THE publication of school league tables based on exam performance is controversial because the information can be misleading.
On the face of it, The Herald's benchmark of the proportion of pupils achieving five or more Highers by the time they leave appears a good one to judge a school's performance.
However, it does not tell us whether those results were achieved in fifth or sixth year so it favours schools where more pupils stay on until S6 to accrue more qualifications at the expense of those where more pupils leave early.
The measure also takes no account of how many pupils are in a particular year group - meaning small schools can yo-yo up and down the league tables depending on how academic their pupils are from year to year.
More generally, critics of league tables argue they are misleading because they focus only on one measure and do not inform parents about the wider context of the school or how much it helps pupils improve.
And because deprivation levels have a very significant impact on exam performance the tables can artificially promote middle class schools rather than high performing secondaries in poorer areas with greater numbers of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.
However, there are strong counter voices with the UK Statistics Agency criticising the Scottish Government in 2013 for its strategy of publishing school results without making comparisons between them to avoid league tables.
While still making it hard to construct league tables by not publishing exam results on a national basis the Scottish Government has introduced new measures which give greater context to the data, including a "virtual comparator" benchmark.
That shows how the school should be performing given the socio-economic background of its pupils and can help parents decide whether it is punching above its weight or coasting.
In addition, The Herald has chosen to highlight only those schools at the upper end of the scale rather than featuring those who have lower proportions of pupils passing exams. As a result, the table should be seen as a celebration of pupil success rather than a vilification of schools who have not achieved so highly.
Ultimately, parents should not use crude league table positions as the sole basis of where to send their children. What families really need to know is whether pupils are able to achieve their potential rather than what percentage passed five or more Highers.
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