Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T11:07:19.219Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Do Private Schools Manage Better?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Alex Bryson  and
Francis Green
Alex Bryson
Affiliation:
UCL, NIESR and IZA
Francis Green*
Affiliation:
UCL and LLAKES
*
corresponding author: e-mail francis.green@ucl.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There is a perception among some commentators and policy analysts that leadership and managerial practices in private schools are superior to those in state schools. Analysing a survey of workplaces in Britain, we find little evidence to support this contention when examining the prevalence of modern human resource management (HRM) practices in schools. Rather, the evidence points to greater use of such practices in state schools. Those practices are correlated with improved school performance in the state sector, but not in the private sector. We discuss the implications of these findings for the policy of encouraging managers of private schools to sponsor state schools.

Keywords

school performancehuman resource managementI21
Type
Research Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 243 , February 2018 , pp. R17 - R26
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Acknowledgements: Alex Bryson thanks the Nuffield Foundation (grant EDU/41926) for funding. Francis Green acknowledges support from the ESRC-funded LLAKES Centre for Research on Learning and Life Chances (grant ES/J019135/1). The authors acknowledge the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research as the originators of the Workplace Employee Relations Survey data, and the Data Archive at the University of Essex as the distributor of the data. We thank seminar participants at UCL and NIESR for useful comments on earlier versions of the paper. The views expressed are those of the authors, and all errors and omissions remain the authors' sole responsibility.

