Onderzoek naar een nieuwe gewichtenregeling gewogen. Een beter systeem voor de toekenning van extra financiële middelen aan scholen met achterstandsleerlingen?

Weighting weighted student funding system research

The core of the Dutch educational disadvantage policy is the so-called weighted student funding system. Schools with students from disadvantaged home backgrounds receive extra financial resources to combat educational delays. This system was developed in the 1980s and then discerned three indicators of disadvantage, parental educational level, occupational level, and country of birth. Analyses suggested a predictive validity estimate of 0.50, or 25 percent of explained variance in the students’ educational attainment. Nowadays there only is one indicator of disadvantage left, parental educational level, with a validity estimate of 0.20, or no more than 4 percent of explained variance. At the request of the Ministry of Education a new study was performed to arrive at a model with better predictive validity. This article critically appraises the results of this study focusing on two themes: what is its value-added quality, and does it solve the practicalities?