Townsend Book Volume-I

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Section 1
A REVIEW OF THE PROGRESS
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Tony Townsend + 1-4020-4805-X + Proof1 + 16 February 2007
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Introduction
In January 2007, in Slovenia, the International Congress for School Effectiveness and
Improvement (ICSEI) celebrates its twentieth year of bringing people together. Confe-
rences have been held in many parts of the world and each year, key educational
researchers, practitioners and policy makers have been brought together to consider ways
of making school effective for all students who enter them.
Murphy argued (1991, pp. 166168) that there are four factors which can be con-
sidered as the legacy of school effectiveness. He suggests the most fundamental of the
four is that given appropriate conditions, all children can learn. The second product
of the school effectiveness research stems from a rejection of the historical perspective
that good schools and bad schools could be identified by the socio-economic status of
the area in which they were located. School effectiveness examined student outcomes,
not in absolute terms, but in terms of the value added to students abilities by the
school, rather than the outside-of-school factors. He further argued that school effec-
tiveness researchers were the first to reject the philosophy that poor academic
performance and deviant behaviour have been defined as problems of individual children
or their families (Cuban, 1989; Murphy, 1991). School effectiveness helped to eliminate
the practice of blaming the victim for the shortcomings of the school. Finally, the
research showed that the better schools are more tightly linked structurally, symboli-
cally and culturally than the less effective ones. There was a greater degree of con-
sistency and co-ordination in terms of the curriculum, the teaching and the organisation
within the school.
The effective schools research seems to have had the underlying purpose of devel-
oping practical means for school improvement, but there are some important distinc-
tions and relationships between school effectiveness and school improvement that can
be identified. As Smink pointed out:
1
20 YEARS OF ICSEI: THE IMPACT OF SCHOOL
EFFECTIVENESS AND SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT
ON SCHOOL REFORM
Tony Townsend
T. Townsend (Ed.), International Handbook of School Effectiveness and Improvement, 326.
2007 Springer.
School effectiveness is concerned with results. Researchers try to describe certain
variables for school success in measurable terms. On the other hand, school improve-
ment places the accent on the process; here one finds a broad description of all the
variables that play a role in a school improvement project. Both approaches need the
other to successfully modernize the system. (Smink, 1991, p. 3)
Substantial progress has been made from the early 1980s, when the five factor model
of school effectiveness (leadership, instructional focus, climate conducive to learning,
high expectations and consistent measurement of pupil achievement; Edmonds, 1979)
was paramount, to a time in the 1990s when it was widely acknowledged that the effec-
tiveness of any school must be considered within the context in which that school oper-
ates rather than simply on the various ingredients that help to make up the schools
operations.
A number of studies at that time suggested that the level of effectiveness of schools
varied on the basis of the social environment of the schools locality (Hallinger &
Murphy, 1986), with the outcomes being measured (Mortimore et al., 1988), the stage
of development the school has reached (Stringfield & Teddlie, 1991), the social class
mix of the students (Blakey & Heath, 1992) or even the country in which the research
was conducted (Scheerens & Creemers, 1989; Wildy & Dimmock, 1992). It had also
been shown that total school performance, in terms of its effectiveness, can vary over
time (Nuttall, 1992); that schools that are effective are not necessarily effective in all
things; some might be effective academically, but not in terms of social outcomes, or
vice-versa (Mortimore et al., 1988); nor are they necessarily effective for all students,
since different school effects can occur for children from different groups within the
same school (Nuttall, 1989).
Now school effectiveness and school improvement, in both research and practice,
are so mainstream that the almost no longer need any explanation.
An International Perspective
Country reports have always been part of the development of ICSEI. At the first
Congress of 1988 they formed a major part of the offerings. As Creemers and Osinga
(1995, p. 1) indicate: The major studies (Brookover et al., 1979; Rutter et al., 1979;
Mortimore et al., 1988) were well known but almost nobody had a full picture of the
studies and the improvement projects going on in the field in all the countries partici-
pating in this first meeting. A selection of the reports from this first meeting was
published in Creemers et al. (1989).
The second meeting in Rotterdam in 1989 continued the tradition of having country
reports and the publication by Creemers et al. (1989) clearly demonstrated that the search
for the more effective school was no longer just a tradition in North America and Europe.
However, it also became clear that the time it took for research to turn into practice meant
that it was not necessary to have country reports at ICSEI in every subsequent year. As it
was, there was much new research and activity to report on in all parts of the world that
needed to take precedence in the formative years of ICSEI.
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Please con-
firm the
year of pub-
lication for
Brookover
et al., Rutter
et al., and
Motimore
et al.
Consequently, the next major attempt to collate a series of country reports was made
for the Leeuwarden conference in 1995 where nine countries from Europe, North
America, Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific region joined to become part of the
ICSEI reporting network. The major theme of this conference was to try and establish
the links between school effectiveness and school improvement. David Reynolds, Jaap
Scheerens and Sam Stringfield were invited to comment on some of the developments
that seemed to be happening on an international level. These opinions provided a con-
text in which worldwide development in school effectiveness and school improvement,
in the areas of research, policy and practice might be judged. Some of the country
reports were subsequently published in School Effectiveness and School Improvement
(Vol. 7, No. 2, 1996).
In 1998, with the support of the Manchester conference, with its theme of
Reaching out to all learners ICSEI country reports were reactivated, but with the
special brief of trying to increase both the number and the diversity of the countries
that provided a report. With the specific intent of trying to encourage educators in
some new countries to consider development that might fall within the purview of
school effectiveness and improvement, whilst maintaining contact with countries that
had previously reported. The result was Third Millennium Schools: A World of Differ-
ence in School Effectiveness and Improvement (Townsend et al., 1999) which con-
tained a total of 20 country reports, with from countries not previously represented.
New countries from Scandanavia, from the Pacific, from Asia, Africa and from South
America were included.
It was now possible to see what was happening to education, not only in rich, devel-
oped western countries, where the school effectiveness research and school improve-
ment policies and practices were well developed, although not necessarily well
implemented, but we were able to chart the progress of countries where the use of the
school effectiveness research was comparatively new, countries that had to deal with
issues such as making judgements about what effectiveness means when not every
child attends school and countries that were struggling to come to grips with the
aftermath of military or oppressive regimes.
The International Handbook of School Effectiveness Research (Teddlie & Reynolds,
2000) and Improving Schools and Educational Systems: International Perspectives
(Harris & Chrispeels, 2006) provided a further evidence of the interest in, and develop-
ing understanding of, the international perspective of school effectiveness and school
improvement, a tradition that the current volume continues.
However, the school effectiveness research has not been universally accepted by
educational researchers. Over the years there have been many critics of school effec-
tiveness research, none more so than Roger Slee, Gaby Weiner (see Slee & Weiner,
with Tomlinson, 1998) and Martin Thrupp (see Thrupp, 1999) and so the International
Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI) was invited by the
American Education Research Association to present a symposium on international
developments in school effectiveness and improvement research, which brought the
proponents of school effectiveness research face to face with the critics.
On Wednesday April 26, 2000, the session entitled School effectiveness comes of
age: 21 years after Edmonds and Rutter, has school effectiveness had a positive or
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negative effect on school reform? was offered to participants at the New Orleans
AERA conference. Four papers were offered and a lively debate ensued. The four
papers made a very neat package.
Two of the papers, Education reform and reconstruction as a challenge to research
genres: Reconsidering school effectiveness research and inclusive schooling (Slee &
Weiner, 2001), and Reflections on the critics, and beyond them (Reynolds & Teddlie,
2001), approached the issue from a global perspective. The other set of papers, Socio-
logical and political concerns about school effectiveness research: Time for a new
research agenda Thrupp (2001) and Countering the critics: Responses to recent criti-
cisms of school effectiveness research (Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000) made a much more
specific analysis of the issues. It is almost as if with the first set of papers we see the
whole forest and with the second set, we see the individual trees. Having both provided
a perspective not often available to researchers. So popular was the session and so well
received were the papers, that it was decided to publish them in the Journal of School
Effectiveness and School Improvement (Vol. 12, No. 1, March 2001) as a means of
expanding the debate.
The Current Volume
The above serves as a backdrop to the current handbook, which merges the traditions
that have developed with the organization itself. First it looks at the development of the
linked disciplines of effectiveness and improvement, both through the eyes of propo-
nents and the eyes of those that wish to critique it. Second, it provides an opportunity
for the inclusion of country and regional reports as a mechanism to better understand
what is happening in various parts of the world. Seven regions of the world are
included; North America and Latin America, Europe, Asia, Australasia, Africa and the
Middle East. Never before has such a comprehensive collection of papers from various
regions of the world been collected together. Third, it provides a link between school
effectiveness and improvement and some of the other global issues for education in the
modern world; the issues of resourcing, accountability and policy development and
working with diverse populations. Fourth, it looks at the people issues, with both a
focus on leadership and teacher development. Finally, it provides some specific case
studies where school improvement practices using school effectiveness theories have
been successful.
Section 1: A Review of the Progress
In the first section of the book we have tried to provide the reader with an overview of
the progress in School Effectiveness and School Improvement (SESI) research, since it
was first mentioned in the 1970s. To do this we have provided an overview of the factors
that have affected SESI research and responses to those factors, a chapter that considers
the connectedness between school effectiveness and teacher effectiveness research, a
chapter that provides an example of the types of research that uses the principles and
theories of school effectiveness and improvement study and two chapters that seek to
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identify the limitations of SESI research and provide some possible ways forward that
might encourage the authors of those chapters to accept school effectiveness research in
the future.
In Chapter 2, Hedley Beare, whose thoughts and practice have been so influential on
education in Australia and indeed have helped to shape ICSEI itself, provides a
masterful review of where ICSEI and school education finds itself today. He provides
an overview of the conditions after the World War II and subsequently that have created
the pathway upon which ICSEI has found itself and documents the beginnings and
progress of ICSEI through this turbulent period of human history. He weaves together
the issues that are facing the world at large and the implications that these bring for
those in education and he leaves us with the critical challenge that all educators must
face. If the world (and education) changes as much in the next 20 years as it has in the
past 20 years, what must we do today that will put us at the forefront of these changes
in the future. How will education change and how must ICSEI change to remain rele-
vant to the future needs of school students? This is a challenge that we cannot ignore
and hopefully, some ways to move forward will become apparent in the rest of chapters
in this handbook.
In Chapter 3, Leonidas Kyriakides investigates the differentiated nature of both
school effectiveness and teacher effectiveness. He discusses the issues surrounding the
assumptions that an effective school is effective all the time and for all the students and
demonstrates that the analysis much be much more fine-grained than this. He argues
that is it primarily the teachers adaptive behavior that enables students with different
needs to be accommodated that leads to effective classrooms and eventually effective
schools, but because of this the unit of investigation may need to shift from the school
to the department or even the classroom. He also argues that schools are much more
important to students that are disadvantaged than to those that are not, which suggests
that a differentiated approach needs to be adopted to really understand how effective
teachers might be for different groups of students. He also argues for more longitudi-
nal studies as means of overcoming some of the current methodological problems
associated with the case study approach.
In Chapter 4, John MacBeath provides us with an overview of a single study the
Improving School Effectiveness Project (ISEP) project in Scotland. This chapter is an
important contribution because it not only provides the reader with an overview of how
a school effectiveness project might be developed, managed and evaluated, but it is
also important because of some of the findings of the project itself and the reflections
of the author. The chapter clearly shows how nothing in schools can be taken for
granted. What works in one place (e.g., the critical friend) fails to work somewhere
else. Some of the findings are used by some schools and school leaders as a mecha-
nism for improvement but are rejected out of hand by others. But what is also impor-
tant is the reflection of the researcher, where he identifies how much the world has
changed outside of school, technologically, socially and in terms of work and family,
but how little things have changed inside of school, partially because schools are being
measured, with more and more surveillance, in the ways they have always been
measured. It clearly shows that the disconnect between schools and the rest of the
world cannot continue if success in life is the goal.
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In Chapter 5, Javier Murillo provides us with an overview of the Latin American
research, which paralleled that of the research in other parts of the world, but is largely
unknown because of it mostly being written in Spanish. He also argues however, that
part of the reason the Latin American research is largely unknown comes from the
assumption by the big fish that what works in the context of large developed coun-
tries, equally applies in other contexts as well. As well as providing an overview of the
research that has been conducted in the past (largely production function based,
because of the various countries concerns about results) and that which is currently
being conducted, he provides us with an argument why we need to learn more about
research from various country contexts if we are to develop a truly global approach to
effectiveness.
Chapter 6 sees our first attempt to provide the critics of the SESI research with an
opportunity to review the field, express their concerns and to identify possible ways
forward. Ira Bogotch, Luis Mirn, and Gert Biesta welcome the progress that ICSEI
has made over the past thirsty years but remain concerned on three major fronts. The
first they characterize as effective for what? where they argue that the inputs and
outputs model used by many school effectiveness researchers does not consider the
critical nature of what happens between inputs and outputs, what has come to be
known as the black-box of teaching and learning. They argue that by ignoring this,
SESI researchers make an assumption that what is currently being measured is the
same as what should be measured and suggest that SESI research should also consider
the question of the purpose of education as well as simply the technological consider-
ation brought about by the progress from input to output. Their second major criticism
is identified as effective for whom? which suggests that SESI researchers have
become researchers in-demand and in doing so have ignored an opportunity to be
research activists, where research is a means to changing what is rather than simply
looking at what is.
In Chapter 7, Martin Thrupp, Ruth Lupton and Ceri Brown, argue that, although the
SESI research has made more concessions related to school and student context, the
underlying desire for generalizabilty of findings leads to a superficiality that overlooks
what some schools, and people in them, are facing. They propose a contexualization
agenda as a possible future development for SESI research and provide an overview of
a study underway in Hampshire, England, as a means for demonstrating the types
of data that a contextual approach might provide.
Section 2: A World Showcase: School Effectiveness and Improvement
from all Corners
In the second section of the book, we embark on a world-wide tour that provides us
with an overview of the research and practice of school effectiveness and school
improvement in five regions spanning the world; the Americas, Europe, Asia and
the Pacific, Africa and the Middle East. It is appropriate to start this tour in the
United States as much of the work involved in the school effectiveness and school
improvement areas emerged from studies that occurred in the United States in the
60s and 70s.
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In Chapter 8, Charles Teddlie and Sam Stringfield provide an overview of the ante-
cedants to the study of school effectiveness and outline the difference between school
effectiveness research, which focuses on educational processes (e.g., Brookover et al.,
1979; Edmonds, 1979; Weber, 1971) and the first of the group, and school effects
research, which focuses on educational products (e.g., Coleman et al., 1966; Jencks
et al., 1972). They also provide us with an analysis of the overlapping efforts of school
effectiveness researchers who peaked in terms of output and interest between the 1980s
and the mid 1990s and the school improvement researchers which started in the early
1990s and continue to work through what has now become known as Comprehensive
School Reform. The authors outline some of the key areas where the field is still
untouched, or at least underresearched, and identify a number of possible future areas of
study that suggest that there is still much work to be done. They end with a plea that we
use strong research to guide our improvement efforts, something that seems not to be
happening as much as it should at the moment.
In Chapter 9, Larry Sackney explains the difference between the American and the
Canadian history of school effectiveness and improvement, with the major difference
being that school education is the responsibility of the provinces (as in the USA) but
with no federal system of education there is no national government that intervenes in
what might happen locally. This has enabled provincial governments to adopt their
own version of restructuring without something like No Child Left Behind directing
the traffic. As it runs out most provinces have adopted a similar strategy and series of
programs as the other provinces, but it is one that focuses more on learning and build-
ing capacity at the community level than simply measuring and reporting.
Nevertheless Sackney makes the case, as do others, that unless improvement strategies
focus on what happens in classrooms (which is where learning happens), then little
improvement will occur.
In Chapter 10, Beatrice Avalos provides us with an opportunity to see just how
different are the circumstances facing less developed regions of the world, where
Gross Domestic Product is just a fraction of that in the developed world and where
issues of getting every child into school in the first place, in a climate of safety and
support, is much higher priority than the issues of measuring how well students do
when they get there. Nevertheless, as well as the efforts related to improving educa-
tional opportunities for every child, Avalos provides us with an insight into what Latin
American countries are doing to improve education for students in schools as well.
As with the previous chapters, it becomes obvious that the teacher is the key to student
improvement. It is only when reforms are accepted, owned and implemented by teach-
ers that real change occurs. As with the Canadian examples, the need to consider whole
communities becomes apparent.
We then move across the Atlantic to Europe, where issues of school effectiveness
and school improvement emerged almost simultaneously with those in the United
States.
In Chapter 11, Louise Stoll and Pam Sammons provide an overview of the separate
history of school effectiveness and school improvement research in the United
Kingdom from the first studies of Reynolds (1976) and Rutter and colleagues (1979)
through the formative years of Mortimore and colleagues (1988) and the impact of the
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Please con-
firm change
from
Alavos to
Avalos.
conservative governments of Thatcher and Major to a time where the quantitative and
measurement based approaches associated with effectiveness met and embraced the
qualitative and process based approaches of improvement. They provide us with an
overview of the key studies and an insight into the need for policy-makers, researchers
and practitioners to work together if real change is to be achieved. They identify some
of the challenges and critiques faced by researchers in the field but are confident
that the processes and structures developed during this era will continue to guide
educational research into the next significant era of change and development.
In Chapter 12, Bert Creemers outlines the development in the rest of Europe, where
school effectiveness research started a little later than in the United Sates and the
United Kingdom but has been at the forefront of much research focused on developing
theoretical models for guiding effectiveness studies. He identifies the continuing
tension between school effectiveness and school improvement in Europe where neither
is used as well as it might be to inform and support the other, and finishes with an argu-
ment that it might be where the two meet and in the joint pursuit of both effectiveness
and improvement that the next major developments may occur.
The Asian-Pacific region contains some of the oldest societies known to man, but
research in school effectiveness and improvement is largely unknown by the rest of
the world. The work of those systems that are well known (such as Australia, Hong
Kong and Singapore) reflects only a small part of the research that has emerged
within the last decade. This new understanding of what has been happening in other
parts of Asia is enabling school effectiveness researchers to look at school develop-
ment with a new lens.
In Chapter 13, Yin-Cheong Cheng and Wai-ming Tam provide an overview of the
developments occurring in Asia over the past decade and a half. They identify what
they call three waves of development, starting with the search for effective schools in
the early 1990s followed by a search for school quality over the past few years, with the
currently breaking wave of searching for what will make schools effective in this
rapidly changing, increasingly diverse and technologically oriented world in the future.
They identify nine trends for educators to consider and frame these within four levels
of interest, the macro level, which considers national issues, the meso level, where
system issues are discussed, the site level where individual schools need to address
issues and the operational level where the actual processes of teaching and learning
occur. Their analysis of the trends identifies a series of questions and issues that
decision-makers at all levels will need to address if we are successful in our search for
the effective school of the future.
In Chapter 14, Wendy Hui-Ling Pan argues that many of the change processes at
work in western societies simply do not fit into the Asian culture and that some of
them, such as school self-management are much harder to implement because
of the cultural context that exists. The current international concerns of globaliza-
tion and localization are issues currently being considered in Taiwan. She outlines
the reform movement accepted by the Taiwan government over the past 20 years
and highlights the role of school based curriculum development, where 20% of the
curriculum is determined locally. She identifies some of the issues and problems
associated with having local empowerment of teachers and communities and
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highlights some possible strategies that might be used to improve the effectiveness
of schools within this context.
In Chapter 15, Daming Feng looks at the recent history of educational change in
mainland China and in doing so further highlights the differences between a western
approach and that employed by those with different cultural roots, and the difficulties
implicit in just assuming a western approach can be implemented universally. He
identifies the governments move over the past decade from prioritizing key schools to
the detriment of ordinary and disadvantaged schools to one where the disadvantaged
schools are receiving the attention they deserve. However, his comment that a school
leaders priority, according to the Confucian perspective of leadership, is not supervi-
sion but tapping the natural moral source from his or her subordinates and bringing
every positive factor into being which is based on the base value of man as being
essentially good (as opposed to the Christian concept of original sin) leads to a con-
flict of leadership when self-management, teacher involvement and empowerment are
seen as the way forward. He identifies a series of things to consider if we are to address
change in disadvantaged schools, but recognizes the inherent difficulties in trying to
do this on a huge scale.
In Chapter 16, Brian Caldwell outlines the history of the development of school
effectiveness and school improvement research and its translation into policy and prac-
tice in Australia. He identifies five stages from early development to impending matu-
rity in the field. Stage 1 was the development of Values what ought to be; Stage 2
established Reputation through the identification of good practice based on the early
research; Stage 3 considered Modeling which refined practice using better data and
analyses; Stage 4 developed Dependability where clarity and confidence of what can
and should be done at the school level were developed; and Stage 5, which has not yet
been fully realized is Alignment: where education authorities can move from what
works in individual schools to whole system effectiveness. He argues for a new enter-
prise logic of schools that go deeper than structure and function and identifies six
characteristics of what should be considered if this is to be instigated. He further
argues that alignment both between policies and practices within school systems and
of resources, which now need to include intellectual capital, social capital as well as
financial capital should be directed at securing high levels of achievement by all
students in all settings.
In Chapter 17, Howard Fancy provides an overview of the radical changes that the
New Zealand implemented in the late 1980s and early 1990s where all the administra-
tive layers of education that had previously existed were removed and individual
schools negotiated directly with government over education provision and accounta-
bility. He discusses the changes in governance and curriculum that were designed to
keep New Zealand at the forefront of educational achievement internationally and
were also tailored to ensure that the degree of variance in the performance of students
from different classes of society was minimized. This development is significant in
that the government has used evidence based research and development and that they
came to the viewpoint that if changes was to occur, it would happen through strength-
ening the ability and attitudes of teachers at the classroom level and the interaction of
home and school at the local level. This is different to many other countries where the
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focus has been on the restructuring of schools, districts or instead have put a focus on
school leaders as the locus of change.
In Chapter 18, Brahm Fleisch introduces us to issues in Africa where there has been
little history of school effectiveness and improvement research. He argues that there are
three main reasons for this. First, there are few researchers at the university level with an
interest and a background in this area, and it has been university researchers that have
provided the impetus in other parts of the world. Second, in a continent where issues of
access and equity have taken priority after long histories of neglect in these areas, then
issues of effectiveness of provision takes a back seat to just getting people into school in
the first place. As Mingat points out in a later chapter, countries with limited resources
need to determine if they are to focus on access for large numbers of the population, or
improving the quality for those advantaged few that have traditionally had access. To try
and do both at once is a very difficult task. Finally, he argues that there has been some
resistance to the narrowness of the school effectiveness research. He suggests for
some time yet, Africa will rely both on external resources, generally through AID agen-
cies and other external grants and on external understandings of school effectiveness and
improvement as many projects are driven by academics from countries supporting edu-
cation development. The current state of the school effectiveness research is thus at a
very early stage of development and there still needs to be identified an independent
understanding of African work in the field.
In Chapter 19, Ami Volansky outlines the progress and regress of school reform in
Israel, from early efforts of school autonomy in the 1970s and 1980s, through a
school based management model in the 1990s to the current period where the impact
of government concerns about raising achievement quickly has left many schools
in an educational limbo, where the requirements of new task forces are not being
implemented and the progress of the years under school based management has been
stalled because of a lack of political support. This chapter clearly demonstrates
that substantial and rapid changes in policy and the reform agenda may lead to no
movement at all.
In Chapter 20, Ismail Guven provides us with another look at a country that has
struggled to bring about universal education to its whole population. He identifies some
of the difficulties facing a country that is trying to first of all lift the level of parti-
cipation in compulsory education, second to try and improve the quality of what hap-
pens in the schools and third come to grips with the difficulties associated with trying
to bring about local reform with a centralized system. He identifies a number of
programs that the government has implemented, mostly with educational loans by
international agencies, to increase enrolments, to change curriculum to address the
rapidly changing economic environment, to improve the system of educational provi-
sion and to increase the education and effectiveness of teachers. What we see is the
difficulty of trying to do all of this at once in a short period of time and what we also
start to understand is the necessary role and obligation of countries that are more well
off to be involved in this development.
In Chapter 21, Azam Azimi provides an overview of the education system in the
Islamic Republic of Iran, where we get to see a different understanding of what effec-
tiveness and progress in education might mean. As with Turkey, we see a country that
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is redefining itself in terms of ensuring that all students are able to attend school, and
what that means when you have substantial variations in the level of financial support
able to be provided by government and parents. Here we see goals and a strong linked
curriculum being identified at the national level and the establishment of student
organizations as a mechanism for maintaining focus on the learning and value
systems that the country requires. We also see the influence of Islam as a mechanism
for guiding the social and value aspects of education at a national and local level. The
author of this chapter identifies that issues of school effectiveness are not as high on
the national agenda as they are in some other countries, but leaves us with the
question that is asked by some other authors as well effectiveness for whom,
effectiveness for what?
Section 3: Resources, School Effectiveness and Improvement
In Section 3 of the volume, we turn our considerations to issues that affect all school
systems, with perhaps the most important of these being the issue of the connection of
funding to achievement, the connection of inputs to outputs. There has been much
debate about the importance of additional funding to bring about further improve-
ments in the level of student achievement, with educators claiming that there can be no
further developments without additional resourcing, but there has been a general
response by governments around the world that there is no evidence to suggest that
additional funding will make any difference.
In Chapter 22, Rosalind Leva ci c provides the reader with a comprehensive overview
of the way in which economists make sense of the education production function
where the level of outputs are assessed based on the level of inputs at the school and
system level. She identifies that for economists, the process part of the equation, the
specifics of what actually happens on a day to day basis in schools, remains a black
box for the most part. She provides an overview of studies in the UK, Europe and the
OECD countries that focus on the issue of resources and outputs and concludes that for
targeted subjects and targeted groups, additional resources can make a difference, but
overall, the differences are small. Whether the additional funds required to make these
improvements are seen as being worth it is likely to remain a debate into the future.
In Chapter 23, Charles Ungerleider and Ben Levin provide us with an overview of
the changing nature of funding and policy making in Canada, where the early funding
model of a substantial local contribution to education funding was replaced by most of
the funds being delivered by the various Canadian provincial governments. They iden-
tified that the changing economic and social conditions of the provinces led to a point
where controlling budget became more important to government than raising quality,
although both were expected simultaneously. They identify the impact of choice and
structural change on Canadian school communities, but also express hope that since
the last few years have seen more of a focus on improvement strategies and teacher
development, that there will be a continuation of Canadas position near the top of the
international league tables when it comes to student achievement.
In Chapter 24, Alain Mingat provides an excellent coverage of the complexities and
concerns related to education funding in developing regions. Three sources of funding
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are identified, government, private and donor, but the disbursement of this funding is
more complex than one might first consider and the chapter outlines how much
disparity there is between countries in sub-Saharan Africa, in just this first piece of the
puzzle. Decisions about coverage (how many people will be served), equity, where the
funding will be spent and quality, or how much money and how it is spent are all linked
and the issue of student outcomes and raising the capacity of the people in the country
is also linked to how funding is utilized in ways that will support learning. None of
these issues is simple and it is clear that many countries have not yet been able to estab-
lish a strong link between funding levels and outcomes. Since politicians seem to be
more interested in quick fixes and immediate funds, some of the decisions made
are not leading to medium or longer term solutions. Mingat identifies an important
role for funding agencies in ensuring that funds are targeted in ways that will make a
difference.
In Chapter 25, Jim Spinks outlines an argument and a model for funding that should
be compulsory reading for all politicians and district or state level school administra-
tors. His starting point is to develop a student focused funding model that will lead to
both excellence and equity in achievement, where the vast majority of students who
enter the system emerge with substantial value added to their learning. He identifies
a series of principles that need to be considered in the development of such a funding
model and provides a specific example of how this might work in practice. The sum of
all individual student funding needs becomes the funding required by the school and
he argues for research to look at how schools that are successful at adding value to
their students utilize their funds as a means for developing a system wide process for
the allocation of public money.
Section 4: Accountability and Diversity, School Effectiveness and Improvement
In Section 4 we look at a series of analyses of some of the dominant issues in the
school effectiveness and school improvement research areas. Perhaps the most consis-
tent outcome of the late 1990s until the present time has been the focus on accounta-
bility issues by governments of all persuasions from around the world. There are many
models of accountability and many ways of collecting, analyzing and reporting data on
student achievement, but one thing is for sure, the accountability focus is something
that is international and something that will not go away in the future. However, the
accountability issue has also raised issues of diversity, with many arguments related to
linking accountability to diversity in a way that creates a fair and equitable method of
measuring progress, one that does not vilify or punish schools on accountability meas-
ures when the diversity of the school suggests other ways of dealing with the problem
of under-performance.
In Chapter 26, David Reynolds, who has now entered his fourth decade of research
into issues of school effectiveness, provides us with an analysis of the strength and
weaknesses associated with school effectiveness research. He argues that as a compar-
atively new discipline, the early research, with comparatively unsophisticated goals and
outcomes was seized upon by politicians and education systems that, in turn, deve-
loped relatively unsophisticated policy responses to the issues facing them. He further
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argues that the more recent work where school effectiveness and school improvement
research have used a range of data to identify possible ways forward in classrooms,
schools and systems is in danger of being ignored because of the previous negative
response to what the politicians did last time. He responds to the concerns of many of
the critics of school effectiveness by outlining an approach that takes into account the
contextual differences of schools, departments and classrooms and provides an
overview of some policies and processes that, if implemented, might make a difference
at these levels.
In Chapter 27, Susan Kochan provides an historical and philosophical consideration
of accountability in the United States. She discusses how the impact of the Coleman
Report in 1996 led to two different but linked research activities, one being the school
effectiveness research, where mixed methods approaches helped to identify not only
outcomes but some of the factors that led to those outcomes, and the school indicator
research, where large scale quantitative approaches provided an overview of whole
schools or whole systems, but lacked the more fine grained analysis that would enable
a better understanding of the data collected. Kochan provides us with an understand-
ing of how the school effectiveness research became less popular, perhaps because it
had achieved what it set out to do, and this allowed the school indicator research to lead
to the school accountability movement characterized by such terms as No Child Left
Behind and Adequate yearly Progress. She suggests that while only the large scale data
collection exists then we may make judgments about individual schools that are
not supportive of student learning. She suggests that a return to mixed methods appro-
aches of the school effectiveness studies may provide as with a better understanding of
the processes within the school that might make a difference to all students in the
longer term.
In Chapter 28, Emanuela di Gropello provides an analysis of the various models of
decentralization that have occurred in Latin American Countries as a means for
increasing performance and accountability. She identifies a series of relationships that
are established in various ways which creates three basic models of change. The first
relationship is called the compact which can be defined as the relationship connect-
ing policymakers (governments) to organizational providers (systems); the second is
called voice which connects citizens and politicians; the third is client power
connecting clients to the frontline service providers (schools), and the fourth is
management which connects organizational providers and frontline professionals
(principals, teachers). Using her analysis di Gropello identifies series of lessons for
those seeking to decentralize education systems in ways that are both effective and
efficient and a series of challenges for those who are trying to do so at various levels
of the education enterprise. She identifies the importance of giving genuine voice and
power to local communities but with continued emphases on the other relationships if
positive change is to occur.
In Chapter 29, Nick Taylor provides an overview of the strategies used by the South
African government since Aparthied to try and overcome the lack of skills and high
levels of social inequity in the country. He reports on a series of projects that first
focused on the poorest performing schools and later focused on those that were per-
forming moderately as a means of improving the economic proficiency of the country.
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He identifies a major reason for there only being moderate improvements as being the
inability of the middle level management, such as provinces and districts to perform
the necessary pressure and support mechanisms required for large scale improvement.
He concludes that sooner, rather than later, the majority of schools, in the poorest
performing category, will need to be once again targeted if the country is to make its
next move forward in the international economic scene.
In Chapter 30, Steve Marshall provides the perspective of the Chief Executive (CE)
in the improvement process. As CE of the South Australian education system, he out-
lines the theory and strategies used to promote improved learning outcomes at all
levels. He argues for a systems theory approach where all levels of the organization
are involved in learning, in leadership and in professional conversations as a means
for focus everyones attention on students and their achievement. He provides an
overview of the principles for change utilized as a basis for improvement, strategies
that can be used at different levels of the system and mechanisms for measuring not
only student achievement, but organizational health. This chapter is be a must read
for any leader that heads an organization that focuses on whole system change and
improvement.
In Chapter 31, Sue Lasky, Amanda Datnow, Sam Stringfield and Kirsten Sundell
consider some of the structural and relationship issues that affect education reform,
especially in diverse communities. They argue that educational reform involves formal
structures, such as district offices, state policies, but also involves formal and informal
linkages among the various structures that make up the education system. They pro-
vide an overview of the literature, and in some cases the paucity of the literature for
each of Structural linkages (linkages from state and federal policy domains that affect
education), Formal linkages (official communications sent between policy domains),
Informal linkages (communications that are not official, but are reform specific),
Relational linkages (the ties that may help implement or block reform), Ideological
linkages (conceptual bridges that make it possible to change an individuals attitude)
and Temporal linkages (continuity over time). They argue there is a complexity brought
about by these linkages that demand additional research in these areas if school reform
in diverse communities is to succeed.
Section 5: Changing Schools Through Strategic Leadership
It is clear from the majority of the research in most parts of the world that the impact
of the school leader (or school leaders) on the level of effectiveness and improvement is
high enough to be considered critical to the result. Yet, many parts of the world have dif-
ferent structures, different mechanisms for preparing school leaders and different ways
of identifying how much responsibility the leader will take in decisions and implemen-
tation. We turn now to review how school leaders impact on school effectiveness and
improvement in various ways.
In Chapter 32, Lejf Moos and Stephan Huber introduce a discussion of what demo-
cratic leadership might look like. They provide an overview of the well-known models
of leadership, transactional, transformational, integral, instructional and distributed,
but argue that the pressures of globalization and the expectations of systems have
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indicated the need for a much more comprehensive leadership approach, where the
management and people development components of leadership combine through
high levels of communication to create communities of learners, held together by
shared identity and commonly held goals and values. In this way the current deficit
approach which seems to pervade many education systems can be replaced by an
approach that allows democratic principles to be upheld and used.
In Chapter 33, Robert Marzano outlines a blueprint for school leaders to use to bring
about increased levels of student achievement. The principal, who, to Marzano is the
most important actor in the process of improvement first needs to help school com-
munities identify the right work to focus on, and he provides 11 factors at school,
classroom and student levels and 25 strategies for promoting these factors for our
consideration. The second component of the process is to manage the change and
Marzano identifies both first- and second-order change as issues to be considered.
First-order change, which may be considered straight forward and following already
identified rules and processes, may be followed by second-order change, which con-
siders changes to the organization and the people in it, is much more complex and
difficult to manage. He argues that perhaps much of the reason why many of the
educational reforms that provided much promise to improving student achievement
have not worked, is that the second-order changes required to embed these reforms in
practice were handled as if they were first order changes.
In Chapter 34, Kenneth Leithwood considers leader practices that impact on devel-
oping and emotional climate that leads to school improvement. He identifies a series
of emotions at play within schools, including teachers individual and collective
efficacy, their job satisfaction, organizational commitment, morale and engagement as
well as the emotions of stress and burnout that emerge if the ones previously men-
tioned are not fostered. He discusses five broad categories of organizational condi-
tions, those associated with the classroom, school, district, government and broader
society, that impact on the emotions of teachers at any given time and he categorizes a
series of principal practices that influence teacher emotions. These are aimed at direc-
tion-setting, developing people, redesigning the organization, and managing the
instructional program and contain a series of sub-categories that can identify specific
principal practices that support the development of positive teacher emotions. He also
reports on two leadership traits that cant be characterized, that of being friendly on the
one hand and acting as a buffer between the impacts occurring outside of the school
and the teachers on the other. He argues that unless we consider the emotional
concerns of teachers, issues such as retention of quality staff will always be a problem.
In Chapter 35, Halia Silins and Bill Mulford report on the findings of the Leadership
for Organizational Learning and Student Outcomes where they researched three aspects
of high school functioning in the context of school reform: leadership, the school results
of Organizational Learning, and student outcomes. They argue that leadership charac-
teristics of a school are important factors in promoting systems and structures that
enable the school to operate as a learning organization. They argue Learning is trans-
formational in nature and can be defined by six dimensions: Vision and Goals;
Culture; Structure; Intellectual Stimulation; Individual Support; and Performance
Expectations. They identify and consider four dimensions that characterise high
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schools as learning organizations: Trusting and Collaborative Climate; Taking Initia-
tives and Risks; Shared and Monitored Mission; and, Professional Development and
argue that school level factors such as leadership, Organizational Learning and teach-
ers work have a significant impact on non-academic student outcomes such as par-
ticipation in schools, academic self-concept, and engagement with school which in
turn influence retention and academic achievement. In this way both distributed
leadership and organizational leadership impacts specifically on student learning
outcomes.
In Chapter 36, Allan Walker, Philip Hallinger and Haiyan Qian provide an overview
of leadership development in East Asia, with a particular focus on Singapore, Mainland
China and Hong Kong. They discuss the importance, context and progress of leadership
development in the region and argue that leaders make a difference in terms of both
school effectiveness and school improvement, but that their influence is often played
out through indirect effects. They argue that leadership is socially constructed within
the particular context in which they work, including education reforms which impact
the work of principals which are common across the region. They suggest that princi-
pals now need to respond to conflicting demands of promoting participation and col-
laboration at the local level, but also respond to increased accountability measures.
They argue there is a need for more meaningful approaches to principal learning and
development across the region to ensure that leadership development structures not
only account for the knowledge required for leading school improvement, but also how
it is implanted and contested in line with specific contexts.
Section 6: Changing Teachers and Classrooms for School Improvement
It is clear from both the past research and the chapters in this volume that the impact
of teachers on student learning is critical and thus any attempt to improve student
learning must focus attention on what happens in the classroom. It has been argued
that classroom management, the curriculum and studentteacher relations are the three
most critical aspects of variation in student performance, outside of family and social
background, so if we are to change what happens to students, it will ultimately be
through what teachers do in their classrooms. We now turn to the issues of improving
teachers and classrooms as the mechanism for improving student outcomes.
In Chapter 37, Joseph Murphy considers the impact and constraints associated with
teacher leadership, where new accountability requirements has led to the need for a
more distributed model of leadership. He suggests that two key domains, organiza-
tional structure and organizational and professional culture, hinder the inculcation of
teacher leadership. These factors lead to the acceptance of a series of understandings
about how the school should operate and these are described as a series of norms, on the
one hand about teaching and learning, which include legitimacy, separation of teaching
and administration, and managerial prerogative which can associated with teachers
being followers, not leaders, and as such should be compliant to the wishes of the school
leader. A second set of norms relate to the the nature of work of teaching, and include
autonomy, privacy and egalitarianism which lead to a culture of civility and conser-
vatism. These norms, when taken together, suggest that in many cases, neither teachers
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nor administrators really want to have teachers as leaders and even where they do, the
support structures and incentives are not sufficient to enable this to occur without
extra work and stress on those involved. He then discusses a number of support sys-
tems that might help to promote teacher leadership, including establishing values and
expectations for the activity, providing support structures, training, and resources,
(most importantly, time) as well as offering incentives and recognition, and ensuring
role clarity.
In Chapter 38, Chris Day and Ruth Leitch discuss the role and importance of
Continuous Professional Development (CPD) in strategies designed to improve school
effectiveness. They argue that there are competing discourses of professionalism
which lead to different understandings of the purposes and practices of CPD in terms
of whether teachers are autonomous professionals or agents of some systemic change.
In this sense who defines effectiveness dictates not only the kinds of CPD developed
but also which kinds of CPD will be resourced and assessed. They argue that there
are different interpretations of effectiveness because CPD serves three interrelated
purposes; the development of the system, the development of the individual and,
ultimately, it is hoped, the student, and so assessing the impact of CPD is not always a
simple matter, and this might support why there is little research done in this area.
They describe Guskeys (2000) five level model, which considers the differences in
impact of CPD from measuring participant response (at the lowest level) through to
student outcomes (at the highest level). They indicate that across Europe, whilst there
is agreement on the need to improve the quality of education, there exists a wide range
of diverse and sometimes contradictory agendas running, with regard to the purposes
and requirements of CPD, leading to an absence of national or trans-national strategies
with common purposes, processes or standards.
In Chapter 39, Eugene Schaffer, Roberta Devlin-Scherer and Sam Stringfield
provide an examination of teacher effects within schools in the USA. They start with
the major focus of recent reform, namely, the increasing demands for measurable
effects in student achievement then look at the school effects research focusing on
those that consider teacher behavior within school effects research. A number of
school change projects that focus on teaching and teacher involvement in school
improvement and some general trends in teacher effects/development are discussed,
and they give consideration to the types of training that might occur at the preservice
level and the effective induction of new teachers into the profession, followed by ongo-
ing professional development. They conclude that teacher involvement is essential to
successful reform efforts, and that support of teacher development is the pathway
to achieving desired changes and provide a series of practical suggestions for teacher
involvement in school improvement and some indications of future possible research
in the field.
In Chapter 40, Wai-ming Tam and Yin-Cheong Cheng outline the impact of educa-
tion reform on teacher training in the Asia-Pacific region, one that has experienced
rapid economic growth and occasional instability in the last 20 years when they were
enticed to compete in the world market Given this, large-scale reforms to both the
education system and teacher education followed. Mainland China, Hong Kong,
Japan, Korea, Malaysia, and India provide case studies of the efforts to transform the
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education system quickly, in order to prepare the country to compete in the global
knowledge economy as well as the need to utilize education as a means of solving
social issues, such as equality, cultural identity, and the impact of globalization. Two
trends are outlined, decentralizing decision-making power to schools and the shift
from a bureaucratic to a market-driven accountability system. They identify a series of
directions for reform in the Asia-Pacific region, related to questions of standards and
competence in teaching and learning, issues of accountability, and cost-effectiveness,
how to promote long-term development and sustainability of the teacher education
system, including attracting, developing and retaining competent teachers, and how to
improve school effectiveness. They report on two broad strategies, the consolidation of
teacher education and the consolidation of knowledge and competence within the
system, designed to upgrade teacher qualifications, provide an incentive structure to
attract teachers, and the development of the teacher as a reflective practitioner through
building a professional learning community.
In Chapter 41, Ken Rowe provides a strong argument that much of the previous
research into school effectiveness has been looking for change in the wrong place. He
suggests that most of the knowledge base is derived from small-scale case studies,
there are relatively few large-scale studies capable of providing valid generalizations,
and the methods used to analyze the data have not allowed for the modeling of
complex interrelationships between inputs, processes and outcomes. Finally the crite-
rion measures used in school effectiveness studies have typically been limited to
un-calibrated raw scores on standardized tests of students cognitive achievements
with little attention being paid to other valued outcomes of schooling. He argues that
more recent research, focused on quality teaching indicates the proportion of variation
in students achievement progress due to differences in background is considerably
less important than that associated with class/teacher membership and that it is not so
much what students bring with them that matters, but what they experience in class-
rooms. He argues that most reforms in education are directed at the preconditions for
learning rather than at influencing teaching and learning behaviors and that there is a
future need for a reframing of the school effectiveness research agenda to one that
focuses on quality teaching and learning if we are to improved student outcomes.
In Chapter 42, Janet Chrispeels and Carrie Andrews with Margarita Gonzalez argue
that teachers work with their assigned students, but are isolated from one another and
have limited opportunities for learning with and from colleagues. They discuss how
the use of grade level teams of teachers might improve student achievement. They
consider data collected from a case study in California and identify the major issues
that emerged from the research. Key factors included the importance of goal focus,
including the nature of the goal, the development of group norms and establishing a
clear agenda as necessary conditions for team learning. They found that when teams
were discussing student work, creating objects, or observing each other teach, the
principles of high-quality professional development were being enacted and teacher
learning was taking place. Key issues were the opportunity to reflect on their practice
and the provision of social-emotional support by both other teachers and the principal.
