In France, secondary school teachers are evaluated every six or seven years by senior experts of the Ministry of education. These external evaluations mostly involve the supervision of one class session and a debriefing interview, but have nonetheless a direct impact on teachers' career...

A key concern in the design of education policies relates to the structure of incentives in accountability systems. This paper examines a school accountability program that provides financial support to low-performing schools but has no direct punishment scheme for recipients who do not exhibit...

Evidence of grade inflation in U.S. high schools is often misinterpreted due to confusion about how grade inflation is, or should be, defined. This note clarifies the implications of recent research on grade inflation in two ways. First, we situate the evidence by defining three distinct types...

We show that grading standards for primary school exams in England have triggered an inflation of quality indicators in the national performance tables for almost two decades. The cumulative effects have resulted in significant differences in the quality signaled to parents for otherwise...

School systems regularly use student assessments for accountability purposes. But, as highlighted by our conceptual model, different configurations of assessment usage generate performance-conducive incentives of different strengths for different stakeholders in different school environments. We...