schools may or may not receive government funding, but those that do are under the supervision of the Office of the Private Education Commission (OPEC).

Resources available to each type of school vary widely. As reported by Patrinos _et al_ (2012), SATIT schools, which are governed by the Commission of Higher Education, have more resources and more teacher than other public schools. If school autonomy in the Education Service Areas vary in its interpretation by the schools—as measured by the SABER indicators— the impact on learning outcomes within the context of autonomy needs to be explored.

After analyzing PISA data for 2006 and 2009 using a Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition methodology, Patrinos _et al_ (2012) conclude that a decline in the reading scores among the poor was the net result of a decline in system quality, which was larger than the increase in student performance, especially among the poor. Relatedly, schools in Bangkok outperformed school in the rest of the country, and system performance was also a reflection of systems resources, which were correlated with student wealth. These findings have direct implications for the analysis of SABER indicators inasmuch they suggest a need to examine policy implementation by type of school and geographical area.

Table 7 shows the different implementation and scores by type of school sponsorship. There are no significant differences among the SABER sub-indicators by type of school sponsorship, but the lack of a significant difference is related to the high variation found within the indicators, which tended to reduce the statistical significance of the average differences between school types (see Table A6 in the Annex). In terms of average sub-indicator scores, however, the average differences between intent and implementation are statistically significant.

|**Table 7: SABER indicator scores fo**|**r policy im**|**plementa**|**tion by ty**|**pe of scho**|**ol sponso**|**r, 2013**<br>SABER|SABER|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|Indicator|OBEC|OPEC|BMA|BLED|SATIT|<br>Implem.|<br>Intent|
|1a. Legal authorityover management of budget|3.3|3.3|3.2|3.1|3.4|3.3|3.0|
|1b. Legal authorityover management of salaries|2.8|2.9|2.7|2.6|2.5|2.8|1.0|
|1c. Legal authorityto raise additional funds|3.0|3.1|3.2|3.0|2.8|3.0|3.0*|
|2a. Autonomyin teacher appointment decisions|2.8|2.9|2.7|2.7|2.9|2.8|2.0|
|2b. School council role in teacher tenure or transfer|2.3|2.2|2.2|2.5|2.2|2.3|1.0|
|2c. Autonomyin the hiringand firingofprincipals|2.9|2.9|2.5|2.8|2.8|2.9|1.0|
|3a. Participation of council in budgetpreparation|2.8|3.0|2.5|2.5|2.7|2.7|2.0|
|3b. School council authorityto approve budget|2.8|2.9|2.8|2.7|2.8|2.8|2.0|
|3c. Manual forparticipation of council in finances|2.8|2.7|3.1|2.5|2.6|2.7|3.0|
|3d. Role of council in budget implementation|2.7|2.7|3.2|2.6|2.5|2.7|3.0|
|3e. Use of budgetprepared with council|2.8|2.7|3.1|2.4|3.0|2.8|3.0|
|4a. Existence and frequencyof assessments|3.6|3.5|3.8|3.6|3.6|3.6|4.0|
|4b.Use school assessments for decisions|3.2|3.2|3.2|3.4|3.2|3.2|4.0|
|4c. Frequencyof standardized student assessments|3.7|3.7|3.8|3.7|3.7|3.7|4.0|
|4d.Use of assessments for adjustments|3.4|3.4|3.2|3.4|3.3|3.4|4.0|
|4e. Publication of school and student assessments|3.7|3.6|3.6|3.5|3.5|3.6|4.0|
|5a.Guidelines for assessments for accountability|3.1|3.0|3.1|3.2|3.2|3.1|2.0|
|5b. National or regional systems of assessments|3.2|3.1|3.2|3.2|3.0|3.1|4.0|
|5c.Comparisons ofperformance reports|2.9|2.8|2.7|2.9|3.3|3.0|3.0*|
|5d.Council authoritytoperform financial audits|2.6|2.8|2.2|2.8|2.4|2.6|2.0|
|5e. Manual forparticipation of council in audits|2.6|2.4|2.3|2.4|2.5|2.5|4.0|

Source: Estimated by authors. Difference between the implementation and intent score is statistically significant at the 0.00l level except for 1c and 5c Note: OBEC = Office of the Basic Education Commission; OPEC = Office of the Private Education Commission; BMA = Bangkok Metropolitan Administration; BLED = Bureau of Local Educational Development; SATIT = Commission for Higher Education 19