They indicated the importance of enabling district or school goals to be translated into
meaningful work by grade, department, or interdisciplinary teams as well as by
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individual teachers and the need for both the district and the school principal to find
the time required for team discussion (including providing substitutes to enable this
where necessary), training for teacher leaders, and communicating its instructional
goals to enable teachers to work effectively as grade level or department teams.
In Chapter 43, Kerry Kennedy argues that Asia is characterized more by diversity
than uniformity, in political structures, culturally, economically and with different
stages of development. A common feature of all these countries is recent education and
curriculum reform, which is shaped by both economic and social agendas. High
development countries seek to maintain their competitive advantage through edu-
cation. Medium development countries aspire to move upwards through education.
However, they do this in vastly different economic, cultural, political and values
contexts. On the other hand, Low development countries are more interested in get-
ting all of their students into school in the first place, or training teachers or providing
other infrastructure requirements. While the need for curriculum reform is acknowl-
edged, infrastructure and access issues represent pre-conditions for successful curricu-
lum reform. From an economic perspective, the main characteristic has been the
liberalization of curriculum. The state has co-opted progressivist principles to sup-
port an economic instrumentalism as the basis of the school curriculum, where
curriculum and instructional reform is driven by an economic need to provide workers
for the new economy. He argues that even in the well developed countries policies for
a liberalized curriculum are easier to devise to put into practice. When there are many
reforms occurring at the same time, implementation faces significant hurdles. He sug-
gests that policy makers need to think carefully about the sequencing and pacing of
curriculum and instructional reform and consider their relationship with other
reforms, community values and community needs to be involved in the activity of
change, if the reform is to be successful.
Section 7: Models of School Improvement
It is now accepted that any study of school effectiveness that does not focus some
attention on issues of school improvement will not have the value of one that does.
Section 7 of the book considers issues of school improvement as a mechanism for cre-
ating change and fostering improved student outcomes. It is important then that we
consider some examples of school change that have used the principles of school
effectiveness as a means of improving the lives of students. First we consider the
macro-level with cross-country studies, from Europe, from Asia and from Latin
America, that help us to establish a framework that might assist school systems,
schools and school leaders in changing what they do and then we consider some
specific examples where these changes have made a difference.
In Chapter 44, Bert Creemers, Louise Stoll, Gerry Reezigt and the ESI team report
on the Effective Schools Improvement project where they develop a comprehensive
framework that can be used by practitioners, researchers and policy-makers alike,
although they make the point that the framework can never be used as a recipe for
effective school improvement or as a ready-made toolbox for the implementation of
improvement in schools. The framework was developed by investigating investigate
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the relationship between effectiveness and improvement in eight European countries
with strongly varying educational histories and policies. The purpose was to bring
together ideas from different theories, build on findings from school improvement
studies and integrate them in a coherent way. The research identified three factors
relating to context pressure to improve, resources and alignment of the educational
goals with those set by the authority involved. It also established that there needed to
be active intervention at the school level, as individual teacher initiatives were not
enough if there was to be a sustained and lasting impact on the school as an organiza-
tion. To do this, schools needed for foster an improvement culture, consider the five
stages of the improvement processes as a part of everyday life and focus on improve-
ment outcomes, either stated in terms of student outcomes (the effectiveness criteria)
or change outcomes which ultimately influence student outcomes (the improvement
criteria). They argue that while effective improvement requires school level processes,
the framework does not dictate what those processes might be for any individual
school and while the importance of teachers is acknowledged, individual teachers are
not considered to be the main lever of change for effective whole school improvement.
In Chapter 45, Magdalena Mo-Ching Mok and Yin-Cheong Cheng, Shing-On
Leung, Peter Wen-jing Shan, Phillip Moore, and Kerry Kennedy report on a study that
seeks to investigate the nature of self-directed learning in secondary students in Hong
Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, to identify contributing factors to their self-directed learn-
ing and draw implications for teaching and learning from the results. They used a
model with three components, the prior cognitive, motivational, and volitional condi-
tions of the learner, the learning actions; and the outcomes of the learning and four
linking processes, planning, monitoring, and feedback leading to first- and second-
order learning. They found that on average, secondary students were motivated, had
adaptive attributions for their academic outcomes, were able to set learning goals, and
self-monitor and self-regulate their own learning. However, the academic self-
confidence was low and there was a reluctance to seek help. These results provide the
opportunity for educators to consider how to establish the conditions that will lead to
self-directed learning in their students.
In Chapter 46, Claudia Jacinto and Ada Freytes illustrate and discuss how policies on
student retention and learning outcomes in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile are shaped by
how schools re-create or redefine the external proposals as the participants (school
authorities, administrators, supervisors, parents and students) re-creating the policy
through their beliefs, values and strategies. They discuss three possible strategies used
by schools: appropriation, when proposals are adapted to the schools culture and cir-
cumstances and are connected to other school activities; resistance, where contradic-
tions between the change proposals and the ideas and behavior of the teachers and
school heads and where school actors are do not commit themselves to their imple-
mentation, often incorporating the new elements into their discourse but rarely into
their practice; and passivity, where schools receive projects uncritically, where there
appears little capacity to learn from experience, where there is lax coordination
between principal and teachers and where appear to depend on individual teachers
initiatives rather than on the institution as a whole. They suggest social harmony builds
agreements between the young peoples behavior and those of the school culture.
22 Townsend
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Schools were slowly incorporating principles and practices that moved away from a
punishment-based system of regulations and towards a vision of school order that
is built collectively. They argue that it is a challenge for teacher education and
professional development to strengthen capabilities to promote harmonious school
environments and improve learning outcomes, especially for the poor.
In Chapter 47, David Bamford provides a case study of a review process developed
and modified by the Latin American Heads Conference as a means to support school
self-evaluation and improvement. He describes the review process that occurred in the
British Schools of Montevideo, Uruguay, together with the impact that it had on the
schools and the school staff and governors and the subsequent changes to the review
process brought about by the review activity. He articulates the initial reticence by
some staff and the processes of self-evaluation and data collection used prior to the
visit. He focuses on the importance of the review being for the purposes of self-
improvement rather than as an assessment of the worth of the school. He then
describes some of the changes in the school that can be attributed to the review process
and the developing understanding of the value of such a process expressed by teachers
and administrators alike. The chapter provides encouragement of the types of contin-
uous improvement models of school self-evaluation that are being adopted in many
parts of the world.
In Chapter 48, Rosa Deves and Patricia Lpez describe how the Inquiry Based
Science Education (ECBI) Program, initially co-sponsored by the Ministry of
Education and the Fundacin Andes, a private foundation in Chile, became a model for
strengthening the bonds between policy making, teacher capacity building, school
practice and student outcomes. The program was piloted with around 5,000 children
attending poor schools in Santiago and was then expanded to approximately 30,000
students in partnership with Chilean universities. Children became engaged in many of
the activities and thinking processes that scientists use to produce new knowledge and
they were able to develop the ability to monitor their own learning. Five different
components of the program are described: curriculum, professional development,
material resources, community support and evaluation and it is clear that the partner-
ship approach between all the stakeholders is a key to the programs success. The
Program also benefited from international cooperation, from people and institutions
undertaking similar projects in Latin America and other parts of the world. This help
included training, rights to high quality materials, sharing of translated materials,
collaboration with workshops and participation in international conferences. In turn,
the Chilean program is now being used as a model to begin similar programs in other
Latin American countries.
In Chapter 49, Jenny Lewis discusses the improvement processes undertaken by a
primary school in Australia that led to it move from being a school at significant risk
to a multiply award winning school. The school community built an evidence-based
environment that promoted sustainability through innovative and informed Evidence
Based Leadership in Action through the use of authentic evidence and by reconnecting
all parts of the school so that staff could share their knowledge, perspectives and
experiences about students and programs. Strategies such as these moved the schools
use of evidence from a reactive to a proactive perspective. The sharing of leadership,
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focused professional development, mentoring and sharing at weekly team meetings
were viewed as important strategies to build a culture of professionalism in which
mutual trust, shared knowledge and responsibility, where all teachers were viewed as
leaders and undertook leadership roles. Evidence-based improvement became a way of
life. Traditional testing was viewed as too abstracted from what was being taught in
classrooms and, with parent permission, these approaches were removed if favor of
daily teacher judgments of evidence about student progress. The school developed a
networked-based knowledge management system that combined the relevant data into
an integrated information system and tutorials were developed to help teachers
manage information, analyze and act on data. These activities helped the school to
substantially improve what it was doing in a way that encouraged all stakeholders to be
involved.
In Chapter 50, Helen Paphitis documents the journey of an Australian secondary
school, and herself as teacher, then school leader, then principal in the school, over the
last 20 years of growth and development. In the mid-1990s, the school faced negative
community perceptions, high welfare dependency, and low attendance, retention and
achievement rates. She documents the changes including the introduction of Care
groups, less than 15 students, who remained in the same care group, with the same
teacher, for their 5 years at the school, the development of Enterprise Education and a
school aim to place every student in employment, further education or training.
Sustainable whole school improvement was brought about by three factors: setting
directions, developing staff and enriching teaching and learning, and building
infrastructure for continuous improvement and the development and progress has been
sustained by a structure that divides the work of the organization into eight manageable
and clearly defined functions: Operations, Human Resources, Curriculum (Teaching
and Learning), Care, Finances, Facilities, Marketing and Strategic Alliances, each
managed by a different school leader. This chapter provides us with an opportunity
to see what can happen when commitment, focus and time are aligned to support
organizational change.
Afterword: Learning from the Past to Reframe the Future
In Chapter 51, Tony Townsend brings together the various pieces of data that are con-
tained in the book and looks at the key things that have been learned from the research
around the world. He identifies a series of issues that are woven throughout the hand-
book, such as the impact of change and globalization, issues related to how we might
define school effectiveness, issues related to the political nature of school effective-
ness, issues that focus on improving our understanding of learning and professional
development and issues that focus on furthering international understandings and
cooperation. He discusses a number of future research possibilities that look at refram-
ing and redefining the field of school effectiveness and improvement, including
redefining the way in which we look at effectiveness, redefining how we measure effec-
tiveness, redefining the structures of schooling to more closely reflect the complexity of
the activity of education, redefining the experience of students within schools,
and redefining teacher education so that it matches with the other changes that are
24 Townsend
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happening, both in education and in the wider society. He argues that these areas will
help to redefine research in the field into the next decade.
There is much to read and analyze in the book and it may be daunting for the reader
to start at the beginning and progress all the way through. Perhaps the best way of
approaching this book is either by country or by theme. It may be helpful to read chap-
ters from your own country, or one that is like your country first, to reflect on what
others perceive is happening where you work and then to consider chapters on a simi-
lar theme from other countries and regions of the world. Alternatively, you may wish
to start by looking at a country that you know nothing about, and you are sure to find
at least one, to consider some of the cultural, economic, political and social conditions
that help to shape educational experiences in those countries and then reflect on how
they differ from the conditions in which you find your own experiences.
In the end, you will find that we are more alike than we are different, but our differ-
ent situations create different experiences for people as they move through the educa-
tion system. That, in turn, creates researchers with different starting points, different
goals and different methodologies. It is the richness of this mix that makes this book
worth reading, from cover to cover.
References
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D. Reynolds, & P. Cuttance (Eds.), Schools effectiveness: Research, policy and pratice. London: Cassell.
Brookover, W., Beady, C., Flood, P., Schweitzer, J., & Wisenbaker, J. (1979). School social systems and stu-
dent achievement: Schools can make a difference. East Lansing: Institute for Research on Teaching,
Michigan State University.
Creemers, B., & Osinga, N. (1995). ICSEI country reports. Leeuwarden, the Netherlands: GCO.
Creemers, B., Peters, T., & Reynolds, D. (1989). (Eds.). School effectiveness and school improvement.
Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger.
Cuban, L. (1989). The at-risk label and the problem of school reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 71(8), 780801.
Edmonds, R. (1979). Effective schools for the urban poor. Educational Leadership, 37(1), 1527.
Hallinger, P., & Murphy, J. (1986). The social context of effective schools. American Journal of Education,
94, 328355.
Harris, A., & Chrispeels, J. H. (Eds.). (2006). Improving schools and educational systems: International
perspectives. London: Routledge.
Mortimore, P., Sammons, P., Stoll, L., Lewis, D., & Ecob, R. (1988). School matters. Somerset: Open Books.
Murphy, J. (1991). Restructuring schools: Capturing and assessing the phenomena. New York: Teachers
College Press.
Nuttall, D. (1989). How the inner London authority approaches school effectiveness. In B. Creemers, T. Peters,
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Nuttall, D. (1992). Letter to The Independent, 21 November.
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Rutter, M., Maugham, B., Mortimore, P., & Ousetn, J. (1979). Fifteen thousand hours: Secondary schools
and effects on Children. Boston: Harvard University Press.
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Slee, R., & Weiner, G. (2001). Education reform and reconstruction as a challenge to research genres:
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Please con-
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insertion of
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for reference
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et al.
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for the con-
tributed
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the reference
section.
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(Eds.), Effective teaching: Current research. Berkeley: McCutchan.
Teddlie, C., & Reynolds, D. (Eds.). (2000). International handbook of school effectiveness research. London
& New York: Falmer Press.
Teddlie, C., & Reynolds, D. (2001). Countering the critics: Responses to recent criticisms of school effec-
tiveness research. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 12, 4182.
Thrupp, M. (1999). Schools making a difference: Lets be realistic! School mix, school effectiveness and the
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Townsend, T., Clarke, P., & Ainscow, M. (1999). Third millennium schools: A world of difference in effec-
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insertion of
year 1999
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Townsend, T.,
et al.
The waves of reform, they are called. What follows are the observations of an old man
of the sea, weather-beaten and bronzed, but not browned off by riding for several
decades the dumpers, and with the same exuberance as the dolphins do. Nothing is
quite as exhilarating as when the surf is up, and I have seen a lot of it. Swimming skills,
I have discovered, are not the whole story. I have also learnt the value of assiduously
studying the tide charts and reading carefully and constantly the short and long-range
weather forecasts. And I have always stayed close to the water. All these things matter.
Just now, though, I am surveying the long capes and bays of the coastline, the great
sweep of the sky and the erosions made by storms, and speculating on how the
geography of the seascape has altered. Waves of change have done it all.
The Two Major Cradles of Reform
There were two, notable, decade-long episodes which pushed the school reform move-
ments into the shapes they took. The first was the period of post-war reconstruction
after the chaotic mess of 19391945. The end of the Second World War produced the
need for the rehabilitation, re-settlement, and employment of returning service
personnel, and the so-called baby boom. A decade and a half later, this nest of demands
had produced the educational upheavals of the 1970s curriculum reform, school
reform, system reform, massive new building activity, indeed an almost total re-jigging
of educational provisions.
The second period of widespread social and economic reconstruction occurred in
the 1980s, coinciding with the terms in office of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister
in Great Britain and of Ronald Reagan as the President of the United States. Their
political stance was similar, namely to introduce policies based on the market econ-
omy, allowing the built-in incentives of competition to introduce the discipline of
getting value for the dollar and of achieving outcomes through private enterprise.
27
2
FOUR DECADES OF BODY-SURFING
THE BREAKERS OF SCHOOL REFORM:
JUST WAVING, NOT DROWNING
Hedley Beare
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2007 Springer.
The waves of school reform over the second half of the twentieth century were fash-
ioned in these two cradles and their aftermath. There is a tendency to overlook the
educational upheavals of the 1970s and the 1990s, as though schools have always been
the way they are now. It is prudent to consider just how far and how quickly the
education enterprise has come, and for educators to be given some praise for the
miracles they have achieved.
The First Major Reform Period
There are few people around now who remember what schooling was like prior to the
post-war period of upheaval. Schooling then was staid, stereotyped, almost one-track in
its orientation. Of the secondary school cohort which began at around Year Seven, only
about 5%, or 1 in 20, survived to Year Twelve. It was a process designed to produce
drop-outs, and where one dropped off the conveyor belt determined the employment
options and life chances available to that person. It was a process almost designed to
confirm class structures. So post-war reconstruction delivered an upheaval that imposed
enormous pressures for change on a one-best-way system.
Expanding the Post-School Area
Governments were forced to cater for the education and retraining of returning service
personnel. It also gave those ex-servicemen and women a second chance to change
their station in life and it produced a challenge to entrenched class consciousness. For
example, men and women born into the working class could now go to university.
There was inordinate pressure on tertiary, post-school, and technical training places,
and all the post-school areas expanded, a movement which left universities starved for
funds and requiring national bale-out money. The technical institutes and colleges and
ultimately the whole Technical and Further Education (TAFE) sector were produced by
this period.
The Post-War Baby Boom and Enrolment Pressures
At secondary school level, there was huge enrolment pressure resulting from the
baby-boom. A system which had existed to weed out the non-academic students and to
produce an elitist tertiary sector was challenged to expand to cater for a wave of new
enrolments and the wide spectrum of students which showed how inadequate had been
the curricula in use in those schools. In physical terms there were too few schools and
huge building programs were undertaken, many of them in new housing estates. There
certainly were not enough teachers, and teacher education expanded. The independent
schools were also claiming that they could not keep going because of the insurmount-
able demands for places, plant, and programs. From the mid-1960s, then, the universal
cry was for more resources, for tax dollars. There was insufficient funding and
personnel to sustain the educational enterprise the country needed.
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The Funding Crisis
When I returned from overseas study in 1970, I found that the South Australian Director-
General of Education John Walker was heading an interstate panel set up by the
Australian Education Council (AEC, the body consisting of the State Ministers of
Education and their bureau chiefs) to draw up a rescue document for schools, which
emerged as A statement of needs in Australian schools. It was an appeal to the
Commonwealth Government, documenting the extent of the crisis in school funding, and
the imminent danger of system collapse. It was a precursor to the famous Karmel Report.
The Curriculum Revolution
There was a wave of students feeding into secondary schools on the back of the argu-
ments made in books like H.C. Dents Secondary education for all, published in 1944.
The title became a political catchcry of the period. To build the post-war society we
wanted, every child must now have some secondary education. It brought in its train
the awareness that the stereotypical one-size-fits-all curriculum had to go. So there
grew up alternative courses and new approaches to exams, to streaming, and so on.
With psychology now influencing the make-up of learning programs, catering for
individual differences became policy, affecting fundamentally the way primary
school curricula were written. Books with titles like Every kid a winner and Schools
without failures appeared, arguing that the curriculum now needed to be remodeled
and individualized to suit the range and scope of children now turning up to be
educated. It caused huge reform in the curriculum area and a movement towards
school-based curriculum-making.
New School Designs
But more than that, it forced a radical redesign in the physical structure of schools.
Open-plan schools, for example, started to crop up everywhere, with some magnifi-
cently innovative designs. They were architectured to enhance the curriculum delivery
and not inhibit it, egg-crate classrooms were scorned, and teachers had to learn the
techniques of team teaching.
National Governments began by allocating extra funding to upgrade the most
expensive parts of the school plant, in particular science laboratories and library facil-
ities. In the 1960s and 1970s many schools were built with the library as a resource
centre placed physically at the heart of the school, and with most classrooms literally
opening into it.
National Intervention
By the early 1970s, then, the question was whether national governments could or would
respond appropriately, especially in jurisdictions like USA and Australia where schooling
was a constitutional responsibility of the States, and in the UK where local education
authorities anchored a national system locally administered. The response in the USA
Just Waving, Not Drowning 29
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came through the bills like the ESEA legislation, funding under the rubric of veterans
education. In Australia, the Whitlam (Labor) Government acted immediately on being
elected in 1972 to institute a series of commissions to dispense federal dollars a Schools
Commission, a Tertiary Education Commission, TAFE Commission, and even a short-
lived Childrens Commission. Professor Peter Karmel, one of the countrys most respected
economists, chaired an Interim Schools Commission to put a dollar-and-cents value on
the needed reform effort. His totals far exceeded those of the Walker (AEC) document.
A National Baseline for School Resourcing
The Karmel committee worked on the basic principle that it is unacceptable for any
school in the nation, no matter in what jurisdiction, to be operating below an accept-
able standard of resourcing. It was called equality of educational opportunity, mean-
ing that no child should be disadvantaged by being forced to attend an under-resourced
school. Governments (and the public which elects them) need to be reassured that
every school meets that acceptable level of operation.
Resource equalization caused all sorts of problems. A dollar spent in San Francisco
will purchase three times as much as a dollar spent up in the Rocky Mountains. To
build a school at remote Millingimbi or Yuendumu in Australias far north was hugely
more expensive than to build a look-alike school in the Sydney metropolitan area.
Ensuring that urban-trained teachers would be prepared to go out and work in those
contexts posed problems too. Equality of educational opportunity really meant moving
resources to where the children were so that no child was overtly disadvantaged by
where they lived or by the school they attended. To achieve the result in Australia
required that State Governments receive grant money through the Commonwealth
Government to top up State funds. In addition, many of the independent schools were
poor, Catholic, parochial schools needing great amounts of federal money to bring
them up to the national resource threshold. By the 1990s an anomalous situation had
eventuated in which the Federal Government was spending most of its educational tax
dollars to hold up the non-government sector, giving the appearance that the sector was
in fact federally supported at the expense of the State Government schools.
The Examination System
There were other significant moves. Federal money was made available for school-
based innovations, for national in-service education, for curriculum development. The
federal authorities recruited the Australian-born Professor Malcolm Skilbeck from
Belfast to create a national Curriculum Development Corporation in Australia. He was
subsequently appointed to head the reform-driven Schools Council in the UK.
External examinations were under fire also. The State of Victoria invented several
alternatives, including a technical certificate. In the Australian Capital Territory (ACT)
a new kind of Year Twelve certificate did away with external examinations and gave
authenticity to what the schools were teaching through an accreditation process which
included academic and public experts, and a moderation of school-based assessments
using a nationally normed scholastic aptitude test.
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New Systems Emerge
The two Australian territorial school systems emerged as free-standing entities in their
own right in the middle of this reform decade, the first new public school systems to
be created in Australia for over a 100 years. Seen now in retrospect, they were unique
manifestations which could never have happened except in a context of reform like
that of the 1970s.
How were they different? The Australian Government did not have a Ministry of
Education until 1967, for primary and secondary schooling were by constitution a
States matter. But from that point on there was no resisting the surge to resource the
schools properly; and the Territories were after all a federal responsibility.
The creation of the ACT schools system enabled state-of-the-art ideas which had
been seething for several years to be implemented in a new system. It was clear that the
Commonwealth Government and Canberra residents wanted to do something different
from merely repeating the patterns of a normal state-type department of education.
Senior secondary education was reformed through the creation of Secondary Colleges
providing non-custodial learning programs which were not in thrall to an external
examination certificate system or the stranglehold that university entry has over it.
There was a new mode of accrediting courses thrown up by the colleges themselves,
with academics serving on every one of the review panels.
From the outset, every school had a board on which parents had a representative
voice. The system itself placed a representative on each school board also, with
every person in the administrations head office invited to serve on a school board.
At any one time, then, there was someone at head office who knew intimately the life
of any particular school. The old inspectorial system was dispensed with since it rep-
resented supervision from the top. Instead a collegial system was used where people
could talk to each other and use each others advice. Any review of a school used
professional colleagues rather an imposed supervision system. The system put great
stress on the professionalism of teachers. At Harvard I had had the privilege of hear-
ing the experts on what the new mode of management for schools would be. I might
have been brash to think school administration could be done like that but we tried
it, even in simple things. When people started calling the office in which I worked
The Authority, we changed its name to the Schools Office to convey the impres-
sion that it was there to support the work of schools. Its officers labored hard to get
across the orientation in the public mind that school system existed to service the
learning needs of children.
Seen now in context, the decade of the 1970s was a humid crib which nurtured
innovation, and which over time produced multiple offspring, multiple concatenations
and trendlines.
The Second Major Reform Period
The seeds of the second major reform movement were beginning to sprout while the
first movement was in full flower.
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The Impact of Home Background and SES
In the late 1960s, the Coleman Report in USA (published in 1966) had resulted from
the largest single survey of school attainment ever conducted. Its principal finding was
that if you know the socioeconomic status (SES) of the parents you can predict accu-
rately what the schooling history of their children will be. Whatever inputs the school
receives, the same people will come out on top, and you can grade the attainment of
students on the single factor of their SES. Christopher Jencks studies and his book on
equality of educational opportunity (1972) reached the same conclusion.
Similar studies done elsewhere confirmed the view. An impressive study concluded
in 1974 by Dr. Bill Moore, head of the Centre for Research in Measurement and
Evaluation in the New South Wales Education Department, and titled In Loco Parentis,
collected longitudinal data on a generation of students, tracking them right through
primary and secondary schooling. His conclusion was that if you know the level of the
parents satisfaction with their childs schooling, their socioeconomic level and their
occupation and feed these data into the computer, you can predict accurately what in
fact does happen to the child what year she will drop out of schooling, what achieve-
ment patterns she will have had to that point, what occupation she is likely to pursue.
When home-based educational objectives clash with school-based objectives, he
observed, the student normally resolves the conflicts by rejecting school. The key
figures in the whole dynamic social complex are the parents.
This nest of reports concluded that schools have a far smaller impact than we are
inclined to think they have; or to put it in blunt language schools dont make much
difference. It is the learning capital a student brings to school with her, largely derived
from home background, that most determines her performance. Financial allocations,
spending tax dollars on schools, hardly affect the outcome measures at all.
These findings were bound to cause a reaction, not least a political one, and espe-
cially from those whom the former system had favored. The opposition began to
emerge strongly in the middle 1980s. It is clear, the critics were saying, that parents
know some schools do better with their children than do others, some schools confer a
very significant advantage, and parents are willing to spend a lot of money to capital-
ize on the difference. They became known as outlier schools, those doing better than
their colleagues, even when they are of the same social class and in similar neighbor-
hoods. The Rutter study of schools in London (Fifteen thousand Hours, published in
1979) used some rather strange indicators of success (the number of school days lost
through absenteeism, the amount of bullying in the yard, for example), but it showed
that some schools do indeed make a significant difference. By studying the qualities of
outlier schools, then, we may discover what they were doing right, whether there were
common characteristics which led to their success, and whether there were better ways
to ensure value for the resources invested.
This educational soul-searching then ran into a remarkable synchronicity. Margaret
Thatcher became Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1979, retiring from the position in
1990. Ronald Reagan was elected US President in 1981 and held office until 1989.
Throughout the entire 1980s, then, the conservatives brakes were applied to govern-
ment expenditures on both sides of the Atlantic, on the premise that you cannot keep
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throwing money wilfully at public problems and assume that they will be solved. The
approach aimed to free people from regulation, to sponsor private enterprise and to
outlay on the basis of whether the contracted-out functions or services were satisfac-
torily discharged. The contract price is paid if an appropriate end-product is delivered.
That sort of funding mode began to invade schools. It was not enough that schools had
adequate funding; they must also show evidence that they were adding value to a
childs learning. The better they did it, the more likely it was that government would
reward them. This movement to the right (as commentators called it) was a very
powerful counterbalance to the school reform whirlpool of the 1970s and 1980s, based
on resource levels and inputs.
When the economics of the free market/competition became dominant under
Reagan and Thatcher, education was ripe for the pickings. Indeed some economists,
like Eric Hanushek and the Chicago School, suggested that schools might be made
efficient if funds were taken away from them, forcing them into economies and an
attention to outputs. The purchasing power of the consumers, parents, and open
competition were useful disciplines to exploit over schooling.
The free market approach also demanded that if parents were so important and not
least as customers, they ought to have the power to select the school their child should
attend, and not be zoned into a school because it happened to be in the neighborhood.
Parental choice thus became a political issue, and the public discussion swung towards
the quality of educational outcomes rather than the quantity of inputs, to whether the
educational dollar was being spent wisely.
What Makes a School Effective?
Two terms entered the vernacular during this period, namely efficiency and effective-
ness. Effectiveness simply means that which produces an effect I aimed to achieve
this outcome and I did. Efficiency superimposes another criterion on the top of that, by
asking whether those outcomes were achieved with the best, most parsimonious usage
of the resources. Using the dollars to achieve a specified or planned outcome (effec-
tiveness) and to do so without waste (efficiency) became the operative criteria in policy.
The two words soon became associated with a third, namely excellence, pushed by
the internationalism which was now affecting the patterns of world trade. The Berlin
Wall went down during Reagans watch, Japan, South Korea and the Asian tiger
economies like that of Singapore were becoming major players, Russia and China
were entering world markets on the markets own terms, and trade barriers were falling.
It was no longer enough to be effective or efficient, therefore. On any economic
dimension (including education) the quality had to be good enough to ensure compet-
itiveness in international terms. The hallmark of worlds best practice became the
means to show how closely the local product approached international standards. So
the three Es were used as universal criteria effectiveness, efficiency, excellence.
Ronald Edmonds was one of the pioneers of the school effectiveness movement.
A school practitioner and scholar from Harvard, he identified from inner city schools
five characteristics which made a school effective. The first was the leadership of
the principal and his attention not merely to management but to what was going on in
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classrooms (instructional leadership). The effective school also had a broadly based and
pervasive instructional focus; it concentrated on its educational program first and fore-
most (focus on learning). As a third quality, the school provided an orderly and safe cli-
mate conducive to teaching and learning; it was a safe environment in which students
could learn, experiment, and make mistakes (a safe climate for learning). Fourthly, the
school had high expectations of every student; every child was expected to succeed
(high expectations). And finally, measures of pupil achievement were the basis for eval-
uating the school (planned achievement levels). It was admittedly a fairly simple five-
point scheme, but it was seized upon by schools and school systems and started to find
its way into practice, policy, and research all around the world. Other studies, especially
in the United States, began to build on the Edmonds initiative, developing much more
sophistication by the early 1980s. There was keen interest across the Atlantic too, in
particular in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia.
The awareness that the experts, including school officials and researchers, should
get together regularly on this issue of school effectiveness and compare notes pro-
duced the decision to create the International Congress on School Effectiveness and
Improvement (ICSEI). From the outset it had an active membership of teachers,
principals, school leaders, policy makers, and academics. One wit said that ICSEI
consisted simply of an annual conference and a journal, but its influence grew rapidly
and had a demonstrable impact on school practices around the world.
A difference of approach was also becoming apparent among member countries.
The Americans had tended to use qualitative research, based on case studies. They
identified schools which seemed to be doing particularly well and tried to extract from
observation what made them work, expanding well beyond Edmonds five-point
scheme. On the other side of the Atlantic, the university community was using test evi-
dence, quantitative research, to isolate what worked better, holding certain variables
steady while introducing interventions with other variables. Educators at the school
level, however, wherever they were, were impatient to put good ideas into operation
without waiting for the research findings to come out. So the tension between research
and practice emerged early, and explains why school improvement was introduced
into ICSEIs title. It produced nevertheless a healthy research/practice interface.
The School Effectiveness Movement
The qualitative vs. quantitative methodologies interface, the case study vs. empirical
study approaches, and the practice vs. research orientations caused concerns on both
sides of the Atlantic for those associated with ICSEI were anxious to meet the criti-
cisms from hard-nosed scientific rationalist approaches and to assemble research evi-
dence which had the persuasive bite that was needed. The research community jumped
in early and arranged the first ICSEI conference in London; it was 8 years before the
venue moved to the North American mainland.
Even so, educators crowded to the ICSEI conferences. They included people with an
investment in running schools, school system chiefs, and university-based researchers,
a coalition of people interested in sponsoring school transformations which were
based on reliable and tested theory. It is what gave ICSEI its great strength.
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In the light of this approach, those who have been involved in that reform movement
from the outset need to ask where the ideas came from, why they did what they did, how
they were able to accomplish some things and not others, and why the movement was
so influential. It needs a retrospective analysis done with the perspective of distance.
What Did We Learn From The Outcomes Policy Era?
It is provocative to ask how the productive mix of research, scholarship, theorizing,
planning and actual practice came together, for the effectiveness/outcomes movement
dramatically influenced education policies and in-school practices.
What Drives Research that is Policy-Rich and Practice-Oriented?
Research, especially when it is policy-related, started to be seen in a different way in
these decades. A research unit located inside a bureaucracy will always feel somewhat
pressured to do what the bureaucracy wants, and to come up with findings the bureau-
cracy wants to own. They will be asked for validating evidence, not research that
shows up a waste of time or money or intellectual shallowness. The Director General
might embargo a piece of research, say that he does not want it done, or when it is done
not want the results to be made public.
For face validity, research needs to be conducted from an independent base which
ensures that the findings are not skewed. In the 1970s the ACT system developed an
effective model. The Canberra College of Advanced Education (CCAE) was new, and
was developing higher degree courses in Education as well as an enviable research
capacity. The Education Dean, Phillip Hughes, an educator of national renown, also
happened to be (the lay) foundation chairman of the ACT Schools Authority through
its early stages. The new school system was able to say to its individual teachers, many
of them in senior school positions, that the system needed research on several speci-
fied topics, which could contribute to an M.Ed. thesis. The representative case was that
of Doug Morgan who had charge of the agency for the accreditation of the new Year
Twelve school certificate. He did his Masters thesis researching a problem on school
measurement for which the system needed answers, but he was supervised independ-
ently by an academic from the CCAE. When research like this is done by leading-edge
professional people in schools, and is supervised from an academic base that has no
direct allegiance to the school system you get some very heady advice.
The ACT Schools Authority was able to recruit as Head of the systems research unit
Dr. Bill Donovan from the academic staff of the University of Tasmania. His function
was to review research which the system needed to have done, firm up proposals, fund
them where necessary, negotiate with contractors or students to undertake the pieces of
research, and then interpret the policy implications for the system once the findings
were in. He was an in-house academic, situated in the Schools Office but brokering the
research which the school system needed. This approach to research not only frustrated
the imperialism that comes from having the locus of research inside the system and
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under its control, but also enabled the system to harness the volunteer enthusiastic effort
of the educators themselves, their payoff being that they gained a degree out of it.
Such a melding of research and policy development manifested in the 1990s in
states like Victoria during the effectiveness movement, especially during Minister
Don Haywards introduction of the substantial innovation called Schools of the Future.
It is not always possible to say which piece of research influenced which policy
maker, and it blurred the boundaries between who was the researcher and who was the
policy maker.
Teacher Professionalism
From the late 1970s through to the mid-1980s there was another substantial and parallel
change going on in the minds of the people who were running schools and school sys-
tems. They needed to be abreast of the latest ideas in education, and wanted for a means
to access them. With the burgeoning of programs of higher degrees and graduate diplo-
mas in education, they sponsored the understanding among teachers that in-service edu-
cation is not merely upgrading but rather equips them to be the theoreticians where
practice is occurring. They created in the profession a generation of practitioner/
theoreticians; and an upgrading of the whole teaching profession occurred. The intro-
duction of steep fees for higher degree study is now tending to reverse the trend.
A Graduate Profession
A parallel change was that all new teachers were now graduates, their pre-service edu-
cation resulting not merely in a certificate but in a degree. In order to function intelli-
gently in a theory-driven and evidence-based education system, the educator needs to
be thoroughly professional from the outset. The pressure was on universities to provide
courses which were relevant, and were taught by staff members who were actively
engaged with the day-by-day practice of schools.
School Use of Outcomes Data
And this change produced a major transformation, for schools became adept at col-
lecting data on a range of dimensions, allowing them to give an account of themselves
in areas like parent satisfaction, staff morale, achievement in comparison with like
schools, issues of worlds best practice, on top of an impressive bank of consistent,
school-wide data on individual student achievement, much of it longitudinal, suitably
normed and dove-tailed into state-wide and national curriculum frameworks.
Computerization of Schools
Such an important transformation would have been impossible without using the new
techniques of information technology. Put simply, schools computerized. Though they
may not recognize themselves as such, the teaching profession is one of the most
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sophisticated users of front-edge computer technology in society. Their capacity has
revolutionized the internal management of schools and has been crucial to the success
of implementing the policies which have come out of the school effectiveness and
improvement movement. Schools would have been incapable of keep tracking of or
systematically analyzing student outcomes data without it.
The Transformations Encouraged
The effective schools movement has found itself in harmony with several other major
initiatives of the time. One has been the international networking of schools, a kind of
down-line exchange of knowledge and expertise. The Specialist Schools and Academies
Trust in the United Kingdom was an invitation for schools to break their boundaries and
to interact with other schools in the areas of their known expertise. Not surprisingly, the
movement went international, iNet becoming the arm which allowed schools across the
developed world Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan, Chile, China to join
the UK network.
In the USA, the Charter Schools were a compatible spin-off. A school which could
define its uniqueness, put up a program to give body to that speciality, win parent
backing, and which could survive because it delivered on its promises, was given not
only legitimacy but a legal basis on which to become a stand-alone school. In the UK
in much the same way, the policy of opting out allowed schools to become disen-
gaged from the jurisdiction of the local authorities.
It allowed the New American Schools to emerge, with models for schooling which
clearly broke the old patterns, but were considered safe because they were always
under the discipline of accountability, of specifying objectives in a manner which
could be tested and where their outcomes could be validated.
Is a Third Major Reform Period Developing?
Is there a third wave of school reform about to break? The answer is an unequivocal,
Yes, for the change factors are already clearly visible.
We now live in a borderless world in which trade, interaction patterns, a huge
number of enterprises, and social contacts are being internationalized. Patterns of
schooling, curricula, assessment methods, learning programs, student achievement
data are in the process of becoming international and interchangeable too, at least in
the developed world.
The worlds population centre of gravity is also moving inexorably to China and
India, and to Central Africa. The twenty-first century will see the development of a non-
European cultural orientation, dominated by black and predominantly non-Christian
countries. This generation of school children, wherever they live, will be forced to
succeed in a multi-cultural, multi-faith, and multi-lingual world.
And as many commentators have pointed out, unless there is urgent action among
the present generation on earth, we may be in the end-time of the planet, or of human
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civilization. The factors have been well documented global warming and the melting
of the polar ice-caps, climate change and extreme weather, the shortage of clean water,
pollution of the oceans, species extinctions, population displacement from rising sea
level and, perhaps most basic of all, the escalation of the worlds population. Any
natural disaster now earthquake, hurricane, forest fires, mudslides and flooding,
tsunamis cause a human disaster on unprecedented scales because there are now so
many more people who have settled, perhaps unwisely, in areas likely to be affected.
This generation has to learn quickly how to be responsible citizens of the globe.
A powerful indicator of the new wave of change is the hand-held mobile telephone.
It is now an all-purpose device with multiple functions, and it is revolutionizing the
thinking and interaction patterns across the world. It is soon to become a powerful
teaching and educational device which will outdo in its significance what the computer
has been for the previous generation.
So the new wave is upon us. The major difference, if present evidence is to be noted,
is the rapidity with which the new rollers will hit us as a species on earth. In terms of
education and schooling, there are some developments which emerge.
A New Career Mode for Professionalized Educators
One of the most obvious changes will be new patterns of employment and deployment
among educators, who are already acting and thinking like professionals. There will be
a mixing and matching of skills in much better ways than we have known in the past.
For example, a proposal was put to me in the ACT Schools Authority that the Australian
National University was having difficulty placing in suitable employment a person
recently graduated with a Ph.D. in chemistry. Why not therefore appoint her to teach
part-time Year Eleven and Twelve classes in a secondary college and also to undertake
part time research on the academic staff at the university? A hybrid appointment like
this benefits both the university and the secondary college, and makes use of special
expertise to illuminate the work in each place. No two people are alike, least of all
those professionally trained, and each is likely to seek out a highly satisfying career by
taking on a set projects or assignments, in what has been called a portfolio career.
Teachers most of all are entrepreneurial enough to explore these possibilities, and will
inevitably do so.
The Theory/Practice Conundrum
As a consequence, it is likely that teacher education itself will metamorphose from
what it is now. It is already possible for a leading school or two with the right mix of
academic and teaching staff to work in a symbiotic relationship with a tertiary institu-
tion. The research and development done from such a partnership not only extends the
theory base of the profession but extends the qualifications and expertise of the staff
members, wiping out the artificial divide between who has the theory and who knows
how to put it into practice.
What emerges, then, is a clinical model for research, training and practice similar to
what is now current in medical and engineering schools. The tradition in medical
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schools has always been to have adjunct and full Professors working as surgeons in
teaching hospitals and generating from that base data which extends the theory of the
professions science.
Superseding the Idea of Classes and Classrooms
The days of the one-best-way solution, the one-best-way method, are gone. Diversity
is with us. In the city of the future with the communications technology now available
within it, the best educators will have portfolio careers, not salaries; many will not want
to be tied necessarily to one school, to functions which they think other people could
perform better than they could, or which do not make direct use of their developed
expertise.
So classrooms in 10 or 15 years time will have gone through a pretty substantial
transformation. The assumption that there are certain learnings associated with certain
ages, that it is appropriate to cluster students by age and teach them a lot of pre-
determined, content-rich, age-related material, that the curriculum and knowledge are
stable are notions which will have been superseded. Knowledge refuses to be put into
boxes like that, the old subject divisions are breaking down, and the curricula are
becoming hybridized.
Schools, then, will set up groups of learners a house system, if you will with whom
a mixed group of teachers will be associated, acting as a team. They will do some indi-
vidual instruction, some group instruction and some project supervision. They will direct
learners to where they will find the information, and often the students will bring back a
heap of data for the learning group to unscramble. Group learning as well as individual
learning will be valued, and assessed as such.
Rethinking Examination, Assessments, and Certificates
Certificates certify that this student has attained a defined level of skill or competence
in particular areas. At any level in the schooling system it is possible to make out a
certificate stating that Jane Smith has reached a level of competence in analytical
skills, giving a profile of her scaffolding knowledge, the basic knowledge she has
acquired which holds the learning program together, and detailing the evidence which
confirms her learning profile. The old end-of-year exams belong with the industrial
revolution and do not fit anymore. Its a silly way of doing assessment.
If parents are such an integral part of the success of their children at school, they
have to be brought along with what the school is doing. One of the jobs of educators
is to keep them informed. Using the gold standard or going back to league tables
is a reversion to the 1960s, to inappropriate conformities and stereotypes.
Size of Systems
There has been a debate over many years over how big a school system should be. In
terms of stereotypes a nationally controlled system may seem logically defensible but
it can also be personally a disaster. How could a decision-maker in the national capital
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decide what is in the best interests of two or three Aboriginal children in the remote
north of Western Australia? Certainly some kind of coordinating or modifying mecha-
nism is needed to ensure that no pockets get lost. There will always be machinery
either nationally or provincially, but the key policy thrusts need to be taken by a unit
close enough to families. The key policy-creating mechanism needs to be small
enough to ensure that every single child is given an education which is the most appro-
priate for him or her. It has something to do with social size rather than geographical
size, with how well people can communicate and interact. I have sympathy with the UK
local education authority or the US district school system, which are of a size where
parents know they can talk to the decision makers, and where learners are treated as
individuals with idiosyncratic needs.
What is Best for the Learning Child?
It often happens that last years innovation becomes this years rigidity. ICSEI may well
be at the point where it has to consider the next giant step it should take. A generation
of educators and policy-makers has gone through ICSEI in 20 years, and one has to ask
how the next generation will use the organization. The fundamental question is whether
it continues to be useful. Put more directly, in the final analysis the question will be
whether it is improving the education on offer to the worlds children.
So will school effectiveness, school efficiency, educational excellence, and school
improvement survive as focal factors in policy? On past evidence, it is unlikely, at least
in their present form, although the weather forecasts and the tide tables on which to
make such reliable predictions are not yet to hand. But one thing is very clear. The sea
levels across the earth are rising, literally as well as metaphorically. Be ready. You will
soon see surf like we have never seen before!
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Introduction
Students individual differences present a pervasive and profound problem to teachers
and schools. At the outset of instruction in any topic, students of any age and in any
culture will differ from one another in various intellectual and psychomotor skills, gen-
eralized and specialized prior knowledge, interests and motives, socio-economic back-
ground, and personal styles of thoughts and work during learning (Tomlinson, 1999).
