The Heterogeneous Effect of Selection in Secondary Schools: Understanding the Changing Role of Ability

(2004) - Fernando Galindo-Rueda, Anna F. Vignoles

Journal: SSRN Electronic Journal
Link:: https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=575089
DOI:: 10.2139/ssrn.575089
Links::
Tags:: #paper #NCDS #CognitiveAbility #SchoolType
Cite Key:: [@Galindo-Rueda2004]

Abstract

There has been a substantial rise in British education levels in recent decades. Controversially, less able but wealthier children appear to have benefited most from this educational expansion, at least during the 1970s and 1980s (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles , forthcoming).1 Given that this particular period also coincided with the gradual demise of the UK’s highly selective ‘grammar school’ system, it would seem that the changing role of selection in secondary schooling merits further investigation. This paper explores the inter-relationship between school selection, ability, family background and educational achieve ment using data from the UK in the 1970s.

Notes

“Whilst the impact of the UK grammar system is of course of enormous historical interest, this issue also has significant policy relevance today. Certainly selection remains a topical issue” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 3)

“The shift to mixed ability schooling did reduce the educational achievement of the most able. From an historical perspective, our results also suggest that the dismantling of the UK selective school system played some part in ensuring that the subsequent expansion of the education system disproportionately benefited less able (but wealthier) students.” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 4)

“Our paper is not, however, purely of historical interest. Certainly during the second half of the twentieth century several European countries abandoned their systems of selective schooling, whereby students of different levels of academic ability would attend separate schools with different curricula below the age of compulsory schooling.” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 7) Important to highlight this

“Heterogeneity is relevant for the interpretation of instrumental variable estimates of earnings returns to schooling and has direct implications for the analysis of intergenerational mobility and income inequality” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 8)

“Grammar schools provided for the full age range (11 to 18) and these students were most likely to go on to higher education (HE). Secondary modern schools on the other hand, provided a lower level academic education for those who could not get into a grammar school. Secondary moderns generally only took pupils up to the compulsory minimum school leaving age of fifteen, in place until 1973, and sixteen afterwards.” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 9)

“the student body was effectively divided at age 11” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 9)

“LEAs are somewhat akin to school districts in the US. They are under local government political control and during the 1960s and 1970s had relatively high levels of autonomy in determining educational policy on the ground. They were responsible for most educational spending on primary and secondary schooling in the UK, although the majority of the money for education came from central government. For instance, in the 1970s about 65% of total UK educational expenditure came from central government but was distributed via the LEAs, 15% of the education total was directly financed and administered by central government and LEAs raised the remainder via local taxation.” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 10) Important reasoning to focus on LEAs.

“What is also important to remember is that in some LEAs secondary moderns became comprehensives but nearby grammar schools preserved their selective entry policy. This meant that the comprehensives in these areas did not necessarily teach the full ability range; rather they continued to attract only students from the bottom 80% of the ability distribution (or thereabouts).” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 11)

“Kerckhoff et al. (1996) showed that the political orientation of the LEA was crucially important. Specifically, LEAs that had Conservative political control experienced slower change towards mixed ability schooling than LEAs under Labour control. Furthermore, LEAs under Labour control initially but that then switched to Conservative control, appeared to have been able to reverse or slow plans to move towards comprehensive schooling.” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 11)

“his screening examination at the age of 11 was highly controversial. Indeed an important concern was that the results of this examination, rather than reflecting any real innate ability, reflected socio -economic status. It was suggested that the higher scores for children from a higher socioeconomic background were as a result of coaching and better resources. As a result of this, poor children of high potential ability would have been unfairly denied a grammar school education.” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 15)

“This enabled us to construct two selection variables. Firstly, we created an indicator for whether the individual was in a selective system school (grammar or secondary modern) in 1974 (age 16) or no” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 15)

“11 (comprehensive). Secondly, we constructed a variable measuring the years spent in a selective school system between the ages of 11 and 16. 13 The proportions in the different schooling types are shown, along with other key descriptive statistics in Table 1 below” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 16)

“Our cognitive ability variables therefore merit further discussion. Using a similar methodology to that of Cawley et al. (1996), we constructed a cognitive ability measure based on test scores obtained at the age of 7 for the 1958 NCDS cohort” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 17)

“In the psychometric literature, this measure has been frequently associated with the construct g, described as the underlying general ability or intelligence factor (Cawley et al. (1996)). Our interpretation of this variable is that of an index that allows us to rank each individual in terms of cognitive ability or early human capital” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 17)

“In summary, we do not find a systematic significant selection effect, either positive or negative. However when the selection variables are interacted with variables measuring the individual’s ability we find significant effects. Children, especially girls, in the top of the ability distribution did attain better educational outcomes if they were in a selective school system. This result holds for both measures of selection and is largely robust to the choice of estimation method” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 28)

“ur results indicate that the most able pupils in the selective school system did do somewhat better than those of similar ability in mixed ability school systems” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 32)

“When we use this IV specification our results become more imprecise but higher, suggest ing that the most able (top 20%), particularly the most able women, did do better in a selective school system. We did not find significant selection effects on attainment for lesser ability pupils, although point estimates did often indicate a negative impact of selection for the low ability group.” (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004, p. 33)