References

Adonis, A. (2012), Education, Education, Education. Reforming England's Schools, London: Biteback Publishing.Google Scholar
Ahn, T. and Vigdor, J. (2014), ‘The impact of no child left behind's accountability sanctions on school performance: regression discontinuity evidence from North Carolina’, NBER Working Paper No. 20511.Google Scholar
Appelbaum, E., Bailey, T., Berg, P. and Kalleberg, A.L. (2000), Manufacturing Advantage: Why High-performance Work Systems Pay Off, Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Argon, T. and Limon, I. (2016), ‘Strategic human resource management and organizational innovativeness in private schools’, 2nd International Conference on Lifelong Learning and Leadership for All (Iclel 2016): 649–55.Google Scholar
Ball, S. J. (2013), The Education Debate. 2nd Edition, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Becker, B.E. and Huselid, M.A. (1998), ‘High performance work systems and firm performance: a synthesis of research and managerial implications’, in Ferris, G.R. (ed.), Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, Vol. 16, Stamford, CT: JAI Press, pp. 53–101.Google Scholar
Bhagat, S. and Bolton, B. (2008), ‘Corporate governance and firm performance’, Journal of Corporate Finance, 13, 3, pp. 257–73.Google Scholar
Bloom, N., Lemos, R., Sadun, R. and Van Reenen, J. (2015), ‘Does management matter in schools’, The Economic Journal, 125, pp. 647–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, N., Lemos, R., Sadun, R., Scur, D. and Van Reenen, J. (2014), ‘The new empirical economics of management’, The Journal of the European Economic Association, 12, 4, pp. 835–76.Google Scholar
Bloom, N., Brynjolfsson, E., Foster, L., Jarmin, R.S., Patnaik, M., Saporta-Eksten, I. and Van Reenen, R. (2017), ‘What drives differences in management?’, NBER Working Paper No. 23300.Google Scholar
Boliver, V. (2013), ‘How fair is access to more prestigious UK universities?’, The British Journal of Sociology, 64(2), pp. 344–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bryson, A., Stokes, L. and Wilkinson, D. (forthcoming), ‘Can HRM improve schools' performance?’, UCL mimeo.Google Scholar
Bryson, A., Forth, J. and Stokes, L. (2017), ‘How much performance pay is there in the public sector and what are its effects?’, Human Resource Management Journal, doi: 10.1111/1748–8583.12153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crawford, C., Gregg, P., Macmillan, L., Vignoles, A. and Wynes, G. (2016), ‘Higher education, career opportunities, and intergenerational inequality’, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 32(4), pp. 553–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dearden, L., Ferri, J. and Meghir, C. (2002), ‘The effect of school quality on educational attainment and wages’, Review of Economics and Statistics, 84(1), pp. 1–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delery, J. E. and Doty, D. H. (1996), ‘Modes of theorizing in strategic human resource management: tests of universalistic, contingent and configurational performance predictions’, Academy of Management Journal, 39(4), pp. 802–35.Google Scholar
Di Liberto, A., Schivardi, F. and Sulis, G. (2014), ‘Managerial practices and students' performance’, Bonn, IZA Discussion Paper No. 8475.Google Scholar
Eyles, A., Hupkau, C. and Machin, S. (2016), ‘School reforms and pupil performance’, Labour Economics, 41, pp. 9–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forth, J. and McNabb, R. (2008), ‘Workplace performance: a comparison of subjective and objective measures in the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey’, Industrial Relations Journal, 39, 2, pp. 104–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fryer, R.G. (2014), ‘Injecting charter school best practices into traditional public schools: evidence from field experiments’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129(3), pp. 1355–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fryer, R.G. (2017), ‘Management and student achievement: evidence from a randomized field experiment’, NBER Working Paper No. 23437.Google Scholar
Green, F., Anders, J., Henderson, M. and Henseke, G. (2018), Who Chooses Private Schooling in Britain and Why?, London: Centre for Research on Learning and Life Chances (LLAKES), Research Paper 62.Google Scholar
Green, F., Machin, S., Murphy, R. and Zhu, Y. (2011), ‘The changing economic advantage from private schools’, Economica, 79, pp. 658–79.Google Scholar
Green, F., Henseke, G. and Vignoles, A. (2017), ‘Private schooling and labour market outcomes’, British Educational Research Journal, 43 (1), pp. 7–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, F., Parsons, S., Sullivan, A. and Wiggins, R. (2017), ‘Dreaming big: self-evaluations, aspirations, high-valued social networks and the private school earnings premium in the UK’, Cambridge Journal of Economics (online).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanushek, E.A., Link, S. and Woessmann, L. (2013), ‘Does school autonomy make sense everywhere? Panel estimates from PISA’, Journal of Development Economics, 104, pp. 212–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jerrim, J., Parker, P.D., Chmielewski, A.K. and Anders, J. (2016), ‘Private schooling, educational transitions, and early labour market outcomes: evidence from three anglophone countries’, European Sociological Review, 32 (2), pp. 280–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kersley, B., Alpin, C., Forth, J., Bryson, A., Bewley, H., Dix, G. and Oxenbridge, S. (2006), Inside the Workplace: Findings from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kirby, P. (2016), Leading People. Education Backgrounds of the UK Professional Elite, The Sutton Trust.Google Scholar
Machin, S. (1995), ‘Plant closures and unionisation in British establishments’, British Journal of Industrial Relations, 33,1, pp. 55–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKnight, A. (2015), Downward Mobility, Opportunity Hoarding and the ‘Glass Floor’, London: Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission.Google Scholar
Micklewright, J., Jerrim, J., Vignoles, A., Jenkins, A., Allen, R., Ilie, S., Bellarbre, E., Barrera, F. and Hein, C. (2014), Teachers in England's Secondary Schools: Evidence from TALIS 2013, Department for Education, Research Report, June.Google Scholar
Ndaji, F., Little, J. and Coe, R. (2016), ‘A comparison of academic achievement in independent and state schools’, Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring, Durham University.Google Scholar
OECD (2016), PISA 2015 Results (Volume II): Policies and Practices for Successful Schools, Paris: OECD Publishing.Google Scholar
Parsons, S., Green, F., Ploubidis, G.B., Sullivan, A. and Wiggins, R.D. (2017), ‘The influence of private primary schooling on children's learning: evidence from three generations of children living in the UK’, British Education Research Journal, October, 43(5), pp. 823–1018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paton, G. (2013), ‘Should private schools sponsor academies?’, The Telegraph, 27/3/2013.Google Scholar
Peel, M. (2015), The New Meritocracy: A History of UK Independent Schools 1979–2015, London: Elliott and Thompson.Google Scholar
Runhaar, P. (2017), ‘How can schools and teachers benefit from human resources management? Conceptualising HRM from content and process perspectives’, Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 45(4), pp. 639–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Runhaar, P. and Sanders, K. (2016), ‘Promoting teachers' knowledge sharing. The fostering roles of occupational self-efficacy and human resources management’, Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 44(5), pp. 794–813.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sullivan, A. and Heath, A. (2003), ‘Intakes and examination results at state and private schools’, in Walford, G. (Ed.), British Private Schools: Research on Policy and Practice, London: Woburn Press, pp. 77–104.Google Scholar
Sun, R.S. and Van Ryzin, G.G. (2014), ‘Are performance management practices associated with better outcomes? Empirical evidence from New York public schools’, American Review of Public Administration, 44(3), pp. 324–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Syverson, C. (2011), ‘What determines productivity?’, Journal of Economic Literature, 49, 2, pp. 326–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tavares, P.A. (2015), ‘The impact of school management practices on educational performance: evidence from public schools in Sao Paulo’, Economics of Education Review, 48, pp. 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, D. (2015), The Old Boys. The Decline and Rise of the Public School, London: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Wanrooy, B., Bewley, H., Bryson, A., Forth, J., Freeth, S., Stokes, L. and Wood, S. (2013), Employment Relations in the Shadow of Recession: Findings from the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study, Palgrave MacMillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, M. and Bryson, A. (2013), ‘Positive employee attitudes: how much human Resource management do you need?’, Human Relations, 66, 3, pp. 385–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilde, R., Green, F., Taylor-Gooby, P. and Wiborg, S. (2016), ‘Private schools and the provision of ‘public benefit”, Journal of Social Policy, 45(2), pp. 305–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, N., Hoque, K., Bacon, N. and Llusar, J.C.B. (2017), ‘High performance work systems and workplace performance in small, medium-sized and large firms’, Human Resource Management Journal, 25, 4, pp. 408–23.Google Scholar