This argument has a strong history in Educational Effectiveness Research (EER). The
first effectiveness studies undertaken in Europe during the 1970s (e.g., Rutter, Maughan,
Mortimore, Ouston, & Smith, 1979) were concerned with examining evidence and mak-
ing an argument about the potential power of schooling to make a difference to students
life chances. During the last three decades, publication of these studies was followed by
numerous studies in different countries into school effectiveness and school improve-
ment efforts, aimed at putting the results of research into practice (Teddlie & Reynolds,
2000; Townsend, Clarke, & Ainscow, 1999). A major aim of effectiveness studies was to
support teachers and schools attempting to provide equal opportunities to their students
with different learning needs arising from their background and personal characteristics.
Coming from the history of research in inequality in education, it was evident that EER
would look at the educational outcomes of disadvantaged children in particular and
search for equity in schools. This meant looking at the amount in which schools were
able to compensate for initial differences in defined outcomes.
However, most effectiveness studies, while examining the magnitude of teacher and
school effects, have paid very little attention to the extent to which teachers and
schools perform consistently across differing school groupings (Kyriakides, 2004). As
a consequence, the concepts of teacher and school effectiveness have been developed
in a generic way, drawing up a one size fits all model, in which the assumption is that
effective teachers and schools are effective with all students, in all contexts, in all
aspects of their subjects and so on (Campbell, Kyriakides, Muijs, & Robinson, 2004).
41
3
GENERIC AND DIFFERENTIATED MODELS
OF EDUCATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS:
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT
OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE
Leonidas Kyriakides
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2007 Springer.
Such conceptualisation of effectiveness has led to a simplistic dichotomy between effec-
tive and ineffective teachers, eschewing the possibility that teachers may have strengths
and weaknesses in their professional practice. This makes it difficult to use findings of
teacher effectiveness/ school effectiveness research for measuring such strengths and
weaknesses and, therefore, as a source for formative teacher evaluation/school evaluation
(Kyriakides & Campbell, 2003; Reezigt, Creemers, & de Jong, 2003). Furthermore,
despite evidence supporting differentiated educational effectiveness, researchers have
tended to develop generic models of educational effectiveness. In this context, in the next
section, I present a review of studies investigating differentiated teacher and school
effectiveness conducted in different countries. I then make a case for the importance of
developing differentiated models of educational effectiveness, and propose strategies for
using differentiated models of educational effectiveness to improve practice in terms of
both quality and equity. While this is a review of research in Europe, in some cases prior
work in the United States has influenced and provided a base for this research. Therefore,
pertinent American research will also be cited.
Differentiated Teacher and School Effectiveness Research
During the last four decades, EER has shown that effective teaching demands
orchestration of a wide array of skills that must be adapted to specific contexts
(Brophy, 1986). Although causal relations between teacher behaviour and student
achievement have been demonstrated, resulting in a description of effective teaching
practice, many characteristics of effective teaching vary according to student back-
ground (e.g., socio-economic status (SES), prior achievement, gender) and personal
characteristics (e.g., students thinking style and personality), teachers objectives
and subject area. In the first three parts of this section, I examine whether or not
there is strong evidence for differentiated teacher effectiveness along three key
dimensions: differentiated effectiveness in promoting progress of different groups of
students according to their background characteristics; differentiated effectiveness
in promoting progress of different groups of students according to their personal
characteristics; and differentiated effectiveness in relation to the type of objectives
that can be pursued within or across subjects. While these dimensions do not encom-
pass the total range of possible dimensions of differentiation (see Campbell et al.,
2004), they cover a number of issues at the forefront of current concerns in the field
and have implications for developing strategies for improving teaching practice. The
main findings of studies investigating differentiated school effectiveness are presented
in the last part of this section.
Differentiated Teacher Effectiveness in Promoting Progress of Different Groups
of Students According to their Background Characteristics
Most studies investigating differentiated teacher effectiveness have been concerned
with the extent to which different teacher behaviours are necessary for students of dif-
ferent SES and ability levels. Some evidence demonstrates that low and high ability
42 Kyriakides
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students and low and high SES students respond to different teacher behaviours and
styles (Brophy, 1992; Maden, 2001; Mortimore, 1999; Snow, 1986). Specifically,
research into teacher effectiveness has revealed that low-SES students need more
structure, more positive teacher reinforcement and need to receive the curriculum in
smaller packages followed by rapid feedback (Brophy, 1992). Moreover, instructional-
method differences can moderate the correlation between general intelligence
measures and student achievement gains (den Brok, 2001). Less able learners do less
well in conventional instruction or in environments in which independent learner
activity is required to fill in gaps left by incomplete or less structured teaching. In the
latter situation more able learners excel, whereas they do not benefit as much from
tightly structured teaching (Snow & Lohman, 1984). Furthermore, middle and high
ability students do not benefit from praise unrelated to the task. On the other hand,
low achievers benefit from non-contingent feedback, due to many of these students
low self-esteem.
These findings seem to reveal that teachers who are effective with students of dif-
ferent background characteristics are able to differentiate their teaching practice, being
aware that generic teaching skills do not have the same effect on low and high SES
students progress (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2006). For example, effective teachers
provide non-contingent feedback to low rather than middle and high SES students.
Furthermore, students from lower SES backgrounds have been found to benefit from
a more integrated curriculum across grades and subjects (Connell, 1996). Connecting
learning to real-life experience and stressing practical applications have been found
particularly important to low-SES students, as has making the curriculum relevant to
their daily lives. This approach may diminish disaffection as well as promote learning
(Hopkins & Reynolds, 2002; Montgomery et al., 1993). According to Mortimore
(1999) effective teaching of low SES students should be teacher-led and practically
focused, but not low-level or undemanding.
There are no clear data, however, on racial and ethnic influences on relationships
between teacher behaviour and student achievement. Although indirect influences
mediated through SES have been identified, patterns of teacher behaviour unique to
particular racial or ethnic groups have not. In general, differentiated teacher effec-
tiveness research yields more powerful main effects than interactions, and the inter-
actions that do appear tend to be ordinal since it appears that certain groups of
students need more instruction than others but not a different form of instruction.
Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge that teacher effectiveness studies pro-
vide some empirical support for the effectiveness of using adaptive teaching in
culturally diverse classrooms (e.g., Cole, 1985; Snow, 1986). The use of discourse
styles already familiar to children in their cultural community outside of school to
bridge to school reading activities is one example. Another is establishing classroom
participation rules that are sensitive to difference between participation rules com-
mon in some cultural groups and those typical of conventional schools. A third
involves choosing activities in biology that allow different students to capitalise on
their own specialised prior knowledge and interests. These demonstrate how an effec-
tive teacher can use an observed student aptitude to circumvent, and eventually
remove, potential student learning difficulties.
Models of Educational Effectiveness 43
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The year of
publication
for
Creemers &
Kyriakides,
2006 is in
press
according to
the refer-
ence list.
Please
check.
Early research into teacher effectiveness has also demonstrated that teachers class-
room behaviour depends on the students grade level. Generally speaking, effective
teaching in the early grades involves a great deal of instruction in desired routines and
procedures (Good & Grouws, 1979). Less of this is needed in later grades, but it
becomes more important for students to identify the reasons for which they are dealing
with a teaching task and to follow up on accountability demands (Brophy, 1986). In the
early grades, lessons involve basic skills instruction, often in small groups, and it is
important that each student participates overtly and often (Slavin, 1987). In the later
grades, lessons involve applications of basic skills and instruction in more abstract
content. In addition, overt participation is less important than teachers structuring,
clarity and enthusiasm (Clark et al., 1979). Finally, although effective teachers of the
later grades are expected to treat students contributions with interest and respect,
the praise and symbolic rewards common in the early grades give way to a more
impersonal and academically centred instruction in later grades.
Differentiated Teacher Effectiveness in Relation to Student
Personal Characteristics
Typically, aspects such as student learning styles and personality traits are put forward
as key to student learning, and teachers are urged to take these factors into account
in the classroom. However, the relationship between psychological characteristics of
learners and teacher behaviour has not been systematically examined (Muijs, Campbell,
Kyriakides, & Robinson, 2005). On the other hand, psychologists have demonstrated
strong relations between student achievement and student personal characteristics such
as personality and thinking styles.
It is important to note that personality traits may be taken as different modes of
relating with the environment. There have been several models of these traits. In this
chapter, I refer only on the so-called Big Five model because it seems to dominate and
underpin current European research and theory, and accounts for a large amount of
variability in personality (Blickle, 1996). According to this model, the factors of per-
sonality are as follows: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism,
and openness to experience. Most of the Big Five personality traits have been found to
be associated with academic performance. For example, openness to experience is
related to academic success in school (Shuerger & Kuma, 1987). Extraversion and
neuroticism have also been associated with academic performance after nearly
40 years of investigation. Recent studies reveal that extraverts under-perform in aca-
demic settings because of their distractibility, sociability and impulsiveness
(Demetriou et al., 2003). The negative relation between academic achievement and
neuroticism is usually explained in terms of anxiety and stress under test conditions
(Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2003). But the factor more consistently associated
with academic performance is conscientiousness (Blickle, 1996; Chamorro-Premuzic &
Furnham, 2003). Both intelligence and personality comprise salient individual dif-
ferences which influence performance: intelligence, through specific abilities which
facilitate understanding and learning; personality, through certain traits which enhance
and/or handicap use of these abilities (Ackerman, 1996).
44 Kyriakides
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In searching variables that contribute to school achievement, psychologists have
also devoted considerable attention to the so-called stylistic aspects of cognition. The
idea of a style reflecting a persons typical or habitual mode of problem solving, think-
ing, perceiving and remembering was initially introduced by Allport (1937). In the past
few decades, the style construct has attracted considerable research interest and many
theoretical models have been postulated. Grigorenko and Sternberg (1995) classified
various theories of styles into three approaches: cognition-centred, personality-centred
and activity-centred. These three approaches differ not only in the focus of their inter-
est, but also in how they address the functional aspects of styles. The cognition- and
personality-centred approaches typically imply that styles are either-or constructs and
consistent across various tasks and situations. For example, a person could be either
field-independent or field-dependent.
In this chapter, I examine theories of thinking style in the activity-centred frame-
work since this framework allows for change and is, thereby, the closest to EER.
Moreover, psychologists have generated evidence that activity-centred styles explain
individual performance differences not explained by abilities (Zhang, 2001). Finally,
an educational effectiveness study has shown that activity-centred styles associated
with the theory of mental self-government (Sternberg, 1988) can be treated as student
level factors explaining variation on student achievement gains (Kyriakides, 2005a).
The argument for the importance of investigating teacher differentiated effective-
ness in relation to student personality and thinking styles not only arises because these
two factors were found to be associated with student achievement, but also because of
the main findings of research on differentiated instruction. Research on differentiated
instruction is partly concerned with teachers attempt to teach according to individual
learning styles. For example, the American Dunn and Dunn learning style model sug-
gests at least five different instructional methods for teaching identical content. Each
of the methods responds to the learning styles of specific students. Researchers have
modified this model to examine numerous instructional practices as they affect
students at various levels, with diverse learning-style characteristics (Farkas, 2003).
A meta-analysis of 42 experimental studies based on Dunn and Dunns model was
conducted to determine the value of teaching students through their learning-style
preferences (Dunn, Griggs, Olsen, Beasley, & Gorman, 1995). It was found that stu-
dents whose learning styles are accommodated would be expected to achieve 75% of
a standard deviation higher than students who have not had their learning styles
accommodated. Because each of the experimental studies provided responsive and
non-responsive instructional strategies to students learning-style preferences, the data
suggested that matching students learning-style preferences with educational inter-
ventions compatible with those preferences was beneficial to their academic achieve-
ment. Similar arguments can be made in relation to Kolbs experiential learning theory
which presents a way of structuring a session or a whole course using a learning cycle
(Kolb, 1984). Different stages of the cycle are associated with distinct learning styles.
In the literature, there is also an attempt to identify the effect of different teaching
methods on students with different personality types (Boekaerts, 1996; de Raad &
Schouwenburg, 1996; Nussbaum, 2002). For example, Shadbolt (1978) found that
students high on a neuroticism scale performed better with structured, rather than
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unstructured, teaching methods. However, one study conducted in Cyprus has investi-
gated teacher differentiated effectiveness in relation to student personal characteristics
(Kyriakides, 2005a). An element in this study was investigating whether generic teach-
ing skills found to be consistently correlated with student achievement may have a
general effect across all students but also effect students of different thinking styles
and personality traits to a different degree.
In this study, stratified sampling was used to select 32 out of 147 Cypriot primary
schools. All the year six students (N 1721) from each class (N 81) of the school
sample were chosen. Different criteria for measuring teacher and school effectiveness
were used. Data on students cognitive achievement in mathematics and Greek
language were collected using external and internal forms of assessment. Affective
outcomes were also measured through a questionnaire exploring students attitudes
towards peers, teachers, school and learning. These outcome assessments were admin-
istered to the student sample at the beginning and end of school year 20012002.
Questionnaires to students, teachers, and headteachers were also administered to collect
data about explanatory variables. In addition, observations were carried out to measure
teachers classroom behaviour. The Personality Inventory including 50 items, ten for
each of the Big Five factors of personality (Costa & McCrae, 1997) was also adminis-
tered to the students. Structural equation modelling analysis affirmed the theory on
which the inventory was developed. Finally, students thinking style was measured by
a short version of the Thinking Styles Inventory. Based on results of five exploratory
factor analyses of students responses to items in each of the five dimensions of men-
tal self-government, it was possible to identify factors representing each thinking style
other than the oligarchic style. Multi-level analysis for each outcome measure was
carried out to investigate teacher differentiated effectiveness in relation to student
personal characteristics. The main findings of this study follow.
First, one type of personality (conscientiousness) and two thinking styles (execu-
tive and liberal) were found to be related to achievement in both cognitive outcomes
and affective outcomes of schooling. Second, in the case of mathematics, a statisti-
cally significant cross-level interaction was identified between executive thinking
style and teachers ability to provide practical and application opportunities.
Specifically, the effect of the executive style on mathematics achievement was higher
when teachers provided more practical and application opportunities for students.
Third, the multi-level analysis of student progress in language revealed a statistically
significant cross-level interaction between liberal style and teachers ability to
give information. In this case, the effect of the liberal style on student achievement
gains in Greek language was higher when teachers spent less time in giving their
students information. Finally, teacher differentiated effectiveness was identified in
relation to students personality. The teacher effect in cognitive outcomes was found
to be more significant for students with lower scores in openness to experiences.
Similarly, the teacher effect in affective outcomes was found to be more significant
for students with lower scores in conscientiousness.
This study not only reveals that both personality and thinking style should be treated
as factors explaining variation of student achievement gains, but evidence supports the
importance of investigating teacher differentiated effectiveness in relation to student
46 Kyriakides
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personal characteristics. However, it is important not to overestimate the differentiated
nature of teacher effectiveness. This study has shown that most variables measuring
teaching skills (e.g., practical application opportunities, giving information, providing
feedback) have a general effect across the three outcome categories but also operate
differentially in relation to types of student personality and thinking style. This
suggests that the concept of differentiated teacher effectiveness in relation to student
personal characteristics ought not to be polarized against a generic concept. Rather the
former should be incorporated as a refinement into the latter.
Differentiated Teacher Effectiveness in Relation to the Different Objectives that
can be Pursued
Although differentiation in effective teaching has mainly been examined in relation to
student background characteristics, effective teaching seems also to vary according
to teachers objectives and content of the subject taught (Campbell et al., 2004). First,
evidence for differentiation between subjects can be identified from two parallel proj-
ects looking at teacher effectiveness in numeracy and literacy conducted in England.
While there were clear similarities between the characteristics of effective teachers in
the two studies, effective teachers of numeracy were more likely to differentiate tasks by
ability than were effective teachers of literacy (Askew, Rhodes, Brown, William, &
Johnson, 1997; Medwell, Poulson, & Wray, 1999). It can be expected that there are
more differences between subjects, which may be related to such factors as the more or
less hierarchical nature of the subject, whether it is science, arts, or humanities based
and the extent to which the subject is loosely or tightly coupled (Muijs et al., 2005).
Moreover, classroom environment and educational effectiveness studies including
interpersonal teacher behaviour revealed that teacher influence was associated with stu-
dent achievement in mathematics whereas proximity was associated with achievement
in language (den Brok, Brekelmans, & Wubbels, 2004; Kyriakides, 2005b). Second, it
has been shown that there is a relation between objectives and the way students master
objectives (Kyriakides & Creemers, 2006). Therefore, teachers should take into account
both their students characteristics and their objectives in organizing their teaching
practice. Specifically, early American teacher effectiveness research demonstrated that
if students need new information, they are likely to need group lessons featuring teacher
information presentation followed by recitation or discussion opportunities (Brophy,
1986). Follow-up application or practice needs also depend on the objectives. When stu-
dents are expected to reproduce knowledge on cue, routine seatwork assignments and
tests might suffice. On the other hand, if students are expected to integrate broad pat-
terns of learning or apply them in everyday life situations, students should be given the
opportunities to solve problems, make decisions, or construct projects.
In recent decades, there has been an increasing emphasis on higher order thinking
skills and some evidence supports that different teaching methods may be needed to
address higher order thinking skills (Muijs et al., 2005). In particular, direct instruction
methods found to be highly effective in teaching basic skills may be insufficient for
addressing higher order thinking skills (Costa, 1984; Muijs & Reynolds, 2001). These
views have led to the development of models of teaching seeking explicitly to address
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higher order thinking. A number of approaches have been developed aimed at improv-
ing students higher order thinking skills, often focussing on the development of
metacognition, the use of strategies for solving problems and teaching modelling
approaches (Adey & Shayer, 1994; de Jager, 2002).
Finally, research into differentiation in assessment reveals that effective teachers use
assessment techniques in line with lesson objectives and students background and
personal characteristics. This is because different assessment strategies are seen as
more effective and relatively bias free for specific groups of students and for measur-
ing specific skills. In this context, many psychometric studies have been conducted
investigating differential item functioning of national tests in European countries by
taking into account differences in student background and in objectives and subject
content (e.g., Glas, 1997; Linn, 1993). In general, it has been found that the nature and
cognitive level of the information given and questions asked during an activity depend
on the activitys objectives and its place within the anticipated progression through the
curriculum (Hayes & Deyhle, 2001).
Research into Differentiated School Effectiveness
Research into school effectiveness has provided strong evidence of the existence of dif-
ferences between schools in their overall effectiveness in promoting students academic
attainments. However, early beliefs that school influence might be as large as family or
community influences were misplaced (Scheerens & Bosker, 1997). Nevertheless, it
cannot be claimed that school effects are of little consequence. For example, it has been
shown that an average difference between an effective and non-effective school of two-
thirds of a standard deviation implies a lead of or falling behind an entire school year for
the average student (Scheerens, 1992). But although the magnitude of school effect has
been identified, there may be considerable variations in these effects within schools,
across subject domains, cohorts, grades and teachers. Thus, the consistency and stability
of school effects comprise two of the most fundamental issues in EER. Consistency
refers to different criterion variables whereas stability has to do with different time
points. Studies on school effectiveness investigating the stability (e.g., Gray, Jesson,
Goldstein, Hedger, & Rasbash, 1995; Luyten, 1994) and consistency (e.g., Kyriakides,
2005a; Opdenakker & Van Damme, 2000; Thomas & Mortimore, 1996) of school effects
have revealed that school effects are stable to a certain degree but that there appears to be
a lack of consistency across subject domains. Thus, variations exist between schools in
their effectiveness in promoting different kinds of academic outcomes (Kyriakides,
2005a; Mortimore, Sammons, Stoll, Lewis, & Ecob, 1988; Opdenakker & Van Damme,
2000; Smith & Tomlinson, 1989; Tizard, Blatchford, Burke, Farquhar, & Plewis, 1988).
Indeed, Fitz-Gibbon, Tymms, and Hazlewood (1990) and Sammons, Thomas, and
Mortimore (1997) show substantial variation between the effectiveness of different
schools subject departments. Based on these findings, the unidimensionality of school
effects in secondary schools is questionable. Departmental differences in effectiveness
may be a more relevant concept than overall school differences in effectiveness.
Another important aspect of the unidimensionality of the concept of a school effect
is whether general effectiveness should or should not be separated from differentiated
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effectiveness. Studies concerning the stability and consistency of school effectiveness
have been based on the assumption that the effectiveness of a school is its effectiveness
for the average student, with respect to aptitude, SES etc. Little attention has been paid
to the extent to which schools perform consistently across differing school groupings.
Studies investigating differentiated school effectiveness have mainly been concerned
with the schools capacity to be effective with different groups of students according
to their background characteristics.
In England Sammons, Nuttall, and Cuttance (1993) showed that for primary schools
differential effects could only be demonstrated for the prior attainment position of
students and not with respect to their gender, SES or ethnicity status. Moreover, the
evidence about differentiated school effectiveness related to pupil gender and for eth-
nic differences shows little overall consensus (Nuttall, Goldstein, Prosser, & Rasbach,
1989). Similar findings have emerged from two studies investigating differentiated
school effectiveness in relation to student background characteristics conducted in
Cyprus (Campbell et al., 2004; Kyriakides, 2004). No evidence of significant differ-
entiated school effectiveness in relation to sex and social class was identified.
However, it was found that although Cypriot schools that are considered effective for
the lower attaining pupils are also effective for the higher attaining pupils, school
effects are more significant for lower than for higher attaining pupils.
Towards the Development of Both Generic and Differentiated
Models of Educational Effectiveness
Four main conclusions emerge from studies investigating teacher and school differenti-
ated effectiveness. First, studies investigating differentiated teacher and school effective-
ness reveal that although educational practice remains basically fixed and non-adaptive
in most countries, it is primarily the teachers adaptive instructional behaviour which
makes teachers and schools able to provide equal opportunities to students with different
background characteristics. Relying on the development and use of differentiated text-
books and curriculum may be necessary, but is insufficient, for promoting equity at the
school level. The most critical factor is the teachers ability to respond to students dif-
ferent learning and affective needs. Effective teachers are able to provide different
learning support systems to different groups of students in order to help them achieve
different types of objectives.
Second, there has been criticism that EER does little to address the problems of
social justice and inclusion (e.g., Slee, Weiner, with Tomlinson, 1998; Thrupp, 2001).
However, research into differentiated effectiveness seems to provide not only answers
to the critics of educational effectiveness research but also a new perspective in the dis-
cussion about educational equality. For example, as already noted, studies in Cyprus
on differentiated teacher and school effectiveness revealed that specific groups of
pupils are systematically being disadvantaged in their rate of learning by comparison
with other groups (e.g., Kyriakides, 2004, 2005a). In addition, Cypriot teachers were
found to matter most for children who are being disadvantaged. These findings are
probably not restricted to Cyprus since studies on differentiated school effectiveness
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conducted in USA support the conclusion that schools matter most for underprivileged
and/or initially low-achieving students (e.g., Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992; Teddlie &
Stringfield, 1993). Therefore, research into differentiated effectiveness may have impor-
tant implications for policy-makers and teachers attempting to design and implement
policies on equal opportunities.
Third, it has been shown that teachers and schools may be more effective with some
groups of students and less with others. This implies that research on differentiated
effectiveness is needed to raise issues concerning the extent to which specific factors
connected with teachers classroom behaviour are associated with teacher and school
effectiveness in promoting specific groups of pupils progress. Identifying these
factors may be useful for policy makers attempting to design and implement policies
on equal opportunities. The question of what exactly makes teachers effective in dif-
ferent areas, and whether there are teachers who are effective in all, or more or less
effective in different factors, is one that needs exploring both from a research and
professional development point of view.
Finally, methodological issues can be raised about the nature of the studies on
differentiated effectiveness. In general, research on differentiated effectiveness
seems to suffer from many of the weaknesses characterising much educational
research. Most qualitative studies rely on case study methodology and interviews,
which risks confounding rhetoric with reality due to their self-report methodology.
True longitudinal studies, involving ethnographic immersion within the school,
would help overcome these issues. Likewise, most quantitative studies are one-off
cross-sectional survey designs, making it hard to distinguish correlation and causal-
ity. Use of more experimental and longitudinal designs would help clarify these
issues (Kyriakides & Creemers, 2006). Overall, however, this review highlights an
urgent need for research going beyond one size fits all teacher behaviour studies to
look at teaching as a multidimensional role. Such studies will not only help us
develop differentiated models of educational effectiveness but may also contribute
in establishing strong links between research on effectiveness and improvement of
educational practice (Stoll & Fink, 1996; Wikeley, Stoll, Murillo, & de Jong, 2005).
In the final section, therefore, I provide suggestions on how teachers and schools
might make use of differentiated models of educational effectiveness to improve the
quality and equity of their teaching practice.
Suggestions for Possible Uses of Differentiated Models of
Effectiveness for Improving Educational Practice
During the last two decades, effectiveness studies conducted in different countries
have supported the argument that models of EER should be multi-level in nature
(Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000). The relationship between factors at different levels might
also be more complex than assumed in the integrated models (Creemers & Kyriakides,
2006). This is especially true for interaction effects among factors operating at class-
room and student level which reveal the importance of investigating differentiated
effectiveness (Campbell et al., 2004). Therefore, researchers should establish models
50 Kyriakides
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of EER which are not only multi-level in nature but also demonstrate the complexity
of improving educational effectiveness by taking into account the major findings of
research into differentiated effectiveness. A differentiated model of EER may also help us
establish stronger links between EER and improvement of educational practice. At least
three possible ways exist of establishing links between the results and theoretical models
of research into differentiated effectiveness and improvement of educational practice.
First, based on the various dimensions used to examine differentiated teacher effec-
tiveness, different teaching profiles can be produced, including those relating to
achievement of different groups of students. Teachers could then identify the extent to
which their classroom behaviour is similar to any of these profiles and whether specific
changes to their practice are needed. Differentiated models of effectiveness are, there-
fore, useful tools for teacher and school self-evaluation of quality and equity in effec-
tiveness. Since school and teacher self-evaluation is considered as a key to improvement
(MacBeath, 1999; MacBeath, Schratz, Meuret, & Jakobsen, 2000), teachers and schools
may attempt to improve their practice by providing differentiated support to various
groups of students based on their background and personal characteristics. Moreover,
teachers and headteachers could be encouraged to draw their own meanings of what
makes schools and teachers effective in terms of efficiency and equity by considering
the knowledge base of effective teaching practice provided by research on differentiated
effectiveness.
Second, the findings of differentiated effectiveness research reveal that differentia-
tion of teaching practice should be seen as a significant dimension of measuring the
function of each effectiveness factor. The current models of EER do not explicitly refer
to measurement of each factor. On the contrary, it is often assumed that these factors rep-
resent unidimensional constructs. For example, the comprehensive model of educational
effectiveness states that there should be control at school level, meaning that goal
attainment and the school climate should be evaluated (Creemers, 1994). In line with
this assumption, studies investigating the models validity have revealed that schools
with an assessment policy focused on formative purposes of assessment are more effec-
tive (de Jong, Westerhof, & Kruiter, 2004; Kyriakides, 2005a; Kyriakides, Campbell, &
Gagatsis, 2000). However, school level assessment policy can also be examined in
terms of many other aspects of the functioning of assessment such as procedures used
to design assessment instruments, forms of record keeping, and policy on reporting
results to parents and pupils. This implies that EER models should not only refer to
various effectiveness factors but also explain the dimensions upon which each factor
can be measured. Considering effectiveness factors as multidimensional constructs
not only provides a better picture of what makes teachers and schools effective but
also helps develop more specific strategies for improving educational practice
(Creemers & Kyriakides, 2006). Research into differentiated effectiveness seems to
reveal that researchers should examine the extent to which activities associated with
a factor are implemented in the same way for all the subjects involved with it (e.g., all
the students, teachers, schools). Adaptation to specific needs of each subject or group
of subjects is likely to increase successful implementation of a factor and ultimately
maximise its effect on student learning outcomes. Therefore, models taking into
account findings of research into differentiated effectiveness provide support for the
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argument that people of all ages, learn, think and process information differently. This
means that effective teachers need to acknowledge, honour, and cultivate individuality,
using differentiated instruction and building on the premise that learners differ in
important ways (Tomlinson, 1999).
One way for teachers to differentiate instruction is by teaching according to indi-
vidual student learning needs as defined by their background and personal character-
istics such as gender, SES, ability, thinking style and personality type. For example,
effective teachers would provide more active instruction and feedback, and break
instruction into smaller steps for low-SES or low-achieving students. On the other
hand, being aware that high SES students thrive in an academically stimulating and
demanding atmosphere, they would create such a learning environment for them. In
addition to good instruction, warmth and support would be provided to low SES
students who need to be more frequently encouraged for their efforts. Similarly, pol-
icy makers should adapt their general policy to the specific needs of groups of schools
and encourage teachers to differentiate their instruction. Focusing on differentiation
does not imply that different subjects should not be expected to achieve the same pur-
poses. On the contrary, adapting the policy to the special needs of each group of
schools, teachers and students is likely to ensure that all of them will become able to
achieve the same purposes. Support for this argument comes from European research
into adaptive teaching and evaluation projects of innovations concerning with the
use of adaptive teaching in classrooms (Houtveen, van der Grift, & Creemers, 2004;
Reusser, 2000).
Finally, using a differentiated model of EER, policy makers could evaluate national
and school policy on equality of opportunities in education. The success and failure of
school change is affected by the influence that the inputs, processes and context of the
school and of education in general have on student outcomes (Hopkins, 1996; Reezigt,
2001; Reynolds, Hopkins, & Stoll, 1993; Stoll, Creemers, & Reezigt, 2006). Even when
the effectiveness of different components is improved, the question remains as to
whether or not that change induces higher pupil outcomes. Therefore, the evaluation of
any policy promoting equality of opportunities can be based on investigating its
impact on promoting educational progress of socially disadvantaged pupils. Moreover,
the effectiveness of micro-level policies on equality of opportunities in education can
be evaluated by examining whether there is any association between the effectiveness
of the school and the implementation of such policy.
Research is, however, needed to investigate the impact that the use of the differenti-
ated models may have on improving teaching practice at teacher-level through
building self-evaluation mechanisms and at national level through establishing an
evidence-based approach on introducing educational policy promoting the provision
of equal opportunities. Generally, it can be claimed that since research into differenti-
ated effectiveness illustrates ample opportunities for promoting differentiation in
practice, policy-makers and teachers can use the main findings of research into differ-
entiated effectiveness to define their roles and professional activities and improve their
practice. However, further research is needed to identify whether using results and
models of differentiated EER results in more effectiveness in terms of both quality
and equity.
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Between 1995 and 1999 a team from the University of Strathclyde and the Institute
of Education in London conducted an effectiveness and improvement study of 80
Scottish primary and secondary schools. This chapter outlines the purpose, process and
outcomes of that study, setting these in the context of the prior studies and exploring what
we have learned that confirms or challenges existing knowledge. The chapter goes on to
consider what we now have to learn and apply in a social, economic and policy context
which is undergoing complex change and to give consideration to the very different
canvas on which effectiveness and improvement will have to be drawn in the future.
School Effectiveness: The Scottish Context
Scotland is a country which likes to maintain an identity distinct from its immediate
neighbor to the south, and prides itself on a fully comprehensive system which
encompasses 97% of all children and young people. The remaining 3% attend inde-
pendent schools. Within the state sector there is no selection by ability, in comparison
with England where post-primary school selection by ability still exists in a quarter
of all local authorities. Selection at secondary school level is also still characteristic of
many European countries, so making comparative data more problematic than policy
makers would have us believe.
Since 1970, when the Scottish system moved at a stroke from a selective two tier
system to one fully comprehensive, it provided an attractive and even playing field for
effectiveness researchers. The greater homogeneity of Scottish schools is shown in the
1992 OECD statistics on Mathematics achievement. The variance among schools in
England was 63% while in Scotland it was 16%. This was ascribed (Raab, 1992) to
the vertical partnership of national government, local authorities and comprehensive
schools in which respect, historically, Scottish authorities have followed a more
coordinating, even interventionist path, than many other countries with regard to
57
4
IMPROVING SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS:
RETROSPECTIVE AND PROSPECTIVE
John MacBeath
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2007 Springer.
school staffing, resourcing, professional development and school leadership. In recent
years local school management has, however, somewhat breached that tradition.
A Legacy of Studies
Through the 1980s and 1990s the Centre for Educational Sociology (CES) in Edinburgh
produced a substantial and influential body of work (Cuttance, McPherson, Raffe, &
Willms, 1988; Gray, McPherson, & Raffe, 1983; McPherson, 1992; Paterson, 1992).
Much of this work drew on a Scottish Office database of Scottish School Leavers, its
purpose, to ascertain why so many young people left school prematurely and without
adequate qualifications. The CES data confirmed the powerful effects of factors beyond
the control of schools but also demonstrated that individual schools could make a signifi-
cant difference at the margins.
Drawing on the Scottish School Leavers database, John Gray and his colleagues
(1983) showed that when background factors were applied to examination perform-
ance tables, a significant re-ordering of the ranking among schools took place. This led
the research team to the conclusion that if parents chose schools on the basis of
examination results alone they would very often choose the wrong school. Drawing
further on the school leavers data, it was found that if you were a pupil of average
ability your chances of exam success were better in schools where your peers were of
high ability than in schools where they were of low ability. This has since come to be
known as the contextual or compositional effect, suggesting that the social milieu
of school may have an additional impact over and above the influence of an individuals
personal and family characteristics.
As well as attainment data from these cohorts of young people, researchers also
gathered an impressive body of testament from former students, a collection of power-
ful statements abut the nature of schooling. Published in 1980 as Tell them from Me
(Gow & McPherson, 1980) it told the story of flung aside forgotten children. Gow
and McPhersons study brought home more vividly than performance data the differing
impact of schools on individual pupils.
Other qualitative work, although not in the school effectiveness mainstream, added
much to help in the interpretation and contextualization of school effects findings
which were to follow. The work of Noel Entwistle and his colleagues in Edinburgh
(1987), Wynne Harlen and colleagues at the Scottish Council for Educational
Research (1994) and John Nisbet and colleagues at Aberdeen (1970), for example,
made a significant contribution to our understanding of classroom processes while
Brown, Riddells and Duffields in-depth study of four schools (1996) married a school
effectiveness approach to an ethnographic case study work. The challenge to the
school effectiveness movement was for it to integrate the increasingly-sophisticated
data modeling with more qualitative, ethnographic approaches.
In his 1989 lecture to the Scottish Educational Research Association David Hargreaves
commented:
Remember that one of the characteristics of the effective school is the belief by
pupils that they are valued by staff. Asking for their views is a practical way in
which teachers can value pupils.
58 MacBeath
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Please pro-
vide com-
plete details
of reference
John
Nisbet,
1970 in the
reference
list
At policy level the Scottish Education Department held a close watching brief on
emerging studies, setting up a Management of Resources Unit to drive forward effec-
tiveness work. At local authority level councils began to put into place quality assur-
ance teams and local authorities such as Fife and Grampian (Croxford, 1996; Cuttance
et al., 1988) commissioned school effectiveness studies of their schools. In 1998 level
the Scottish Education Department published its own intelligence gathering document
Effective Secondary Schools followed a year later by Effective Primary Schools (SED,
1989). These two documents were designed to put into the hands of schools issues that
had previously been the province of researchers and to serve as a reference for school
development planning, seen by policy-makers as the mechanism through which
greater effectiveness would be delivered (SED, 1991).
The publication of the school self-evaluation guidelines (SED, 1992) signaled a sea
change in thinking about how schools improve. Criteria for evaluating school quality
and effectiveness were moved from the guarded domain of Her Majestys Inspectorate
into the public arena, a paradigmatic shift in philosophy that, nearly a decade later,
many other countries in the world are emulating. Presaging this development, David
Hargreaves described it as an important step in helping teachers take ownership of
their diagnosis of the school and develop a commitment to implementing the solutions
they themselves formulate (1989, p. 12).
A 1991 collection of papers under the title School Effectiveness Research: Its messages
for improvement (Riddell and Brown) laid the groundwork for a major Scottish-based
research project. Although Scotland had moved further and faster than its UK counter-
parts in school self-evaluation, there was no Scottish equivalent to the Rutter or
Mortimore studies in England, nor to Reynolds work in Wales or the many American
studies which were often used to apply, or possibly misapply, to the Scottish context. In
1995 the renamed Scottish Office Education Department put out to tender a study to
which provide empirical data on a national basis and answer some of the key policy issues
of the day. It was also seen as further strengthening the rigor of school self-evaluation.
The Improving School Effectiveness Project (ISEP)
The tender for the research was won by a collaborative team from the University of
Strathclyde in Glasgow and the Institute of Education in London.
1
The remit for the
research team was to shed light on the relationship between school processes and out-
comes with particular emphasis on school ethos, development planning, and learning
and teaching. It was also asked contribute to the development of a framework for
assessing value-added and to assess the impact of recent policy initiatives.
The team was asked to explore the processes by which school effectiveness is
improved, in particular to identify actions (in the context of national initiatives) that
would move a relatively ineffective school forward; and to establish more clearly
how such actions affect classroom learning and teaching and pupils attainments. The
research team was also asked to take account of insights gained over the last two
decades of school effectiveness research elsewhere in the world and to set findings
within that wider international context.
Improving School Effectiveness 59
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Please pro-
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plete details
of reference
SED,
1992 in the
reference
list
Please pro-
vide com-
plete details
of reference
David
Hargreaves
in the refer-
ence list
A Question of Design
The research design was to sample 80 primary and secondary schools on a representa-
tive basis across Scotland and track these schools over a 2 year period. Any school
joining the project would be required to make a substantial commitment to data gath-
ering at the outset of the project and again 2 years down the line. Schools were asked
to work with the research team to gather the following data:
14 background measures for each pupil in the primary 4 and secondary 2 cohort
three attainment tests one in Mathematics and two in English
a pupil attitude questionnaire for all P4 and S2 pupils
teacher questionnaires for all staff
questionnaires to a random sample of parents.
In 1997, the exercise was repeated for teachers and parents who had been sampled in
1995 and for the P4 cohort, by now in P6. The same applied to secondary schools, but
instead of using the ISEP tests for the cohort, whose students were by now in S4,
results on Scottish Standard Grade examinations (the equivalent of the English GCSE)
were collected.
In addition to the data collection across all 80 schools, in depth work took place in
24 case study schools, a sub sample of the 80 designed to reflect the broad character-
istics of the larger sample, In these schools 11 qualitative instruments were used to
gather information on ethos, development planning, the management of change and
teaching and learning.
These case study schools had the benefit of two members of the research team to assist
with the collection, interpretation and feedback of data. One of the pair assumed the role
of critical friend, working alongside teachers and senior leaders to plan and implement
change while the researcher had the task of documenting the response to the data and
other broader change processes (MacBeath & Mortimore, 2001). The role and influence
of the critical friend was a central aspect of the case studies as we wanted to explore the
extent to which outside support and challenge could play a part in school improvement.
An external researcher was commissioned in the final stages of the project to evaluate
the impact of the critical friend (Doherty, MacBeath, Jardine, Smith, & McCall, 2001).
Enlisting Schools in a Time of Crisis
The launch of the project took place in the middle of a teachers boycott of all addi-
tional work with strong discouragement by the unions to engage in any initiatives such
as ISEP. At the height of this industrial action members of the research team visited
each local authority and invited headteachers to a meeting to put the project before
them and essentially to sell them the idea of being involved in something which
would be of benefit to their schools, especially in respect of self-evaluation. It was a
hard sell as many of the heads, however interested, could not, in that embattled climate,
commit their schools to such an undertaking. In all cases heads were asked not to make
an instant decision but only to do so with the full support of their staff. They, therefore,
had to try and convince their staff that this would be a worthwhile undertaking. Some
60 MacBeath
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heads, keen to be involved, fell at this second hurdle. The selection of the final
80 schools, drawn from over 300 involved in discussions and from a sub set of 100
who volunteered, was a time consuming task but one that achieved its end a well
drawn representative sample including the highest and lowest achieving schools in the
country with a distribution that was a close reflection of the national picture.
Multi-level Modeling
One of the important strands of the project was measurement of pupil attainment and
progress taking account of the impact of pupils background factors and prior attain-
ment. Multi-level modeling was used to examine the relationship between 14 measures
of pupil background and previous educational experiences; in relation to attainment.
This was done at two points for both the primary and secondary samples at P4 and
P6; and at S2 and S4. We were interested in exploring patterns of attainment at two
points in time with a specific focus on Reading and Mathematics. The choice of this
restricted focus on the core subjects was only taken after long debate within the
team, many its members wanting to look more widely and creatively at other less tra-
ditional learning domains. It was both a pragmatic and political decision to stay with
these two key areas, and to concentrate our analysis on how attainment and progress
in English and Mathematics played out in relation to factors such as gender, age,
socio-economic circumstances and provision of learning support.
Multi-level models were used to examine the extent to which, after controlling for
prior attainment and background influences, there was evidence of differences among
schools in their effectiveness (Thomas, 1998). Meeting one aspect of its remit the
project developed a value-added framework for primary and secondary schools of
immediate use to schools in identifying pupils differing rates of progress.
The Findings
We were not surprised to find that, in common with every other robust effectiveness
study, pupil background was strongly related to attainment. Socio-economic disadvan-
tage showed a particularly powerful impact in Reading/English measures for younger
age groups at P4, a confirmation of the summer and winter born phenomenon which
affects the age, and readiness, of starting school (Mortimore et al., 1987). As children
progress, prior attainment, again unsurprisingly, shows a strong relationship with later
attainment. There was, however, evidence that certain groups made more progress than
others. For example, girls were ahead in reading by P6, but boys were ahead in
Mathematics. At secondary level boys and pupils eligible for free school meals made
less progress in English and overall in their Standard Grade results at 15/16.
These differences in progress were both within and between schools. After con-
trolling for prior attainment and background, value-added results revealed statisti-
cally significant differences in school effectiveness. Up to one third of the variance
in primary schools was attributable to the school effect while at secondary level it
was between 6 and 7%. These whole school effects did, however, mask internal
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Please pro-
vide com-
plete details
of reference
Mortimore
et al., 1987
in the refer-
ence list
variations. In nearly a quarter of the secondary schools, there were both positive and
negative value-added scores, for example, positive for English and negative for
Mathematics. Similarly, nearly a third of primaries showed a mixture of negative and
positive residuals. In other words, it is clear that schools are not uniformly effective
or ineffective, reflecting findings by Smith and Tomlinsons (1989) and Sammons,
Thomas, and Mortimore (1997).
Among the 36 secondary schools only three (8%) significantly added value across
all three academic measures Standard Grade mathematics, Standard Grade English
and overall score for best seven Standard Grades. A similar picture emerged among the
primaries. In only a few schools was there significant value-added across the curricu-
lum. Much more typical was a variable pattern of achievement, in some cases children
performing very differently in Mathematics and in reading.
As found in other studies, value-added is stronger in Mathematics than in language
due to Mathematical skill being less affected by home and community factors than
spoken and written language. In Mathematics about one quarter of ISEP secondary
schools were significantly adding value to pupil achievement. For Mathematics in
primary schools, the figure was similar.
In the minority of schools which performed consistently and significantly above
expectation, there was no socio-economic bias. In other words, although showing very
different levels of measured outcomes, value-added scores covered the whole socio-
economic spectrum. One of the three secondary schools performing significantly well
in all value-added outcomes had relatively high free school meal entitlement while the
secondary school with the highest free school meal entitlement performed above
expectation in two out of three of the attainment outcomes.
As for gender differences, in primary schools there were no significant differences
between boys and girls in reading or Mathematics at P4 but by P6, however, boys were
ahead in Mathematics and girls were ahead in reading. This trend continued into
secondary.
