Is it the school, or the trainees?
Are schools that include strong test ratings extremely efficient, or do they mainly enlist trainees who are currently well-prepared for success? A research study co-authored by MIT scholars concludes that extensively shared school quality scores show the preparation and household background of their trainees as much or more than a school's contribution to discovering gains.
The research study discovers that lots of schools that get reasonably low rankings carry out much better than these rankings would suggest. Standard rankings, the research study explains, are extremely associated with race. Particularly, numerous released school rankings are extremely favorably associated with the share of the trainee body that is white.
"A school's typical results show, to some degree, the group mix of...