The impact of public management reforms on student performance in Danish schools

Many resources have been invested in reforming the public sectors of most countries in the world during the last 20 years. Greater focus on evaluation and performance is one of the most central aspects of these reforms, but despite much academic research virtually no systematic evaluations of the outcome of the reforms themselves are found. This paper presents a study of the effect of performance management reforms of Danish public schools on the achievements of more than 80,000 lower secondary students. The study finds no or very small effects on performance measured as average exam scores, but highly significant effects on inequity in the sense that students with low socioeconomic status perform worse at reforming schools than at similar non-reforming schools. These results, as well as the methodological challenges involved in estimating reform impact, emphasize the need for more empirical scrutiny of what effects the reforms have.