We found, once more in common with other studies (e.g., Paterson, 1991), evidence
of a compositional or contextual effect. That is, the overall composition of the
school population in terms of the proportion of pupils with free school meal entitle-
ment has an effect on the achievement of individual pupils over and above the influ-
ence of individual pupil background characteristics. This was particularly pronounced
for socio-economic measures of attainment and for progress among the secondary
cohort from S2 to S4. Martin Thrupps work on the social mix (2001) reveals the extent
to which this can profoundly affect attitudes and performance, telling a more textured
story than the statistical measures which effectiveness research applies. His thesis
receives overwhelming support from Judith Harris (1999). In her controversial book
The Nurture Assumption she argues, with reference to a substantial body of research,
that a childs identity as a person, her capacity as a learner and motivation as a student,
come from the way in which she defines herself within the immediate peer reference
group. The categories we use in our analysis sex, race, ability, class may or may not
be salient characteristics of childrens identity but assume greater significance when
school structures and the nature of the schools social mix push these features into
social prominence.
62 MacBeath
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Please pro-
vide com-
plete details
of reference
Paterson,
1991 and
Martin
Thrupp,
2001in the
reference
list
Harris, J. R
(1998) in
the refer-
ence list.
Please
check.
A Question of Attitudes
As the Gow and Macpherson studies showed, and as Thrupps critique revealed, atti-
tudes to school are not only important drivers of attainment but are also highly infec-
tious. Our ability to measure and aggregate attitudes in the same way as we gauge
attainment is problematic (1) because attitudes do not behave in a similar fashion to
attainment and (2) because attitudes can only be inferred on any large scale through
self report as, for example, through questionnaires.
Attitudes do not grow incrementally as children progress through school. Indeed, as
the data show, a liking for school, motivation and self-esteem tend to stabilize or even
decrease with age and experience. Furthermore, socio-economic status does not, as far
as we know, work in the same way for attitudes as it does for attainment. Nor, however
commonsensical that it might appear, can we assume that in more effective schools
pupils will be happier, more positive and more self-confident.
So we found less variance in attitude and attitude change attributable to the individ-
ual school than we did for attainment and progress. Indeed, attitudes proved to be
virtually stable over time, although there were variations among schools in relation to
specific items and cluster of times items (Robertson, 1998; Thomas, 1998). We found
little overall correlation between attainment with attitudes at school level, at first sight,
a puzzling finding given what we know about ways in which attitudes impact on other
factors such as school attendance, bullying and motivation to learn, for example. This
may reflect a weakness in the attitudinal measuring instrument, or perhaps in the
attainment instrument. It may imply that pupils who do not achieve well have, nonethe-
less, other sources of satisfaction in school. Or it may mean that both attainment and
attitudinal measures tell us little unless complemented by more in-depth approaches.
Nonetheless, a factor analysis did show that there were individual questionnaire
items and clusters of items that produced a significant correlation between attainment
and attitudes. One of the most significant of these was a factor which we labeled as
teacher support. It included three key inter-related items:
teachers help me to understand my work
teachers tell me how I am getting on with my work
teachers praise me when I work hard.
Exploring what issues such as these meant and how factors such as these played out in
schools and classrooms was made possible by the deeper inquiry in the 24 case study
schools.
24 Schools
Research in the 24 case study schools gave us a more fine-grained picture of school
and classroom life. In these schools, in addition to classroom observation (generally
invitational and ad hoc than systemic and structured), we conducted individual and
group interviews with teachers and pupils, a development analysis process (Reeves &
MacGilchrist, 1997) and a change profiling activity (MacBeath & Mortimore, 1997)
in which teachers evaluated their schools on ten key indicators. These sources helped
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Please pro-
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plete details
of MacBeath
& Mortimore,
1997 in the
reference list
to complement and draw out meaning from the quantitative data and gave us insights
into the three areas of policy interest to the Scottish Office teaching and learning,
school ethos and development planning.
As data from the questionnaires in the whole sample left us with more questions
than answers, the case study schools were invaluable in enabling us to probe more
deeply into ambiguities in the data. There were, for example large and significant
differences not only between schools in teachers responses to questionnaire data but
also widely differing attitudes within schools by individual, by age group and by
subject department. In order to make sense of these variations it was important to go
back to staff with the results and enlist their help in teasing out the meaning of the var-
ious items. This exploration of the data by teachers and senior management (and in
some schools, involving pupils and parents too) was fruitful and always challenging.
It was the ambiguities and apparent contradictions within the attitudinal data that led
to vigorous discussion as, in the process of feedback and discussion, teachers became
more alive to others ways of seeing things and reflected on their own responses. Some
of these ambiguities could be explained as contextual feelings on the day the ques-
tionnaire had been administered, perhaps colored by recent events or events in
prospect. Working systematically in groups through the data, problematising and dig-
ging beneath the statistical surface, staff added a qualitative value to the raw figures.
It helped staff to find common ground of agreement and disagreement, and to become
more understanding of value differences, often subject related.
Data, however uncomfortable at times, could be used to move the school on, to
address key issues, in particular those where there was marked dissonance between the
views of the staff and those of senior, or middle, management. This process of collab-
orative questioning of beliefs and practices contributed to professional development.
Being confronted with compelling evidence could help, in many instances, to move a
school forward. This did, however, rely on astute critical friendship and a high level of
skill in dealing with the defense mechanisms of heads and senior management for
whom the data often came as a shock. Data were received by some headteachers, with
denial (I just dont believe this), with projection (Well they would say that wouldnt
they), sometimes introjection (Should I resign now?), by rationalization (Well it was
done on a wet Friday in December, what would you expect?).
What also became clear, sometimes painfully, was that in schools without the
support of the critical friend, data tended to be taken at face value and either ignored
or used to move directly to planning for change. One headteacher famously phoned the
research team to tell them the data was all wrong. She had personally gone round
every member of staff and asked them if they had made these negative judgments.
To a man and woman they had all denied any such subversive comment.
Data as Tin Opener
Addressing the issues with regard for evidence and reasoned argument illustrated the
power of soft data as a tin opener, cutting into some deeply entrenched belief
systems operating in a school. Learning disabilities are tragic in children but fatal in
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organizations, argues Peter Senge (1992). The ISE Project shed new light on some of
the learning disabilities of schools but also showed how schools can learn through a
process of feedback with appropriate support and challenge. Helping teachers to ques-
tion their beliefs and assumptions, to deal sensitively and critically with evidence, to
engage in dialogue on effects and improvement and proved to be a vital element in
professional development and capacity-building.
Feedback of attainment data on the Language and Mathematics tests was also an
important part of the process, returned as quickly as possible while still fresh in the
minds of teachers and useful to them for both diagnostic and formative purposes. In
case study schools critical friends played a part in helping staff to mine the data and to
become more aware of how raw attainment data and value-added data could be used
for different purposes. The raw data were useful at whole-school level in giving a
picture of attainment across the school in a form that could be disaggregated, for
example, by gender, by age, by ethnicity or by department. At classroom level, whole-
class attainment levels provide a useful overview for the teacher, but even more useful
was disaggregation by gender and by individual pupil scores. Test results further
broken down item-by-item helped in pinpointing in finer detail where strengths and
weaknesses lay.
Teacher interviews were another source of qualitative data which revealed the hid-
den complexities of school life and classroom culture. Interview transcripts were ana-
lyzed painstakingly, identifying fragments of teachers comment and value-judgment
and then classifying clusters of such fragments against sub themes (ethos, or learning
and teaching, or development planning for example). Each cluster was then given a
score on a positive and negative scale. These scores were then correlated with pupil
attainment, identifying positive correlations between a positive ethos score and a
value-added score (Robertson, 1998). Across the 12 primary schools ethos scores
ranged from 23 to 32 which served as proxy indicators for internal capacity and
improvement potential (Stoll, MacBeath, Smith, & Robertson, 2001, pp. 176177).
The development analysis interview (in which a headteacher and another member of
staff are taken systematically, and in-depth, through a recent change in their school)
also generated a substantial body of data which was correlated with other measures of
effectiveness and improvement. From the development analysis evidence it was possi-
ble to rate schools in terms of how they both conceptualized and implemented change
(Reeves, 1998). This rating scale provided us, and schools themselves, with a power-
ful tool for predicting and supporting school improvement, although it could not, in the
short term, demonstrate a significant correlation with value-added attainment.
The change profile offered yet another lens through which to view the school. The
profile contains ten good practice items which staff rate on a four-point scale from
very like this school to not at all like this school. Staff filled it in first individually
then as a group, trying to reach consensus on their rating. Completed in 1995 and again
in 1997 it not only gave us an index of improvement but also generated lengthy debate
and focused attention squarely on evidence. The second time round, the same staff that
had filled in the earlier version were also asked to rate where the school was improv-
ing, declining or staying static with respect to each of the ten criteria. While there was,
across the whole sample, evidence of significant positive change for the better, this
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Please pro-
vide com-
plete details
of reference
Pater
Senge,
1992 in the
reference
list.
In the ref.
list Stoll,
Smith and
Roertson
(2001), is
not given.
Please pro-
vide com-
plete details
Reeves
(1998) is
not given in
the refer-
ence list.
Please pro-
vide com-
plete details
of it in the
ref. list
differed school by school and item by item, a useful tin opener rather than a source of
hard data. The ten items of the profile are:
(1) a learning school,
(2) high expectations,
(3) ownership of change,
(4) shared goals,
(5) effective communication,
(6) focus on pupil learning,
(7) effective leadership,
(8) home-school partnership,
(9) positive relationships,
(10) staff collaboration.
While grandiose claims cannot be made for this as a research instrument, it was a
useful tool for schools themselves to use to generate dialogue and sharpen the search
for evidence. For the research team it added significantly to our understanding of
differing perspectives between senior leaders, long serving staff and newly qualified
teachers and how these impacted on school ethos, development planning and learning
and teaching.
What Have We Learned?
The learning that came from ISEP fed into policy, in particular in relation to self-
evaluation and inspection. It had a powerful impact in some of the participating
schools and little discernable impact in others. In some cases it brought to the surface
issues that were uncomfortable and challenging and led to schools commissioning
follow up work with members of the team. For some individual teachers it led to new
career pathways as it did for some members of the research team and at least one of the
Scottish Office commissioning team. For us as researchers, we learned about the
strengths and limitations of effectiveness research and the complexity of change.
Among the major findings was that, with regard to pupils attitudes to school (both
from questionnaire and interview data), teachers consistently underestimated the
goodwill and enjoyment of learning that pupils brought with them to school.
However there were clear differences from school to school and classroom to class-
room, and the key differential was in relation to the quality of interaction between
teachers and pupils in class. Some of us were able to explore this further in the
projects such as the ESRC Learning How to Learn Project. (James et al., 2003)
At school level, pupil response on three particular items varied significantly across the
sample of secondary schools. These were feeling safe in the playground, playing
truant and getting homework. All three were at the time, and still remain, areas of high
policy priority. Although the correlation between these and the quality of classroom
interaction was difficult to establish across the whole sample, case study evidence
66 MacBeath
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illustrated just how significant these issues could be. In the lowest achieving school in
the whole sample with high levels of absenteeism, and labeled by the press as
the worst school in Scotland, a small group of inspirational teachers classrooms
became arenas of hope and high expectation, offering renewed incentive for young
people come to school, to engage with learning and bounce back from failure. The
slogan across the wall in the Science classroom became a leitmotif for other members
of staff Stuck? Good! Now you can learn something. Find a friend. Form a theory.
Try it Out. The Science corridor came to resemble a children exhibition of work
bearing labels such as I tried this 15 times before I got it to work.
Some schools, like the school we called St. Leopolds (MacBeath & Stoll, 2001,
pp. 152168), were able to support pupils cognitive progress significantly above
prediction and a small number of schools achieved better than predicted across all
measures. This suggested to us that the remaining schools had an unrealized capacity
to raise their performance. The finding that there were significant variations in out-
comes across the curriculum within any one school adds to the belief that there may
be scope for greater consistency of standards. It was a counsel of caution not to fall
too easily into blanket descriptions of good or bad schools.
The strongest predictor of achievement at S4 across all Standard Grade exams was
achievement at S2 in Reading and Mathematics. While intervention at S2 level was
likely to pay off later, the real effects were at primary level and we were able to make
some valid inferences from secondary performance at S4 not only what primary
school a child had attended but what teachers they had in the infant classes.
The project was able to show unequivocally that schools could make a difference
but, more significantly, that teachers could make a difference. However, it was equally
unambiguous that school cannot make all the difference, however much Millinerian
politicians such the Conservative Minster at the time (Michael Forsyth) chose to
believe. Such a view did nothing for the morale of teachers struggling in what are now
known euphemistically as challenging circumstances.
The finding that socio-economic disadvantage had a stronger negative impact on
language work than on Mathematics, did provide the spur to examine out of school
learning such as after school homework clubs, study support, improved child care and
creative approaches to home-school relationships, including parents workshops with
a concentrated focus on language. These initiatives have since been shown to raise
attainment, improve attitudes and boost attendance figures (MacBeath et al., 2001),
although they can do nor more than go part way to redressing the social and economic
imbalance that lies outside schools.
Beyond ISEP: Tools for Schools
Members of the ISEP team made a significant contribution to the introduction and
piloting of new community schools, referred to in the United States as full service
schools and in England as extended schools. Offering extended opening hours, joined-
up children and family services and early intervention, these have been shown to go
part way to offering a more even playing field for children and young people.
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Prior to ISEP members of the team had worked closely with the Scottish Education
Department in developing school self-evaluation. ISEP was able to build on and
extend that work, offering a repertoire of strategies for gathering attainment and
attitudinal data and demonstrating how researchers tools of inquiry could be used by
schools themselves in monitoring, planning and improving practice.
The change profile, reproduced in other formats (e.g., MacBeath, 2005) has proved
to be an easy-to-use and powerful tin opener. The simple scoring device helps to bring
to the surface key issues in effectiveness and improvement, clarifying aspects of school
climate, challenging differing views, pressing for evidence. Rather than using it as a
one-off, the instrument has proved its use in the longer term, on a more systematic basis,
encouraging all stakeholders within the schools to seek hard evidence over time and to
monitor improvement in specific areas. The change profile was later adapted for use in
a European Commission Project involving 101 schools in 18 countries (MacBeath,
Schratz, Meuret, & Jakobsen, 2000) and the methodology was widened to encompass
pupils, parents and school governors as well as staff. The success of that project encour-
aged a number of other old and new countries to replicate the project and to use the SEP
(the school evaluation profile as it had now become) as a basis for their own school
improvement initiatives. Used for evaluating schools in The Bridges Across Boundaries
Project (MacBeath & Brotto, 2006) the SEP now exists in 13 European languages.
The teacher questionnaire, with its double-sided structure, modified by ISEP from the
Halton Project in Ontario (Fink & Stoll, 1993) also proved to be an instrument with a
wider currency. It was used as a data gathering and dialogic centerpiece of the ESRC
Learning How to Learn Project (Pedder, James, & MacBeath, 2006) and in the Leadership
for Learning seven country project (MacBeath, Frost, & Swaffield, 2005; MacBeath &
Moos, 2004).
The Contribution of the Critical Friend
A valued contribution of ISEP was the deployment of the critical friend. While self-
evaluation tools and strategies can be used by schools themselves without external
help, experience from the Project pointed strongly to the need for skilled critical
friends to support the process, to smooth ruffled feathers and to challenge when chal-
lenge was needed and appropriate. The Project provided a useful testbed for examin-
ing the workings of critical friendship not only from the point of view of critical
friends themselves, but from the researchers viewpoint and from the perspective of
those at the receiving end teachers and headteachers in the 24 case study schools.
When it was found that their support and intervention was not everywhere welcome
or successful, it provoked closer scrutiny of the role and context of the critical friends
intervention. The evidence from the Project demonstrates that the critical friend role
demands a high level of skill and sensitivity. Even the most experienced in the team
found it difficult at times to find the balance between support and challenge and
between affirmation and critique. While the Project has been able to identify a number
of the requisite skills of such a role it was also found that a critical friend could be
successful in one school but not in another (Doherty et al., 1998). This finding was to
68 MacBeath
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ref. list
In the ref. list
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also to be reflected in the European Project mentioned above where the Icelandic crit-
ical friend worked with two schools and was rated by one as highly effective but as
ineffectual by the other.
This aspect of the study has far-reaching applications for the work of local author-
ity advisers and inspectors and for consultants from universities or private agencies
(Swaffield, 2003). In cases where local authority advisers have acted as critical friends
some of the tensions in the role are highlighted. Experience as an adviser rather than a
facilitator could prove not only unhelpful but even counter-productive.
In England the government have recently introduced a School Improvement Partner,
(a SIP), a critical friend to support and advise schools. However, as these SIPS are
accountable directly to government and may pass on information which can result in
school closure the tensions in their dual role are all too apparent and their role as
critical friends is open to question.
What Have We Still to Learn?
Over four decades we have learned a lot about both potential and limitations of effec-
tiveness studies but we still have to learn how to apply that knowledge to a social world
that seems far removed from the world in which Coleman and his team first embarked
on their seminal study. Much has changed even since we concluded the Improving
School Effectiveness study just half a decade ago. The technological world of today
would have been unimaginable to an ISEP research team equipped with tools that in
retrospect seem technologically primitive.
The world in which young people are now growing up is vastly different from the
one familiar to their parents and their teachers. A decade ago to talk of depression in
children would have appeared faintly absurd. Yet, the World Health Organization
(2005) estimates that 8% of all girls and 2% of all boys in the UK show symptoms
of severe depression. In the 510 age group, 10% of boys and 6% of girls are
affected, and among the 1115 age group, 13% of boys and 10% of girls. The Mental
Health Foundation (www.mentalhealth.org.uk, 2004) estimated that 15% of pre-
school children in the UK have mild mental health problems, and 7% have more
severe mental disorders. The highest rates of mental disorders occur among children
from families where no parent has ever worked. The Foundation reported a clear link
between mental disorders and rates of smoking, alcohol consumption, and cannabis
use, most prevalent in the most economically deprived areas. People from the poor-
est areas are nearly three times as likely to be admitted to hospital for depression as
those who are not, and are three times more likely to commit suicide, a quarter of
whom will have been in contact with mental health services in the previous year.
Poorer people are also six times more likely to be admitted to hospital with schizo-
phrenia, and ten times more likely to be admitted for alcohol-related problems.
Between 10 and 20% of young people involved in criminal activity are thought to
have a psychiatric disorder. A WHO report in February 2006 found that Scotland
had areas with the worst health problems and the lowest life expectancy of all
European countries.
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This is the world that Castells describes at the end of Millennium (1999), a world in
which there is a growing disconnect between life as it is lived outside school and the
imitation of life that is played out in the classroom. The world of schools and school-
ing has moved on very little and, as many critics argue, actually regressed. Despite
waves of educational reform, class and race inequalities have changed little from the
1970s (Bryce & Humes, 1999). Over the 1990s in Scotland the performance gap
between working-class and middle-class students, in fact grew larger between
Standard Grade (at 15/16) and Higher Grade (at 17/18). While working-class students
were by 2000 more likely than middle-class students to enter further education, in
higher education middle-class students outnumbered working-class students by three
to one. In England differential achievement at school and access to higher education
has remained closely correlated to social background and income. The proportion of
16 year olds who obtained fewer than five GCSE in 2005 (12%) is the same as in
1998/1999. Three quarters of all children receiving free school meals failed to get five
GCSE at grade C or above, one and a half times the rate for other children (Social
Exclusion Unit, 2004).
As the Institute for Fiscal Studies reports, inequality in original income in the UK
(before taking account of taxes and benefits) increased steadily throughout the 1980s
and has also remained relatively stable since then. The top fifth is still about four times
better off then the bottom fifth of the population (National Statistics, 2005). Some of
the explanations for this higher level of inequality since the start of the 1980s are
described as:
An increase in the gap between wages for skilled and unskilled workers in part
due to skills-biased technological change and a decline in the role of trade unions
Growth in self-employment income and in unemployment
A decrease in the rate of male participation in the labor market, often in house-
holds where there is no other earner
Increased female participation among those with working partners, leading to an
increased polarization between two-earner and zero-earner households
Despite improved access to formal education for more young people, initiatives to
close the gap have continued to be frustrated by factors lying largely outside schools.
A January 2006 report by the Social Exclusion Unit found that the UK stood out
among European countries as having the highest proportion of children living in work-
less households, at 17% almost twice that of France and three times that of Denmark.
This was due in large part to the high number of lone parents households without
work. The unemployment rate among lone parents has risen in the last decade from
45 to 55%. Babies born to parents from manual backgrounds are 25% more likely to
have a low birthweight than children born to non-manual parents, while infant deaths
are 50% more likely in manual households.
If we have leaned anything from effectiveness and improvement studies it is that
school education as we know it has not been able to, and will not be able to, close the
gap between the highest and lowest achievers, the most and least well off, the most
advantaged and disadvantaged. This is not a counsel of despair but rather a plea for a
better way.
70 MacBeath
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Report,
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Social
Exclusion
Unit
2004accor
ding to ref-
erence list.
Please
check
year,
2004 in
ref. list.
Terry Wrigley, an outspoken critic of the effectiveness paradigm argues that it has
contributed to a locking in place the school as a competitive unit of measurement,
narrowing the vision and potential of schools as places of learning and places of hope.
Much of the high-level government interest in school improvement has led to an
intensification of teaching, accountability, league tables, teachers feeling depro-
fessionalised and disenchanted (or leaving), a relentless drive for more though not
always better and silence on the question of educational purpose Have our
schools been driven towards efficiency rather than genuine improvement?
(Wrigley, 2003, p.)
One of the most encouraging of current trends is for families, coalitions and syndicates
of schools to work together, to share resources (including staffing and students) and to
see improvement as a collaborative effort. Attribution of effect, or value-added, then is
much less likely to isolate individual school performance or set one school against
another competitively. In a collaborative frame of mind schools are less likely to
poach staff, or students or parents. Such networking and mutual exchange at a local
level are described by Hargreaves and Fink (2005) as one of the seven keys to sustain-
ability, a notion which resides not simply in the individual school but in the wider
ecology of neighborhoods and communities.
From School to Educational Effectiveness
As educational provision moves progressively further away from the black box, nine to
four, five day week, subject fragmented, egg box school, the greater the challenge there
is to performance rankings of individual schools and to the effectiveness paradigm
itself. New community schools, home learning and more adventurous alternatives in
the post-comprehensive or new comprehensive era will require some creative
rethinking from researchers because the premise of the black box with measured
inputs at one end and outcomes at the other will become increasingly problematic. The
more seamless and boundary breaking learning becomes the less easy it will be to
identify, control and manipulate the school-level variables. Where is the source of
learning and added value the classroom? Study support? Homework, home study
and home tutoring? Mentoring and coaching? Social and psychological services?
Improved health care?
In England the Every Child Matters policy rests on five key outcomes (enjoying
and achieving, keeping safe, staying healthy, contributing to the community, social and
economic well being ), objectives which schools cannot attain by themselves. As inspec-
tion moves away its focus on schools to a focus on services to children more broadly,
value-added belongs where it has always implicitly been located, in the interface of
school, family, community and social agencies.
This has immediate and far-reaching implications for how we measure and compare
educational achievement and improvement. As effectiveness and improvement researchers
we will urgently need, as the Scottish anthem has it to think again, to think again.
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reference
Wrigley,
2003.
Notes
1. The Strathclyde team: John MacBeath, Judy Arrowsmith, Brian Boyd, Jim McCall, Jenny Reeves, Pam
Roberston, Iain Smith. The London Team: Peter Mortimore, Pam Sammons, Jane Savage, Rebecca
Smees, Louise Stoll, Sally Thomas.
References
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Castells, M. (1996). The network society. Oxford: Blackwell.
Castells, M. (1999). End of millennium. Oxford: Blackwell.
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. (1995). Education at a glance. Paris: OECD.
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Doherty, J., MacBeath, J., Jardine, S., Smith, I., & McCall, J. (2001). Do schools need critical friends?
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Entwistle, N. (1987). Understanding classroom learning. Hodder and Stoughton.
Fink, D., & Stoll, L. (1993). School Effectiveness and school improvement: Views from the field; Paper pre-
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Gow, L., & McPherson. A. (1980). Tell them from me. Edinburgh: Centre for Educational Sociology.
Gray, J., McPherson, A., & Raffe, D. (1983). Reconstructions of secondary education. London: Routledge
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Hargreaves, A., & Fink, D. (2005). Sustainable leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Hargreaves, D.H. (1967). Making schools more effective: The challenge to policy, practice and research. The
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Harris, J. R. (1998). The nurture assumption. London: Bloomsbury.
James, M., Pedder, D., & Swaffield, S. with Conner, C., Frost, D., & MacBeath, J. (2003). A servant of two
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MacBeath, J., & Brotto, F. (2005). Bridges across boundaries. Cambridge: Report to the European
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MacBeath, J., & Mortimore (Eds.). (2001). Improving school effectiveness. Buckingham: Open University
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MacBeath, J., & Moos, L. (2004). Leadership for learning, Paper for the ICSEI 2004, Congress, Rotterdam,
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MacBeath, J., Schratz, M., Meuret, D., & Jakobsen, L. (2000). Self-evaluation in European schools: A story
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Castells, M.
(1996) is
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the text.
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(1987)
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Harris
(1999) is
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in the
text.
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publisher
details for
MacBeath,
J., &
Brotto, F.
(2005).
Hargreaves,
D. H (1967)
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in the text.
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MacBeath,
J., & Brotto,
F. (2006) in
the text.
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McPherson, A. (1992). Measuring added value in schools. London: National Commission on Education.
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Paterson, L. (1992) Social class in Scottish education. In S. Brown and S. Riddell (Eds.), Class, race and
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Reeves, J., & MacGilchrist, B. (1997). Gauging the impact of improvement strategies. Paper presented at the
British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of York, September 1997.
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Office Education and Industry Department, February 1998.
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Swaffield, S. (2002). Contextualising the work of the critical friend. Paper presented at the 15th
International Congress on School Effectiveness and Improvement , January, Copenhagen.
Smith, D.J., & Tomlinson, S. (1989). The school effect: A study of mutli-radical comprehensives. London:
Stoll, L., & MacBeath, J. (2001). In J. MacBeath, & P. Mortimore (Eds.), Improving school effectiveness.
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Wrigley, T. (2003). Is School effectiveness anti-democratic? British Journal Of Educational Studies,
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Sammes, P.
(1998) is
not cited in
the text.
Please
check.
Scottish
Education
(1988) is
not cited in
the text.
Please
check.
Stoll, L., &
Macbeath,
J. (2001) is
not cited in
the text.
Please
check.
Willms, J.
D., &
Cuttance, P.
(1985),
World
Health
Organization
(2005) is
cited in the
text. Please
check.
Please
provide
publisher
details
for
Sammons,
P. (1998).
Please
check
year
Swaffield
2003 in
text cita-
tion.
Please
provide
publisher
details
for the
reference
Thomas,
S. (1998).
Please
provide
page
range
details
for refer-
ence
Wrigley,
T. (2003)
Please pro-
vide the
chapter title
for refer-
ence Raab,
C. (1992).
Please pro-
vide pub-
lisher
details for
the refer-
ence
Office for
National
Statistics
(2004).
National
Statistics
(2005) is
cited in
the text.
Please
check.
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Introduction
During the last 30 years of the twentieth century a number of studies centered on
school effectiveness were produced in Latin America (Murillo, 2003a). But more
recently, thanks to a renewal of interest and work in the field, the best and most ambi-
tious ones are those being developed in the early years of this century. This is largely
due to the consolidation of a scientific research community focused on school effec-
tiveness and improvement, which is gathered in a research network known as the Red
Iberoamericana de Investigacin sobre Cambio y Eficacia Escolar (RINACE).
In spite of these developments, there is limited awareness in the centers of school
effectiveness research about what is being done in the Latin American Region. Classic
research reviews at the international level (Clark, Lotto, & Astuto, 1984; Mackenzie,
1983; Purkey & Smith, 1983) as well as more recent ones (Cotton, 1995; Sammons,
Hillman, & Mortimore, 1995; Scheerens & Bosker, 1997) have not included work from
the Region. Even the reviews that are more sensitive to what happens in different contexts
do not include references about what is being carried out in Latin America (Fuller &
Clarke, 1994; Harber & Davies, 1997; Levin & Lockeed, 1993; Riddell, 1999). While
this may be due to the fact that Latin American research is reported in Spanish, it may
derive also from a belief in the universal validity of school effectiveness results. This, of
course, is questionable. The education systems of developed countries share common
characteristics that are not necessarily present in other regions. For instance, to a large
extent they have school autonomy, enough school resources, lack of parental involve-
ment in the school management, and considerable freedom to choose schools, among
others. Consequently, their results will be clearly directed to their own circumstances
and most likely, will be valid for other contexts.
However, not only is the big fish not aware of the small one but neither is the
small one interested in what the big one does. This results in a dynamic of mutual igno-
rance. Indeed, a perusal of bibliographical references cited in diverse Latin American
75
5
SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS RESEARCH IN
LATIN AMERICA
Javier Murillo
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2007 Springer.
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plete details
for ref.
Riddell
1999 in ref.
list.
investigations on school effectiveness, also points to a lack of awareness of what are
influential studies in the Anglo-Saxon domain. This affects the quality of such work.
In this brief chapter we attempt to provide a global image of current research on
school effectiveness that is being developed in Latin America by Latin American
researchers. We focus our attention on its characteristics and contribution, as well as
on its limitations and the challenges it must face in the near future. The text is struc-
tured in five sections. In the first, we describe some general characteristics of school
effectiveness studies in Latin America. Second, we offer a general overview of such
studies. The third section presents some of the results on factors of school effective-
ness and the last two sections provide a reflection on the future of this type of research
and some concluding ideas.
Characteristics of School Effectiveness Research in
Latin America
School effectiveness research in Latin America has four main characteristics: an unde-
niably applied character, a considerable emphasis on equity, a big influence from
diverse and even contradictory theoretical positions, and a manifest dependence on the
state of development of education and research in each country.
Applied Character
Perhaps, given the need to improve considerably the quality and equity of Latin
American educational systems, school effectiveness research in Latin America has
taken an obviously applied character. The concern of Latin American researchers,
highly committed to educational transformation, has focused almost entirely on
obtaining results that can be immediately applied. This has meant subordinating to a
second position the pursuit of knowledge to build theory. As Mexican professor Carlos
Muoz Izquierdo (1984, p. 56) has masterfully expressed:
Unarguably, the immediate goal of educational research is to generate knowledge
that allows us better to understand phenomena occurring within the wide field of
educational science. Nevertheless, many of us, in our professional activities,
consider knowledge to be just a means of orienting the transformational praxis of
reality. We are not interested in knowledge for itself but in its potential to modify
educational reality. We undertake this profession as a mediate form of solving
some of the problems related to the countrys education.
The applied concern of school effectiveness work has some implications for the kind
of studies that have been undertaken in Latin America. Thus, research concerned with
estimating the magnitude of school effects and analyzing its scientific properties is
scarce and, as we will see later, is very recent. Also, researchers endeavor mainly to
impact those groups directly involved in change processes such as teachers, adminis-
trators, and policy-makers rather than communicate to a wider academic audience.
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This has resulted in there being practically no studies written or translated into English
that are sent to international publications, which in turn has contributed to the lack of
awareness of what is studied in Latin America.
Emphasis on Equity
Latin American studies on school effectiveness have as a second characteristic a deep
concern about equity in education (Muoz Izquierdo, 1996). There are two possible
reasons behind this fact. On the one hand, this is how researchers respond objectively
to education development demands in Latin America where inequity is one of its major
constraints; but also from their subjective side it reflects the degree to which many
researchers have a strong commitment to social issues and equity.
The emphasis on equity is reflected in an interest to study schools within disadvan-
taged contexts. A good example is Razcynski and Muozs (2005) recent research
focused on schools in Chile that, despite their location in poor districts, achieve
outstanding results. But also there is a greater focus on factors of ineffectiveness rather
than of school effectiveness. Thus, several studies center on factors such as dropping-
out or repetition (Filp, Cardemil, & Donoso, 1981; Loera & McGinn, 1992). Through
these studies researchers expect to obtain information that could be used to assist
schools operating in bad conditions.
Multiple Theoretical Influences
Not only are there multiple theoretical influences underlying Latin American studies
on school effectiveness, but these influences often are also contradictory. Thus along
with references to classic works on school effectiveness, we find a strong influence of
production function studies (Mizala & Romaguera, 2000), and a touch of influence
of European sociologists such as Bourdieu and Passeron (1970).
Just as Latin American educational systems keep one eye on Europe and the other
on the United States of America and suffer contradictory influences from both, many
Latin American studies on school effectiveness unashamedly combine both the effec-
tiveness and productivity perspectives. However, while both approaches share a com-
mon origin (their reaction to the Coleman Report) and while production function
studies have been incorporating variables related to school cultural processes (Fuller &
Clarke, 1994) and approaching school effectiveness concepts, their basic proposals are
radically different. While economists seek to optimize the efficacy and efficiency of
schools for policy decision-making, educational researchers are more interested in
gaining in-depth knowledge that will assist in the improvement of schools.
It would not be adventurous to affirm that an important part of the scarce popular-
ity of school effectiveness studies among researchers and teachers in Latin America is
due to the influence of the production function studies. Such studies give an econom-
ics aura to school effectiveness that under no circumstances it possesses. In order to
escape the phobia that production function studies engender, researchers in the field
tend to avoid the use of the term school effectiveness and to settle instead for labels
such as study of associated factors.
School Effectiveness-Latin America 77
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Please
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spelling
Raczynski
in Ref. list
Intimately Related to the Development of Education and Educational Research
Finally, there is a clear relationship among the number and quality of school effective-
ness studies carried out in each country, the extent of the countrys educational devel-
opment, and the countrys level of educational research. Using an accepted indicator
such as the Human Development Index one can observe a statistically and positively
significant correlation between this index and the number of studies produced on
school effectiveness (Murillo, 2003b). From this perspective, it is not surprising that
Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina or Brazil are the countries where more School
Effectiveness Research can be found and that research in Central America, is virtually
nonexistent.
However, there are also other factors related to greater production of school effec-
tiveness research. One of these factors is the existence of solid research teams such as
Cultural and Educational Research Center (CICE) in Venezuela and the Working
Group on Standards and Evaluation (GTEEGRADE) in Per. Also in Chile, UNICEF
and the government working together have supported research on school effectiveness,
and in Brazil such research is aided by access to rich data sources.
General Overview of Research Production
School effectiveness research in Latin America started in the mid 70s and from that
period on a good number of empirical studies aimed at identifying the school factors
related to student achievement have been carried out. Reports by the Institute of
Socioeconomic Research of the Bolivian Catholic University based on the data col-
lected through the Latin American Economic Integration Joint Studies Program
(Comboni, 1979; Morales, 1977; Virreina, 1979), as well as work by Muoz Izquierdo
et al. (1979) in Mexico, and by Barroso, Mello, and Faria (1978) in Brazil can be con-
sidered as first exemplars of research on school effectiveness with some weight in the
Region. Since then, the number of studies on school effectiveness carried out in Latin
America exceeds 50. This figure can be considered as acceptable, particularly as the
number and quality of the studies increases notoriously year after year.
Within the above group of studies we can distinguish six clearly different lines of
investigation:
(1) studies whose design and data collection have been carried out ad hoc with the
purpose of knowing what factors are related to school effectiveness;
(2) studies that make a secondary use of data collected for other purposes, mainly
data pertaining to educational system assessments;
(3) studies on school effects;
(4) studies that deal with the analysis and assessment of programs for school
improvement;
(5) studies that seek to learn about the relationship between school factors and stu-
dent achievement;
(6) work that is focused on the analysis of the school culture from an ethnographic
perspective.
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Virreira in
Ref. list
Please pro-
vide the
authors list
for ref.
Muoz
Izquierdo
et al.
Studies Specifically Designed to Identify School and Classroom Factors
Associated with School Achievement
Here we consider studies that were specifically designed and developed to identify
school and classroom factors associated with student achievement and, in some cases,
evaluate their contributions. They represent the most orthodox studies on school
effectiveness and share some common characteristics:
(1) They all possess a theoretical foundation that is based on work about school effec-
tiveness, though, as we have mentioned, they are also influenced by other sources.
(2) All of them have used specific data collection instruments, which makes the
information obtained and the instruments themselves more suitable to the
purpose of the research.
(3) Research procedures are varied, from quantitative studies with large samples to
work with prototypical schools, although the latter are more common.
(4) Their results point to the relationship between school factors and student
academic achievement.
Among the above studies we particularly note research carried out in Venezuela by the
Cultural and Educational Research Center team (CICE), which is directed by Mariano
Herrera and Marielsa Lopez (Herrera, 1993; Herrera & Diaz, 1991; Herrera & Lopez,
1992; Lopez, 1996). These studies were published as School Effectiveness by Herrera and
Lopez, (1996) and constitute a milestone in Latin American research concerning the topic.
In Mexico, the work of Schmelkes, Martinez, Noriega, and Lavin (1996) opened the
door to a series of Mexican studies of remarkable quality about school effectiveness.
Among them, is Guadalupe Ruiz Cuellars (1999) as well as Eduardo Lastras (2001)
doctoral theses.
Another country with a substantial production of orthodox studies on school effec-
tiveness is Chile. There, the works of Himmel, Maltes, and Majluf (1984, 1995), Zarate
(1992), Concha (1996), and Bellei, Muoz, Prez, and Raczynski (2003) shine with their
own light. In all of them, the concern was to study successful schools in poor areas.
In Brazil, the study of Barroso et al. (1978), as well as Castro et al. (1984), and the
most recent one of Francisco Soares (2002) are worth mentioning. Finally, in Uruguay
we note work by Ravela et al. (1999) through the Measurement of Educational Results
Unit (UMRE). The authors analyzed ten public schools at elementary level located
in socio-culturally disadvantaged areas, which showed an extremely high rate of
effectiveness in the 1996 sixth grade assessment.
Work on School Effectiveness Using National and International Evaluations
Over the past few years, there has been an overwhelming interest in the evaluation of
educational systems occurring all over the world and, particularly, in Latin America.
The impulse given in this respect by international organisms such as UNESCOs
Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC/UNESCO), and the
Iberoamerican States Organization (OEI) has been really important. Nowadays, all the
governmental ministries in the Region have established an evaluation center or a
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department for the evaluation of their educational systems. Such is the case of the
Bolivian System of Measurement and Evaluation of Educational Quality (SIMECAL),
the Chilean System of Measurement of Educational Quality (SIMCE), the Brazilian
System of Evaluation of Basic Education (SAEB) and the Mexican Education Evaluation
National Institute (INEE). This fact clearly contrasts with the virtual lack of research
centers within the national ministries of education.
One of the usual objectives of the national evaluation systems is to gain under-
standing of the factors associated with academic achievement. Therefore, diverse
countries have performed special analyses to identify them. The best example of this
tendency is the international evaluation carried out by UNESCOs Latin American
Laboratory for the Quality of Education Evaluation (Laboratorio Latinoamericano de
Evaluacin de la Calidad de la Educacin [LLECE], 2001).
The studies situated within this framework are usually based on a more or less elab-
orate concept of school effectiveness, but they share the usual limitations implied in
the use of data, which was not obtained expressly for that objective. Even the
UNESCO Laboratory study is based more on school production function studies than
on work that deals with effectiveness (Casassus, 2003). All these studies share the
advantages and limitations of this type of special usage of data: a large amount of data
pertaining to the country, quantitative data collected through surveys and standardized
tests, and a non-specific design for the objective, of studying school effectiveness.
In addition to the LLECEs study (2001) other interesting studies are the following:
Argentina: Re-analysis of the national evaluation data by Delprato (1999) and
Cervini (2002, 2003, 2004).
Bolivia: Use of evaluation data performed in the early 90s by the OREAL/ UNESCO
(REPLAD, 1994; Vera, 1998, 1999), data from the SIMECALs national evaluations
(Talavera & Sanchez, 2000); and data from the teacher evaluation system (Mizala,
Romaguerra, & Reinaga, 1999; Querejazu & Romero, 1997; Reinaga, 1998).
Brazil: Use of data from the System of Assessment of Basic Education (SAEB) by,
among others, Barbosa, Beltr ao, Fari nas, Fernandes, and Stantos (2001), Esposito,
Davis, and Nunes (2000), Fletcher (1997), Soares (2004) and Soares, Cesar, and
Mambrini (2001).
Chile: Use of data from the System of Measurement of Eduation Quality
(SIMCE) by Mizala and Romaguera (2000), Redondo and Descouvieres (2001),
Redondo, Descouvieres, and Rojas, (2005).
Colombia: with data from the National System of Evaluation of the Quality of
Education (SABER) see Cano (1997), Ministerio de Educacin Nacional (1993),
Pieros and Rodriguez Pinzon (1998) as well as international evaluations such as
the Third Study on Mathematics and Science (TIMSS) in Colombia (Avila, 1999),
or of LLECE (Pardo, 1999).
Honduras: Use of information from the Learning Evaluation undertaken by the
Quality of Education Measurement External Unit (Fernandez, Trevisgnani, &
Silva, 2003).
Mexico: where Tabare Fernandezs doctoral thesis (2004a) stands out, using data
from the Language Arts and Mathematics National Standards Program, as well as
a series of studies compiled by National Center of Evaluation for Superior
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Rodrguez
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and vila
in Ref. list
Please
check the
spelling
Fernndez
in Ref. list
Education (CENEVAL) (2004) using the data base after 9 years of implementing
the EXANI I test (from 1994 to 2002) that is both an admissions and exit test used
at middle school level (Carvallo, 2005).
Peru: Use of data from the two evaluations of the educational system carried out
until now; the first of them by the World Bank (1999), and the second one by the
Ministry of Education through its Measurement of Quality Unit (UMC)
(Benavides, 2000; UMC/GRADE, 2001).
In spite of their clear methodological limitations, these studies represent the most
important contributions to the knowledge of factors associated with academic achieve-
ment in Latin America.
Estimates of School Factors
As we have indicated earlier in this paper, the evidently applied character of school
research in Latin America has meant that only recently researchers have approached
the study of school effects. This interest has been helped by the availability of data
generated through the different systems of evaluation of educational quality to which
we have referred.
Thus, from the year 2001 on, studies that have estimated the extent of school effects
in Latin America have been carried out in Brazil and Mexico using data from national
evaluations. In these studies the effects of socio-cultural background have been con-
trolled and multilevel models have been used in their estimation. Thus far, no study that
proposes the analysis of the scientific properties of school effects has been published.
In Brazil, different researchers utilized data generated through the SAEB system
(Sistema Nacional de Avaliao da Educao Bsica) to estimate the magnitude of the
school effects (Barbosa & Fernandes, 2001; Ferro, Beltro, & Fernandes, 2003; Ferro
& Fernandes, 2003; Fletcher, 1997; Soares, Alves, & Oliveira, 2001). Results from these
studies suggest a great diversity of school effects among the different Brazilian states.
Thus, the variance in achievement explained by schools varies between 8 and 17%.
In Mexico, the studies of Eduardo Lastra (2001) and Fernandez and Blanco (2004)
are noted. These researchers, using secondary analysis of national evaluation data from
1998 to 2002, and multilevel models in a very steady way within the period studied,
reported that the extent of school effects was around 20%. Specifically, they found
variance of 28% for Mathematics, and 26% for Spanish as a result of school effects.
Assessment and Analysis of School Improvement Programs
From the very beginning of the school effectiveness movement, the relationship with
school improvement has been constant and two-way oriented. This also applies to Latin
America. Thus, research data about factors associated with achievement have helped to
launch successful school improvement processes. But, at the same time, the opposite
has occurred as many of the results on effectiveness have derived from the analysis of
school improvement programs.
If, in general, the quality and quantity of educational studies developed in the Region
cannot be rated as satisfactory, the quality and quantity of innovations undertaken by
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teachers can be considered as being remarkable. The motivation and innovative capac-
ity of Latin American teachers are extraordinary when compared to what happens in
wealthier countries. Regarding these experiences there are good efforts to present these
experiences in a systematic way in many countries as well by international organiza-
tions like the Andres Bello Convention and by the Partnership for Educational
Revitalization in the Americas PREAL (see de Andraca, 2003), or by UNESCO/
OREALC (see Blanco & Messina, 2000). The following are some of the accounts that
offer a high contribution to the knowledge of factors associated with achievement:
Diverse analyses of the Quality Improvement of Basic Schools in Poor Areas
Program in Chile, known as the P-900 program. Among such analyses, those of
Beverly (2000), and Vaccaro and Fabiane (1994), should be mentioned.
