業績指標としての英国中等学校リーグテーブルの有効性(III 研究報告)

Performance indicators of public services have been in contention since thel980s in the UK. The New Public Management (NPM) initiatives of public service reforms consider that performance indicators play the key role in public service reform. However, there are many criticisms of performance indicators, while there are also many accolades for performance indicators. Secondary School league tables are well known performance indicators in public education, as they show the academic achievements of all schools in England based on mostly national examination results. Similar to other performance indicators in public sectors, Secondary School league tables rather controversial. People who appreciate Secondary School league tables argue that the tables provide information about school achievements to consumers of public education, especially parents, and it could be possible for parents to choose the proper school for their children. Thereby, they argue that Secondary School league tables can advance the standards of Secondary Schools. On the other hand, opponents of school league tables argue that neither do school league tables contribute to the increase of school choice, nor do they provide accurate information about each school. Rather, they criticize that Secondary School league tables may distort parents' and other citizen's estimations of each school's performance by providing inaccurate information about school achievements which relates to scores of the national examinations. Recently, Japanese Government has also introduced performance indicators in many public sectors. Also, they plan to introduce the national examination from the next fiscal year. It is, therefore, worth reviewing the outcome of Secondary School league tables in the UK. This paper analyse the argument relating to Secondary School league tables. By referring to literature and statistics, the relationship between Secondary School league tables and school choice, and problems of Secondary School league tables are examined. The result of this analysis explains that Secondary School league tables have not been effective performance indicators, due to the use of raw 'unfaithful' data of the national examinations. Despite the introduction of value added measures, many raw data remain and Secondary School league tables continue to provide inappropriate information to parents and citizens. Thus, Secondary School league tables should be amended as soon as possible in order to become the effective scheme to provide the accurate figure of each school. By the same token, it should be considered that the each school's raw data of the national examinations should be not published, at least as nationwide indicators.