To Measure What We Value or to Value What We Can Measure? Performance Indicators as a Basis for School Choice.

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to examine and critically discuss indicators that represent student achievement and are used as a basis for school choice in the Swedish compulsory school. It focuses on analyzing the performance indicators in some of the commonly used evaluation systems and to what extent they represent the National curriculum. Five evaluation systems used to inform school choice are selected and analyzed in relation to the Swedish national curriculum, based on perspectives from curriculum and evaluation theories. Most indicators represent a narrow subject discourse, while the discourses that represent the broad goals of the curriculum, such as citizenship, are largely absent. The indicators constitute a conception of student achievement as easily measurable subject knowledge.