The account of an experience in quality improvement of basic education in five
rural areas in Ecuador, where an innovation experience in 3,000 rural schools was
validated during the course of three years (UNICEF, 1997).
The analysis of educational innovations in schools of Quito Metropolitan District
(Education Office Quito Metropolitan District, 1994).
The qualitative evaluation of the Program to Lower School Drop-Out (PARE) in
Mexico (Ezpeleta et al., 2000).
The evaluation, in 1991, of the Multilevel School Project from 1984 to 1989 in
Bolivia (Subirats, Nogales, & Gottret, 1991).
Studies that Seek to Find the Relationship Between Specific School Factors and
StudentsAchievement.
Not all the knowledge about factors associated with student achievement can be
obtained from complete studies on school effectiveness. Research that analyzes the
relationship between one or more factors, or the achievement in its various expressions,
also provides interesting data to the policy or teacher decision-making processes, and is
useful in the design of future studies. Therefore, a good number of investigations situ-
ated in other lines of research or fields can be useful to our purpose; making the domain
of analysis broader and more complex, and the intended exhaustiveness of previous
sections an impossible mission. For this reason, the studies to which we will refer do not
pretend to offer more than the taste of a more complex reality.
In order to facilitate understanding, we have organized these studies according to
the group of factors they analyze: teacher effectiveness, school and classroom climate,
financial resources, school administration, early childhood, nutrition/malnutrition, and
bilingual education.
One of the first reviews of teacher effectiveness in Latin America was carried out by
Magendzo, Hevia, and Calvo (1982) as part of the international study commissioned
by the International Research Review and Advisory Group on the same topic (see
Avalos & Haddad, 1983). Among the good studies in Latin America we note Filp,
Cardemil, and Valdiviesos (1984), analysis of teacher characteristics that are associ-
ated with educational achievement. Also, the study of Arancibia and Alvarez (1991)
who analyzed teacher factors that directly or indirectly affect students achievement.
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vide com-
plete details
for ref.
Beverly
(2000) in
ref. list.
Please
check the
year for ref-
erence
Avalos &
Hadded,
1983.
A second line of research analyzes climate either in the classroom or in the school,
and relates it to student achievement. Filp et al. (1981) examined the association
between the classroom environment and teacher-student relationships as factors of
school failure. Lopez, Neumann, and Assael (1983), studied the set of social interactions
that take place inside the classroom, and an ethnographic study in four Latin American
countries examined how classroom and school teaching and environment contribute or
not to the construction of school failure (Avalos, 1986). Brazilian professor Francisco
Soares (2003) analyzed the influence of both teacher and climate on students achieve-
ment and Fernandez Aguerre (2004) suggested that climate represents the background
for the shared feelings that support both the agreements as well as the individual and
collective actions that have a direct impact on the schools effectiveness.
As previously mentioned, school production function studies have focused on the
influence of financial and material resources on student results. In this context
Virreiras (1979) sought to establish a way of diminishing operational costs of the
school system while maintaining a steady performance or, alternatively, increasing
such performance while keeping the costs constant.
Another area studied is school administration and its influence on students achieve-
ment. Here we note the work of Chilean Oscar Maureira (2004), who developed a
causal model to analyze the effect of school leadership on student achievement; also,
the more qualitative study of professor Nacarid Rodrguez (1997) on school leadership
in Venezuelan schools.
A widely studied factor in Latin America is early childhood. The concern for raising
quality in compulsory education and for expanding schooling to higher levels has
produced an interesting line of research aimed at finding out if children who attend pre-
school get better results in the first years of elementary education. Thus, Subirats et al.
(1991) analyzed the experience of a network of countries in the Region with the purpose
of finding out whether there was a relationship between preschool education and 1st grade
student achievement. Their goal was to propose policy measures on aspects related to
school success and improvement in learning of children belonging to disadvantaged areas.
Regarding nutrition Morales (1979), in Bolivia sought to bring out the relationships
between elementary childrens nutrition levels and their academic achievement, as well
as their impact on late entry into the formal education system. Morales hypothesized
that social class could explain chronic malnutrition but that in turn it would not be the
only determinant of school performance. He found, however, that late entrance to
school is strongly related to malnutrition, especially in the case of rural children for
whom food is a major issue.
In closing, we note the concern about intercultural bilingual education all over Latin
America, since the early eighties. The studies of Doria Medina (1982), Barrera (1995),
and Vera (1998) in Bolivia, Valiente and Kuper (1998) in Ecuador, and Cueto and
Secada (2003) in Per are some of the most relevant ones.
Ethnographic Studies About School
Finally, ethnographic research on education is an important development in Latin
America with a clear influence on school effectiveness research. It has contributed to
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Please men-
tion whether
2004a or
2000b for
reference
Fernandez
Aguerre
2004.
Please
check the
spelling for
reference
Nacarid
Rodrquez
(1997), and
please
check the
year.
a better understanding of school operations and culture. Among the most important
work we highlight Leonor Pastrana in Mexico (1997), who carried out an ethnographic
study on the institutional conditions of teaching, and Cuauhtmoc Guerrero (1996)
who focused on the analysis of school management through the description of job
administrators. A comparable work is that of Rodriguez (1998) from Venezuela, who
studied five Venezuelan schools looking at their management, autonomy, and leader-
ship. In Argentina, we recognize the study of Brandi, Filippa, Schiattino, and Martin
(2000) entitled: The transposition of knowledge in specific school districts. School
knowledge and institutional culture. Also of interest is the study by Edwards et al.
(1994) on school management and teaching in secondary schools in Chile.
Research Results: School Effectiveness Factors
The many studies on school effectiveness carried out in Latin America over the years,
as well as the contribution of related work offers an intricate web of results which are
not easy to untangle. All of them contribute to a better understanding of the reality of
education, and particularly to the understanding of the diverse factors associated with
student achievement. Table 1 offers a summary of the contributions of some of the rel-
evant studies.
As seen the factors highlighted in these studies share many features with classic
reviews like that of Sammons et al. (1995). Elements such as school and classroom cli-
mate, leadership, shared goals, high expectations, methodology or teamwork appear
repeatedly in studies not only in Latin America, but also in the rest of the world.
Additionally, we find differences such as those that refer to resources and teacher qual-
ity, including their initial preparation and working conditions.
Almost all the studies in Latin America stress the importance of management of finan-
cial and material resources as factors directly related to student achievement and, there-
fore, directly relevant to the quality of education. Thus, the quality and quantity of school
resources really matter. There are two reasons that explain the difference in importance
of this factor between developing and developed countries. One the one hand, there are
extreme inequalities among schools in developing contexts and the lack of minimal
conditions to operate as required in many of them. On the other hand, what continuously
appears to be important is the effect of the initial and continuing preparation of teachers,
their work stability and conditions. In Latin America, not all the teachers have the
required qualifications, they have no opportunity or have little opportunity of continuous
professional development, and their salary is much less than satisfactory. Consequently,
very often teachers must work in two schools or have an extra job to cover their expenses.
Without doubt, these conditions impact on student achievement; and seeking to redress
them should be a governmental priority if education quality is to be attained.
Levin and Lockeed (1991) are correct in their assertion that characterizing effective
schools in developing contexts requires including such factors as their infrastructure,
resources and equipment. In the light of this review, one would have to add the quality
of teacher initial and continuing preparation, higher salaries, and full time commitment
to teaching.
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Please pro-
vide list of
authors for
ref. Edward
et al.
(1994).
The Future of School Effectiveness Research in Latin
America
Running the risk of being mistaken, we could state that School Effectiveness Research
in Latin America has a promising future. If we attend to interest in the topic on the part
of the scientific community, the number of young researchers who are specializing in
the field, and the number of studies being developed and are publishable in the near
future, we can expect for the coming years an important increase in the number and
quality of the studies. Let us take a look of some of the milestones that point to a
promising future.
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Table 1. School effectiveness factors according to selected studies carried out in Latin America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
School factors
School climate X X X X X X X X
Infrastructure X X X X X X
School resources X X X X X X X X
School financial management X X X X X
School Autonomy X X
Teamwork X X X X
Planning X X X X X
School community
involvement X X X X X X
Shared goals X X X X X X X
Leadership X X X X X
Classroom factors
Classroom climate X X X X X X X
Classroom quality and resources X X X X X X
Teacher-student ratio X X
Teacher planning (work in the
classroom) X X X X X
Curricular resources X X X
Didactic methods X X X X X X
Student assessment and follow-up X X X X X
Factors related to the school staff
Teacher qualifications X X
Professional development X X X X X
Stability X X X X
Experience X X X X
Teachers working conditions X
Involvement X X X X X
Teacher-student relationship X X X X
High expectations X X X X X X
Positive reinforcement X X X X
1. Himmel et al. (1984); 2. Concha (1986); 3. Herrera and Lopez (1996); 4. Pieros (1996); 5. Cano
(1997); 6. Barbosa and Fernandez (2001); 7. LLECE (2001); 8. Bellei et al. (2003); 9. UNICEF (2004).
Please
check the
year for ref-
erence
Concha
(1986) and
UNICEF
(2004)
Please
check refer-
ence
Pieros
(1996). It is
not given in
the ref. list.
In the first place, we must highlight the Iberoamerican School Effectiveness and
Improvement Research Network (RINACE),
1
which is helping to develop awareness of
there being a community of researchers in the field. In addition, a greater exchange
of information is increasing both interest in the domain and in the quality of the stud-
ies produced (Murillo & Hernandez, 2002). RINACE was established in October 2002
as a professional network of researchers from Latin America, Spain, and Portugal,
committed to increase the quality and equity of education systems by developing
research on school effectiveness and improvement. The network is organized as a
network of networks that operates in practically all the countries in the Region.
There is also a specialized journal that serves Iberoamerica: The Iberoamerican
E-Journal of Research on Quality, Effectiveness and Change in Education (REICE).
2
This publication is playing an important role both in promoting and disseminating
research.
Finally, we note one of the most ambitious studies on school effectiveness being
carried out in the area, aimed at impacting not only politicians and administrators, but
teachers and researchers as well. This is the Iberoamerican School Effectiveness Study
(IIEEE), sponsored by the Andres Bello Agreement (CAB), which has collected data
from more than 9,000 students belonging to 90 schools in 9 different countries over a
period of 4 years (20012005). Half of the schools are considered particularly
effective while the other half are branded as ineffective.
The above developments allow us to reiterate our optimism in a very promising
future: more and better studies, greater awareness of the specialized literature, and a
new generation of well trained young researchers who are interested in these themes.
However, there are still many challenges. While there have been achievements, there
is much more to be accomplished. There will be the need for more and better studies,
more financial support, a better circulation of research production, better preparation
of researchers, and an increasing use of the results. Also, an effort must be made to
present local research studies beyond regional boundaries.
Some Concluding Ideas
Latin American school effectiveness research developed by Latin American
researchers in Latin America does exist. Day after day this research acquires greater
importance not only because of an increasing number of studies but because of also
because of the quality of their contribution. Thus if we wish to have a global vision of
school effectiveness research it is absolutely necessary to know and recognize what is
being produced in Latin America.
Traditionally, recognition of school effectiveness research has been circumscribed
to the developed world. In this sense, it has had largely an ethnocentric focus, centered
almost exclusively, on the contributions of a small number of countries with very spe-
cific characteristics of education, economy, and culture. Its results, however, have been
taken as valid and recommended as policy by international financial organizations to
other country contexts. This, however, should change. The belief that what is done in
86 Murillo
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Hernndez
in Ref. list
some places can have universal validity is a fallacy. Research results can only be valid
if they are obtained or referred to the context where they will be applied.
We believe that school effectiveness research in Latin America is coming of age,
that it can broaden the vision of research in the field and that the analysis of its results
can provide a basis for more solid generalizations and policy decision-making.
In short, we think that there are three potential contributions that Latin American
school effectiveness research can offer (Murillo, 2005):
Provide, a panorama of school effectiveness in countries with serious problems of
infrastructure, equity and quality, with traditionally centralized systems, and with
very little school autonomy.
Highlight sensitivity towards equity as an essential goal of any school system and
one of the most important concerns of the school effectiveness movement.
Finally, unveil the big importance of school financial and material resources, the
quality of their teachers and of working conditions over school results.
Without doubt, school effectiveness research can contribute to increase the levels of
quality and equity of school systems. But for this to happen it is critical that it be referred
to the context where results will be used and developed by local researchers who are
sensitive to and knowledgeable about the realities to be studied. On the other hand, know-
ing and valuing what is being done in other contexts is also a necessity today. It is the
only way we can contribute to build a more equitable, fair, and fraternal world.
Notes
1. http://www.rinace.net
2. http://www.rinace.net/reice.htm
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Soares, J. F. (2004). O efeito da escola no desempenho cognitivo de seus alunos. Revista Electrnica
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Introduction
We begin with the assumption that the School Effectiveness and School Improvement
(SESI) movement represents one of the most dominant models of school improvement
world-wide. The claim is consistent with state and national education policies as well as
many administrator and teacher practices. The names James Coleman (1966) and Ronald
Edmonds (1979) serve as abiding historical markers for both affiliated and independent
researchers whose research claims purport that school matters (or not) for all children. In
its narrowest iteration, SESI reflects specific tenets addressing administrative and teacher
actions and their effects on both school climate and student academic performance. More
broadly, the influence of SESI has become ideological, an irony given the movements
claims that the evidence presented is objective (Luyten, Visscher, & Witziers, 2005).
Instead, to many, SESI represents a normative model that establishes, monitors, and
judges measurable criteria of effectiveness. Moreover, its influence extends beyond SESI
studies themselves; that is, by drawing connections to SESI, however tenuous, school
reforms in general attain the status of legitimacy by attribution.
At the same time that we explore the roots of this dominance, we note that as
educational researchers, we ourselves have conducted educational reform studies,
empirical and theoretical, outside the borders of SESI. Our conceptions of effective-
ness, broadly speaking, as well as our research methods are very different. All of that
will be made evident in this chapter. Thus, our critique is meant to engage the para-
digmatic assumptions of SESI; for, it is our belief that only by confronting the sub-
stance of this dominant research tradition is it possible to enter into pragmatic dialogue
of new meanings and practical deconstruction. We will offer readers alternative ideas
challenging SESI with respect to educational goals and research methodologies. We
believe that SESIs focus on the instrumental questions (e.g., how to make schools,
through leadership and teaching, etc. more effective) evades the more fundamental
questions: effective for what and effective for whom.
93
6
EFFECTIVE FOR WHAT; EFFECTIVE
FOR WHOM? TWO QUESTIONS SESI
SHOULD NOT IGNORE
Ira Bogotch, Luis Mirn, and Gert Biesta
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2007 Springer.
Based on our own reviews and research, we view SESI today as being at a concep-
tual crossroads. In part, the movement has stalled in its own recycling of research
designs, measures, and authors. Yet, at the same time, SESI welcomes critics into its
midst, suggesting a readiness to embrace new ideas and methods. If so, then we believe
there are the possibilities for building new international research alliances with those
currently residing outside the borders of SESI.
We start with internal critiques offered inside of SESI literature as our points of
departure. Here we note a number of apparent shifts being made in SESI; that is, shifts
from studying the effects of organizational dynamics to studying the effects of teaching
and learning. There has also been an internal call for mixed and qualitative research
designs and methods affixed to large scale and longitudinal quantitative studies. Both
fall within the category we call progress.
Tracking the Progress of SESI
Because the history of SESI is so well-known to our Handbook readers, we will summa-
rize milestone reviews in a table (Table 1), with an emphasis on post-2001 reviews. For
readers who wish to familiarize themselves with pre-2001 reviews, we recommend
Teddlie and Reynolds (2001), Townsend (2001), as well as sociological critiques offered
by Thrupp (2001).
Table 1 indicates a perceptible shift from the focus on overall school and adminis-
trative variables to a closer look at the dynamics of teaching and learning. There is also
a shift in tone from that of neutral observations to a tone of friendly, yet critical
descriptions of the movement as a whole. We should not minimize the importance of
these shifts or the promoting of internal, self-critiques. In fact, throughout most of the
94 Bogotch, Mirn, and Biesta
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Table 1. SESI research agendas
Edmonds (1979) Mortimer (2001) Muijs, Harris, Luyten, Visscher,
Chapman, Stoll, and Witziers (2005)
and Russ (2004)
Strong administrative leadership Seminal studies of Teaching and learning Political ideology
within-school effects
on student learning
High expectations for students Replication studies Effective distributed Theoretcial
with more sophisticated leadership limitations
methods
Orderly school climate Shift toward school Information rich Methodological
improvement environment flaws
Teaching and monitoring International Positive school
of basic skills comparisons culture
Learning environment
Continuous professional
development
1980s and 1990s, school reforms have avoided independent critical research such that
the packaged reforms as well as the inquiry models (e.g., Accelerated Schools, see
below) of the New American School Movement never have advanced beyond the advo-
cacy stages of conceptual development and implementation knowledge. They quickly
became products that were bought and sold to educational authorities, local, national,
and international, as solutions to any and all educational problems, regardless of con-
text, people, or politics. Therefore, it stands as a strength of SESI that it has shown
methodological transparency and has continuously asked reflexive questions pertain-
ing to how to measure specific effects of schooling on student learning and overall
school improvement. It is this transparency and reflexiveness which have contributed
to the literature and supports future school reform efforts, including critiques. At the
same time, we question whether SESI researchers are, in fact, identifying the relevant
effects of student learning and school improvement.
Within the research community, SESI has acknowledged its own methodological
limitations whether in terms of sampling, designs, or statistical analyses. Such limita-
tions, however, are less known throughout the wider policy community and to the
public at large. Moreover, the extensive reviews by Mujis, Harris, Chapman, Stoll, and
Russ (2004) and Luyten et al. (2005) recycle the seminal studies of the 1980s and
1990s while claiming to have discovered new evidence of progress. Granted, any re-
analyses of past works may lead to a stronger consensus based on internal reliabilities
of the previously cited studies. But why have the same studies and limited number of
journals been recycled is the real question? Most of the new evidence does not come
from post-2001 research. For example, Mujis et al. (2004) offered a reformulation of
the 1979 axioms, with new emphases on teaching and learning. Yet, fewer than 10% of
the studies they referenced were post-2001. The authors wrote, [we found that] the
degree of consensus concerning the key elements of improving schools in disadvan-
taged areas [that] are worth serious consideration (p. 169). What new consensus did
they find? Without new evidence, the review is primarily a re-analysis of past studies
using current terms such as distributed leadership. Moreover, the shift in focus to teach-
ing and learning is still presented to the research community in a list logic, rather than
as a new synthesis or integration of complex dynamics among people and contexts
across the variables being studied. What we read are more discrete variables with new
descriptive measures. That of course allows for more correlational and cross-sectional
analyses, rather than asking new and deeper questions of the variables.
Similarly, Luyten et al. (2005) referred to eight studies [out of 82] that were post-
2001. Here we did see a maturation in terms of theory and method in documenting
good classrooms and good schools which have brought more contextual variables
into the school effectiveness and improvement models. At the same time, we hear from
practitioners how district, state and national authorities continue to adopt multiple
school reform strategies that potentially overwhelm practitioners, especially teachers
(Wonycott & Bogotch, 1997). Some of the new initiatives introduced by central
authorities run counter to the tenets of school effectiveness, but such contradictions are
ignored by policymakers and district level administrators as well as by promoters of
packaged school reforms. Any devolution of power through school effectiveness data
collection and analysis (e.g., data disaggregation) has been thwarted by the systematic
Effective for What; Effective for Whom? 95
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appropriation of decisions by central authorities and the mandated adoption of standard-
ized practices in administration and instruction. As a result, there has been less emphasis
worldwide on educator professionalism/quality and more emphasis on standardization
and simple test measures. In general, the public has focused on the managerial, proce-
dural, and formulaic, ignoring teacher judgment, quality and professionalism as well as
global issues of class, race, and ideology.
School effectiveness embraced organizational dynamics of leadership and instruc-
tion. Its focus on closed systems thinking within organizational theory was meant to
advance our understanding of schools as both routine and complex organizations. That
is, to the extent that school organizations themselves instituted rigid and prescribed
routines and structures, manipulating variables and testing for differential effects
seemed logical. The routines extended to roles and tasks. Therefore, aggregated meas-
ures of individual principals became the proxy for administrative processes; aggregated
measures of teachers became the proxy for teaching and learning, that is, instruction.
Within a systems model, these proxy variables could then be categorized as inputs, out-
puts, with minimal attention paid to the proverbial black box. The earliest research
designs and methods depicted the organization through correlations of multiple inde-
pendent variables leading or predicting outcomes on a single or multiple dependent
variables.
During the early phase of SESI research, the individual within a school organiza-
tion, principal, teacher, student, etc., was not viewed as the most significant influence
on teaching, learning, and leading. Single subject designs, case studies, and mixed
methods were pushed to the side as data across classes, schools, states, nations, and
reform models were collected, measured, and reported. As new research designs were
appended to SESI, significant progress was made in addressing the actual complexi-
ties of schooling. In fact, researchers reported that the role of individual principals and
individual teachers did matter to the same if not larger degree than the class or school
as a whole. Yet, we have no systematic research comparing and contrasting effects
from educational institutions designed around the ethic of professional autonomy as
opposed to educational institutions that impose standardized structures and practices.
Would individuals, as professional educators and students, make better educational
choices than do the educational systems of today? Is collective systems thinking supe-
rior to individual decisions made by expert professionals working in public settings?
These are important and unanswered empirical questions.
The decade of the 1990s brought about a fundamental shift in how policymakers and
the public thought about public schools. With a new emphasis on outcomes instead of
inputs, the public was directed towards bottom line measures called student achieve-
ment and accountability. While SESI studies correlated multiple variables to student
achievement, a more fundamental change in the means (processes) of schooling was
also happening, but not as predicted. The intent was to improve teaching and learning
through the policy levers of accountability testing [Finn (1990 cited in Finn &
Walberg, 1994)]. Instead, accountability has resulted in publicly ranking schools, dis-
tricts, states, and nations, narrowing subject areas taught in the curriculum, and refo-
cusing instruction for extended periods of time on teaching students the efficiencies of
test taking. Policymakers claim that these were all unintended consequences. But that
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of it in the
ref. list
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check the
spelling
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response only begs the real questions which are what have been the effects on teaching
and learning and have schools improved as a result?
When we look to the measures of student achievement, we often land on data
generated by large-scale achievement tests. While such tests are supposedly aligned to
state and national standards, the data themselves are macro indicators of school, dis-
trict, and state performance. While technology allows administrators and teachers to
disaggregate data down to individual teachers, students and classrooms, this would
have a significant effect on school improvement only if the data had real time applica-
bility in terms of guidance and teaching (Heritage & Yeagley, 2005).
Practitioners need timely, accurate, detailed, and comprehensive information to
provide guidance for ongoing teaching and learning and to steer school improve-
ment efforts. (p. 324)
Instead, the content of the tests encapsulates the Fall months of teaching in a Spring
administration, with data given at the end of the year or over the Summer for more
macro planning for the following year on a different group of students. In some dis-
tricts, practice exams given throughout the year serve as benchmark assessments
within a school. The demands for real time applicability, however, are met by effi-
ciency measures, as states revert back to multiple choice questions that allow easy and
quick scoring. Much of the cognitive and assessment research on extended response
questions, critical thinking, and alternative testing lose out to measures of efficiency
while retaining the nomenclature of effectiveness.
Even the so-called new conceptual frameworks that we read in the two major
reviews of literature were imported from other academic fields and dated. Mujis et al.
(2004) imported contingency, compensation deficit, and additivity as frameworks for
assessing their findings. Luyten et al. (2005) cited Dahl and Lindblom (1953) and
Thompson (1967), seminal theorists who combined political dynamics with organiza-
tional change. We see this as progress in terms of bringing contingency and politics
into the analysis, but the scholarship is not strong enough yet or made relevant to move
SESI into the twenty-first Century.
What then should we make of this looking back and recycling? What we found was
that the reviews looking backwards, recycling the same studies and authors, and
importing theoretical frameworks were used to sharpen, not deepen the understandings
of SESI. So, what exactly was the purpose of conducting these reviews? Has the field
exhausted its own literature? Are there other research questions and methods? Where
does SESI go from here?
The remainder of this chapter highlights the two questions that should not be
ignored: effective for what and effective for whom. In the next two sections,
we explore these questions in more detail. We address the effective for what question
by looking in more detail at what in many SESI studies has not theorized, that is, the
black box of the interactions between input and output or what we prefer to call it,
teaching and learning. We then address the effective for whom question by look-
ing particularly at alternative research approaches that do not rely upon a technologi-
cal model (i.e., producing knowledge through research and then implementing it), but
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articulates more collaborative models of working where knowledge production and
application are much more closely connected and, more importantly, where there is a
direct relationship between researchers and practitioners.
Effective for What: Mistaking Means for Ends and
Ignoring Judgments
One of the criticisms levelled at SESI is that it is under-theorized (see Coe &
FitzGibbons, 1998; Luyten et al., 2005; Thrupp, 2001), with a strong emphasis on
cross-sectional research. Yet, SESI claims to have produced valid models mapping
relationships between particular variables (see e.g., de Jong, Westerhof, & Kruiter,
2004; Silins & Mulford, 2004). What is missing is a deeper understanding or at least
an attempt to understand how different variables interact inside the black box.
Given the focus on school practices, one of the most crucial interactions for the SESI
field is the interaction between teaching and learning. In line with much research in
education, SESI conceives of the teachinglearning relationship as a relationship that
ideally should be understood in causal terms, that is, where teaching is a cause, and
ideally the main cause of learning. Although SESI researchers are cognizant of other
factors, the teachinglearning interaction is central in much research, particularly the
research focusing on effective teaching and teacher effectiveness. The question here is
whether teachinglearning interactions represent a causal relationship. We ask, how
realistic is it to think of teaching as the cause of learning?
Such assumptions would be valid if we could compare the interaction between
teaching and learning with physical interactions, that is, interactions in the material
world. But the interaction between teaching and learning is precisely not a process of
mechanical push and pull. Whether teaching will have any impact on the learning of
students depends on the meaning making activities of students. Teaching will only
have an effect, to put it differently, if students can make sense, interpret, and give
meaning to what is being taught. Education is, therefore, not a form of physical inter-
action, but rather of symbolic or symbolically mediated interaction; it is a process in
which everything depends on the response and interpretation of the student (see
Biesta, 1994, 1995, 1998, 1999; Vanderstraeten & Biesta, 2001).
This is, of course, not to suggest that in education any student response will do. The
purpose of education is to communicate meaning and for that reason the key question
is how and to what extent the response of the learner can be organised. Education
cannot simply consist of presenting students with lessons or educational artefacts such
as texts, pictures, CDs, etc. Students will undoubtedly respond to such lessons and
artefacts, and, in doing so, will give meaning to them. But this response, and the ensu-
ing meaning, will be completely idiosyncratic. The reason why simply presenting stu-
dents with artefacts does not count as a case of the communication of meaning is
because the meaning of artefacts is not to be found in the artefacts themselves, but in
how people respond to and use these artefacts. The meaning-to-be-communicated is to
be found, in other words, in the social practices in which objects and artefacts have
their meaning. In order to understand and make sense of the interaction between
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teaching and learning, it is, therefore, important to see that meaning can only be
communicated through participation and, more specifically, participation in social
practices which embody particular meanings (see Biesta, 2005; in press).
Over the past decades, significant progress has been made in incorporating notions of
communication and participation in the understanding of educational situations and,
more specifically, the interaction between teaching and learning. Whereas work on com-
munities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) and on activity systems
(Engestrm, 2001) has provided important descriptions of the dynamics of teaching
learning interaction, in our view the most precise theoritizations of the communicative
and participatory nature of educational interactions are still to be found in the works of
John Dewey and George Herbert Mead. Recent reconstructions of their works could
begin to address one of the most fundamental theoretical gaps in much of SESI
research, and could open up the black box so as to begin to understand how particu-
lar relationships between teaching and learning are established.
It is important to see that the potential of this line of thinking is not restricted to the
content of teaching or to the interaction between teaching and learning per se. It could
well be argued that other factors that influence learning, such as group size, leader-
ship style, or even the architecture of schools, only have an effect because of the
ways in which students interpret and make use of the meanings and learning opportu-
nities afforded by them. To think of teaching as a particular opportunity for learning
suggests an approach which conceives of many factors as learning opportunities, as
long as it is not forgotten that such opportunities need to be used, and need to be used
in a meaningful way by students, in order to have any effect.
The foregoing does not suggest that teaching (and for that matter any aspect that
potentially impacts upon learning) does not matter at all. It only suggests that teaching
cannot be understood as a causal factor and that the teachinglearning interaction can-
not be understood in causal terms. Education is, in other words, not a perfect technol-
ogy. This raises an important question about the notion of effectiveness, because it
suggests that we need to move away from the idea that the most effective teaching is
the teaching in which teaching controls learning totally. It is, however, not only impor-
tant to re-think and re-define the very idea of effectiveness itself; it is also important
and this is another area of weakness in SESI research to acknowledge in a more
explicit manner the fact that effectiveness is an instrumental value. It is a notion
which says something about the value of means and instruments, of ways of achieving
particular ends, but is neutral with respect to the ends themselves. The point is that
when we talk about the effectiveness of certain processes or activities, there is always
a further question to be asked: effective for what? This means that a phrase like effec-
tive teaching or even the more general ideas of effective schooling and school
effectiveness do not mean anything at all as long as it is not specified what it is that
the teaching or schooling aims to achieve.
As we have noted, there has been a growing voice from within SESI for the broad-
ening of the educational outcomes measured. Rutter and Maugham (2002), in a review
of SESI findings from 1979 to 2002, pointed out the dearth of research into the behav-
ioural outcomes of schooling, as opposed to the academic ones. Walford (2002) and
Gray (2004) both remarked on the decline in use of non-cognitive outcomes since the
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in the ref.
list.
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check the
spelling
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in the ref.
list.
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update the
reference
Biesta
(in press).
early SER researchers as the focus on more easily measurable cognitive outcomes
gained hold. They both called for the use of the SER framework to study other aims of
education, such as social justice, creativity and democratic awareness, and stress that
societys aims for education extend beyond narrow academic outcomes and that
different constituencies have different expectations for schools. Although the issue
here is partly one about the research agenda of SESI and the question which kinds of
outcomes should be taken into consideration, in order to get a better empirical
understanding of how different aspects of educational situations and schools might
matter, the deeper and more important question is not about which outcomes are
taken into consideration in SESI, but rather which outcomes are considered to be
important for education and should count. The fact that many discussions in policy and
practice arenas talk about effectiveness without ever asking the question effective for
what? indicates a lack of awareness that people can and do have different ideas about
what the purpose of education is or should be and that research into the effectiveness
of certain practices for certain outcomes cannot replace deliberation about what the
desirable outcomes of education should be. This is not just a matter of parental choice
or student preference. It is not, in other words, a question of accountability if we think
of accountability only in terms of choice and preferences (see Biesta, 2004). The ques-
tion about the purpose of education is fundamentally a political question and, at least
in democratic societies, questions about the purpose of education are questions that
require open debate and continuous contestation. The question of school effectiveness
should always be addressed after and as a function of the always provisional outcomes
of democratic deliberation. There is no way in which research on the effectiveness of
processes can replace deliberation about the desirability of what such processes should
lead to. This is, again, not to suggest that research about means is irrelevant for dis-
cussions about ends (and again pragmatism, and particularly John Deweys views
about the intricate relationship between means and ends expressed in his idea of
ends-in-view are extremely relevant here; see Biesta & Burbules, 2003), since it is
always important to know whether certain ends can realistically be achieved and how
they can be achieved. But what shouldnt happen and in this respect the relative
silence about the aims and ends of education in the SESI field is worrying is that the
discussion about the means dictates the discussion about the aims and ends.
This relates to one further point we wish to make, a point which has to do with the
role of judgment in educational practices. We have already established that what
school effectiveness research can indicate is how certain aims and objectives might be
achieved, although it can never suggest this with absolute certainty because of the fact
that educational interaction is not a technological process. This already suggests that
the link between SESI research and educational practice cannot be established in a
prescriptive way. What SESI research can show are possible relationships between
teaching and learning, for example, or between leadership styles and educational out-
comes; but whether such possible relationships will be actual in particular situations,
is always an open question (Biesta & Burbules, 2003; Bogotch & Taylor, 1993). The
idea that research findings can simply be translated into rules for action only makes
sense if it can be assumed that the situation in which the research was done is identical
to the situation in which the findings of research will be applied. While this may be the
case for closed systems in the natural world, this assumption does not hold for open
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systems (natural and social) and definitely not for recursive open systems, systems that
can learn and reflect and as a result of this can change the way they operate (i.e., social
systems) (see Vanderstraeten & Biesta, 2001, 2006). In recursive open systems such
as education, the findings of research only specify possibilities and it requires judg-
ments from the social actors in the situation in order to apply such findings. Rather
than rules for action, findings of previous research indicate possibilities possible
relationships between actions and consequences which, on the one hand, can help
actors in the situation to understand particular problems in new and different ways,
and, on the other hand, suggest possible lines of action to address problems. This is all
social research can do, and it is important, both for the producers and users of research,
to be aware of such limitations.
Having said this, it is also important to acknowledge that the judgments made by
educational practitioners in the light of research findings are not confined to the ques-
tion as to whether particular findings are relevant and applicable in this, particular
unique situation (this classroom, this time of day, these students, etc.). The first point
is that even if research were able to indicate the most effective way to achieve a partic-
ular end, educators may still decide not to act accordingly. There is, for example, a
substantial amount of evidence which suggests that the influence of the home environ-
ment on educational achievement. This would suggest that the most effective way to
achieve success in education would be to take children away from their parents and
presumably do so at an early age so that they can grow up in an ideal environment
(see Bettleheim, 1969). Although many educational interventions are aimed at the
home environment and the early years experience, most societies find it undesirable
to take children away from their parents in order to bring about educational success.
This example shows that in educational practices the question is not simply whether a
particular strategy is the most effective way to bring about a particular end. There is
always also the question whether it is the most desirable way.
There is a further complication in the case of education. Educators not only need to
make judgments about the desirability of educational means and strategies, but they
also need to make a judgment about the educational value of their activities and strate-
gies. While certain strategies may be generally acceptable and desirable, the point in
the case of education is that students not only learn from what teachers say, but also
from how they say it and from what they do. The classic example here, and one used
by Dewey, is that of punishment. We may well have conclusive empirical evidence that
in all cases physical punishment is the most effective way of deterring or controlling
disruptive behavior. Yet, as Carr (1992, p. 249) argues, the practice should nevertheless
be avoided not only because punishment may be generally undesirable, but also
because it teaches children that it is appropriate or permissible in the last resort to
enforce ones will or get ones own way by the exercise of violence. The point is that
in education means and ends are not simply linked in a technical or external way
where the means is neutral with regards to the end but are related in an internal or
constitutive way. Educational means contribute to the achievement of educational ends
and outcomes. Or, to put it differently: students learn not only from what they are being
taught, but also from how they are being taught. This means that educators not only
need to make judgments about what is effective in a particular situation and whether
the means to achieve particular ends are desirable; they also need to make a (value)
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judgment about whether means or strategies that are considered to be effective for
achieving particular ends are educationally desirable.
All this shows that education is a thoroughly moral practice because decisions about
what education is supposed to achieve are always moral judgments, that is, judgments that
ultimately are about what it means to be an educated person. They are judgments about the
moral qualities of people, not simply about their cognition and behavior. All this means
that SESI research needs to be seen as one factor in a wider, more complicated and ulti-
mately moral and deeply value-laden process of educational decision-making.
Effective for Whom: The Need for Social Action
Owing to the fact that SESI, with a few notable exceptions, is apparently preoccupied
with questions of causality, especially between teaching and learning, a preoccupation
we have criticized above, asking the question effectiveness for whom? makes explicit
who benefits from research. In breaking away from natural sciences and technology (as
applied to the study of education) and the scientific quest for evidence-based theory of
learning (i.e., cognition), the issue of who produces knowledge (i.e., researchers) is cen-
tral. Similarly, how scientific knowledge is rendered intellectually and socially legiti-
mate is arguably of equal importance. For one of our central concerns here is with the
people affected (or disaffected as it were) with the outcomes of SESI research and
practice. Put differently, the educational solutions offered by SESI are not likely to
transform populations and societies who have been left behind in todays global econ-
omy. The so-called world-class, international standards of learning that are measured
by SESI effects on student learning hold out very little promise from transforming
individuals, schools, communities, or whole societies.
Prescriptions for how such learning is transacted globally stem in large part from the
SESI tradition and foundational knowledge. However, without a substantial voice in
the production of knowledge standards from teachers and students, specifically minor-
ity teachers and students, we expect that the transformation of teaching and learning,
as part of the everyday politics of education on the ground are unlikely to occur.
If so, then we as educational researchers need to critique knowledge production,
knowledge dissemination, and implementation in ways that will materially improve
how children are educated in schools, communities, and societies. It is not so much
about doing research per se as it is about doing research that matters socially, politi-
cally, and educationally if we intend as researchers to make a difference. Essentially,
the term effectiveness refers to solving a problem. Is the problem that we do not know
what is happening within schools? Is the problem that we do not have enough
measures for such happenings? Or, is the problem that the measures do not answer the
questions that the public, including educators, are entitled to ask? Given the complex
dynamics across organizational structures, roles, and tasks, it is easy to generate meas-
ures that purport to answer specific questions. However, we would ask, what do the
numbers mean to students, teachers, and parents? Do the numbers measure the quality
of teaching, learning, and leadership or rather the frequency or correlated frequencies
of behaviors? Do the numbers measure learning or performance on a multiple choice
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examination? All of us seek to understand meanings of school quality not just have a
compendium of data describing what is happening inside of schools. Therefore, do
SESI measures provide such responses to questions of quality? We think not. Why?
There is a problem inside of the heart of SESI research. That is, its strength has been,
from inception, the ability to generate evidence of happenings inside of schools. The
movement has spawned evidence-based decision making and evidence-based research
inquiries. But in what sense does the evidence measure quality as opposed to frequency
and data? Have the effects of the evidence made public led to quality teaching and
learning as opposed to a narrowing of curricula and output measures (i.e., literacy and
numeracy)? In what sense does SESI embrace the moral purposes of education?
Epistemologically, the problem may be framed in terms of reflexivity (Usher &
Edwards, 1996) on the one hand, and objective non-contaminated data on the other
hand.
At its simplest, reflexivity claims that since the activity of the knower always
influences what is known, nothing can be known except through those activities.
(p. 148)
Not only does this perspective question what the researcher knows and produces, but
also what the effects are on the others-practitioners, students, and communities. In
contrast to SESI, alternative research methods tend to see this problem as a resource.
That is, by embracing the knowledge producer/researcher as part of the process of
knowing, we can then expose publicly how research always embodies power relations
and politics. We previously lauded SESI as a distinctive movement that has made its
variables and methods transparent (to other researchers). Here, we would urge SESI to
go much further by exposing relationships of themselves as researchers to government
and educational officials, funding agencies, as well as to their subjects. The reason is
that our methodologies, dualisms, frameworks, and categories, all the basic intellectual
tools of research are implicated with power (Usher & Edwards, p. 151). Not to sur-
face our roles as researchers reflexively ensures that power relations remain hidden
inside of the research itself. Situating oneself inside of a positivist paradigm, however,
does not exempt the researcher from this responsibility.
[A]n awareness of reflexivity enables us to interrogate our own practices of
research, in terms of how they can become part of the dominant and oppressive
discourses through a reflexive acceptance of the neutrality of research, and in
terms of how we, as researchers, are implicated in such discourses despite our
best intentions (p. 152).
A Theory of Methodology in Support of Action
In the remainder of this section, we have selected one research approach among many
that we ourselves have practiced as educational researchers. Michelle Fine (1994; also
see Fine, 2005; Roman & Apple, 1990) puts forth three stances qualitative researchers
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may assume in relation to social action. These are the ventriloquist, voice, and activism.
Fine argues, first and foremost, that all researchers, but especially those feminist schol-
ars and scholars of color, are agents, in the flesh and in the collective, who choose,
wittingly or not, from among a controversial and constraining set of political stances
and epistemologies (1994, p. 16). We briefly elaborate upon the most radical of these,
activism.
For feminist researchers especially, activism seeks to unearth, interrupt, and open
new frames for intellectual and political theory and practice (cited in Fine &
Vanderslice, 1992). The radical feminist-activist researcher not only explicitly acknowl-
edges, and embraces, research-as-politics. She or he desires to occupy the knowledge
spaces and ontological position of the political domain. Fine asserts that feminist prac-
titioners of this research method in particular openly choose politics, because women,
perhaps more than men, may revolt most acutely against domination and oppression.
Fine extends the feminist perspective to other marginalized researchers, such as Critical
Race Theorists. Such like-minded researchers, be they women, scholars of color, or
youth activists become critical participants in the discourses over the restless struggle
for power and domination, and the particular meaning that power holds for marginal-
ized people, be they women, racial minorities, and in one unprecedented case, poor stu-
dents of color in recovering New Orleans along with their families. The narrative of
oppression post Katrina represents the new African American Diaspora.
This stance of activism, in turn, is informed by three distinctions: these are (1) an
explicit account about the space the researcher occupies wittingly. This knowledge
space comprises both theoretical space and political ground; (2) the written research
text/report itself expresses a critical appraisal of the existing social order and the under
girding ideological structures; and (3) the research text presents the images of new
social possibilities resulting from reconstruction and the social imaginary (Rizvi,
2006, in press). The individual and collective works of the authors provide numerous
examples of these activists positions. For example, in demonstrating the first resear-
cher position, Bogotch (1997) shared with readers and participants verbatim texts of
oral conversations allowing for competing interpretations that both gave hindsight and
anticipation of the actions taken. Through member checking, the author engaged the
participants in relationship building and in critiquing their own courses of action,
including the role played by the researcher in capturing the dialogues. The second
dimension was highlighted by Bogotch & Roy (1997) through the use of sociolinguis-
tic frames and registers in conjunction with a mini-ethnography. The researchers were
able to expose the existing hierarchy within the district and school from the middle
position occupied by the principal. The analysis exposed how power was used morally,
amorally, as well as immorally in daily interactions across the organization. In another
study reflecting the third position, Mirn & Haynes, (2006, forthcoming) offer a case
study of the moves toward educational transformation in New Orleans from the
methodological lens of social activist research.
From the inception of participatory action research (PAR), Fine, Tuck, & Zeller-
Berkman (2006) note that this method of knowledge inquiry has global roots, in Africa,
Asia, Central, and South America. In this respect the long roots of PAR parallel the
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Rizvi
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press).
Mirn &
Haynes
(2006,
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is not given
in the refer-
ence list.
Please pro-
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plete details
of it in the
ref. list
theory and practice of Paulo Freires critical pedagogy, with one important distinction.
Whereas Freireian methods emphasized the formation, and potential liberation of
adult peasants through the formation of dialogic groups and the production of gener-
ative themes in Brazil, Fines work and those of her collaborators, specifically work
with youth across the globe and in the US with the premise that PAR as a distinct form
of critical inquiry (is) a tool for social change at once a social movement, social
science and a radical challenge to the tradition of science. Put differently, Fines use of
PAR, and social activism resulting from the production of knowledge from those at the
bottom of the research hierarchy, is concerned as much with new forms of knowledge
and its production as it is with merely a tool to aid practitioners to reflect critically about
their professional practice. The latter was evident when one of the authors (Miron) was
participating in the method of inquiry used in the implementation of Accelerated
Schools in the 1990s. Here, reflection was seemingly the end, not the means, of knowl-
edge production gleaned through more conventional forms of action research.
