School autonomy and accountability are two policies at the centre of current global reform agendas that tend to be conceived as inseparable. Governments are willing to give more autonomy to schools in different domains to the extent that schools accept stricter supervision via external evaluation and test-based accountability measures. In a more competitive international education environment, education reform advocates, including the OECD and other international organizations, see both school autonomy and accountability as the most appropriate policies to modernize and strengthen the effectiveness of educational systems (Lingard et al 2013). Nonetheless, despite the strong international emphasis behind these two policies, it is not clear yet to what extent they have penetrated national education systems and the everyday work of schools. We employ both σ-convergence tests and endogenous clustering methods to identify convergence clubs of countries (Lee et al. 1997; Phillips & Sul 2007). First, we test convergence hypothesis by dividing the units of analysis into subgroups based on some prior information (i.e. OECD vs non-OECD countries, testing and accountability policies, institutional framework). Second, we adopt a data-driven method to identify clusters of convergence subgroups of countries and run probit models to find factors playing a role in determining the formation of convergence clubs among the OECD countries (Bartkowska & Riedl, 2012). The main source of information is the OECD PISA database, from wave 2000 to wave 2015. Our analysis considers data for 55 educational systems. We test the convergence hypothesis for three indices of school autonomy (staffing, budgeting, and curriculum) and a variable related to autonomy in the management of school admission (selection according to academic records). On the other hand, we also analyse the convergence of certain market-driven accountability policies (achievement data are posted publicly). This research provides preliminary evidence on the convergence of certain policies of school autonomy and accountability. We find evidence on the convergence of school autonomy policies, with respect to staff, school budget and curriculum. We also find robust evidence on the lack of dispersion regarding the school admission policies according to the student's academic records, which is a clear indicator of schools’ organizational autonomy. The same database does not offer evidence on the convergence of countries in the enactment of market-driven accountability policies, such as the publication of the students' academic results. Finally, we reflect on the contextual and institutional factors behind the different levels of convergence identified in our study.

Bartkowska, M.; Riedl, A. (2012). Regional convergence clubs in Europe: Identification and conditioning factors. Economic Modelling 29(1): 22-31. Lee, K.; Pesaran, M. H.; Smith, R. (1997). Growth and convergence in a multi-country empirical stochastic Solow model. Journal of Applied Econometrics 12: 357-392 Lingard, B., Martino, W. & Rezai-Rashti, G. (2013) Testing regimes, accountabilities and education policy: commensurate global and national developments, Journal of Education Policy, 28:5, 539-556 Phillips, P.C.B.; Sul, D. (2007). Transition modeling and econometric convergence tests. Econometrica 75(6): 1771–1855.