Achievement Effectiveness and Equity : The role of Tracking, Grade-Repetition and Inter-school Segregation

Grouping students together according to their ability – in vocational vs. academic tracks, in different grades or schools -- are frequently denounced within educational circles as being ineffective and/or sourceof additional inequality. Yet very few international studies have attempted to evaluate the effects of these practices on educational performance. This paper attempts to fill this gap using standardisedscores in math, science and reading literacy at the age of 15 published by the OECD in 2000. Results are that ability grouping has no impact on effectiveness (country mean scores). And the intensity of inequality(within country dispersion of scores) is also hard to predict. It is only for math that higher interschool segregation -- but not tracking or grade repetition-- seems to lead to higher inequality