Thus, in the struggle to fight the spread of AIDS, and the exposure of human geno-
cide in Dafur and elsewhere, for example, as well as prisons and schools in America,
Fine has extended the contexts of her scholarship and advocacy of this research
method, and theory of methodology, to engage with and join youth in their collective
struggles across the globe, as they collectively resist multiple forms of oppression
and domination by structures and agents of power. This move we want to conceive as
political agency grounded in the inversion of the subject-object of research relation
(Mirn, 2006, forthcoming). This method of research, described below as activist
research embeds dimensions of performativity as well as performance (Denzin, 2003;
Mirn, 2005). It seeks a form of subject empowerment that builds humanistically upon
an innate will to power. Feminist standpoint epistemology enables the research subject
to potentially exercise her own will to power, thus becoming a producer of knowledge.
Social inquiry is both a research act or performance (Denzin, 2003), as well as a dis-
cursive practice that materially and bodily enact the very reality that it seeks to distantly
describe through objective laboratory-like methods of science, for example, the colo-
nized other (see Fine et al., 2006). We will not elaborate on this schema here. Suffice to
say that calls to reform SESI methods should extend beyond the quantitativequalitative
binary to potentially disrupt the scientific tradition of eschewing any form of advocacy
or activism within the social sciences especially. This latter point was significant for our
purposes in this chapter.
Conclusions
At no time in this chapter have we contested the major SESI premise that what happens
inside of schools matters. Moreover, we agree with the internal critics of SESI that
other factors located outside of classes and schools and with participants themselves
also matter. Towards the conclusion that schools do not make a (statistically significant
difference) in the education of children, many urban researchers such as Ronald
Edmonds (1979) and later the many researchers cited in this chapter have produced
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forthcom-
ing).
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change
made in the
opening
and ending
quotes
evidence challenging that structural oversight. Indeed, it is now widely recognized that
a key predictor of inner city school childrens achievement in school is the quality of
teaching and administering. It was towards gaining a deeper understanding of quality
with respect to the purposes of effectiveness and to methods of research that capture
and transform practice that we sought to provide readers here.
While SESI has moved slowly towards new understandings of within school dynam-
ics and alternative research methods, we have argued that more is called for in terms
of defining quality teaching and learning and quality research. It is one thing to recog-
nize limitations and delimitations in research designs and methods; it is another to
develop educational theories by studying relationships that honor the capabilities of
participants to determine meanings, purposes, and knowledge. The perspectives and
positions we have taken here, as fellow educational researchers, confirm what all of us
already know, and that is:
The designs that have developed specific task and instructional practices for
specific situations appear to be more readily implemented. Designs that rely more
on the professional and personal development of the teachers to lead them to
more effective task definition appear to be less readily implemented. (Bodilly,
1998, p. 113)
The future of SESI calls for research that builds upon what we already know and incor-
porates professional, personal, and political dynamics into the research questions and
designs. To cite Fullan and Miles (1992) Educational reform is as much a political as
an educational process, and it has both negative and positive aspects (p. 746). Yet, the
echoes of Frederick Taylor still resound in the hallways of schools and State
Departments/Ministries of Education:
The development of a science involves the establishment of many rules, laws,
and formulae which replace the judgment of individual workman and which can
be effectively used only after having been systematically recorded, indexed, etc.
(Taylor, 1904/1967, p. 3719)
Without alternative theories and methods to extend SESI research, evidence-based
reforms lack meaning, and more perversely, isolate and misinform the public and par-
ticipants. SESI researchers, working alone, have not exposed the barriers to profes-
sional and personal development of teachers, students, and administrators. Nor has
SESI discredited the ghost of Frederick Taylor. SESI has not seriously interrupted or
disrupted the traditional grammar of schooling (Tyack and Tobin, 1994). The more
complex changes needed to improve schools are still locked inside of the black box.
Our critique of effectiveness models in SERI raised two questions, effective for
what? and effective for whom? In the first instance, we argued that an overemphasis
on finding the correct technology to guide school improvement efforts as well as
ignoring the genuine educational effectiveness question (effective for what?) has led
SESI researchers to define quality (or good schools) in largely technocratic terms, ignor-
ing broader, less metrically defined issues of quality, purpose, social values and politics.
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reference
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1904/1967
in the ref.
list
The second question effective for whom? disrupts the status and privilege of the
movements researchers as well as challenge them to engage within school participants
differently. The movements clear behavioral assertions, its understandable measures,
and its presumed completeness with respect to solutions to problems has made its mis-
sion attractive to different and powerful publics (Holly, 1986). As a result, SESI
researchers and its tenets are in demand and utilized by district, state, and national
agencies. Yet, the work itself embodies powerful centralized authorities imposing its
teachings on those with less power specifically school building administrators,
teachers, and students. Symbolically, SESI communicates a position of strength and
action, behaviors favored by ministries, chief executive officers, and various publics.
The research alternatives offered here envision new relationships coupled with new
methodologies, not yet embraced by SESI.
In ending we ask, how might educational researchers engage in international rela-
tionships similar to Doctors without Borders, who enter areas with the most serious
health problems? Doctors without Borders set up field hospitals without the benefit of
running water or electricity, and without enough beds for patients. In contrast, educa-
tional researchers establish home bases in communities and nations based on a
different philanthropy, that is, securing grants and contracts which determine who,
where, and when education will be researched. As a result, there are whole segments
of the world that have yet to be explored by educational researchers. This is not a crit-
icism limited to SESI; the entire educational community does not have a social justice
arm of activists and advocates, that is, educational rights activists for whom education
is viewed as a basic right to be enjoyed by all throughout the world. Our professional
ethics have had borders, stopping us from reaching the most disadvantaged levels of
humanity. We must try again to open the black boxes, the one between teachers/
teaching and students/learning, and the one between the interactions of researchers and
researched. That work is indeed complex and with it comes a real sense of danger.
Acknowledgement
We would like to thank Gillian Allan, Graduate Assistant at the University of Exeter,
for her assistance with the research on which this chapter is based.
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et al. (2006)
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reference
Biesta
(in press)
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Introduction
The last decade of school effectiveness and school improvement (SESI) has seen con-
siderable debate between writers with different readings of how robust SESI is and what
it has to offer. Within SESI there are both those who emphasis the strength of SESIs con-
tribution and view its shortcomings as largely on the margins (e.g., Stoll & Sammons, in
this volume; Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000) and those who are also sympathetic but seek-
ing more fundamental changes (e.g., MacBeath, in this volume; Wrigley, 2003). Yet SESI
has also attracted less sympathetic criticism from policy sociologists and other external
critics for neglecting the social and political context of schooling and supporting dam-
aging neo-liberal reforms (e.g., Angus, 1993; Morley & Rassool, 1999; Slee, Weiner
with Tomlinson, 1998; Thrupp, 2001a). These trenchant external criticisms have not
always been appreciated by SESI proponents but have nevertheless been useful. They
have required SESI researchers to take stock of the nature and direction of their work, to
think more about the context of schooling and to recognise the dangers of SESI research
becoming too closely aligned with policy. For instance, criticisms from the first author
(Thrupp, 1999, 2001a, b, 2002) have stimulated a number of responses from SESI
researchers who have either sought to counter the criticisms (Reynolds & Teddlie, 2001;
Scheerens, Bosker, & Creemers, 2001; Stringfield, 2002; Teddlie & Reynolds, 2001;
Townsend, 2001) or used them as building blocks for their own critical commentaries
(Goldstein & Woodhouse, 2000; Gray, 2001; Luytens, Visscher, & Witziers, 2005).
We also recognize, however, that if SESI is to change then criticism needs to be
followed by a way forward. We believe a key way to shift both the nature of SESI find-
ings and the political use made of SESI would be to pursue what we call the contextu-
alisation agenda. The contextualisation agenda seeks to assert the central importance
of context in research related to schools and their performance. It would involve SESI
taking as its starting point the diverse local social and political contexts of schools,
including differences in pupil intake characteristics (class, ethnicity, turbulence,
111
7
PURSUING THE CONTEXUALISATION AGENDA:
RECENT PROGRESS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS
Martin Thrupp, Ruth Lupton, and Ceri Brown
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proportion of pupils from refugee families or with special needs) and other school and
area characteristics (urban/rural location, LEA policies, market position compared to
surrounding schools). We are using local broadly here: the social and political
features of regions, areas, neighbourhoods and school catchments could all be relevant
to our argument. Better contextualised SESI research could be used to underpin con-
textualised policy and practice and give rise to; fairer evaluation of school perform-
ance and distribution of resources, the provision of more appropriate advice and
support to schools in less favourable contexts and better responses to the needs of
marginalised school populations. Just as importantly, such research would be difficult
to misuse to support overly generic, context-less reforms of the kind which have been
popular with governments in recent, managerialist, times.
The rationale for the contextualisation agenda is considered further below. Raising
this agenda implies there is not enough being done already and so we go on to illus-
trate that while there is increasing concern already to recognise and understand context
in SESI, there is considerable room for further development. We then argue that school
composition research would be a potentially insightful literature for SESI to tap into,
although future large-scale studies in this area need to overcome a number of limita-
tions within the existing literature. The chapter concludes by drawing on data from the
authors research in Hampshire (UK) primary schools to illustrate some of the highly
nuanced views of schools which the contextualisation agenda would start to open up.
A Rationale for the Contextualisation Agenda
The New Public Management (NPM) holds that social change can be engineered
through one size fits all organisational change and through more efficient, market-
oriented public service delivery which is informed by best practice, driven by
incentives and targets, and closely scrutinised and monitored. In education what is
sought by NPM is the right prescription for delivery, with underperformance in
terms of pupil outcomes being accounted for by deviance from good organisational
management and practice. Yet wherever discussion of local context raises social
complexity and inequality, NPM assumptions are revealed as simplistic. It is widely
recognised that effective management and teaching in one local context is not the
same as effective management and teaching in another. By highlighting the differ-
ences and inequalities between schools, contextualised SESI discussions will create
accounts which are much less neutral and politically nave and hence allow for
contextualised policy responses that might better meet the needs of specific schools.
In part these will involve a fairer distribution of resources to allow for the different
organisational designs required in different school contexts, reflecting the fact that the
unpredictability of the school day in some schools is, in a sense, entirely predictable
given their contexts.
The contextualisation agenda would also support contextualised models of practice.
It is clear that deliberate adaptations are made by teachers and school leaders in order
to deal with the social, political and market contexts of their schools. For instance in
Luptons (2004) study of the differences between high poverty schools (discussed
112 Thrupp, Lupton, and Brown
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later in this chapter) adaptations used by schools extended to almost every aspect of
organisation: lesson lengths, class sizes, ability groupings, additional learning support,
behaviour and attendance management, pastoral care, extra-curricular activities and so
on. Does this mean that there can be no models of practice to follow because examined
in detail, each schools context, and thus its practice, must be wholly individual? We
think not. Most plausibly, common practices are probably adopted in schools with
certain clusters of common contextual characteristics, giving a middle ground between
wholly generic versions of good practice and wholly individualised ones. However,
since SESI research has typically been so generic in its approach, these contextualised
examples are mostly marginalized. It remains difficult to work out which practices
would be most appropriate in schools in particular kinds of settings. A better under-
standing of local context would allow those providing policy and advice to schools to
design interventions which have a better chance of fitting and therefore succeeding
within the school environments they are intended for and therefore improving the
life-chances of students.
Another reason for the contextualisation agenda would be better recognition of mar-
ginalised school populations. We are well aware that contextualisation, misused, can be
antithetical to social justice. There is a fine line between highlighting the constraints
imposed by poverty, social class, immigrant or refugee status, learning difficulties,
residential transience or the experience of being in care in order that schools can be
equipped and enabled to deal with them better, and allowing those constraints to
become the excuse for low expectations and inequitable provision based on race, class
or gender stereotypes. The damning consequences of low expectations and unchal-
lenging work within the environment of high stakes testing and the AC economy,
have been powerfully noted elsewhere (Gillborn & Youdell, 2000). Equally, however,
generic discussions that neutralise the characteristics of the students are also unhelp-
ful. Effectively, these discussions adopt a default position that schools are populated by
students who are of average prior attainment, speakers and readers of English, keen or
at least compliant with the goals of their schools, ready to learn and emotionally,
socially, financially and physically equipped to do so perhaps also white and middle
class. From this position, if students do not progress, we can assume a failure of school
practice. However, ignoring the messy detail of the reality of school populations in
order to concentrate on school practice, effectively screens out the needs of students
who are from working class, minority or indigenous group backgrounds or who have
particular learning needs of one sort or another. It makes it less likely that school fund-
ing or organisation or pedagogic practice will be geared towards their needs, and more
likely that they will be treated as deficient, failing, and not worthy of support in a
system geared to the needs of typical or normal students. Therefore, providing
there is vigilance against taking up a deficit perspective, drawing attention to pupil
differences is essential to avoid the dangers of treating schools neutrally.
As well as benefiting practice, the contextualisation agenda would also benefit the
politics of SESI by signficantly reducing its misuse by policymakers. A key limitation of
current SESI research is that it often chimes with these one size fits all assumptions of
NPM theory and hence can be used to support managerial reform. As Bogotch, Miron
and Biesta (in this volume) put it, by drawing connections to SESI, however tenuous,
Pursuing the Contextualisation 113
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school reforms in general attain the status of legitimacy by attribution. However two
further points might be made about this observation. First, in some settings the con-
nections between research and government policy are not at all tenuous, for instance the
New Labour government in England has commissioned and publicised SESI research
and well-known SESI researchers have run its Standards and Effectiveness Unit (Stoll &
Sammons, in this volume). Second, SESI has also gained status and influence from being
seen as policy-relevant and there is, no doubt, a certain seductiveness about this situa-
tion for those researchers involved.
In this sense, the advantage of pursuing the contextualisation agenda is that SESI
would become too complex and nuanced to support managerial reform: there could be
no more lists of effectiveness factors, nor generic solutions to the problems faced by
schools. There is some risk attached to such complexity, in potential loss of support for
SESI amongst practitioners and policymakers. At the school level this would be
because SESIs lack of social and political complexity is undoubtedly part of what has
provided its appeal to some teachers and school leaders. Bell (1999, p. 220) argues for
instance that SER generates a level of spurious certainty amongst senior staff in
schools who see the way forward through professional leadership and shared vision,
and a similar feeling of false security among teachers for whom purposeful teaching is
characterised solely by efficient organization, clarity of purpose, structured lessons and
adaptive practices. Similarly SESI may have less appeal to policymakers if it loses its
simple message about schools making the difference. As Howard Fancy, NewZealands
Secretary for Education argues:
Hearts and minds matter. The experience of the last 15 years confirms this. If peo-
ple believe a child can succeed and that as a teacher that they can make a differ-
ence then that child probably will succeed. If those beliefs are not there, then the
child probably wont. Therefore shaping expectations and beliefs has to be a key
element aspect of policy and professional development. (Fancy, this collection)
Yet it is also important to recognise that the contextualisation agenda would probably be
welcomed in many quarters too. Just as some researchers seem to feel the existing SESI
agenda has become stale and needs extending (e.g., Bogotch et al., in this volume;
Macbeath, in this volume) we think generic SESI findings do not speak closely enough
to the concerns of most practitioners and feel that they would welcome a closer focus
on their kind of school. Moreover if SESI can improve its standing with practitioners,
it could also become more influential with policymakers, even if there are increased
tensions around the redistribution of resources and increased costs overall.
The Approach to Context in Existing School
Effectiveness Research
Caught up in insisting that schools can make a difference, early school effective-
ness research (SER) did not have much concern with local contexts. It was not until
the late 1980s that sensitivity to context research in the USA began to highlight the
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limitations of a comprehensive recipe approach to effectiveness in schools with dif-
ferent intake characteristics. Hallinger and Murphy (1986, p. 347) for instance, found
that for the most part, schools of different SES have quite different effectiveness cor-
relates. High and low SES effective schools [are] characterised by different patterns of
curricular breadth, time allocation, goal emphasis, instructional leadership, opportuni-
ties for student reward, expectations for student achievement and home-school rela-
tions. Similar conclusions were reached by Teddlie, Stringfield, Wimpleberg, and Kirby
(1989) and Teddlie and Stringfield (1993). Scheerens (1991, p. 385) suggested that
including contextual variables like student body composition can be seen as a rela-
tively new and very interesting development in school effectiveness research while
Reynolds (1992, p. 16) described sensitivity to context findings as cutting edge.
Unfortunately SER has not advanced this cutting edge much over the last two
decades. One of the difficulties is that prior attainment has often been used as a proxy
for context. This approach, although perhaps driven by data difficulties, reflects a
certain disregard for detail and lack of concern with explanatory theory. Low prior
attainment is no doubt well correlated with social disadvantage, but its frequent use as
the only contextual indicator prevents us from understanding which aspects of a dis-
advantaged context make a difference, and from understanding the extent to which low
attainment per se makes a difference to school effectiveness and to student outcomes,
as well as the extent to which other specific contextual factors make an additional
contribution.
Moreover, although Teddlie (Teddlie & Reynolds, 2001) pointed out that the
impact of context variables on SER had been a major focus of his work for the pre-
vious 15 years, the reality is that where context was mentioned by SER proponents
over the 1990s, it was usually the repeated and rather token use of Teddlies early
work (especially Teddlie et al., 1989) and that of Hallinger and Murphy (1986).
By 2000 a chapter on context issues within SER in the International Handbook of
School Effectiveness Research (Teddlie, Stringfield, & Reynolds, 2000) was sum-
marising and highlighting SESI research in this area, for instance it recognised that
the SES makeup of a school has a substantial effect upon student outcomes beyond
the effects associated with students individual ability and social class (Teddlie et al.,
2000, p. 184). At the same time it demonstrated that SER was dealing with context in
a rather constrained way. First, it sought to restrict the definition of context variables
to four: those concerned with the SES of the student body, the community type of
a school, the grade phases of schooling and the governance structure of schools. This
was explained (pp. 163164) as;
an attempt to avoid further Balkanisation of the field, which might lead to the
study of a proliferation of context variables, many of which are highly intercorre-
lated and theoretically entangled with one another. Such a Balkanization of SER
would make it increasingly difficult to discuss the generalizability of results
beyond the immediate context of the study being conducted.
There was also little attempt in this chapter to properly theorise the impact of contexts.
Reference was made at the end of the chapter to contingency theory which argues that
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organizational effectiveness results from a fit between situation and structure (see
Creemers, Scheerens, & Reynolds, 2000, pp. 292297). However rather than offering
a genuine explanation, contingency theory is mostly an acknowledgement that a wide
range of conditions or factors might influence organizational effectiveness. Moreover
contextual findings in SER have actually been developed more from a mixture of correla-
tions and common sense than contingency theory: Creemers et al. (2000, pp. 295296)
point out that [m]aking a lot of sense as they do, the outcomes of contextual effectiveness
studies are only vaguely related to contingency hypotheses from the general organizational
science literature.
A wider problem is that despite the apparent interest in context represented by this
chapter, it could still hardly be said that a concern with it was at the heart of SER. Most
SER studies have proved unwilling to delve into variations in context so that differences
in school practice have too quickly come to be seen as the most powerful explanations for
differential performance. A good example is provided by a Welsh case study published in
2002 concerning a more effective low SES school called Trelent where the students
achieved higher mean scores in comprehension, maths, computation and applied maths
than at Hillcrest, a less effective high SES school (Reynolds, Creemers, Stringfield,
Teddlie, & Schaffer, 2002). Stringfield (2002, p. 19) has drawn on this study to argue
that schooling can overcome the effects of social inequality:
In the British component of the International School Effectiveness Research
Program (Reynolds et al., in press), students at a very high poverty school
repeatedly out achieved students in middle class British schools in the same
district . Similarly well documented examples of high poverty schools pro-
ducing achievements that are tested and retested and found to be above the
national average abound from Weber (1971) to today. Whole schools of children
in high poverty situations have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to achieve at
levels above those of their more-affluent peers.
Nevertheless this claim is unconvincing because the nature of the pupil intake of the
schools in Reynolds and colleagues study is not clear, moreover there is insufficient
concern with the likely longitudinal effects of context. First, the pupils come from a
mainly ethnic Asian background or are from low SES white families (p. 230). The
mainly ethnic Asian background of the students raises the distinct possibility that
these are immigrant families from middle class backgrounds in their countries of
origin, even if they are not well-off in UK terms. Second, we are told that the annual
Free School Meals (FSM) entitlement for Trelent school is consistently at, or above,
the 30% level. This is not really a very high poverty school as argued by Stringfield,
certainly there are schools with much higher FSM levels (as well as the problem,
discussed shortly, of how much FSM really measures SES anyway). A better test of
what is possible would be if the students at Trelent were nearly all from clearly work-
ing class backgrounds over several generations as was the case for Ford Junction,
a less effective low SES school in the study which had pupils from an almost uni-
versally white low SES background, mainly from the surrounding state-built housing
estates and with FSM consistently above 50% (Reynolds et al., 2002, p. 231). Third,
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erence
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these are primary schools and the value-added was only measured at the end of Year
1 at age 6 or 7. Because context can be expected to have a cumulative impact through-
out school careers, it is a very much different thing to argue for powerful school effects
on student achievement at age seven compared to at secondary school level, by which
time students have had many years experiencing more or less favourable school
contexts.
Despite these problems, there are signs of recent shifts in SER thinking. A review by
Luyten and colleagues (2005) is sympathetic to SER but also recognises the concerns
of its critics and argues for more attention to context:
In addition to explaining the relationship between features of school processes
and school performance, studies should place more emphasis on the influence of
non-educational factors in the school context (e.g., neighbourhood, family, peer
group) on schooling processes and on student achievement. More insight is
needed into why and how the school context interacts with school perform-
ance and with processes at both the classroom and the school level. (p. 259)
and
In our opinion, SER should also pay much closer attention to factors outside the
educational system that influence learning (such as the family and peer group).
Even though almost every SER study confirms the limited influence of school
factors and the substantial impact of family background on learning, the latter
relation is hardly ever investigated thoroughly . In practice such insight could
facilitate the exploration of a great number of complex issues, including how
to determine the extent to which the demands that are placed on schools are
realistic. (pp. 269270)
Here and other areas they discuss, Luyten and colleagues seem to be genuinely trying
to move the SER literature on and their arguments signal the potential for a significant
shift in the literature.
The Approach to Context in Existing School
Improvement Research
School improvement research (SIR) has also been undertaking contextual self-exami-
nation in recent years. Noting that some researchers have argued that it is more difficult
for schools serving disadvantaged areas to make progress on many of the traditional
indicators, Gray (2001, p. 19) concluded that more evidence on this issue is needed.
The most widely published UK SIR to take up this contextual challenge has been that of
Alma Harris and colleagues (Harris, 2002; Harris & Chapman, 2002, 2004; Harris,
Clarke, James, Harris, & Gunraj, 2005; Harris, Muijs, Chapman, Stoll, & Russ, 2003)
which was about how to improve what New Labour has euphemistically called Schools
Facing Challenging Circumstances. At first this research appeared not to represent a
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significant advance. For instance it stressed the importance of a number of general
findings not far removed from the kinds of factors approach traditionally used in
school effectiveness studies: vision and values, distributed leadership, investing in
staff development, relationships, and community building (Harris, 2002). The same
study also suffered from the problem that the specific contexts of the ten schools
involved were not adequately identified. They were all DfES categorised as SFCC but
it is important to note that schools can be thus identified either on socio-economic
grounds (35% or more of students receiving free school meals) or on performance
grounds (school achieving 25% or less 5 A*C GCSEs). Furthermore the selection
was intended to ensure the schools represented a wide range of contexts and were
geographically spread.
Nevertheless the more recent work of Harris and colleagues has been stressing the
significance of context-specificity much more. For instance Harris and Chapman
(2004, p. 429) argue that:
As the long term patterning of educational inequality looks set to remain, to rely
on standard or standardised approaches to school improvement that combine
accountability, pressure and blame to force improved performance would seem
unwise. In schools in difficult contexts, this is more likely to exacerbate the prob-
lem rather than solve it. Instead the evidence would suggest that more locally
owned and developed improvement strategies are needed that appreciate school
context, best match prevailing conditions and build the internal capacity for
development within the school. If the goal of raising performance in schools in
difficulty is to be achieved, school improvement approaches that neglect to
address the inherent diversity and variability across and within schools in the
same broad category will be destined to fail.
Harris and Chapman note other recent calls for context-specificity and it does seem to
be featuring on the SIR agenda now. Yet Harris and Chapmans own approach in their
2004 article does not actually further this agenda. Rather they provide a typology of dif-
ferent kinds of schools in difficulty along continuums from individualised to
collaborative teacher culture and from internal to external accountability. Schools with
collaborative cultures and internal accountability are seen to have high capacity for
improvement, those with individualised teaching cultures and strong external account-
ability measures are seen to be immobile. In other words, Harris and Chapman (2004)
are more concerned with the internal culture and organisation of schools in a conven-
tional SIR sense than with exploring the extent to which schools can reasonably build
internal capacity in the face of particular kinds and combinations of wider contextual
factors.
Two lessons might be drawn from this. The first is that like SER, contextualisation
in terms of external factors remains largely an aspiration for SIR. It is not yet clear how
and to what extent it will become a reality. The second is that the notion of context and
contextualised research could be taken to mean different things to different con-
stituencies and like many other educational terms be subject to having their depth and
critical intent stripped out in less than searching analyses.
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School Composition Research
If SESI researchers want to develop their concern with local contexts, a good starting
point would be qualitative work which specifically explores the impact of school com-
position and other local contextual issues on school processes. The authors of this
chapter have completed two such studies, and more qualitative research is in progress
as part of HARPs, a large mixed method study into school composition, discussed in
the next section of this chapter. Thrupps (1999) research explored the impact of the
socio-economic status (SES) composition of school intakes on school processes in
four New Zealand secondary schools. It illustrated how higher SES schools had less
pressured guidance and discipline systems, with higher levels of student compliance
and fewer very difficult guidance or discipline cases. Their senior management teams
had fewer student, staff, marketing and fund-raising problems, and more time to devote
to planning and to monitoring performance. Day-to-day routines were more efficient
and more easily accomplished. When it came to classroom instruction, the students in
the higher SES schools were taught in teaching classes that were generally more com-
pliant and more able to cope with difficult work. They used more demanding texts and
other teaching resources and their teachers were more qualified and more motivated.
Higher SES schools were also able to support more academic school programs and a
wider range of extracurricular activities. Thrupp (1999) concluded that SES composi-
tion impacts on school processes in numerous ways which would cumulatively boost
the academic performance of schools in middle-class settings and drag it down in low
socio-economic settings.
Lupton (2004, 2005) has extended Thrupps analysis by illustrating that even
amongst ostensibly similar SES schools there are other contextual differences which
may cumulatively make a considerable difference to school processes and student
achievement. Her study of four high poverty schools in England demonstrates the
nuances of local context. It considers pupil characteristics (e.g., ethnicity, refugee
status, looked after children, and special educational needs), area characteristics (e.g.,
urban/rural, labour market structure and history, housing market) and school charac-
teristics (e.g., market position compared to surrounding schools, LEA admissions
policies, school type and history). The analysis shows how one low SES school cannot
be assumed to face the same contextual challenges as another. For example, one poor
inner urban school with a rapidly growing, predominantly Pakistani population and
operating within a weakly differentiated and collaborative school market, reported few
behavioural challenges, high levels of parental support and pupil aspiration, and little
need to divert management time into marketing activities or management of falling
rolls. Another school, in a declined seaside town with a selective and highly differen-
tiated school system, reported low pupil esteem and aspirations, difficulties in secur-
ing parental support, high levels of pupil turbulence arising from temporary housing
and a large childrens home population, as well as extreme difficulties in teacher
recruitment and retention because the school was regarded as being the bottom of the
pile in the local area. Arguing that organizational impacts on schools in different
kinds of disadvantaged areas can be significantly different (Lupton, 2004, p. 22),
the study raises questions about the adequacy of socio-economic indicators used
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to describe school context, and about the suggestion that differences in student achieve-
ment between schools in similarly poor settings can be wholly ascribed to internal
school characteristics.
These studies together suggest that many of the factors identified by school effec-
tiveness and improvement research as contributing to student achievement will be hard
to replicate because while they may be school-based, they may nevertheless not be
school-caused. This argument builds on previous quantitative and qualitative research
(Anyon, 1981; Brown, Riddell, & Duffield, 1996; Gewirtz, 1998; Ho & Willms, 1996;
Lauder et al., 1999; Metz, 1990; Pong, 1998; Robertson & Symons, 1996; Thomson,
2002). But while the findings of such research are plausible, they will be more influ-
ential if supported by evidence from large scale quantitative studies of compositional
(school intake) and neighbourhood effects. These studies address the issue of school
context directly and have the greatest potential for influence at a policy level. However
quantitative studies to date offer a conflicting picture, with some indicating strong
effects and others not (Thrupp, Lauder, & Robinson, 2002), and with some offering
competing explanations for compositional effects (i.e., other that school effects, e.g.,
Nash, 2003).
1
This has recently led Gorard (2006) to argue that compositional effects
are so much at the limits of our detectability, likely to be small relative to the amount
of noise in the system, and require such sophisticated statistical modelling, as to (be
possibly not worth exploring. However, the problem with Gorards argument is that
while he starts by making some well-founded points, it quickly degenerates into a quite
untenable attack on statistics. In particular, Gorard blames statistics rather than the
failure of social sciences in producing testable theories of importance.
We believe the way forward is not to abandon the search for compositional effects but
to carry out better statistical research. A review of quantitative research in this area
undertaken by the first author and colleagues has illustrated important conceptual and
methodological inadequacies in the way compositional effects have been previously
modelled (Thrupp et al., 2002). Although there is no space to rehearse the issues here,
this review strongly suggests that better large scale studies of compositional effects could
provide more conclusive findings. In particular school composition research needs to:
Be multi-disciplinary in nature and incorporate qualitative study of school process
as well as large scale quantitative analysis, thus enabling it to capture school
organisation and curriculum effects and to shed light on the direction of causal
relationships;
Incorporate multiple measures of school composition;
Enable analysis of group and class composition as well as composition at the
school level;
Take a longitudinal approach;
Incorporate broader contextual variables such as neighbourhood characteristics
and school market position; and
Include and analyse different types of school and different models of composi-
tion, for example, schools with larger numbers of moderately poor pupils com-
pared with schools with smaller numbers of moderately poor pupils (based on
Thrupp et al., 2002, p. 488).
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The Harps Project
The authors are currently involved in a study that incorporates the above characteris-
tics in exploring the impacts of various sorts of school composition upon the peer
group, instructional and organization processes of schooling. The HARPS project,
2
has been studying children passing through Years 3 and 4 (ages 7 and 8) in Hampshire
primary schools. Research has been undertaken at three levels. One is quantitative
analysis using pupil and school-level composition data for the children at all 306 full
primary and junior schools in Hampshire (n 11,793). This analysis uses standard
UK measures of school composition (% free school meals and attainment) but data
also include age, gender, ethnicity, special educational and neighbourhood character-
istics, and permit identification and analysis of pupils who move schools. A second
element of the project moves beyond the limitations of existing social class indicators
by analysing data on student backgrounds (parental education, employment, ethnicity
and class-related family practices), which we painstakingly collected from the parents
of 84% of children in 46 schools in the Basingstoke and Deane area of the county
(n 2,014, Brown et al., 2005). A third element incorporates ethnographic research in
12 of these sub-sample schools, examining composition and processes in relation to
teaching groups and classes as well as schools.
Although focused only on primary schools, and located in a relatively affluent and
racially homogenous (white) area of the UK, the research design of the HARPS proj-
ect is intended to address the requirements of the contextualization agenda both
through better quantitative research on compositional effects as listed above, and by
exploring substantial qualitative evidence which has not been available up to now.
Below we use some interview data from headteachers to provide a flavour of the
school data we are exploring in order to build up a picture of the local advantages and
disadvantages faced by schools. Issues which are inportant to particular schools but
rarely discussed in SESI include:
Changing local economies and related housing patterns:
Theres 5000 people working there now, but 20 years ago it was something
like 15,000, a huge workforce and a lot of that workforce were young people
because it newly being developed and established and a lot of young people
came with young families and there was a high level of children, and subse-
quently new schools were being built or developed or we certainly had a high
level of children. Now over the last, over the years several things have hap-
pened. One of those is that people are choosing not to have as many children,
in this area particularly, a lot of people who bought their houses maybe
20 years ago, and these are quite big houses, instead of moving on, theyve
stayed and put extensions on them, and so youre not getting any five year
olds or ten year olds so those people whove had their children through the
school but theyre staying put in our immediate catchment area. And there
has been new housing developments which weve picked up, but the major-
ity of smaller housing is down in the south of the town so that means that
generally if you could equate that if you have a small house you have a
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smaller family because theyre younger and smaller, and then they move on.
So that has made some impact. (Headteacher, Hollybush School, 13% FSM)
students being creamed off by the independent (private) sector schools:
And the intention had always been to send them to [a private school], and
thats when they went slightly early, they went in the summer of year eight
because they got sports scholarships and [the private school wanted them for
their cricket in the summer I mean, that it is annoying because although
it didnt matter number-wise and budget-wise it tends to be the more able
children, obviously the more articulate children, yeah, the role models as
well, and the good role models. I mean, not always good, weve got a lot of
good role models, you know, who remain. But these are more of the role mod-
els. And theyre the ones that take that balance that everything, you know,
most things are good. And that the heavy side is the good the good
achievement, good behaviour, you know, and its a shame that those children
go away. (Headteacher, Austin School, 1% FSM)
the particular social geographies of school catchments:
Yes and sometimes people move [here] whove had a marriage break up in
Basingstoke or in Reading and they move [here] for a fresh start, its far enough
but its near enough. Like the Jones, Mum left the family home to pursue a rela-
tionship with another woman and that had a huge impact but they moved, Dad
couldnt bear it so he moved, he needs to be near Reading cos thats his base but
[this town] was near enough to be far enough away from it and families [this
town] does seem to be that kind of place. Susan whos just moved to us Mum
couldnt cope with her behaviour so Dad took her and moved here for a new
start. Its that. (Headteacher, Ivy School, 6% FSM)
student mobility associated with Traveller families:
He joined us in September and he didnt have a clue, no initial sounds, he
didnt know how to write letters, didnt know how to, he could do mentally
numbers in his head but he had no idea that the symbol three was whatever,
so you had to put in an individual program for him that you gleaned here
there and everywhere and had to differentiate right down for him. Now he
left weeks ago, about a month ago, hes gone off back to Wales, he has not
been transferred to another school yet, hes still on my class register, so when
he comes back to us, probably in September or whatever, goodness only
knows what sort of schooling he will have had, so hell come back in Year
Four, he may have had a smattering where-ever hes gone and hell be
back (Headteacher, Ivy School, 6% FSM)
and
staffing problems related to school composition and reputation:
And at that time in 2003, so just before the summer of 2003, the only people
we had applying for any positions that we had in the school were Newly
Qualified Teachers (NQTs), no experienced staff came forward for any of
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the posts that we had available. So in the end we had to appoint NQTs, which
then put us in a very difficult position because we had no real, there was only
myself and the deputy as experienced staff and 4 NQTs. So that was very
difficult and actually that whole year was horrendous because as you can
imagine 2 of the NQTs especially up at key stage 2 who already, bear in mind
that the children were under achieving anyway, and obviously my desire is to
improve the standards in the school, [the NQTs] couldnt cope with the chil-
drens behaviour let alone cope with the childrens learning. (headteacher of
Beech School, 52% FSM)
All of the schools cited here are facing pressures to raise standards and yet as these
brief forays into their circumstances reveal, each faces challenges arising from partic-
ular local circumstances outside the school. Our point about these examples is not, of
course, that these are the only factors, or even the main ones, which make a difference.
Rather they just illustrate some of the delicate nuances which may be invisible on cursory
inspection but which the contextualisation agenda requires explored.
It will be apparent that concern with data at this level of detail is directly at odds with
the idea of restricting the definition of context variables because of worries about gen-
eralisability (Teddlie et al., 2000). Rather we would suggest that a broader range of con-
textual variables is needed and that it would be fruitful for SESI researchers to engage
with the increasingly sophisticated socio-demographic data that is now becoming avail-
able at small area level, at least in the UK, to develop typologies of school context that
can bring a more contextualised approach whilst also allowing some generalisability.
However, not all of these nuances can be captured by quantitative data, and nor should
they be. Although quantitative SESI studies could try harder to capture local complexi-
ties through context variables, successful school improvement also needs an under-
standing of schools and their neighbourhoods that is informed by social science, in this
case by the disciplines of geography, social anthropology and sociology.
Conclusion
In this chapter we have argued for the contextualisation agenda as a means of improv-
ing SESI findings and the political use made of them. We have noted shifts in previous
SESI research, although we have also argued that there is still a considerable way to go.
Meanwhile school composition research should be capable of generating particular
insights in this area because of its direct concern with context, but it will only achieve
this if greater conceptual and methodological sophistication is applied. The challenge
is to give up the false security of generic or too-simple models and approaches and
develop a sound evidence base for a more socially just schooling system.
Notes
1. Nash (2003) poses the existence of within-SES group school selection effects as a competing explana-
tion for compositional effects. This is an interesting hypothesis but not one which precludes composi-
tional effects: it is presumably possible that both kinds of effects are present to a greater or lesser degree.
2. Hampshire Research with Primary Schools. This is the ESRC project Primary school composition
and student progress, RES-000-23-0784. The project started in October 2004 and runs to March 2007.
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Section 2
A WORLD SHOWCASE: SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS
AND IMPROVEMENT FROM ALL CORNERS
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THE AMERICAS
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Introduction
This chapter will review the School Effectiveness Research (SER) and School Improve-
ment Research (SIR) literatures in the United States over the past 25 years. Although we
are focusing primarily on this period, several significant studies were conducted in the
United States before 1980. These we will briefly summarize in the first two sections of
the chapter because it is impossible to understand the events of the past 25 years with-
out some awareness of the foundations of both SER and SIR.
Although SER literature reached its zenith of influence and popularity in the United
States in the 1980s and early 1990s, it has continued to serve as the largest and most
consistent knowledge base for the varieties of SIR literatures that have evolved over
the past two decades. U.S. SIR literature has passed through a series of stages, with the
last two restructuring and Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) achieving national
impact.
In this chapter, we will address five somewhat overlapping stages in the develop-
ment of SER and SIR; in order, they are:
School Improvement Research in the United States before the 1980s
School Effectiveness Research in the United States before the 1980s
A Period of High Influence: School Effectiveness Research, 19801995
Trends in School Improvement Research in the United States since 1990
Contemporary and Future Trends in SER in the United States
This review synthesizes three earlier reviews (Datnow, Lasky, Stringfield, & Teddlie,
2006; Reynolds, Teddlie, Creemers, Scheerens, & Townsend, 2000; Teddlie & Stringfield,
2006) and cross-references other chapters in this volume. Points of commonality and
differentiation between SER and SIR will be discussed throughout this chapter, includ-
ing brief explorations of the similarities, variations, and intersections of U.S. and inter-
national forms of school effects and school improvement research.
131
8
A HISTORY OF SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS AND
IMPROVEMENT RESEARCH IN THE USA
FOCUSING ON THE PAST QUARTER CENTURY
Charles Teddlie and Sam Stringfield
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2007 Springer.
Researchers and reformers have engaged in significant dialogue regarding the merger
of the two orientations (SER, SIR) in other countries like the United Kingdom, Canada,
and the Netherlands (e.g., Creemers & Reezigt, 2005, Reynolds, Hopkins, & Stoll, 1993;
Sackney, in this volume; Stoll & Sammons, in this volume). Much less discussed has
been the merger of SER and SIR in the United States, where a historical division between
these two fields has existed except during the 1980s and early 1990s, when SER had a
large impact on SIR. These historical trends are discussed throughout the chapter.
Future directions for both SER and SIR in the United States will be described in the
last two sections.
School Improvement Research in the United States
Before the 1980s
Phases in School Improvement Research in the United States
For the purposes of this chapter, we define school improvement research in the United
States as the examination of the processes and outcomes associated with interventions
designed to improve schools. Various international authors have characterized SIR
as having gone through a number of distinct phases since the 1980s, evolving from
efforts oriented toward individual school change into coordinated systemic efforts
aimed at whole communities of schools (e.g., Chrispeels & Harris, 2006; Hopkins &
Reynolds, 2001). A similar trend has occurred in the United States during this time
period, but we have chosen to start our analysis with a brief description of two earlier
phases of SIR in the United States that occurred during the 1930s and 1960s.
A prefatory note is in order regarding early school improvement research. Why, one
might ask, would a field engage in relatively scientific improvement research decades
before determining relatively scientifically what works? Our answer would be that
this appears to be the human condition. Thomas (1979), for example, noted that from
the 1830s through the 1930s, medical researchers were aware that they did not under-
stand the human body adequately enough to create drugs to treat various maladies, yet
miracle cures proliferated. Armed with 20/20 hindsight, there is something rather
heartwarming about the simple and rigorously data-free confidence that early
reformers had in their proposed school improvement interventions. If nothing else, an
awareness of the failures of those who came before should make us more cautious of
making science-free claims in the future.
The first phase of SIR consisted of a singular, noteworthy study from the 1930s: the
Eight-Year Study. The second phase consisted of curriculum reform efforts conducted
during the 1960s in response to the Russian Sputnik program. These two earlier phases
presaged several of the important trends in SIR that have occurred in the United States
since the 1980s. Their inclusion in this review highlights the recurrent nature of school
reform in the United States, which Cuban (1990) has famously referred to as reform-
ing again, again and again. We argue that the recurring lack of success is a function of
an imbalance in the ratio of reformers confident zeal on the one hand to the quantity
of available scientific data on the other.
132 Teddlie and Stringfield
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The Eight-Year Study: School Improvement Research
From the 1930s
The first large-scale, cross-state effort at school reform in the United States was begun
in 1930 by a commission of the Progressive Education Association (Aiken, 1942). This
group declared that their goal was to fundamentally reform American high schools by
allowing selected schools the freedom to reconstruct their curriculum on the basis
of individual need, rather than college entrance requirements. The group provided
curriculum associates who worked with a range of schools and persuaded over
100 colleges and universities to accept graduates from these potentially quite non-
traditional schools. The declared outcome of primary interest was students eventual
success in college.
A group of college professors and other progressive educators conducted a national
search and settled on 30 promising schools for intervention. They located a control
school for each experimental site. The 30 schools did away with much of their previ-
ously existing curricula (which used the college preparatory model) and replaced it, as
much as possible, with more relevant topics based on democratic ideals and the
needs of individual students (Giles, McCutchen, & Zechiel, 1942). DeVries (2002)
summarized the curricula as follows:
Classroom practices included providing students with many opportunities to deal
with problems they consider significant, utilizing wide sources of information,
sharing responsibility for defining the problem and seeking meaningful, real
situations in which students may engage in reflective thinking. (p. 34)
Detailed qualitative and quasi-experimental quantitative data revealed, in general,
that the students from the 30 pilot schools performed slightly better in college than
students from the control schools. The research team then conducted a separate, follow-
up analysis of the results from the six (of 30, or 20%) schools that in retrospect appeared
to have produced higher percentages of students who were relatively successful in col-
lege. Strong implementation was defined as creating the most marked departures from
conventional college preparatory courses (Aiken, 1942, p. 112). This analysis focused
on the strong implementers larger long-term effects, thereby presaging similar post hoc
analyses of educational reforms in the United States.
The methodological problems in such a post hoc analysis were so considerable that
the clearest conclusions that can be gleaned today from this very ambitious effort are
that (1) school change is harder than enthusiasts initially believe, (2) both short- and
long-term implementation of any whole school reform requires greater investments in
human resource development than national or local educators generally anticipate,
and (3) schools that have the capacity for major change may (or may not) have had
that capacity prior to the change effort, making interpretation of post hoc-only data
virtually impossible and pointing to the importance of a wide range of pre meas-
ures. However, the groups failures to anticipate these challenges clearly presaged
A History of School Research in the USA 133
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subsequent analyses of enthusiastic if poorly prepared educational reformers in
the United States.
