality standards and accreditation in the Australian career industry will then be raised. Appended are: (1) Glossary of terms; (2) Table of Comparative Competencies; (3) Entry-level Qualifications of Australian Career Practitioner Associations; (4) Standards of Australian Career Practitioner Associations; and (5) Comparison of Quality Standards Across Career Case Studies.

This study uses the PIAAC data to examine the relationships between education system characteristics (e.g. early tracking and vocational education orientation) and distributions of adult numeracy skills. It also investigates the effects of postponing the tracking age and easing university access for students on a vocational track on the average skills and different percentiles of the skills distribution. Correlational analysis suggests that education systems with more students enrolled in vocational tracks have on average higher levels of numeracy skills and more compressed skills distributions between the 50th and 90th percentiles. Further analysis suggests that postponing the tracking age among 14 European countries does not have a significant effect on the average skills of the population. However, it increases skills for individuals at the 10th, 20th, and 30th percentiles of the skill distribution. Expanding university access is associated with an increase in numeracy skills, particularly for individuals at the bottom three deciles of the distribution.

We assess the relationship between general literacy skills and health status by analysing data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), an international survey of about 250,000 adults aged 16-65 years conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) from 2011-15 in 33 countries/national sub-regions. Across countries, there seems to be a strong and consistent association between general literacy proficiency and self-rated poor health, independent of prior socio-economic status and income. General literacy proficiency also appears to be a mediator of the association between self-education and self-rated poor health. While the literacy-health association is robust over time, it varies in magnitude across countries. It is strongest for those with a tertiary or higher degree and does not appear to exist among young adults (ages 25 to 34 years). Future studies are required to understand the contextual factors that modify the general literacy proficiency-health association.

This paper explores the impact of policies and institutions on employment and unemployment of OECD countries in the past decades. Reduced-form unemployment equations, consistent with standard wage setting/price-setting models, are estimated using cross-country/time-series data from 21 OECD countries over the period 1982-2003. In the "average" OECD country, high and long-lasting unemployment benefits, high tax wedges and stringent anticompetitive product market regulation are found to increase aggregate unemployment. By contrast, highly centralised and/or coordinated wage bargaining systems are estimated to reduce unemployment. These findings are robust across specifications, datasets and econometric methods. As policies and institutions affect employment not only via their impact on aggregate unemployment but also through their effects on labour market participation -- particularly for those groups "at the margin" of the labour market, group-specific employment rate equations are also estimated. In the "average" OECD country, high unemployment benefits and high tax wedges are found to be associated with lower employment prospects for all groups studied, namely prime-age males, females, older workers and youths. There is also evidence that group-specific policy determinants matter, such as targeted fiscal incentives. The paper also finds significant evidence of interactions across policies and institutions, as well as between institutions and macroeconomic conditions. Consistent with theory, structural reforms appear to have mutually reinforcing effects: the impact of a given policy reform is greater the more employment-friendly the overall policy and institutional framework. Certain more specific interactions across policies and institutions are found to be particularly robust, notably between unemployment benefits and public spending on active labour market programmes as well as between statutory minimum wages and the tax wedge. Finally, it is shown that macroeconomic conditions also matter for unemployment patterns, with their impact being shaped by policies. (A bibliography is included. Contains 144 footnotes, 9 figures, 3 boxes and 27 tables.)

The contribution of higher education institutions to regional development is a theme that has attracted growing attention in recent years. Knowledge institutions are increasingly expected not only to conduct education and research, but also to play an active role in the economic, social and cultural development of their regions. The extent to which higher education institutions are able to play this role depends on a number of circumstances: the characteristics of the institutions, the regions in which they are located and the policy frameworks are all significant. At the same time, there are signs of more fundamental conceptual and strategic confusion. The discussions in this domain are frequently characterised by slogans and popular metaphors. This literature review was prepared to support the OECD project entitled 'Supporting the Contribution of Higher Education Institutions to Regional Development', which was conducted by the OECD Programme on Institutional Management in Higher Education (IMHE) in collaboration with the Directorate of Public Governance and Territorial Development. Drawing mainly from a selection of European and North American publications, the report takes an overall view on the development of higher education institutions in the regional context. It focuses on the evolution and discourses of higher education and research, the regional aspects of higher education policies, the various functions and roles that the institutions play, measures taken to link the universities with their regional partners, and the conditions which favour or hamper stronger regional engagement. (A bibliography is included. Contains 9 figures.)

