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In the UK, US and elsewhere, school accountability systems increasinglycompare schools using value-added measures of school performance derived frompupil scores in high-stakes standardised tests. Rather than naively comparingschool average scores, which largely reflect school intake differences in priorattainment, these measures attempt to compare the average progress orimprovement pupils make during a year or phase of schooling. Schools, however,also differ in terms of their pupil demographic and socioeconomiccharacteristics and these also predict why some schools subsequently scorehigher than others. Many therefore argue that value-added measures unadjustedfor pupil background are biased in favour of schools with more 'educationallyadvantaged' intakes. But, others worry that adjusting for pupil backgroundentrenches socioeconomic inequities and excuses low performing schools. In thisarticle we explore these theoretical arguments and their practical importancein the context of the 'Progress 8' secondary school accountability system inEngland which has chosen to ignore pupil background. We reveal how the reportedlow or high performance of many schools changes dramatically once adjustmentsare made for pupil background and these changes also affect the reporteddifferential performances of region and of different school types. We concludethat accountability systems which choose to ignore pupil background are likelyto reward and punish the wrong schools and this will likely have detrimentaleffects on pupil learning. These findings, especially when coupled with moregeneral concerns surrounding high-stakes testing and school value-added models,raise serious doubts about their use in school accountability systems.

Should we adjust for pupil background in school value-added models? A study of Progress 8 and school accountability in England