Abstract
In this article, we report the results of an empirical study of the impact of school inputs on pupils' examination performance at the secondary level in private (also known as "independent") schools in the United Kingdom. 1 We use a new dataset constructed from information provided by the Independent Schools Council information service (ISCis). This is a school-level panel dataset for U.K. private schools for the years 1988-94 that includes resource information, examination results at ages 18 and 16, and fees. This is an exploratory study: we investigate whether school resources matter for student achievement. This question has been debated for at least 30 years, primarily with data from schools in the public sector (known as "state" schools in the United Kingdom). The evidence in the United States and the United Kingdom has been mixed, with several recent U.K. studies (described below) finding no effects from the pupil-teacher ratio. A particular advantage and distinguishing feature of our dataset is that it consists entirely of private schools. This is important for several reasons. First, resources vary widely among private schools -- much more so than among state schools. It may therefore be easier to identify a relationship between resources and pupil outcomes. Furthermore, on average private schools have a lower pupil-teacher ratio than state schools, and may also organize teaching differently; for both of these reasons, resource effects may be different. Thus, a natural question is whether a stronger relationship can be found between school resources and student ...