ABSTRACT
Three points of criticism – Criterion-Definition, Effect Size and Stability – concerning the validity of the present empirical school effectiveness models are that effects are insignificantly small, that the effect criterion is not well chosen and that school effects are unstable. The major challenges to the choice of a particular effectiveness criterion are critical questions concerning the ultimateness, fairness, validity and economy of the actual output measures. Attainment measures depend on formal “levels” in the school-careers of pupils. Madaus have provided arguments in favour of curriculum-specific tests and against the use of general achievement tests. Effect-size depends, up to a degree, on the choice of the dependent variable. The most common way of expressing school effects is to report the between school variance, that is, the proportion of total variance that is accounted for by schools. Contingency theory points to a cause of instability of effects, since organizations, being adaptive to external circumstances, might be instable themselves.
