The Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket) has analyzed and reported on differences between schools and between individual students in their results on national examinations. These differences are troublesome since every child is entitled to an equal opportunity to complete compulsory primary school. Rather than looking to any profits made by independent schools, the consideration should focus on how to create a system with more equal opportunities throughout the Swedish school system. Especially by using financial incentives for all providers in the school sector.
One way for this is to implement a conditional national grant system where each school operator, whether municipal or privately owned, receives part of their funding based on the results they show in national examinations after considering each student’s individual background.
National reports show that home background plays a significant role in the grades students receive after their nine-year primary schooling. A 2008 analysis showed that one child in three whose parents had only completed primary school where not eligible to start secondary school themselves. That is they failed to pass at least one of the three subject Mathematics, English or Swedish in their last primary school year. Of those children with at least one parent who completed secondary school, the same figure was one in seven. And for children with at least one parent who completed higher education, the corresponding figure was one in twenty. The significance of background in primary school results has also increased since 1998, according to national statistics from the SCB (Statistics Sweden).
This indicates greater inequality in school results. And, in combination with the general downward trend in these results, especially in mathematics and science, this presents a serious problem for the individual students, and a serious problem for Swedish businesses as well. Companies lose valuable skills when too many new hires lack basic knowledge skills that necessitates supplemental primary school courses and when secondary school education is not competitive. The entire economy of the country also suffers since the full potential of the young cannot be employed.
Expansion of the number of independent schools during this time is sometimes identified in public debate as a reason for students with disadvantaged backgrounds performing more poorly in municipal schools.
But research conducted in early 2010 for the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise shows this cannot be true. Findings included that students in municipal schools where the percentage of nearby independent schools increases, perform equal to or better than in other municipalities. This finding applies to both final grades in the ninth (final) year in primary schools and to results on the national examination for mathematics (in the same year). This finding considers the social group from which each student comes from.
However, the trend towards greater differences in school results due to students’ background can be broken. One way is to make available extra national resources to the schools—as promised by all political parties in this year’s election campaign. But this should be based on the actual results on national examinations that each school shows, whether they are municipal or independent. The size of the grant to each school should depend on these results after considering each student’s individual background. Independent schools, which generally show better results than municipally run schools, would then gain in importance with such an incentive program.
For example, performance related grants could be made related to the share of ninth-year students who pass the national exams in Swedish, English and Mathematics—the grant would increase with the percentage of students passing. But, since students from homes where parents have lower education levels, or are recent immigrants often require more support in their schooling, the grants should be larger for schools with more of these students—but still based on their results.
Furthermore, the national examination results should be used to indicate educational quality (rather than final school grades), due to the risk of grade inflation otherwise. National examinations are the best instrument to measure education quality—though they are not absolute—since they have acceptably fair results in measuring students’ performance.
The national examinations must remain independently run (the students’ school should not be responsible for correcting) to ensure fair results. The grants should also be paid to directly each provider, whether municipal or independent. In the longer term, national testing can be done for more subjects and then included in calculating the result-based grants, as long as it can be shown that these exams provide a fair measure of quality.
Current research shows that individual actors on any market respond to financial incentives. Offering a specific grant whose size depends on the results each school has in nationwide testing should therefore lead curriculum managers to work towards improving test results for their schools and thus improve overall quality in the educational system.
Simply spending more resources alone will not bring significantly better educational results. But research does show that added resources spent on reducing the size of school classes has a positive effect on students that are disadvantaged by socio-economic background. As well, teachers’ skills have a significant effect on school results. Therefore, schools with a higher percentage of disadvantaged students that can gain funding this way, could also reward better teacher performance, and so further improve their school’s testing results.
The recent research for the Confederation also highlights differences in performance between municipal and independent schools. Ninth grade independent school students performed 42 points better on their final grades (out of 320 possible) as compared to the same students in municipal schools. Similarly, independent schools showed better results, on average, for performance on national mathematics testing.
These differences were found after compensating for all students’ background (parents’ educational levels, and other considerations). This shows that the independent schools contribute to an overall improvement in educational levels, and do not contribute to lower performance in the municipally run schools.
Furthermore, since these independent schools are often privately owned and operated for profit, they would respond to financial incentive programs to a greater extent. A national grant system offering greater rewards for improved school results for disadvantaged students would therefore provide an even stronger incentive for the generally more effective independent schools to enter this part of the school market. But even municipal schools would have greater incentive to improve their educational quality.
This makes the winners of such policies just those students who need most help—those who risk leaving school poorly equipped for working life. Their chances in life would improve significantly.
