Publishing school examination results in england: incentives and consequences

Since 1992, the quality daily national press in England has published the e xamination results of secondary schools. In this paper, we discuss the poli cy context, the results that are published, how they are used by parents ma king preferences for secondary schools and the consequences of their public ation. Overall, the publication of examination results has created a range of incentives for those in the education market place. These incentives ser ve to strengthen the position of certain categories of pupils on the one ha nd and certain types of schools on the other. The findings are discussed in the context of the Labour Government's focus on those at risk of social ex clusion. Modified and additional indicators are proposed to mitigate the ef fects of the newly created quasi-market in education. 'League tables' are h ere to stay, for once information is in the public domain it cannot easily be suppressed.