Rivista Econ Pubblica Franco AngeliThe paper aims to provide policy makers a methodological tool to locate schools with “anomalous” performances in terms of effectiveness. The work is inspired by the stream of literature of School Effectiveness Research, which analyses the differences between schools and within schools in relation to pupils’ performance indicators, adjusted for observable factors outside the control of schools. The effectiveness of the schools is estimated through a multilevel model, which takes into account the hierarchical structure of the data and allows to disentangle the variability in educational outcomes between the individual level and the school level. Results show that most of the variability in the results of schools is attributable to their net effectiveness that is their ability to transform inputs into outputs. The proposed method is thus a very useful tool for identifying schools with “anomalous” performance in terms of effectiveness. The application to the case of Tuscany shows a significant spatial heterogeneity, with some areas characterized by a higher cocentration of effective schools.


Author: Enrico Conti, Silvia Duranti, Nicola Sciclone (IRPET) e Carla Rampichini (Università di Firenze)

Publication details: Published in "Economia Pubblica", n. 3 2015