Should School‐Level Results of National Assessments Be Made Public? Evidence From a Policy Reform in Japan
利用日本政策改革中不同城市披露学校平均成绩的差异，研究发现公开学校层面的国家评估结果使小学生成绩提高0.12个标准差，且未损害教育公平，其机制是促使学校利用评估的诊断反馈。
ABSTRACT Many countries conduct national assessments of educational performance, a type of standardised test that gives schools diagnostic feedback without having high stakes for students. We examine how publication of national assessment results at the school level affects primary school student outcomes. Using a policy reform in Japan that created a variation across municipalities in the level of aggregation at which the assessment results are disclosed, we show that disclosing school‐mean scores increased students' test scores by 0.12 standard deviations without compromising educational equity. The information disclosure worked as a catalyst to induce the schools to utilise the assessment's diagnostic feedback.