Should we charge environmental factors for poor students’ achievement?

The literature states that an unfavourable environment negatively affects students’ performance. However, there is evidence showing that low socio-economic status does not always have a negative influence on students’ outcomes. To shed some light on this issue, we develop a conditional order-m efficiency estimation. The results confirm that the environment impacts differently among schools and unfavourable socio-economic background does not always imply a negative influence.