This paper studies whether pupil performance gains in autonomous schools in England can be attributed to the strategic exclusion of poorly performing pupils. England has had two phases of academy school introduction, the first in the 2000s being a school improvement programme for poorly performing schools, the second a mass academisation programme from 2010 for better performing schools. Overall, exclusion rates are higher in academies, with the earlier programme featuring much higher rates of exclusion. However, rather than functioning as a means of test score manipulation, the higher exclusion rate reflects the rigorous discipline enforced by the pre-2010 academies.

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1 January 2020

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The Economic Journal 130(625) , pp.125-159, 2020

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DOI: 10.1093/ej/uez041

https://academic.oup.com/ej/article/130/625/125/5533316

This Journal article is published under the centre's Education programme.

This publication comes under the following theme: School performance: Institutional environment