Consumers’ valuation of academic and deprivation-compensating aspects of school performance in England

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the willingness of households to pay for academic and deprivation-compensating components of the Contextual Value Added (CVA) indicator of school quality used in England in order to locate themselves in the catchment area of state schools. Deprivation-compensating school performance, defined as the difference in the disadvantaged intake between two schools with the same academic performance. Design/methodology/approach The empirical analysis, based on data drawn from three independent UK data sources, used parametric and non-parametric analysis approaches. The analysis conducted separately for primary and secondary schools, because household behaviour can differ between these two levels of education. Findings Consumers are willing to pay for houses in the catchment area of primary and secondary schools with high academic achievement, as measured by the mean score; whereas, the component of the CVA indicating deprivation-compensating aspects of school performance is found to have a positive effect only on the price of houses in the catchment area of primary schools in London; its impact on the price of houses elsewhere is mostly negative. Practical implications The analysis in this study suggested that the recently adopted practice of using CVA as a measure of school quality in England can encourage government and Local Authorities to pay more attention to raising the deprivation-compensating aspects of school performance of their schools. Originality/value This is the first study to explore the value which households attach to deprivation-compensating outcomes, at a given level of academic performance using the CVA indicator.