An unintended effect of the Eight-Year Study seems to have been a dampening of
interest in studies of large-scale change. It was nearly 30 years before large-scale
school reform studies were attempted again in the United States, and those efforts, like
most today, appear to have learned very little from the Eight-Year Study.
Curriculum Reform Studies of the 1960s
The next effort at large-scale school reform in the United States was inspired by the
Soviet space program of the 1950s. This so-called Sputnik-inspired reform was
based on large-scale curriculum change, as were similar contemporary efforts in the
United Kingdom. These emphasized the production, dissemination, and adoption of
science curriculum materials. These materials were often exemplary, based on con-
cepts from the leading scholars and educators of the period (e.g., Bruner, 1960). Dow
(1997, p. 2) summarized the commitment of leading scholars to the process as follows:
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the Sputnik-driven reforms was the exten-
sive participation of the university research scholars in the reform effort. For a
brief period between the mid-1950s to the early 1970s some of the nations most
distinguished academics left their libraries and laboratories to spend time in
pre-college classrooms. Nobel laureates sought ways to teach the very young how
scientists and mathematicians think, and men who had worked on the Manhattan
Project created kitchen physics courses for the elementary schools.
Although there were efforts to involve teachers in the reform process, curriculum
reform was primarily topdown, focusing on the adoption of curriculum materials.
Such reforms ultimately produced little impact on classroom teaching, however:
Although the materials were often of high quality, being produced by teams of aca-
demics and psychologists, in the main they failed to have an impact on teaching.
The reason in hindsight is obvious; teachers were not included in the production
process and the in-service that accompanied the new curricula was often perfunc-
tory and rudimentary. Teachers simply took what they thought was of use from the
new materials and integrated it into their own teaching. The curriculum innovation,
however, was consequently subverted. (Reynolds, Teddlie, Hopkins, & Stringfield,
2000, p. 208)
The curriculum reform efforts of the early 1960s uncovered again a finding that was
available from the Eight-Year Study and that has been regularly repeated in SIR: Local
implementation of any educational reform is extremely important, perhaps more
important than the reform itself. As with medical and engineering innovations, educa-
tional reforms are finally evaluated not for their theoretical elegance but for their
ability to produce predictable, observable results in actual settings.
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Large-Scale School Change Studies of the
1970s and Early 1980s
Several large-scale, multi-site school change studies were conducted in the 1970s and
early 1980s. These examined the factors that facilitate or inhibit interventions in edu-
cational settings, including leadership roles and local contexts. The following section
briefly summarizes results from three of the most influential studies of that time. These
exemplary studies had long-term effects on U.S. research conducted in both SIR and
SER over the next 30 years, both substantively and methodologically.
Rand Change Agent Study
One well-known, large-scale study of the period was the Rand Change Agent Study
(e.g., Berman & McLaughlin, 1976), which was conducted from 1973 to 1978 and
focused on three stages of the change process: initiation, implementation, and incor-
poration. The study revealed the importance of local contexts in the implementation
process. McLaughlin (1990) concluded that the study demonstrated that the nature,
amount, and pace of change at the local level was a product of local factors that were
largely beyond the control of higher-level policymakers (p. 12).
Berman and McLaughlin (1976) stated that there were four implications of this
general observation: (1) policy cannot mandate what matters, (2) the level of imple-
mentation dominates outcomes, (3) local variability is the rule, and (4) uniformity is
the exception. Although policies may set directions and provide a framework for
change, they cannot determine outcomes. Implementation tends to predict gains in
student achievement.
Successful implementation of projects in the Rand Change Agent Study required
mutual adaptation of the reform and the local context (Berman & McLaughlin, 1976), a
finding repeated in both SIR and SER over the next 30 years. Principal support was
crucial. When teachers perceived that the principal liked a project and actively supported
it, the project fared well. Although the role of the external change agents was important,
the involvement of the principal was even more important to the projects success.
Follow-Through Classroom Observation Evaluation (FTCOE)
Stallings and Kaskowitz (1974) conducted the FTCOE, the first effort to rigorously
gather detailed classroom observational data in a large number of schools attempting
to implement diverse reforms. The authors made repeated observations in a range of
classes and schools attempting six very diverse, federally funded reform designs.
Unfortunately, funding for the development and dissemination of the designs was
being cut even as the study began, and hence observations were conducted at sites that
were attempting implementation even as the reforms were being designed. In most
instances, the result was a far from ideal implementation of the designs.
However, the study did demonstrate that classroom-level comparisons among
diverse designs were possible, and that the more fully developed and structured
designs tended to produce both more consistent implementation and somewhat greater
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student achievement. Additionally, variations of the Stallings time-on-task instru-
ments developed for the FTCOE have been used in numerous SER studies that also
include teacher-level measurements (e.g., Teddlie & Stringfield, 1993).
Dissemination Efforts Supporting School Improvement (DESSI)
The DESSI study was one of the largest, most ambitious studies of educational change
ever attempted in the United States (Crandall & Loucks, 1983). Data for DESSI were
gathered in 146 local sites spread over 10 states. The study was so methodologically
diverse and produced so many reports that it is difficult to summarize. However, two
particular additions to the SIR field came from DESSI:
Local accommodations (in conjunction with design teams) of externally devel-
oped school improvement designs are more likely to result in (1) classroom-level
implementation and (2) increases in achievement than are locally developed
school improvement efforts.
Teacher ownership of reforms is not an all-or-nothing concept in the early stages
of reform. Rather, ownership of the reform develops through months and years of
engagement as teachers work to implement it. Both in DESSI and the Rand study
previously described, the authors concluded that belief and commitment tended to
follow successful practice, rather than the other way around (for an insightful
discussion of this, see Nunnery, 1998).
The educational research community interpreted the results of these large-scale inter-
vention efforts as indicating that local conditions and actions were more important
than the characteristics of specific reform designs. When stated in the extreme, this
conclusion risks being an overstatement; however, it paved the way for interest in the
newly emerging field of SER.
School Effectiveness Research in the United States
Before the 1980s
The Coleman Report and its Effect on SER in the United States
The Coleman Report (Coleman et al., 1966) has been cited as providing the impetus for
the development of several areas of educational research, such as school performance
monitoring research (Kochan, in this volume) and teacher effectiveness research (TER)
(Brophy & Good, 1986; Schaffer, Delvin-Scherer, & Stringfield, in this volume). Using a
large, single-time panel of data, Coleman et al. (1966) concluded that differences in chil-
drens achievement were more strongly associated with family socioeconomic status
(SES) factors than with potentially malleable school-based resource variables. The
Coleman Report generated a great deal of public and professional interest, in part because
such a large study posed such a dramatic antithesis to the common wisdom of the United
States, and indeed, all modern democracies. Clearly, virtually all parents believe that
schools matter. After all, they not only send their children to school, but they often go to
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great lengths to get their children into the right schools. Politicians and policymakers
believe that schooling matters they often take the unpopular stance of increasing taxes
to pay for better schools. Coleman et al.s dramatic conclusion flew in the face of widely
held public opinion and the self-assured thesis of U.S. educators. It was not surprising that
Colemans highly publicized finding led educational researchers to actively engage in
developing two closely linked branches of SER in the United States:
Effective schools research. This research is concerned with the processes of effec-
tive schooling and, in its initial phases, involved the generation of case studies of
positive outlier schools that produced high achievement scores for students living in
poverty. Cumulative results from effective schools research have resulted in detailed
descriptions of effective school characteristics across a variety of contexts. The best-
known findings from SER come from these studies.
School effects research. This research involves the study of the scientific proper-
ties of school effects (e.g., the existence and magnitude of school effects, the
consistency and stability of school effects). The initial studies involved the esti-
mation of the impact of schooling on achievement through the regression-based
inputoutput studies in economics and sociology. This branch of SER has always
placed an emphasis on methodological issues, which has become a hallmark of
the tradition (e.g., Teddlie, Reynolds, & Sammons, 2000).
Effective schools research focuses on educational processes, while school effects
research focuses on educational products. The following two sections briefly discuss
developments before the 1980s in these two areas.
Effective Schools Studies: A Focus on Educational Processes
Effective schools research was initially conducted to dispute the results of the Coleman
Report by focusing on educational processes associated with unusually positive outcomes
in high-poverty contexts. Researchers conducted case studies of schools that were doing
exceptional jobs of educating students from very poor SES backgrounds and described
the ongoing processes in those schools. These studies also expanded the definition of the
outputs of schools to include other products, such as were measured by attitudinal and
behavioral indicators. Studies conducted during the 1970s in the effective schools tradi-
tion included Brookover, Beady, Flood, Schweitzer, and Wisenbaker (1979), Brookover
and Lezotte (1979), Edmonds (1979), Klitgaard and Hall (1974), Venezky and Winfield
(1979), and the first of the group, Weber (1971). There were numerous others.
Initial studies conducted during this period were focused in urban, low-SES elemen-
tary schools because researchers believed that success stories in these environments
would dispel the belief that schools made little or no difference. Weber (1971) con-
ducted the first reasonably rigorous, extensive case studies from the period. After a rig-
orous, national search for sites that included re-testing of students (to verify local claims
of effectiveness), Weber identified and studied four low-SES inner-city schools charac-
terized by high achievement at the third-grade level. His research emphasized the
importance of ongoing processes at schools, while Coleman et al. (1966) had focused
on static, archival, and/or self-reported school resource variables.
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The research of Edmonds and Brookover was especially instrumental in developing
a five-factor (or correlate) model that included the following:
strong instructional leadership from the principal,
a pervasive and broadly understood instructional focus,
a safe and orderly school learning environment (or climate),
high expectations for achievement from all students, and
the use of student achievement test data for evaluating program and school success.
School Effects Research: A Focus on Educational Products
School effects research (e.g., Coleman et al., 1966; Jencks et al., 1972) involved
economically driven inputoutput studies. These studies focused on inputs such as
school resource variables (e.g., per-pupil expenditures) and student background char-
acteristics (e.g., student SES) to predict school products or outcomes, which were
limited to student achievement on standardized tests.
The Coleman Report (1966) study concluded that schools bring little influence to
bear on a childs achievement that is independent of his background and general social
context (p. 325). Despite this general conclusion, a small percentage of the variance
in individual student achievement was uniquely accounted for by school factors. Daly
(1991) concluded that The Coleman et al. (1966) survey estimate of a figure of 9% of
variance in an achievement measure attributable to American schools has been some-
thing of a bench mark (p. 306).
Although there were efforts to refute the Coleman results and methodological flaws
were found in the report, the major findings are now widely accepted by the educational
research community, so long as data analyses are limited to single moment-in-time
analyses. In addition to the Coleman and Jencks studies, there were several other stud-
ies conducted during this time within a sociological framework known as the status-
attainment literature (e.g., Hauser, Sewell, & Alwin, 1976). For the most part, these
studies were consistent with those reported by Coleman. For careful reanalyses of the
Coleman et al. (1966) data sets using modern, multi-level analyses, see Borman and
Dowling (2003). The authors confirmed most of Colemans earlier conclusions, with the
major addition being that the negative effects of concentration of poverty were more
severe than Coleman had been able to detect using the statistical tools of the 1960s.
Several scholars began criticizing extant SER for having methodological flaws that
prevented it from actually measuring the existence and magnitude of school effects
properly. Such criticisms of the Coleman Report (e.g., Mosteller & Moynihan, 1972)
initiated a 40-year trend toward greater methodological sophistication as researchers
have attempted to better and more accurately model and measure school effects. During
this period of scrutiny and critique, three important issues and methodological advances
were introduced and the emergence of a fourth and fifth were presaged. These were:
(1) inclusion of more sensitive measures of classroom input (e.g., Murnane, 1975;
Summers & Wolfe, 1977),
(2) the development of social psychological scales to measure school processes
(e.g., Brookover et al., 1979),
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(3) the utilization of more sensitive outcome measures (e.g., Madaus, Kellaghan,
Rakow, & King, 1979),
(4) the issue of the unit of analysis in educational research (e.g., Burstein, 1980), and
(5) the ability to model multiple points of time and hence more accurately measure
change in achievement (and other variables) over time (Bryk & Raudenbush,
1992; Cronbach & Furby, 1970).
The inclusion of more sensitive measures of classroom input in SER involved the asso-
ciation of student-level data with the specific teachers who taught the students. This
methodological advance was important for two reasons: (1) it emphasized input from
the classroom (teacher) level in addition to the school level; and (2) it associated stu-
dent-level output variables with student-level input variables, rather than school-level
input variables. Results from Murnanes (1981) research led him to conclude that:
The primary resources that are consistently related to student achievement are
teachers and other students. Other resources affect student achievement primarily
through their impact on the attitudes and behaviors of teachers and students. (p. 33)
The second methodological advance concerned the development of social psycholog-
ical scales that could better measure ongoing educational processes. Several reviewers
(e.g., Averch, Carroll, Donaldson, Kiesling, & Pincus, 1971; Brookover et al., 1979)
concluded that these early studies of school effects did not include adequate measures
of school social psychological climate and other classroom/school process variables,
and that their exclusion contributed to the underestimation of school effects.
In their study of elementary schools in Michigan, Brookover et al. (1979) addressed
this criticism by using surveys designed to measure student, teacher, and principal
perceptions of school climate. Brookovers surveys included measures of:
student sense of academic futility or internal/external locus of control (e.g.,
Rotter, 1966);
academic self-concept or self-esteem (e.g., Rosenberg, 1965);
teacher expectations, which evolved from the concept of the self-fulfilling
prophecy in the classroom (e.g., Rosenthal & Jacobsen, 1968); and
school or organizational climate (e.g., McDill & Rigsby, 1973).
The third methodological advance concerned the utilization of more sensitive outcome
measures. Madaus et al. (1979) believed that the characteristics of standardized tests
make them less sensitive than curriculum-specific tests to the detection of differences
due to the quality of schools. These standardized tests cover material that the school
teaches more incidentally (Coleman et al., 1966, p. 294). Madaus et al. (1979)
believed that Conclusions about the direct instructional effects of schools should not
have to rely on evidence relating to skills taught incidentally (p. 209). Madaus and his
colleagues demonstrated that curriculum-specific tests were better measures of school
and classroom effects than were standardized tests.
Fourth, Burstein (1980) presaged the development of multilevel models in SER by
discussing the unit of analysis issue in educational research. These methodological
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advances were later incorporated into the more sophisticated SER of both the United
States and of other countries in the 1990s.
Finally, and related to the fourth item, the use of multi-level modeling to incorporate
the dimension of time allowed for much more accurate analysis of achievement gains.
As one example of the power potentially added to studies, Bryk and Raudenbush
(1992) reported a reanalysis of math achievement data from project Follow-Through.
This data set included fall and spring testing on a cohort of students over three con-
secutive years (e.g., six longitudinal data points). The authors reported that 80% of the
variance in student-level slopes was attributable to differences between schools. This
contrasts dramatically with the 515% reported in point-in-time analyses. Under No
Child Left Behind, all schools and school districts are required to test all children annu-
ally in Grades 38, and many districts test in additional grades. This is creating an
unprecedented, largely untapped series of large-scale opportunities to more accurately
estimate the effects of schools on students in various areas.
A Period of High Influence: School Effectiveness
Research, 19801995
The Emergence of School Effectiveness Research
SER emerged in the late 1970s and 1980s as a major area of research in education in
the United States. Coleman and Jencks analyses had been widely interpreted as indi-
cating that schools make no difference. This stark statement was replaced by the
reassertion of a widespread American belief that schools affect childrens development
and that there are observable regularities in the ways in which some schools do that
more effectively than others.
Much of the evidence for these conclusions came from the work of Edmonds (1979)
and Brookover et al. (1979). Cawelti (2003) recently declared Edmonds research to be
one of the 11 studies that has had the greatest impact on education over the past 50 years.
The influence of Edmonds effective schools research was due in a large degree to its
replicability: Several investigators replicated the research by using these findings, and
the study influenced thousands of educators working in schools in which students from
low-income families tended to achieve less well than others (Cawelti, 2003, p. 19).
Edmonds writings emphasized the equity ideal (see Sackney, in this volume) in
that he and his colleagues advocated for better schools for students from disadvan-
taged groups. Edmonds and his colleagues were no longer interested in just describ-
ing effective schools: They also wished to create effective schools, especially for the
urban poor.
Merged Traditions: The Impact of Effective Schools Research on SIR
SER had a large impact on SIR during the 1980s as the first school change studies
based on effective schools research began to emerge.
1
For the most part, these early
studies were based on models that utilized the effective schools correlates generated
from the correlational and positive outlier studies described above.
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School change agents took Edmonds five correlates and translated them into improve-
ment models in large urban districts such as New York (Clark & McCarthy, 1983) and
Milwaukee (McCormack-Larkin, 1985). Edmonds was instrumental in developing the
New York City School Improvement Project, which had three components: school-based
planning, a school liaison role, and a focus on the school effectiveness correlates. Similarly,
Milwaukees Project RISE utilized six factors that the researchers considered to be crucial
components of effective schooling.
Brookover et al. (1982) developed an in-service program for school improvement
based on effective schools research and other related research. His model brought in
research from multiple areas, including TER and cooperative learning, including such
specific strategies as:
grouping students for instruction,
effective teaching,
classroom management,
cooperative learning,
principles of reinforcement, and
parental involvement.
This 11-module program (and variants thereof) became the foundation for many
research-based school improvement projects throughout the United States in the 1980s
and CSR programs today.
Taylor (1990) presented a dozen case studies of local schools and school districts
that had implemented improvement programs based on effective schools research,
including projects in Maryland (Murphy & Wyant, 1990), California (Chrispeels &
Beall, 1990), and New York (Sudlow, 1990). Lezotte (1990) summarized several
lessons learned from these case studies, including the following: (1) planning and
implementing programs of school improvement does not follow a simple, linear recipe
or formula; (2) school improvement is a complex and ongoing process that requires
patience and persistence; and (3) teacher improvement can work if the mission is clear
and if time and other resources are available to support school-based planning and
training processes.
The impact of the effective schools research model for school improvement during
the 1980s and early 1990s was demonstrated with the reauthorization of the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1988. This legislation specifically mandated
the use of the effective schools correlates in improvement programs funded with ESEA
Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 funds (General Accounting Office, 1989). This was the high-
water mark for the influence of SER in the United States.
Major Findings from SER Conducted in the
United States, 19801995
SER in the United States enjoyed great popularity and generated substantial research
(if of uneven quality) from 1980 to 1995, so it is difficult to narrow our review to a few
major themes that characterize the era. For additional analysis, we refer the reader to
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other valuable reviews of this period, including Good and Brophy (1986), Levine and
Lezotte (1990), and Stringfield and Herman (1996). We have selected five major
themes to present in this section based on (1) their inclusion in almost every review of
American SER over the past two decades, and (2) our belief that they continue to be
fruitful areas for further research.
From Correlates to Characteristics to Processes
The original five correlates of effective schooling were very influential in the history
of SER, but as more research began to accumulate, it became apparent that some
expansion and generalization of the correlates was required. For example, the original
correlates did not include parental participation or refer to any of the best teaching
practices that had emerged from TER.
Levine and Lezotte (1990) presented an extensive review of the effective schools
literature in the United States from the 1970s and 1980s; this work generated nine char-
acteristics of effective schooling. Sammons, Hillman, and Mortimore (1995) reviewed
the SER literature in the United Kingdom 5 years later and derived 11 factors that over-
lapped considerably with Levine and Lezottes list.
Reynolds and Teddlie (2000b) then compared the two lists and derived nine overall
processes of effective schooling that encapsulated all of the characteristics generated
by the previous lists. The similarity between the Sammons et al. (1995) and Levine and
Lezotte lists is striking, especially given that there was only a 4% overlap between the
two in terms of source materials. The Reynolds and Teddlie (2000b) list of processes is
presented in Table 1.
We believe that reproducing this list despite the fact that several similar lists have
been presented over the past 15 years serves four key purposes:
(1) It graphically represents how the five original correlates have expanded into
nine processes of effective schooling.
(2) It shows how the nine processes are much more complex than the original
correlates (e.g., refer to the column with the subcomponents of the processes).
This is partially a function of expansion from 1980 to 1995 of the SER research
base to include schools from different contexts with different effective school
characteristics.
(3) It shows how relevant research from other areas has been incorporated in
updated lists of effective schooling characteristics like ongoing professional
development (e.g., Pink, 1990). For example, Schaffer and his colleagues (in
this volume) concluded that five of the nine processes in Table 1 directly involve
processes that emerged from TER.
(4) Because all of these processes of effective schools are based on SER or research
in related fields, the table demonstrates the magnitude of the knowledge base
associated with the field (e.g., Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000, who made use of over
1,400 references).
Results from the effective schools research summarized in Table 1 have been used,
both implicitly and explicitly, in the formulation of nationally and locally developed
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CSR programs. Many locally developed programs which are mandated to be research-
tested, research-based, and comprehensive, but often are not use the well-publicized
effective schools model.
Magnitude of School Effects and Other Scientific Properties
Several investigators in the United States conducted studies concerning the magnitude
of school effects, as well as other scientific properties of those effects, during this time
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Table 1. The processes of effective schools
Original correlate Effective schools process Sub-components of the process
1. Strong principal leadership 1. The processes of effective a. Being firm and purposeful
leadership b. Involving others in the process
c. Exhibiting instructional
leadership
d. Frequent, personal monitoring
e. Selecting and replacing staff
2. Pervasive and broadly 2. Developing and maintaining a. Focusing on academics
understood instructional a pervasive focus on learning b. Maximizing school learning
focus time
3. Safe and orderly school 3. Producing a positive a. Creating a shared vision
climate school culture b. Creating an orderly
environment
c. Emphasizing positive
reinforcement
4. High expectations for 4. Creating high (and appropriate) a. For students
student achievement expectations for all b. For staff
5. Student achievement data 5. Monitoring progress at a. At the school level
used for evaluating program all levels b. At the classroom level
success c. At the student level
6. The processes of effective a. Maximizing classtime
teaching b. Successful grouping and
organization
c. Exhibiting best teaching
practices
d. Adapting practice to particulars
of classroom
7. Involving parents in productive a. Buffering negative influences
and appropriate ways b. Encouraging productive
interactions with parents
8. Developing staff skills at a. Site based
the school site b. Integrated with ongoing
professional development
9. Emphasizing student a. Responsibilities
responsibilities and rights b. Rights
Note. These processes of effective schooling were adapted from Reynolds and Teddlie (2000b, p. 144). This
list was developed by extracting the common elements from two other reviews: (a) Levine and Lezotte (1990),
and (b) Sammons et al. (1995). The five original correlates were taken from a publication of the General
Accounting Office (1989).
period. Following the lead of Aitkin and Longford (1986) from the United Kingdom,
statisticians and researchers in the United States began developing multilevel mathe-
matical models and computer programs that could more accurately assess the effects
of all the units of analysis associated with schooling. Scholars from the United States
(e.g., Burstein, 1980) were among the first to identify the issue of levels of aggrega-
tion/analysis as critical for educational research.
One of the first multilevel modeling computer programs was also developed in the
United States (Bryk, Raudenbush, & Congdon, 1986) at about the same time as simi-
lar programs were developed in the United Kingdom. U.S. researchers continued to
contribute to the further refinement of multilevel modeling and its application to SER
(e.g., Bryk & Raudenbush, 1987, 1992; Lee & Bryk, 1989; Mandeville & Kennedy,
1991; Raudenbush, 1989; Witte & Walsh, 1990).
Several reviews of the literature associated with the size of school effects were in
basic agreement by the end of the 1990s on four points (e.g., Bosker & Witziers, 1996;
Scheerens & Bosker, 1997; Teddlie et al., 2000):
The size of school effects was estimated at between 8 and 16% of the variance in
student achievement, depending on a number of factors such as grade level of
schooling and the country in which the study occurred.
The magnitude of school effects appears to be somewhat higher in studies
conducted in the United States than in Europe (e.g., Bosker & Witziers, 1996).
Importantly, the magnitude of school effects appears to be larger in longitudinal
studies as opposed to cross-sectional studies (e.g., Raudenbush, 1989).
The magnitude of teacher effects is larger than that of school effects when both are
entered into multilevel models (e.g., Scheerens & Bosker, 1997; Teddlie et al., 2000).
An understudied but occasionally reported area concerns the subject specificity of
school effects. The above-referenced Bryk and Raudenbush (1992) report showed that,
given six data points, 80% of differences in student slopes on mathematics achieve-
ment was attributable to school-level differences. The teacher-effects field has made
much more conscious use of the issue of subject specificity. Brophy and Good (1986),
for example, observed that content areas widely discussed or informally taught at
home and in the community (e.g., vocabulary, grammar) are much less likely to have
strong, school-specific effects than subjects rarely discussed (e.g., foreign languages,
geometric proofs). Logically, a U.S. elementary school that allocates funds to hiring a
Japanese language teacher will produce at least 90100% more gain in Japanese flu-
ency than one that does not. This is a school-level policy issue that returns directly to
issues of what is measured, how, and why.
Other scientific properties or foundational issues
2
were also identified, including
seven listed in Table 2.
US researchers made contributions to the study of all these properties of school
effects throughout the 1980s and 1990s, especially in the area of context effects and the
consistency and stability of school effects (e.g., Crone, Lang, Franklin, & Halbrook,
1994; Crone, Lang, Teddlie, & Franklin, 1995). Although further discussion of these sci-
entific properties is beyond the scope of this chapter, we will address here the relevance
of context effects to the effective schools research base.
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The Importance of Context Effects
School context effects were, in general, ignored during the first years of effective
schools research in the United States, partly because school improvers and researchers
like Edmonds were more driven by issues of equity. This orientation toward equity
generated samples of schools that only came from low-SES areas, not from a wider,
more diverse array of SES contexts. Further, the schools in these early studies were
much more likely to be elementary schools located in urban areas. This sampling bias
attracted much of the criticism of SER in the mid-to-late 1980s.
3
As Wimpelberg,
Teddlie, and Stringfield (1989) noted:
Context was elevated as a critical issue because the conclusions about the nature,
behavior, and internal characteristics of the effective (urban elementary) schools
either did not fit the intuitive understanding that people had about other schools
or were not replicated in the findings of research on secondary and higher SES
schools. (p. 85)
A more methodologically sophisticated era of SER began with the first context studies
(e.g., Evans & Teddlie, 1995; Hallinger & Murphy, 1986; Teddlie & Stringfield, 1985,
1993; Teddlie, Virgilio, & Oescher, 1990), which explored the factors that were pro-
ducing greater effectiveness in middle-class schools, suburban schools, and secondary
schools. These studies explicitly explored the differences in school effects that occur
across different school contexts, instead of focusing upon one particular context.
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Table 2. Scientific properties (foundational issues) of school effects
Scientific property of school effects Questions posed by the SER issue
Existence of school effects What are school effects (i.e., are we measuring what we
intended to measure)? Did something actually occur as
a result of schooling?
Magnitude of school effects How large are school effects? (With student or school
as unit of analysis.)
Context effects (between schools) Are effect sizes consistent across schools that vary by
SES of students, governance structures, phases of
schooling, or country?
Consistency of school effectiveness Do we have consistent multiple measures of school
indices at one point in time effectiveness (e.g., across achievement, behaviors,
attitudes)?
Stability of school effectiveness indices 1. Are our measures reliable across time?
Across time (school as unit of analysis) 2. Do schools stay consistently effective (or ineffective)
across time?
Differential effects (within schools) Are schools differentially effective for groups of
students within schools? Are school effects generalizable
within schools? Are schools differentially effective
across subject areas?
Continuity of school effects (student as Do school effects at earlier phases of schooling for
unit of analysis) students persist into later phases?
Note. SES socioeconomic status. This table was adapted from Teddlie et al. (2000, p. 56).
Context factors in this SER included (1) SES of students attending the schools, (2) the
community type being served by the schools (e.g., urban, rural, suburban), (3) the
grade phases of schooling, and (4) the governance structure of the schools.
For example, studies examined the differences in effective schooling practices at
sites serving students with very different SES backgrounds (e.g., Hallinger & Murphy,
1986; Teddlie & Stringfield, 1985, 1993). They found differences between the lower
SES and higher SES schools in terms of curriculum, student expectations, principal
leadership style, and parental involvement. Differentiated recommendations for school
improvement models based on this context-sensitive SER appeared in the literature in
the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Interestingly, this emphasis on local school context factors from the SER literature
of this period echoed results from the school change studies conducted during the
1970s, although the researchers were asking very different questions and using very
different methodologies.
The Importance of Leadership
A hallmark of American SER concerns its attention to leadership issues, typically in
terms of the role of the principal. There are five sub-components of the processes of
effective leadership listed in Table 1: (1) being firm and purposeful, (2) involving
others in the process, (3) exhibiting instructional leadership, (4) frequent, personal
monitoring, and (5) selecting and replacing staff. Each of these sub-components is
based on a voluminous literature that has been reviewed comprehensively elsewhere
(Levine & Lezotte, 1990; Murphy, 1990; Reynolds & Teddlie, 2000b).
We will briefly focus on one sub-component of the processes of effective leadership
noted in Table 1: involving others in the process. This sub-component provides a good
example of how the processes of effective schools continue to generate researchable
topics that are continually relevant. One such area of ongoing research addresses
the role of the teacher in the leadership of schools.
Murphy (in this volume) identified numerous sources in the literature related to the
role of teachers in school leadership, including several from the 1985 to 1995 period
(e.g., Chrispeels, 1992; Darling-Hammond, 1988; Little, 1995; Smylie & Brownlee-
Conyers, 1992). Several of these sources emerged from writings on shared decision-
making within the school restructuring literature, which detailed barriers to teacher
leadership. These barriers include several norms commonly existing in school cultures
that work against teacher leadership, including the norms of autonomy, equality,
cordiality, privacy, and the divide between teaching and administration. An area for
further research includes the study of schools in which these barriers have been
surmounted.
The Addition of Teacher Effectiveness Variables to SER
Research described earlier in this chapter pointed to the importance of the teacher or
classroom as a unit of analysis in properly executed studies of schooling (e.g., Murnane,
1975; Stallings & Kaskowitz, 1974; Summers &Wolfe, 1977). Starting in the 1980s,
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SER-oriented researchers in the United States began explicitly including classroom obser-
vations in their research (e.g., Stringfield, Teddlie, & Suarez, 1985; Teddlie, Kirby, &
Stringfield, 1989). School effectiveness researchers borrowed these variables and the
instruments to measure them from TER. For example, Teddlie, Stringfield, and their
colleagues used the Stallings Observation System (Stallings & Kaskowitz, 1974) and an
instrument composed of variables gleaned from the Rosenshine (1983) review of TER
in their research.
These studies of TER variables within the context of SER revealed consistent mean
and standard deviation differences in classroom teaching between schools classified
as effective or ineffective in several studies (e.g., Crone & Teddlie, 1995; Teddlie &
Stringfield, 1993; Virgilio, Teddlie, & Oescher, 1991). For example, results from Teddlie
et al. (1989) indicated that teachers in effective schools were more successful in keeping
students on task, spent more time presenting new material, provided more independent
practice, demonstrated higher expectations for students, and so forth, than did their peers
in matched ineffective schools.
In addition to these mean differences in teaching behaviors between effective/
ineffective schools, differences in patterns of variation were also found: The standard
deviations reported for teaching behavior were smaller in more effective schools. This
result indicates that there are processes occurring at more effective schools (e.g.,
informed selection of new teachers, effective socialization processes) that result in
more homogeneous behavior among teachers and the elimination of less effective
teacher behaviors. In particular, more effective schools included fewer classes that
featured highly ineffective teaching.
The addition of classroom observation variables from TER contributed to the grow-
ing sophistication of case study research in SER. Prior SER studies already included
detailed measures of the social psychological climates of schools at multiple levels, as
derived from the Brookover et al. (1979) research and other sources (e.g., Rosenholtz,
1989). By the end of the 1980s, school effectiveness researchers had a wide battery of
scales and instruments that could generate increasingly complex mixed-methods
studies of schools and their classrooms based on data collected during school site vis-
its. As noted by Kochan (in this volume), these mixed-methods site visit SER protocols
were later adapted for use in technical assistance programs associated with state
accountability systems.
The Decline of the SER Activity in the United States
SER activity has declined in the United States since the mid-1990s. One of the reasons
for the decline in activity was SERs apparent success. By the mid-1990s, the basic
questions that initially drove the movement had been answered. These included: Do
school effects exist? If they do, what is their magnitude? What are the characteristics
of unusually effective schools? Do these characteristics of effective schools differ for
different types of schools? As these fundamental questions were addressed, the area of
study then evolved into subsets of those questions, several of which simply were not as
engaging to many researchers.
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Scathing criticisms of effective schools research also led educational researchers to
steer away from SER; fewer students chose the area for dissertation research after the
mid-1980s (e.g., Cuban, 1993). It should be noted that, despite criticisms, some
academic institutions have continued to generate extensive SER.
Several researchers who had been interested in studying SER during the 1980s
moved in the 1990s toward more applied areas such as school restructuring and school
accountability. Indeed, much of the energy previously associated with the SER
movement was re-channeled into the school restructuring movement.
Another factor that may have contributed to the marginalization of SER in the
United States was the increasing internationalization of the field. Although the field
was dominated by researchers from the United States and the United Kingdom through
the 1980s, numerous countries in Europe and throughout the world got more involved
in the 1990s (e.g., Creemers & Scheerens, 1989; Sackney, 1991; Scheerens & Bosker,
1997; Townsend, Clarke, & Ainscow, 1999). The internationalization of SER diverted
attention away from the United States toward other countries in which the field was
still new and dynamic.
The Relationship between SER and SIR in the United States
After the late 1980s, U.S. SER and SIR increasingly diverged, although some researchers
continued to work in both areas. Out of these divergent fields, two classes of researchers
eventually emerged: (1) a small number of SER researchers who were interested in the
scientific merit of their work and in designing more rigorous studies within the various
subfields that were emerging in SER; and (2) a much larger number of SIR researchers
who were interested in actually changing schools through progressive waves of school
reform.
This split occurred in other countries, including the United Kingdom, where an
intellectually stimulating debate among those advocating for SER or SIR or the link-
ing of the two has been ongoing since the 1990s (e.g., Reynolds et al., 1993; Sackney,
in this volume; Stoll and Sammons, in this volume). Such an intense dialog never
developed in the United States, perhaps because the ideological lines between SER
and SIR were never as well-delineated as they were abroad.
Trends in School Improvement Research in the
United States since 1990
The school restructuring era in the United States began in the late 1980s and early
1990s with the publication of several important articles and books (e.g., Chrispeels,
1992; Elmore, 1991; Lewis, 1989; Murphy, 1991). The school restructuring era even-
tually gave way to CSR, which swept the United States following the passage of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Title I amendments of the late
1990s. The era of school improvement associated with school restructuring is thus
restricted primarily to the 1990s.
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The Restructuring Movement
The primary messages associated with the school restructuring era were (1) that previ-
ous school improvement efforts had been too limited in nature, and (2) that true
educational reform required the restructuring of the basic organization of schools. The
restructuring movement also marked a change in orientation from equity to efficiency
regardless of equity concerns and a focus on the importance of the nations economy
in school improvement research. That is, reformers emphasis was no longer aimed at
schools serving the disadvantaged, but instead was oriented toward creating schools
that would generate a competent workforce for a competitive global economy (e.g.,
Bickel, 1998). The publication of A Nation at Risk (National Commission on
Excellence in Education, 1983) and A Nation Prepared (Carnegie Forum on Education
and the Economy, 1986) provided much of the impetus for this growing economic
orientation in school improvement.
School restructuring refers to school improvement efforts that are based on a wide
range of changes in the organizational structure of schools, including the empowering
of teachers and parents. Numerous interventions have been associated with restructur-
ing, (e.g., Chrispeels, 1992; Louis & Smith, 1991; Murphy & Beck, 1995; Newmann &
Wehlage, 1995), including:
site-based management (SBM; i.e., basic changes in the organization of school
systems and schools, such that control is decentralized to the local school),
changes in the structure of teaching (e.g., interdisciplinary team teaching),
greater parental involvement in schools,
transformational leadership (e.g., Leithwood, 1992),
more flexible scheduling, and
more sensitive measures of accountability (e.g., portfolio assessment).
This school change movement enjoyed great popularity in the United States, especially
in the early and mid-1990s, when most large school districts declared themselves to be
involved in some form of restructuring (e.g., Dade County, Florida; Chicago; San
Diego; New York City). The popularity of the movement and the multiple operational
definitions of the interventions, however, caused difficulties in measuring the actual
impact of school restructuring. Although there was some evidence of successful school
restructuring in individual schools (e.g., Newmann & Wehlage, 1995), many reviewers
have been disappointed with the overall research evidence for a variety of reasons:
The interventions were often too scattershot in nature, making it difficult for
researchers to determine which intervention (e.g., SBM) caused which effect in
restructured schools (e.g., Murphy & Beck, 1995).
There was evidence that the interventions implemented in restructuring projects
often did not actually deliver the key components of the proposed reform (e.g.,
Fullan, 1993).
Fullan (1993) concluded that the reforms from restructuring efforts often did not
penetrate the learning core of the schools and classrooms (e.g., Taylor &
Teddlie, 1992; Weiss, 1992).
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Although the research evidence for restructuring schools may be inconclusive, there is
no doubt that the theoretical and political work associated with restructuring has had an
enduring impact in the United States. For instance school improvement teams (e.g.,
school councils) are now nearly omnipresent throughout the United States; such teams
possess the requisite teacher and parent representation and are theoretically empowered
to run the schools.
Comprehensive School Reform
The 1990s also witnessed the emergence of whole school reform (WSR), special
strategies for school reform, and CSR, which is now the most commonly used term for
improvement efforts that engage the entire school. The federally funded Title I
program, which is earmarked for schools that serve the economically disadvantaged,
has played a major role in the evolution of CSR as the primary vehicle for SIR in the
United States today. CSRs rise occurred as follows:
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 created the initial Title I
program, which for the first time used federal funds to decrease funding dispari-
ties between schools serving affluent and economically disadvantaged communi-
ties (e.g., Borman & DAgostino, 1996).
Following several well-documented cases of local misuse of Title I funds,
Congress mandated that these funds be used to supplement, not supplant, state
and local funding. In efforts to keep federal monies clearly separate from local
funds, districts adopted policies of removing students from class for part of the day
to receive special Title I services in small groups. These pull-out programs, as
they came to be called, were subsequently criticized for stigmatizing low-achieving
students and being ineffective.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, ESEA rules were changed to allow districts to
implement schoolwide programs, which permitted federal funds to be used for all
the students in schools that served large percentages of economically disadvan-
taged students (e.g., Wong & Meyer, 1998).
Several CSR designs (e.g., Accelerated Schools, Success for All, New American
Schools) were developed during the late 1980s and early 1990s (e.g., Slavin,
Madden, Karweit, Livermon, & Dolan, 1990; Stringfield, Ross, & Smith, 1996).
The passage of the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD)
amendments to the federal Title I legislation (also known as the Obey-Porter
Amendments) provided additional federal funding to districts, particularly those
with Title I schools, to implement CSR models.
The 1998 Obey-Porter Amendments were an example of legislation and funding at least
partly following research. Stringfield, Millsap, and Herman (1997) had recently com-
pleted a study of 10 promising programs. Their Special Strategies Studies owed much
methodologically to the large-scale school change studies of the 1970s (e.g., Crandall &
Loucks, 1982; Stallings & Kaskowitz, 1974), in that they followed a variety of schools
attempting to implement reforms. However, two major differences represented in the
Special Strategies studies were that (1) the reforms were relatively well-developed prior
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Please pro-
vide com-
plete details
of reference
Crandall &
Loucks,
1982 in the
ref. list
to data gathering, and (2) the sites chosen for the study were nominated as being rela-
tively strong implementations of their respective reforms.
Findings from Special Strategies replicated prior research in highlighting the impor-
tance of site-level leadership and high-quality professional development. The authors
further concluded that:
Whole-school change efforts were more likely to be effective than pull-out or
otherwise targeted programs.
Early elementary reforms tended to produce greater measured change than
reforms focused on later grades.
Externally developed designs were both more likely to obtain coherent imple-
mentation and to produce measurable positive results, thereby replicating the
results from DESSI (Stringfield et al., 1997).
Building on the various studies of promising reforms of the past 20 years, Borman, Hewes,
Overman, and Brown (2003) conducted a large-scale meta-analysis of the effects of spe-
cific CSR designs. The authors identified three CSRs that could be described as having
reasonably solid supporting evidence of effects on student outcomes. We believe that fur-
ther studies will make similarly strong cases for other, research-based reform designs.
Major Themes Regarding SIR in the United States
Several themes run through the cumulative history of school improvement research in
the United States. These may be summarized as follows:
(1) Although stability in both processes and outcomes tend to be the rule, meaning-
ful improvement is possible. Long-term National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP) analyses clearly demonstrate the national-level stability of edu-
cational outcomes in the United States (e.g., Campbell, Hombo, & Mazzeo,
2000), yet every major study of educational change that we have examined in this
chapter found positive if often limited examples of improvement. Clearly,
individual schools can and do improve measurably. Equally clearly, however, the
national norm has tended to preserve the status quo, and a reasonable assumption
would be that roughly as many schools have been declining as improving.
(2) The importance of a clearly defined intervention or set of interventions.
Consistently, researchers have found that vague philosophical goals, however
laudable in the abstract, tend to vanish in the crucible of the classroom. One
advantage of some externally developed reform designs is that the developers
often have had decades of experience honing the particulars of their intervention.
(3) The importance of the local context. Teachers, schools, school districts, and
states in the United States vary tremendously. Just as there is no one right
engine for all trucks, buses, cars, and motorcycles, there is no single right
reform for all schools. Material resources, human capacities, prior experiences
with change, and belief systems all vary across schools, and within schools, over
time. In study after study, context matters. (This theme is similar to the impor-
tance of context in SER.)
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(4) The co-constructed nature of the reality of the interventions (by school staff and
school improvement teams). Datnow, Hubbard, and Mehan (2002) examined a
range of school improvement efforts and found that the most successful involved
local teachers and administrators in adapting external research and development
efforts so that they would work well in the local context.
(5) The importance of strong, focused leadership at the school site. Whether the
studies have been of school effects, promising programs, or school restructur-
ing, a nearly universal finding in change efforts in the United States has been the
need for strong, academically focused principal leadership. (This theme is
similar to the SER process named the Processes of Effective Leadership.)
(6) The importance of ongoing teacher support. Students dont learn at the knee of
the principal or the reform designer but in classrooms under the direct tutelage
of teachers. If teachers are provided with ongoing professional development on
topics relevant to the intersection of the reforms goals and teachers areas of
needed growth, teachers are likely to grow.
(7) The need to focus on processes as well as outcomes when assessing the success
of the program.
Future Directions for SIR in the United States
There are a number of interesting directions in SIR in the United States at this time,
including:
CSRs continue to be popular mechanisms for school reform in the United States.
The research literatures and databases associated with some of these reforms
(e.g., Success for All, Slavin & Madden, 2006) are extensive. New research-based
strategies continue to develop, including the High Reliability Schools project
(Reynolds, Stringfield, & Schaffer, 2006), which was developed in the United
States and implemented in the United Kingdom.
Standards-based reform (e.g., Fuhrman, 2001; McLaughlin & Shepard, 1995)
will continue to be a major force in school improvement in the United States in the
foreseeable future. Reforms generated to meet the dictates of state or district
accountability systems have been around for some time, but many of these pro-
grams are now aligned with what Kochan (in this volume) has described as the
United States over-arching accountability program: No Child Left Behind
(NCLB). NCLBs impact on local school improvers to meet adequate yearly
progress (AYP) goals will likely intensify over the next several years.
