Factors that are Strongly Associated with Student Learning Outcomes and their Policy Implications

For the first time in 2022, the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture issued a comprehensive report, namely the ‘Education Report Card.’ This report card describes the performance of education at schools and the local governments. This study aims to determine the differences in student learning outcomes based on school characteristics, the differences in school characteristics with different performances, and the factors that are strongly correlated with student learning outcomes. This research is quantitative with a correlational type. A total sample of 440 schools spread across 5 regencies in Central Java Province whose data comes from the year 2022 education report card for basic education level, was used in this study. The statistical analysis used is non-parametric with the Mann-Whitney and Kruskal Wallis difference test and the Spearman correlation test. The results showed that there were significant differences in student learning outcomes based on the type of school, and the status of the school, but not for the type of regencies; there were significant differences in teacher characteristics, learning processes, management processes, and school climate; and factors strongly related with student learning outcomes are the quality of the learning process, the quality of school management, and school climate. The implication of the results of this study is used as the basis for preparing education policy to improve the quality of education by local governments and improving weak educational inputs and processes. 
Keywords: education inputs; learning process; process management; educational performance; education report