Does School Autonomy Make Sense Everywhere? Panel Estimates from PISA

As education governance rises on the policy agenda, should American reformers be looking toward greater decentralization or centralization—or a judicious mix of both? Eric Hanushek, Susanne Link, and Ludger Woessmann argue that, in a country like the U.S., greater school-level autonomy offers the best shot at boosting student achievement. Using the four available rounds of PISA data (2000-09), the trio compared achievement in forty-two countries with their levels of school-based autonomy, as reported by principals. (Specifically, they analyzed autonomy of academic content, personnel decisions, and budget allocations.) Dividing the countries up by GDP per capita, the authors find that developed nations tend to see spikes in student achievement when school autonomy increases, while scores in developing countries drop with greater decentralization. Autonomy works when local leaders have both an interest in making decisions that benefit students and the capacity to do so. The stronger governmental institutions and the rule of law, the logic goes, the more likely leaders are to align their interests to those of their students. Thus, in richer countries, pairing greater autonomy with test-based accountability magnified the bump in scores. In short, how education is governed matters for students. But we told you that already.