EVER-CONTROVERSIAL, the results in this year's school league tables provoke new argument today as refinements showing those which have improved over four years indicate that one in three is a grant-maintained school.

This, of course, adds political spice to the debate since such opted-out schools are part of a system the Tories created and which the government intends to scrap.

But this finding alone perhaps add merit to teachers' claims that the tables do not take into consideration enough factors about schools' performances and character.

After all, by their very nature, grant-maintained schools, with their pro-active leadership and the parent involvement that took them out of local authority control, might be expected to do better than others.

None of that information or influence is conveyed in the tables, just as the apparently worse results of inner-city schools lower down the league do not show how teachers may have actually achieved far more with less-advantaged children by raising their achievements from a lower level. Nevertheless, the tweak that the government has given to the tables by adding an "improvement index" does enable parents to make slightly better comparisons, even if the rankings are still based on "raw" GCSE examination results alone.

Yet, even if teachers validly criticise the tables for this, there is no doubt that the very existence of the tables is a spur to improvement.

And when, next year, the government begins to add "value added" information to them, the incentives will increase along with the delivery of much more valid information to parents.

For as well as showing what average GCSE result a school achieved, the tables will also show how well it did against a benchmark of what it should have achieved with any given intake.

Parent choice will be empowered with far better information and the beneficial pressure for improvements all round will increase.

And who can dispute either aim?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.