Innovation is essential for the education sector. The ways in which curriculum decision making is organised reflects different implicit approaches on how educational systems pertain to promote innovation in education. Curriculum holds an outstanding place when seeking to promote innovation in education, as it reflects the vision for education by indicating knowledge, skills and values to be taught to students. It may express not only "what" should be taught to students, but also "how" the students should be taught. Curriculum innovations can include new subjects, combinations of old subjects or cross-cutting learning objectives. They may also take a form of new content, concepts, sequencing, time allocation or pedagogy. This paper characterises two contrasted approaches to curriculum decision making and bringing about innovations in education. At one extreme, a prescriptive central curriculum implicitly places the initiative for educational innovations at the level of the central administration. This approach provides strong incentives for schools and teachers to adapt innovations that would not otherwise take place. Innovations, supported by policy measures and informed by research, are brought within the reach of all schools and teachers in an equitable manner. The challenge is then to accommodate local needs and ensure the commitment to and implementation of innovations by schools and teachers. At the other extreme, decentralised curriculum decision making provides schools--and perhaps even teachers--with room to create their own educational innovations. This approach allows for experimentation relevant to individual students and local communities. Innovations are meant to spread through horizontal networks of schools and teachers. The challenge is then to provide incentives for individual schools and teachers to innovate or adapt innovations and ensure that they have equal capacity to do so. The paper provides an overview of various possible approaches linking curriculum policy to educational innovation, it shows that OECD countries can mix these approaches and it discusses elements that can affect those innovations in reality. Focusing on public lower-secondary education, it draws on various OECD and UNESCO data. First, the paper suggests that OECD education systems differ clearly when looking at formal curriculum decision making, although no system relies on a purely central or school-based approach to curriculum innovations. Second, several elements can reduce the "innovation power" of the central curriculum and the "innovation flexibility" of the decentralised curriculum. Third, stakeholders--such as experts, teachers and parents--are able to influence curriculum innovations differently at central and school levels. Innovations in central-level curriculum appear to have widespread possibilities to rely on expert knowledge with consultation with practitioners, parents and the wider public. School level curriculum innovations appear to build mainly on principals and teachers' knowledge with an indirect influence from experts and parents. Annexed are: (1) Emerging Curriculum Themes in OECD Countries; (2) Approaches to Bringing About Competence-Based Curriculum; (3) Central Level Curriculum in OECD Countries; (4) Details on the Implicit Approaches to Curriculum Innovations; and (5) Roles of Parents in Decision Making on Education Policy. (Contains 13 tables, 4 charts, 5 boxes and 20 notes.)

This literature review on school choice analyses the impact of choice schemes on students and on school systems focusing on equity. Reviewing the evidence can be difficult, as the literature is often fragmented and inconclusive, and the political importance of this research often results in high-profile attention given to individual studies rather than systemically understanding collected from a larger empirical base (Berends, Cannata and Goldring, 2011). Different political groups use evidence that supports their positions in favour or against school choice, and their positions relative to school choice are largely based on their ideologies, rather than on empirical work and evidence of effectiveness (Levin and Belfield, 2004). This report steps away from the ideological debate and provides research-based evidence on the impact of choice on disadvantaged students and schools. As "only with data on the consequences of different plans for school choice will we be able to reach sensible judgements rooted in experience (Fuller and Elmore, 1996, p. 8)". It uses analysis and statements that are supported empirically and attempts to cover the widest possible scope of research, and provide responses to the key question of how to balance choice with equity considerations. (Contains 7 tables, 4 figures, 5 boxes and 13 footnotes.)

