Performance Budgeting

Performance Budgeting

            The United Kingdom’s (UK) performance measurement dates back to 1987. It constitutes the efforts of the government to promote the use of indicators by which the public can compare and evaluate the performance of public service institutions. However, the performance measurement in the UK has certain drawbacks in that they mislead the public and have severe implications for some institutions. This paper discusses the imprecision of the performance measurement in the UK, the negative impact of the performance measurement indicators, strategies to limit the adverse effects of performance indicators (PI), and comparison with the United States performance measurement.

The Parent’s Charter, for example, require the examination agency to publish the comparative league tables of both national curriculum test and examination results for all schools and education authorities. The league tables capture the ranking of schools based on the computation of average achievement of student’s scores on national curriculum test outcomes of 7, 11, and 14 years old. These results are combined with the scores for the General Certificate of Schools Education corresponding to 16 years-olds and A-levels corresponding to 18 year-olds. The Parents’ Charter aims to help parents in choosing schools for attendance by their children. The state’s intention in implementing this policy is to attain perceived public demands for accountability and sustenance of the standards of education in the country.

The UK represents a case of misplaced PI. The popular market ideologies that inspire PI policies have promoted competition among cooperation. Allowing market forces to predominate the discourse enables the government and educational policy-makers to direct blame for alleged poor performance at both school and local level (Leckie, & Goldstein, 2009). The ranking of schools in terms of effectiveness constitutes an unavoidable consequence. Nevertheless, the results can be catastrophic for schools labeled negatively, including even shutting down due to lack of business. The state can take over some of the poor performing schools based on the PI.

The impact of league tables on the educational institutions expresses in different forms. Firstly, it can manifest in the kind of bashing of educators and schools. Secondly, a test-filled curriculum often over-emphasize curriculum content that obliges their testing or assessment. Thirdly, principals of non-selective schools have openly lobbied the government to select up to 20% of their school enrollments to boost the rankings of their schools on the league tables. Therefore, schools have refused or become reluctant to enroll in presumed low achievers. In some cases, schools have concentrated on bright students to boost their rankings at the expense of average students (Leckie, & Goldstein, 2009). Lastly, parents have endorsed these policies by electing to enroll their children in schools ranked high in the league table, even to the extent of relocating to closer proximities to the desired schools.

Comparison of schools by either publication of league tables, as is the case in the UK, France, and Australia, or by value addition as in Tennessee, US breeds losers and winners. When indicators portray an institution as failing or ineffective, it usually hard to resuscitate them. Mainly, this is because of the prevailing social, political, or economic atmosphere of retribution, recrimination, and warning. More so, such an atmosphere is counteractive to the execution of improvement strategies within schools. The league tables have been criticized, and the government has admitted that they can mislead the public. Regardless of the state admission, league tables are still being published because of the support they always enjoy from politicians, communities, and the media.

References

Leckie, G., & Goldstein, H. (2009). The Limitations of Using School League Tables to Inform School Choice. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (Statistics in Society), 172(4), 835-851.