all due to differences in what students bring with them to school - socio-economic background, cultural factors, and the … like? Or do school systems make a difference? This essay argues that differences in features of countries' school systems … factors of the school system, as well as factors beyond the school system, account for cross-country achievement differences …

all due to differences in what students bring with them to school – socio-economic background, cultural factors, and the … like? Or do school systems make a difference? This essay argues that differences in features of countries' school systems … factors of the school system, as well as factors beyond the school system, account for cross-country achievement differences …

The literature suggests that competition among schools might increase quality. However, not much empirical evidence is … present as only a few countries allow competition at a large scale. One exception is the Netherlands. Free parental choice is … Netherlands we show that there is a relation between competition and student achievement in upper secondary education, but that it …

school, observing how competitive occupational choices often require higher quantitative skills. Using the data of the PISA … test in math, the empirical results highlight that a higher level of trust in school environments promotes a student …'s willingness to participate in math competitions. However, this positive effect of trust maintains mainly in mixed-sex competition …