Education plays an essential role in preparing the children of immigrants for participation in the labour market and society. Giving these children opportunities to fully develop their potential is vital for future economic growth and social cohesion in OECD countries. But migrant students in most OECD countries tend to have lower education outcomes than their native peers. Extensive previous research has described the system level, school level and individual level factors that influence the education outcomes of migrant students. Building on such previous research, this paper looks at the ways in which "education policies" can influence these factors to help provide better educational opportunities for migrant students. (Contains 7 footnotes.) [This review was prepared for the OECD Thematic Review on Migrant Education. It was presented and discussed at the Second Meeting of the Group of National Experts on the Education of Migrants in Paris on 13-14 October 2008.]

Do some forms of student (and school) assessment hinder the introduction of innovative educational practices and the development of innovation skills in education systems? This report focuses on the impact of high-stake summative assessment on innovation and argues that it is possible to reconcile high-stakes assessments and examinations through innovative approaches to testing. While necessary, assessment based on high-stake examinations often acts as an incentive to teach or study "to the test". It may thus limit risk-taking by teachers, students and parents, for instance. The problem may be amplified if a system of accountability and incentives uses the results of these examinations and tests to assess teachers and schools. What should be done to ensure that the systems used to assess education systems do not stifle the risk-taking inherent to innovation--and that they foster innovation skills in students? This study proposes three main ways of combining assessment and innovation: 1) developing a wide range of performance measurements for both students and schools; 2) rethinking the alignment of standards and assessment; 3) measuring the impact of assessments on teaching and learning. One way of influencing teaching and learning might be to modify high-stake testing. Systems will adapt to this, and both teaching and learning will focus on acquiring the right skills. Rather than testing the content of learning, standards could relate to cognitive skills such as problem-solving, communicating and reasoning--with test/examination developers adapting those skills to subjects such as mathematics, science or literary analysis. Similarly, more use might be made of innovative assessment methods based on information and communication technologies, inasmuch as these may feature simulation or interactivity, for instance, at a reasonable cost. Focusing the assessment on cognitive processes rather than content would leave more scope for teachers to put in place innovative teaching/learning strategies. This does, however, assume a high standard of professionalism in teachers and an adequate system of continuing training and knowledge management. As a single type of assessment cannot fully capture student learning, one effective strategy might also be to multiply the number of measurements and thus relieve the pressure on students and teachers to perform well in a single, high-visibility, high-stake test. At the same time, this larger number of measurements could provide the necessary input for systems based on accountability, diagnosis and assessment of the effectiveness of innovative practice. Finally, assessing the technical standard of tests and examinations is an integral part of their development, but it is less common to address the impact they have on teaching/learning or the validity of how their results are used. Since assessment is an integral part of the education process, it is just as important to assess tests and examinations as it is other educational practices in order to achieve improvements and innovation in educational assessment, but also in educational practice. (Contains 12 notes.)

School systems aspire to provide equal opportunity for all, irrespective of socio-economic status (SES). Much of the criticism of recent school reforms that introduce accountability, autonomy, and choice emphasizes their potentially negative consequences for equity. This report provides new evidence on how national features of accountability, autonomy, and choice are related to the equality of opportunity across countries. We estimate whether student achievement depends more or less on SES in school systems employing these institutional features. The rigorous micro-econometric analyses are based on the PISA 2003 data for more than 180,000 students from 27 OECD countries. The main empirical result is that rather than harming disadvantaged students, accountability, autonomy, and choice appear to be tides that lift all boats. The additional choice created by public funding for private schools in particular is associated with a strong reduction in the dependence of student achievement on SES. External exit exams have a strong positive effect for all students that is slightly smaller for low-SES students. The positive effect of regularly using subjective teacher ratings to assess students is substantially larger for low-SES students. The effect of many other accountability devices does not differ significantly by student SES. School autonomy in determining course content is associated with higher equality of opportunity, while equality of opportunity is lower in countries where more schools have autonomy in hiring teachers. Autonomy in formulating the budget and in establishing starting salaries is not associated with the equity of student outcomes. Inequality of opportunity is substantially higher in school systems that track students at early ages. (Contains 19 footnotes, 6 figures and 9 tables.)