Alternative Assessments of the Performance of Schools: Measurement of State Variations in Achievement
提出一种估算州级学校边际效应的方法，证明直接估算学业成长（增值）远优于常用替代指标，并指出非代表性数据（如SAT总分）即使经统计调整也会严重偏误。
Evaluation of the efficacy of school policies requires measures of student performance across schools and states, but conventional approaches to constructing the relevant data can be very misleading. This paper develops an approach to estimating marginal school effects at the state level. It then documents and estimates the magnitude of biases introduced by commonly employed estimators of school quality. Direct estimates of achievement growth, or value-added, are shown to be far superior to any alternative correction that is commonly employed. Especially at the state level, nonrepresentative data such as aggregate SAT scores provide very biased measures of school quality differences-even when statistical adjustments for demographic differences and varying participation rates are employed.