The North-South divide in school grading standards: new evidence from national assessment of the Italian student population

Even if marks are crucial for students’ educational careers and school-related\r\ndecisions and although grading standards are a relevant topic in public debate about\r\nItalian education, in our country this research topic has not attracted much attention. In\r\nthis article we investigate heterogeneity across Italian macro-regions in grading\r\nstandards (degree of strictness in attributing marks by teachers) and in the coherence\r\nbetween teachers’ marks and students’ test scores. We use data from INVALSI-SNV\r\non the whole student population in the 5th, 6th and 10th grade in 2011/12, with relevant\r\ninformation on two subjects (Italian and mathematics). We detect that Southern regions\r\nare characterized by what seems higher generosity in grading students, who display\r\nlower performance in the INVALSI assessment compared to their counterparts with the\r\nsame marks and socio-demographic profile. Moreover, this generosity in attributing\r\nmarks seems stronger for higher marks (9 and 10) and in mathematics, especially in\r\nlower secondary schools and lyceums. At the same time, our analysis underlines that\r\nthe North-South divide is crucial but provides only a partial view of the phenomenon:\r\nindeed, we find striking differences in grading standards among Italian provinces even\r\nwithin macro-regions. We discuss the main implications of such geographical\r\nheterogeneity for the Italian educational system.