As noted in two chapters in this volume, there is an increasing emphasis on sys-
temic change in SIR in the United States. Chrispeels, Andrews, and Gonzalez
focused on case study research conducted in California that examined systemic
supports (including university and district) for teacher learning and school
improvement. Lasky, Datnow, Stringfield, and Sundell analyzed the research base
on school reform and diverse populations within a framework that emphasizes
key linkages across several domains of the educational system. This emphasis on
school reform across multiple levels of schooling reflects recent theoretical work
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(e.g., Chrispeels & Gonzales, 2006; Senge et al., 2000) as well as the pressures of
NCLB at the federal level and standards-based reform at the state and district
levels. Beyond this volume, Stringfield and Yakimowski-Srebnick (2005) pro-
vided clear evidence of the ability of a large, high-poverty urban system to make
five- to seven-year gains on such important measures as student achievement and
high school graduation rates.
Interest is ongoing in the appropriate balance between standardized school improve-
ment practices on the one hand and local diversity or context on the other. This issue
emerged from the educational change studies of the 1970s (e.g., the Rand School
Change Study, DESSI) and has continued through the most recent literature
(e.g., Chrispeels & Harris, 2006). For example, Gallucci, Knapp, Markholt, and Ort
(2006) recently examined the interplay of two reform theories (one associated with
standards-based reform and the other with small schools of choice) in three New
York City schools and found that the two theories coexisted well in that setting.
Murphys (in this volume) presentation of the teacher leadership research in the
United States indicated that this should continue to be a promising area of SIR,
especially with regard to examining the conditions that lead to the breakdown of
barriers to shared leadership.
Lasky et al. (in this volume) presented a strong case for more research into the
impact of school reform efforts in racially and linguistically diverse settings. This
type of reform is complex, requiring a coordinated effort across multiple levels of
levels of the system. (There is a corollary line of research in SER known as
differential effects.)
A growing body of contemporary SIR is explicitly based on the processes of
effective schools from SER, thereby demonstrating the continued relevance of
that literature. Many locally developed CSR programs utilize the effective
schools model. Additionally, Marzano (2003, and in this volume) developed an
11-component program for school improvement based to a large degree on the
SER (and TER) that has been presented throughout this chapter. Similarly,
Chrispeels and Gonzales (2006) recently developed an Effective Schools district
reform model based on the processes of school effectiveness presented in
Table 1. It appears that the effective schools literature will have an ongoing effect
on SIR for the foreseeable future.
Contemporary and Future Trends in SER in the
United States
Several authors have speculated recently about the future of SER as an international
field of study (e.g., Mortimore, 2001; Reynolds & Teddlie, 2000a; Rutter & Maughan,
2002). The last section of this chapter looks at contemporary and future trends in SER
in the United States. A few contextual differences make SER in the United States
somewhat different from international SER, but the overall similarity between the
two is quite high. This is in part due to the numerous interactions and joint projects
among researchers from many countries over the past 1520 years, and in part due to
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the internationalization of the SE/SI conversation through the International Congress
for School Effectiveness and Improvement and the journal School Effectiveness and
School Improvement.
On the one hand, SER is a very successful area of research both in the United States
and internationally. In fact, the processes or correlates of effective schooling have
become so widely accepted that school reformers rarely cite the studies whose find-
ings shape many of their projects components. SER has become part of the furniture
of school reform.
The major legacy of this field of study in the United States has been the generation
of a knowledge base derived from a long and very substantial literature in school
effectiveness research (Wetherill & Applefield, 2005, p. 198). The uniqueness of this
knowledge base was described by Bickel (1998) in the third edition of the Handbook
of School Psychology, in which he commented on the continued relevance of effective
schools research to school restructuring and school reform in general:
As observed, the effective schools work rests on an explicit empirical base .
The school restructuring reformers have little evidence and few working models
of what the future portends. Perhaps the answer lies in the words of Tyack and
Cuban (1995): Rather than starting from scratch in reinventing schools, it
makes most sense to graft thoughtful reforms onto what is healthy in the present
system (p. 133). If this is so, one of the healthy elements in the current system
is the knowledge base provided by the research on effective schools. (Bickel,
1998, pp. 980981)
On the other hand, SER activity has declined in the United States
4
over the past decade
for a variety of reasons. Although some researchers may have left SER due to their
attraction to school reform efforts or the continued criticism of the field,
5
others have
persevered by following up on lines of research associated with sub-fields within
the area. In order for the field to become revitalized in the United States, school effec-
tiveness researchers need to generate more activity in three general areas associated
with the two branches of SER described earlier in this chapter:
Using longitudinal modeling of increasingly rich databases to better estimate the
sizes of teacher and school effects in diverse contexts.
Continued exploration of the processes associated with effectiveness in schooling
(effective schools research).
Continued exploration of the scientific or foundational properties of school
effects (school effects research).
The remainder of this section examines recent research and future trends in these
general areas and their various sub-areas.
(1) Using longitudinal modeling of increasingly rich databases to better estimate
the sizes of teacher and school effects in diverse contexts. As noted earlier in
this chapter, one positive effect of the federal NCLB legislation has been the
requirement of near-universal testing of students in Grades 38, with many
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districts testing in earlier and later grades. Combined with progress in multi-level
modeling and the continued decline in the cost of computing, this is resulting in
significantly underused opportunities to estimate teacher-, school-, and district-
level effects in as many wide-ranging topic areas as diverse states choose to
measure.
(2) Continued exploration of the processes associated with effectiveness in school-
ing (effective schools research). There are nine processes and 25 sub-
components of effective schooling listed in Table 1, each of which has a
research base that could be further described and delineated.
In order to more fully understand the direction for further research into these
processes, the traditional distinction between effective schools research and school
improvement research in the United States should be more fully examined:
Effective schools research is concerned with identifying the ongoing
processes of effective schooling at sites located in the natural environment,
whose outcomes are exemplary compared to similar schools.
School improvement research is concerned with the processes and outcomes
associated with deliberate efforts to improve one or more processes and out-
comes in specific schools.
This distinction was sharper 30 years ago. Various school reforms in the United
States since then have resulted in a situation in which almost all schools in the
country serving at-risk students are undergoing some kind of school improve-
ment program; over time, these schools typically undertake multiple reforms.
Effective schools research as it was conducted in the United States 2530 years
ago would be very hard to conduct now because a similar sample of schools
(low-SES schools with exemplary performance in a natural environment with
no external reform) simply may not exist.
There are, however, at least three ways to continue research into the
processes of effective schooling in the United States. First, we could consider
the distinction between effective schools and school improvement research to
be outdated and search for evidence of effective and improving schools,
regardless of the existence of school improvement programs. This type of
research could be renamed effective and improving school processes. Rich
(2004) recently performed this type of research in a case study of a school that
was improving after being labeled the lowest performing school in a region.
Richs research involved looking for evidence of Edmonds correlates of effec-
tive schooling plus Glickman, Gordon, and Ross-Gordons (2001) characteris-
tics of improving schools. Rich found evidence for several of the effective and
improving practices at the school, and his research provided evidence for pos-
itive school practices that can evolve out of a shame and blame process. The
Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR) regularly publishes
similar studies.
A second way to continue research into effective schools practices is to look
for academically high-performing outliers among schools serving middle-SES
students, which are less likely to have mandated school improvement programs
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(SIPs). There are differences in effective schools processes ongoing at these
more effective and less effective middle-SES schools, as demonstrated in
previous research (e.g., Teddlie & Stringfield, 1985, 1993). Less effective mid-
dle-SES schools are less likely to be labeled ineffective by state-mandated high-
stakes testing, because the performance of the students at these schools is above
the state minimum requirements. For instance, we studied a less effective middle-
SES school over three points in time (19841985, 19891990, 19951996) and
observed no serious effort to improve the school (Stringfield, Kemper, & Teddlie,
2000). We need more research on how to identify these underperforming middle-
SES schools and how to make them more effective, a process that is probably
distinct from that found in lower SES schools.
A third way to continue research into effective schools processes is to intro-
duce reform based on those processes into some schools and then compare
those schools with similar schools without such programs. Of course, studies
of this nature would need to control for other ongoing school improvement pro-
grams in the two sets of schools. Lasky et al. (2005) recently introduced such a
research program through a foundation-funded randomized field trial of effec-
tive schools principles.
6
(3) Continued exploration of the scientific properties or foundational properties of
school effects (effective schools research). Table 2 lists seven scientific proper-
ties of school effects and presents the questions that they address. Although the
question of the size of the school effect launched SER in the United States, the
number of research studies concerned with that issue has declined over the past
decade. One such study was conducted by DAgostino (2000) and used a mul-
tilevel analysis of a longitudinal national database. DAgostino (2000) con-
cluded that findings may indicate that schooling began to equalize the
educational opportunities available to students across various SES strata.
The schools that served lower-SES students may have provided these students
the proper learning experiences necessary to keep pace academically with
higher-SES students (p. 229).
Although American researchers conducted numerous studies into the stability
and consistency of school effects through the mid-1990s (for a review, see
Teddlie et al., 2000), there has been little new research in the United States in
these areas since then. The potential impact of high-stakes testing on the stability
of school effects over time has made these areas of research particularly timely
and compelling.
(4) The effect of principal behavior on school effectiveness and student achieve-
ment. An area of utmost importance in U.S. SER is the impact of principal
behavior on school effectiveness. Principal behavior has been studied both as a
process of school effectiveness and as a scientific property under the magnitude
of the school effect. Hallinger and Heck (1996) made significant contributions
to SER literature by examining the conceptual and methodological issues
related to this issue.
Hallinger and Heck presented a conceptual scheme for classifying non-
experimental studies of principal effects by presenting three competing
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models: Model A (direct effects with or without antecedents), Model B
(mediated effects with or without antecedents), and Model C (reciprocal
effects). The researchers then reviewed a group of studies that had examined
the effect of educational leadership on student achievement and concluded that
relationship might best be modeled by examining the mediated or indirect
effect of principal behavior through other individual and organizational factors
(e.g., teacher behaviors, school climate) and then onto student achievement.
This is an under-researched area of study within SER in which the conceptual
and methodological (e.g., structural equation modeling, multilevel modeling)
underpinnings are apparently in place.
It would be logical to hypothesize that there must be a match between
specific principal behaviors and specific types of schools. For example, princi-
pals in secondary schools have very different jobs than principals in elemen-
tary schools, and although it would seem sensible that some more effective
behaviors would be held in common across school levels, others would likely
differ. Similarly, one would expect both similarities and differences in
more- vs. less-effective principal behaviors in schools serving high-poverty vs.
highly affluent communities or from principals attempting to turn around
low-performing schools vs. attempting to fine tune high-performing schools.
(5) The interface between the school and classroom. The addition of teacher effec-
tiveness variables to SER revealed consistent mean and standard deviation
differences in classroom teaching between schools classified as differentially
effective in several studies summarized by Teddlie and Meza (1999). These
quantitative findings led to some qualitatively oriented questions regarding the
classroom/school interface, including:
How are decisions made at the school level to select specific teachers to hire?
Similarly, how do schools differentially evaluate teachers? Twenty years ago,
Bridges (1986) conducted ground-breaking research on managing incompe-
tent teachers, and the field has been seriously understudied since.
What mechanisms does the school leadership use to ensure homogeneity of
the teachers goal orientation?
How do more- vs. less-effective principals and others at the school level
monitor teachers performance at the classroom level?
How is performance data used to detect unusual or outlier teacher perform-
ance, and when/how are steps taken to increase positive outlier performance?
Exploration of these qualitatively oriented questions regarding the interface
between the school and the classroom is a promising area for future research.
(6) What are the relationship patterns among teachers at more effective as opposed
to less effective schools? A new area for development in contemporary SER is
the study of relationship patterns in schools through Social Network Analysis.
This third dimension of schooling (joining the organizational and cultural
dimensions) can be explored among faculty members within a school, among
students within a class, and across the school and class levels with multiple
actors.
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For example, Durland and Teddlie (1996) explored the relationships among
teachers in both more effective and less effective schools. They concluded that
the sociograms of more effective schools were well-webbed (many recipro-
cal relationships centering on the principal and teacher leaders in the school),
while sociograms of less effective schools were stringy (not many reciprocal
relationships and several isolates). Kochan and Teddlie (2005) recently
presented sociograms of the interpersonal relationships among the members of
a highly ineffective high school that also exhibited a stringy relationship
pattern among those faculty members.
A related series of studies in secondary schools are needed in the United
States examining the behaviors and relationships among teachers in more- vs.
less-effective departments within schools.
(7) Further research into context effects in SER. The importance of context effects
in SER was described in a previous section of this chapter. More empirical
work is needed in this area in the future, especially in areas such as the SES of
students attending schools and the grade phases of schooling.
(8) The social psychological study of long-term ineffectiveness of schooling. We
need to better understand why some schools appear to be stuck in a long-term
cycle of ineffectiveness that has not been broken, often after multiple reform
efforts. Reynolds and Teddlie (2000a) discussed these schools in terms of their
dysfunctionality and suggested conducting intensive longitudinal case studies
of samples of these low-performing schools. Similarly, Griffin (2004) examined
ineffective schools as organizational reactions to stress in a large-scale survey
study.
(9) The study of barriers to teacher leadership and how to overcome them. The
study of the processes of school leadership could be enhanced through a more
focused examination of how the barriers to teacher leadership have been or can
be surmounted (Murphy, in this volume). Both naturalistic and quasi-experi-
mental approaches could be used in this SER, either through identifying sites
with diminished barriers or creating such sites using currently popular reforms
such as learning communities (e.g., Dufour & Eaker, 1998; Sackney, in this
volume).
(10) The uses of data for improved educational effectiveness. We have repeatedly
noted that federal NCLB legislation has mandated greatly expanded gathering
and reporting of standardized test data in American education. Organizations
ranging from individual scholars, university-based research centers, and ven-
ture capital-funded for-profit corporations have spent the last several years
developing data warehousing and presentation software intended to direct
information back to parents, teachers, principals, central administrators, and
state departments of education. Research on how to get the greatest impact
from such efforts is just beginning. Jeffrey C. Wayman recently edited special
issues of the Journal of Education for Students Placed At Risk (Wayman, 2005)
and the American Journal of Education (Wayman & Stringfield, 2006) that
have made very early efforts to examine uses of these new, potentially power-
ful tools. Given that greater use of achievement data was one of Edmonds
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(1979) original five factors of more effective schooling, it is possible that the
next decade will be known as a period in which efficient data use drove school
reform.
(11) Finally, there is very limited research in the United States that links school
effects with system effects. Much of the pressure for increased school perfor-
mance from NCLB is placed by the federal government on state departments of
education. State departments then put pressure on local education authorities,
which pressure (presumably with varying methods and effects) individual
schools. In a longitudinal study of schools efforts to reform, Datnow et al.
(2006) found clear examples of district- and state-level actions that enhanced
or gutted various school reform efforts. This area is greatly understudied.
In this chapter, we have attempted to summarize major historic trends in school effec-
tiveness and school improvement research in the United States. We have discussed
common and divergent themes between the two, suggested multiple potentially fruit-
ful directions for future research, and noted many under-researched areas in which
well-meaning practitioners are attempting reforms as if they already knew what
works. We have noted that such optimism-based efforts have failed in the past. We
choose to end by calling on our colleagues to focus at least part of their improvement
efforts on gathering rigorous evidence on what does and does not work, and dissemi-
nating their findings as widely as possible.
Notes
1. There has been little intellectual overlap between phases of SIR in the United States. For example, the
school reformers who used the effective schools correlates in their research in the 1980s seldom refer-
enced research from the earlier phases of SIR in the United States. This trend persists to the present day
as scholars associated with CSR seldom reference the effective schools literature.
2. Scholars in Europe call these foundational issues and have also reported research from these areas
(e.g., Scheerens & Bosker, 1997; Scheerens, Bosker, & Creemers, 2000).
3. The equity orientation of Edmonds and others, with its emphasis on school improvement and sam-
pling biases, led to predictable responses from the educational research community throughout the
1980s and into the 1990s. The hailstorm of criticism (e.g., Cuban, 1983; Good & Brophy, 1986;
Purkey & Smith, 1983; Rowan, 1984) aimed at those pursuing the equity ideal in SER had the effect
of paving the way for more sophisticated SER that used more defensible sampling and analysis
strategies.
4. For example, there has been a drop in the percentage of articles written by U.S. authors during the past
seven years published in the premier journal in the field, School Effectiveness and School Improvement
(SESI). There were 159 articles (not including editorials and book reviews) published in the years 1990
(Volume 1) through 1998 (Volume 9), of which 49 were written by authors from the United States. Thus,
31% of the articles in SESI from 19901998 were written by American authors. That percentage
dropped to 17% in the 19992005 period (Volumes 1016), in which only 23 out of 135 articles were
written by American authors.
5. Thrupp (2001), Slee, Weiner, and Tomlinson (1998), and others have presented criticisms of contempo-
rary SER based on what they perceive to be its political ideology, theoretical limitations, and other
issues. These criticisms have been rebutted by several authors (e.g., Reynolds & Teddlie, 2001). Luyten,
Visscher, and Witziers (2005) recently presented a more balanced and constructive criticism of the
contemporary field including suggestions for how to improve it.
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6. The publication of a new American journal, the Journal for Effective Schools (now in its sixth volume),
is a positive sign that interest continues in research into the processes associated with effectiveness and
improvement in schooling. The journal lists seven processes of effective schooling (very similar to those
listed in Table 1) in the front of each issue and indicates that it publishes original contributions related
to the Effective School Process.
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This chapter reviews the School Effectiveness Research (SER) and School Improve-
ment Research (SIR) in Canada from the 1960s to today, noting their commonality and
differentiation. The SER literature reached its zenith during the 1980s but continues to
impact SIR literatures to date. Considerable attention is paid to the neo-SER literature,
particularly the learning community research that is influencing government policy
and school practices from the late 1990s to today. This chapter will also examine how
provincial governments are applying the SER and SIR literature to policy. Finally, an
attempt is made to assess the future directions for the movement within the Canadian
context.
Examining Canadian history in the areas of school effectiveness and improvement
is important for a number of reasons: (1) Canada has a decentralized system of school-
ing that has little, if any, federal involvement; (2) the social, political, and economic
contexts are different from those of the United States; (3) Canada does not have a
history of extensive involvement of alternative forms of schooling it has remained
for the most part a publicly funded school system; and (4) Canada does not have leg-
islation such as No Child Left Behind (2001) in the United States, nor has there been
an extensive push for accountability as has been the case in the United States.
Conventional Views of Schooling in the 1970s
In the early 1970s, the conventional view in Canada, as elsewhere, was that it was impos-
sible to identify important school-based characteristics that were clearly beneficial to
student learning outcomes. The belief was that the primary determinant of achievement
outcomes was family background as measured by socioeconomic status (SES) and
ethnicity. High-SES students did well in school while socioeconomically disadvantaged
students, especially minorities, did poorly. The consensus was that school characteristics
made little, if any, difference in student achievement outcomes (Sackney, 1991).
167
9
HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS AND
IMPROVEMENT MOVEMENT IN CANADA OVER
THE PAST 25 YEARS
Larry Sackney
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2007 Springer.
The late 1960s and early 1970s were times of rapid social and political upheaval.
In the United States, the Vietnam War had a tremendous impact on society and educa-
tion. Canada was considerably less impacted by the developments in the United States.
It was, however, a period of rapid change in education and society and the timing was
ripe for the effective schools movement. International competition and economic
decline resulted in the government looking to education to improve performance and
to enhance social stability and cohesion.
The Effective Schools Research
While the previous research was perhaps more down beat, the research on effective
schools was basically hopeful. Using different research paradigms (quantitative,
qualitative, and interpretive), researchers began to isolate characteristics that differ-
entiated more effective schools from less effective schools. The conclusion from this
research was that schools and school characteristics can make a difference in student
achievement.
Some of the initial studies tended to focus on atypically successful schools (e.g.,
Weber, 1971). Other studies, such as Brookover, Beady, Flood, Schweitzer, and
Wisenhaber (1979) and Brookover and Lezotte (1979), found that social psycho-
logical factors affecting learning varied widely from school to school and that much
of the variation was independent of SES and ethnicity. An analysis of the factors
revealed that teacher expectations and evaluations were related to achievement.
About the same time, Rutter, Maugham, Mortimore, and Oustons (1979) study of
12 inner-city London high schools appeared in the United Kingdom. Rutter et al.
found that staff attitudes, behaviors, and academic focus produced an overall ethos that
was conducive to achievement. Other factors included classroom management that
kept students actively engaged in learning, firm discipline, use of rewards and praise,
a physical environment that was conducive to learning, and effective monitoring prac-
tices that improved student learning outcomes.
A second strand of research used the outlier approach. These studies (e.g., Austin,
1979) employed regression analyses of school mean achievement scores, controlling for
socioeconomic factors. Based on the residual scores, schools that were highly effective
(positive outliers) and highly ineffective (negative outliers) were identified and then
assessed by survey or case studies to determine the reasons for their outcomes.
Perhaps the best-known list of correlates was that suggested by Edmonds (1979),
who is generally credited with being the father of the effective schools movement.
Based on his own research and extensive review of other studies, Edmonds suggested
five effectiveness characteristics: (1) strong instructional leadership; (2) high expecta-
tions for all students; (3) an orderly, work-oriented climate; (4) priority focus on
instruction; and (5) frequent monitoring. These five characteristics became the generic
set for many school improvement efforts.
A third strand of school effectiveness research, exemplified by Armor et al. (1976),
was program evaluation. These studies attempted to identify school and classroom
policies that were successful in raising reading scores for minorities. The results from
these studies concluded that effective programs were characterized by high staff
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expectations and morale, a considerable amount of control by staff over instructional
decisions, strong leadership, clear school goals, and a sense of order in the school
(Purkey & Smith, 1983).
Wimpelberg, Teddlie, and Stringfield (1989) characterized the first era as being
explicitly concerned with equity. First-generation effective schools research repre-
sented a search for achievement gains that were unusually high, mostly in urban ele-
mentary schools, and produced five main correlates: goal/mission, safe and orderly
climate, strong instructional leadership, high expectations, and close monitoring of
instructional programs.
The second era, according to Wimpelberg et al. (1989), focused on efficiency. They
contended that context became important because there were differences between urban
elementary and secondary schools. Typical of this type of research was that of Hallinger
and Murphy (1985), who showed that context was a determinant of school effectiveness.
A third phase of effective schools research identified by Wimpelberg et al. (1989)
focused attention on context factors and a dual interest in the improvement of schooling
for poor children (equity) and the improvement of everyones schooling, constrained by
limitations on fiscal resources (efficiency) (p. 88). Studies of the type conducted by
Mortimore, Sammons, Stoll, Lewis, and Ecob (1988), Teddlie and Stringfield (1993),
Rosenholtz (1989), and others contributed to an expanded understanding of school effec-
tiveness variables.
Silver (1994), in analyzing the effective schools research movement, concluded that,
by the late 1980s, the movement had become relatively marginalized in Britain and
North America. The exception was a Mortimore et al. (1988) study entitled School
Matters, a study of junior schools in London. The study focused on pupil intakes,
school environment, and educational outcomes. The conclusion was that an effective
school raises the performance of all pupils. This research, like the American studies,
was directed at making schools more successful with all children.
By the late 1980s and early 1990s, the research meshed with both an emerging
literature of school improvement and international activity of various kinds (Silver,
1994, p. 95). In many cases, governments under economic pressure became more
interventionist, planning and implementing measures of restructuring or reform.
In Britain, Canada, and the United States, the movement established links between
the pure effective schools research and research and analysis coming from educa-
tional change and school improvement strategies (Fullan, 1982, 1991, 1992, 2003).
The ecology of schooling and the concept of school culture as a way of under-
standing school effects also received attention (Fullan & Hargreaves, 1996). Others
(e.g., Scheerens & Creemers, 1989; Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000) continued to develop
more sophisticated models. Gradually, there has been a melding of research areas to
include school improvement; this shift embraced curriculum development, strengthen-
ing school organization, and changes in teaching and learning process and teaching
styles. In Canada, as elsewhere, the shift to school reviews became common (Sackney,
1992). An international journal, School Effectiveness and School Improvement, was
launched in 1990. I recall numerous debates at various International Congress for
School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI) conferences about the difference
between school effectiveness and school improvement research; gradually there was a
recognition that the two lines of inquiry overlapped.
History of the School Improvement in Canada 169
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What are the Characteristics of Effective Schools?
The school effectiveness research has been concerned with identifying factors related to
greater effectiveness in terms of student progress and achievement. Sammons, Hillman,
and Mortimore (1995), in summarizing British and North American research literature,
provided a list of 11 key factors. They argued that the factors were neither exhaustive
nor independent of each other. They contended, however, that the list was a useful syn-
opsis of the most common factors associated with effective schools. The 11 factors
were: professional leadership, shared vision and goals, a learning environment, concen-
tration on teaching and learning, high expectations, positive reinforcement, monitoring
progress, pupil rights and responsibilities, purposeful teaching, a learning organization,
and home-school partnership.
School effectiveness researchers aim was to ascertain whether differences in
processes, organizational arrangement, and resources impact pupil outcomes; and, if
so, in what ways. Although the initial forays were concerned with issues of equity, the
more recent research was concerned with whether the school adds value (e.g., Stoll &
Fink, 1996). Stoll and Fink (1996) viewed an effective school as being one that
promotes progress for all of its pupils beyond what one would expect given its intake;
one that ensures every pupil achieves at his/her highest standard possible; one that
enhances all aspects of pupil achievement and development; and one that continues to
improve from year to year (p. 28).
School Improvement Evolution
School improvement has been around since the 1960s. Its ultimate aim is to enhance
pupil progress, achievement, and development (Stoll & Fink, 1996, p. 43). More
recently, improvement has also emphasized pupil outcomes and change management
capacity. In this regard, the research of a number of Canadians such as Fullan (1982,
1991, 1992, 1993, 1999, 2001), Hargreaves (1994, 2003), and Hargreaves, Earl, Moore,
and Manning (2001) shows the delicate relationship between change and school
improvement and the importance of school culture. Another Canadian, Leithwood
(1992) and his colleagues (Leithwood, Jantzi, & Steinbach, 1999), did extensive research
on leadership and, in particular, on transformational leadership as the basis of school
improvement. Earl (2003) has done extensive work on assessment for learning. It is
beyond the capacity of this chapter to review their work, but it is important to note their
great influence on the school improvement literature.
An improving school increases its effectiveness over time. As such, it entails that the
school must therefore change its aims, expectations, organizations, way of learning,
methods of teaching, and organizational culture (Hopkins, 2001, p. 12) in order to
improve. Hopkins defined school improvement as an approach to educational change
that aims to enhance student outcomes as well as strengthening the schools capacity
for managing change. It is concerned with raising student achievement through focus-
ing on the teaching-learning process and conditions that support it (p. 13). Barth
(1990), on the other hand, argued for basing school reform on improving schools from
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within. He contended that a community of learners approach to school improvement
will lead to greater student learning.
This approach has led to the more recent research and practice of building capacity
for viewing schools as learning communities, which will be described in a later section.
School improvement has been influenced by the recent history of research in the areas
of school effectiveness and educational change (Harris, 2002; Hopkins, 2001; Reynolds,
Hopkins, & Stoll, 1993; Silver, 1994; Stoll & Fink, 1996). Lack of teacher commitment to
top-down government reforms led to shifting the paradigm to a bottom-up approach,
such as school-based reviews. Stoll and Fink concluded that the process approach did not
always lead to actual improvement. As a result, by the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was
a shift towards a focus on the evaluation of processes and outcomes (Stoll & Fink, 1996,
p. 43) and the merging of the two fields. By combining the outcomes of the two
fields we have joined an outcomes orientation with a process to achieve change in our
schools (p. 44). Similarly, Hopkins (2001) stated, The research tradition of school effec-
tiveness is complementary to that of school improvement and of late the two traditions
have learned much from each other. As a result, the best of current practice reflects tran-
scendence or merging of the two paradigms (pp. 1314).
The new paradigm represents:
An enhanced focus upon the importance of pupil outcomes.
Teachers being increasingly targeted for attention.
Creation of an infrastructure to enable the knowledge base, with both best prac-
tice and research findings to be utilized.
Stressing the importance of capacity building.
The importance of fidelity to program implementation.
An appreciation of cultural change to school improvement.
(Hopkins, 2001, p. 70)
The school improvement literature increasingly recognizes that schools at different
stages of development require different strategies, not only to enhance their capacity
for development, but also to provide better education for their students. The next sec-
tion provides a brief background to the learning community research that is driving
many current provincial policy initiatives.
Building Capacity for Learning Communities
During the past decade, the impact of globalization, new technologies, and the
demands for a well-educated society have put pressures on schools to improve student
learning. Previous restructuring attempts were not able to transform the culture of
schools to align with or attune to both internal and external demands. These demands
required that learning be sustainable and continuous (Stoll, Fink, & Earl, 2003).
Since the mid-1990s, considerable attention has focused on transforming schools into
learning communities (Barth, 1990; DuFour & Eaker, 1998; Huffman & Hipp, 2003;
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Louis, Kruse, & Associates, 1995; Mitchell & Sackney, 2000; Stoll et al., 2003). To
build a learning community is to build capacity for learning. Mitchell and Sackney
(2000) defined a learning community as a group of people who take an active, reflec-
tive, collaborative, learning-oriented and growth-promoting approach toward the
mysteries, problems and perplexities of teaching and learning (p. 5). The learning
community model sees knowledge gaps as opportunities and challenges to be explored
and investigated. Prior knowledge serves as the foundation upon which future learning
can be grounded and around which learning goals are organized. Learning is viewed
as being intellectual, social, and emotional.
The basic elements of learning communities are as follows:
Shared mission, vision, values, and goals.
Collaborative teams: Staff who engage in collaborative team learning are able to
learn from one another.
Action orientation and experimentation: Staff know that learning occurs in the
context of taking action. Action research is common in such schools.
Shared and supportive leadership: A tendency toward a community of leaders.
Data-sensitive decision making: Improvement and learning are premised upon
data collection, analysis, and planning for improvement.
Shared responsibility for learning outcomes: Improving student learning is a joint
responsibility based upon trusting relationships and involves students, parents,
and the community.
Learning arises through the development of communities of practice and diver-
sity of learning networks.
Sustainable leadership is necessary (DuFour & Eaker, 1998; Hargreaves & Fink,
2005; Huffman & Hipp, 2003; 2005; Mitchell & Sackney, 2000; Sackney &
Mitchell, in press).
Sackney, Mitchell, and Walker (2005), in an analysis of 2,832 staff surveys from 120
schools, identified six factors as describing effective learning communities: shared
understanding, reflective practice, high quality of work life, adequacy of organiza-
tional resources, learning currency, and inclusive culture. In a subsequent analysis of
15 high-capacity learning communities, four additional factors were found: use of
interactive instruction, use of authentic pedagogy, high learner engagement, and devel-
opment of a community of leaders.
In summary, learning communities are places where learning is a continuous
process that includes all stakeholder groups. Capacity building in such schools results
in synergy for new skills and knowledge, enhanced and focused resources, and focused
commitment.
Educational Policy and Provincial and District Involvement
The first portion of this section briefly provides an overview of the policy context in
Canada. This is followed by an analysis of effective school research policy implemen-
tation by school jurisdictions and provincial governments.
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Please
update ref-
erence
Sackney
and
Mitchell
Educational Governance
Canada is a federation of ten provinces and two territories. Under the Constitution, leg-
islative, executive, and judicial powers are shared or distributed between the federal gov-
ernment and the provinces. Section 93 of The Constitution Act grants to the provinces
exclusive control over education; in Canada there is no ministry or office of education at
the federal level. Through the Council of Ministers of Education (CMEC), however, the
federal government does provide indirect support to postsecondary education and, on
occasion, to K-12 education. It is also responsible for the education of First Nations chil-
dren on reserves and the children of armed forces (Council of Ministers of Education
[CMEC], 1996).
Provincial and territorial control over education brings with it the power to delegate
authority to local school boards. The power and duties of provinces and territories are,
in general, consistent throughout Canada. Their responsibility for education is usually
exercised through departments or region-specific ministries of education.
Although the federal government does not have responsibility for education, the
CMEC does provide national educational linkages. The CMEC provides a forum for
education ministers to come together to discuss matters of common concern, explore
ways to cooperate, share information, and represent Canadian education internationally.
Effective Schools Policy Initiatives
The effective schools research had serious policy implications for school jurisdictions
and provincial governments. In the early to mid-1980s, the effective schools correlates
became the recipe for school improvement. As an example, in the Province of Saskat-
chewan, as elsewhere in Canada, the Ministry set up the Saskatchewan School Improve-
ment Program (SSIP), that was devoted to implementing the effective schools research.
Ministry personnel provided materials and professional development to schools and/or
school jurisdictions. The recipe approach drew criticism from researchers such as
Holmes, Leithwood, and Musella (1989), who argued that it seems unlikely that the
simple application of a recipe will make schools more effective (p. viii). By the late
1980s, the recipe approach to school effectiveness had run its course.
The central, practical problem facing the movement in the 1980s was one of imple-
mentation. The translation of school effectiveness correlates into school improvement
meant the bringing together of two very different bodies of research. The school
effectiveness research had as its primary aim student academic achievement. The
improvement literature, on the other hand, was more concerned with implementation
and institutionalization of change (Fullan, 1982). The task of bringing together ideas
from school effectiveness, implementation of change, and school improvement was a
difficult task. In many instances, the emphasis on strong leadership was badly
sustained. Other shortcomings included difficulties in implementing the effectiveness
factors, knowing which changes were important, and deciding whether all factors had
to be implemented simultaneously.
The late 1980s and early 1990s were a period of economic recession in Canada, as
elsewhere. Educational outcomes were being challenged. Reform initiatives tended to
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focus on curriculum centralization, accountability, increased decentralized decision
making, and an attempt at market-driven schools. The latter led to the institution of a
few charter schools in the Province of Alberta.
Although Canada has not placed the same emphasis on testing and accountability as
the United States, it does engage in provincial and national testing at various times.
The CMEC provides a periodic assessment of achievement of randomly selected
13- and 16-year-old students skills in mathematics, science, reading, and writing.
Further, Canada has participated in international testing. Results of the 1999 Third
International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), which measured the perform-
ance of 13- and 14-year-old students in 38 countries, showed Canada placing third.
In 2000, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) con-
ducted the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) of 15-year-old
students skills in reading, science, and mathematics. This time, Canada placed fifth
out of 32 countries. Provincial differences were evident, with no country or province
outperforming Alberta students. This study also showed that achievement scores were
more equivalent among Canadian students with different socioeconomic backgrounds
than they were in most other countries (British Columbia Ministry of Education,
2003). Needless to say, every province has started to place a greater emphasis on
accountability measures.
There were limits to many of the initial reforms, many of which focused on the
wrong variables. Any strategy to improve student learning needs to give attention to
involving students and parents and to expanding the teaching and learning repertoires
of teachers and students (Elmore, 1995; Hopkins, 2001). Elmore (1995) argued that
principles of practice usually fall short for two reasons: (1) they require content
knowledge and pedagogical skill few teachers presently have, and (2) they challenge
certain basic patterns in the organization of schooling (p. 366). He claimed that nei-
ther problem can be solved independently of the other. Another limitation of early
reforms was that many did not adopt a systemic perspective. Hopkins (2001) con-
tended that policies need to be both systemwide and system deep. Policy must be
coherent at all levels of the system. In many Canadian provinces in the 1990s, this was
not the case. As a result, this created a disconnect between the goals of the reformers
and the thoughts of the practitioners expected to implement the reform. I vividly recall
doing numerous workshops with teachers in many provinces of Canada, many of
whom expressed the sentiment, This too shall pass. The gap between policy and
practice is a recurring problem that reveals a deep incapacity of schools to engage in
cumulative learning over time that produces tangible results for students (Elmore,
1995, p. 375). Canadas experience was no exception.
Another reason that policy generally does not take hold is because it does not impact
instruction. Instruction includes several related systems teachers knowledge, their
professional values and commitments, and the social resources of practice (Hopkins,
2001). Hopkins contended that no matter how good government policy may be, unless
it is implemented, there will be little impact on outcomes. In order to drive effective
reform implementation, change must be focused at the classroom and school levels
within a principled strategic and systemic policy context (p. 7).
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More recent provincial policy initiatives appear to recognize the new paradigm of
improvement. The policy initiatives reflect the need to have an impact on teaching and
learning at the school and classroom levels. In the following section, I briefly describe
how some of the provinces are applying the new learning.
The Practice of School Improvement
In gathering information for this chapter, I found that a majority of provinces have
built their school improvement strategies around the concepts associated with learning
community theory. It was evident that the ministries of education are cognizant of the
school effectiveness, school improvement, and change research literature; in most
cases, their improvement policies attempt to reflect best practice. I will describe the
Province of Albertas Initiative for School Improvement (AISI), since it is the most
elaborate, and briefly outline developments in other provinces.
Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI)
In December 1999, the Alberta government, together with its partners, released the
framework and administrative requirements for AISI. The goal of AISI was to
improve student learning and performance by fostering initiatives that reflected the
unique needs and circumstances within school districts (Alberta Learning, 1999,
p. v). The first cycle ran from 2000 to 2003 and was an extension of the accountability
framework that had been in place since the early 1990s.
School improvement focused on improving student learning by using enhanced
strategies at the school, district, and government levels. The essential school improve-
ment elements included leadership, instructional practice, school climate, assessment
and accountability, building capacity through professional development, student and
parent engagement, and integration of effective practices.
The following attributes/characteristics were fundamental to AISI:
(1) Partnership: AISI is a partnership among teachers, superintendents, trustees,
business officials, universities, parents, and government.
(2) Catalyst: AISI is a catalyst for change in teaching and learning.
(3) Student-focused: The focus of the program is on student learning and the
accommodation of the diverse learning needs of individual students and special
populations.
(4) Flexibility: School authorities, in consultation with various stakeholders,
choose strategies that enhance learning at the local context.
(5) Collaboration: Collaboration is a key element for improving schools.
(6) Culture of continuous improvement: Professional Learning Communities
actively engage both teachers and students in learning.
(7) Evidence-based practice: Collection, analysis, and interpretation of data are
foundational to AISI.
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(8) Research-based interventions: AISI provides opportunities for testing research
in the Alberta context.
(9) Inquiry and reflection: Inquiry and reflection are important components, as
they lead to improved understanding and thoughtful changes to instructional
practices.
(10) Building capacity and integrating effective practices effective professional
development is planned, systemic, and sustained (Alberta Learning, AISI, 1999,
pp. 12).
Since the inception of the AISI in 2000, 828 Cycle 1 projects were approved. All proj-
ects required baseline data and improvement targets for each measure. All projects that
were approved had to identify their targets and how these targets were to be met. For
example, one school indicated that its reading scores would improve by 5% over the
period of the project. Approximately two-thirds of all projects met targets on the
majority of measures. Almost half of the projects met targets on all qualitative meas-
ures (e.g., satisfaction, attitudes, behavior) and about 30% met their targets on all
quantitative measures on student learning. From an examination of the projects, it was
obvious that most schools set realistic targets but some school targets were unrealistic.
Alberta Learning (AISI, 2004a, 2004b) concluded that teacher capacity had been
enhanced by AISI. The Report stated, Teachers now view themselves as learners and
engage in inquiry related to the impact of their practices on student learning. They talk
about gathering evidence of effective practices and use it to determine what works and
what doesnt work for students (p. 48). AISI has been renewed for an additional
3 years at a cost of $80 million (Canadian dollars).
Developments in Other Provinces
There is considerable similarity in the improvement efforts among the provinces in
Canada. All provinces require the community to work together with the school. They
require educational systems to collect, analyze, and interpret data for the purpose of
improvement. In most provinces, considerable emphasis is placed on improving the
reading and mathematics scores of students. School boards are developing a variety of
programs to target these goals.
In 1996, Ontario established the Education Quality and Accountability Office
(EQAO) as an arms-length agency of the provincial government to assist in improv-
ing the quality and accountability of Ontarios public education. The role of the EQAO
is to design and implement a comprehensive program of student assessment; measure
the quality of education in the province, report the results to various stakeholder groups,
lead the province in national and international assessments, promote research on best
practices in assessment and accountability, and conduct quality reviews in consultation
with school boards (Education Quality and Accountability office [EQAO], 2005).
The EQAO has provided a 5-step model to improvement planning:
Step 1: Ownership: seeking engagement of education partners and developing a
culture of continuous improvement.
Step 2: Understanding and focusing on gathering, evaluating, and interpreting data.
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Step 3: Accountability: sharing results with the community.
Step 4: Planning for improvement: creating and updating the improvement plan.
Step 5: Ongoing impact: monitoring implementation of plan.
In 1999, Saskatchewan established the Task Force on the Role of the School; this task
force resulted in the creation of the School
PLUS
framework. It calls for a new vision of
schools as centers of learning, support, and community for the children, youth, and
families they serve. This conceptualization stressed learning excellence for all stu-
dents, active involvement with families, and support from human service providers
and community members (Mitchell & Sackney, in press; Saskatchewan Education,
2002). The reform called for all schools to adopt the philosophy and practices of the
learning community.
In order to implement the School
PLUS
philosophy, an Effective Practices Framework
was developed to provide schools, school divisions, and communities with key prac-
tices and resources to support local initiatives. The framework identified six effective
practices: caring and respectful school environment, responsive curriculum and
instructions, assessment for learning, comprehensive prevention and early interven-
tion, authentic partnerships, and adaptive leadership (Saskatchewan Education, 2002).
At each school, a Needs Assessment Committee is to be formed that is composed of
various stakeholder groups responsible for assessing the extent to which needs exist at
each dimension on the Effective Practices Framework. After the needs have been
identified, the team develops action plans to rectify the problems.
The Nova Scotia improvement program asks the entire community to work together.
It addresses issues such as literacy and retention rates, physical activity, and graduation
success rates. In consultation with school staff and Home and School Associations,
School Advisory Councils (SACs) play a central role. Once an improvement plan has
been developed, an external committee made up of administrators, teachers, and a par-
ent from another school evaluates the plan. Plans are put in place during Years 2 and 3
and the external committee monitors progress and recommends further action (Nova
Scotia Department of Education, 2003).
The province of Newfoundland and Labrador (2004) has recently released
A Framework for School Development. The Frameworks goals are increasing student
achievement and continuously improving the quality of educational experiences
offered to students. The plan is focused on achievement, a planned and structured
approach to school reflection and action, and the importance of data collection and
interpretation. The challenge is to build systematic school-level planning processes,
to develop a schools capacity to manage change, and to create a community of learn-
ers (p. 3). School development incorporates the building of learning communities
with the concept of planned change (p. 4).
The provincial accountability framework sets an expectation that school boards will
be accountable to the public through a strategic process that involves planning, monitor-
ing, reporting, and feedback. The framework is a cyclical process that involves collective
reflection, problem-solving, actions, and continual renewal and improvement (p. 9).
The Department of Education of the Province of Prince Edward Island (PEI) has also
recently released the Provincial School Improvement Planning Model (2004). Its goal is
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to improve student learning and increase student success while satisfying demands for
public accountability. The improvement planning model includes: a standard three-year
cycle for each school, a commitment to a set of provincial indicators, a school self-
assessment and peer assessment process, and a formal reporting process. As part of the
planning model, the Department of Education will prepare a summary school improve-
ment planning report for each school, based on peer and self-assessment. The
Department of Education will have access to all data and each school and the school
board will have to prepare an annual report on the progress of its planning efforts.
The British Columbia (BC) Ministry of Education released its report on Enhancing
Learning in 2003. School Planning Councils are responsible for developing, monitor-
ing, and reviewing school plans for student achievement in consultation with the school
community (British Columbia [BC] Ministry of Education, 2004). The school planning
council must consult with the parents advisory council during the preparation of the
school plan. As in other provinces, the government reports to the public on the extent to
which student achievement has improved. The model also makes extensive reference to
the learning community literature.
In summary, the school improvement models used by Canadian provinces are based
on the school effectiveness, school improvement, change, and learning community
literature. Accountability and the use of data constitute major components of the vari-
ous frameworks. The final section of this chapter analyzes the school improvement
trends in Canada and outlines some possible future directions in this area.
Trends and Future Directions
Resulting from my analysis of the various provincial models and the literature on
school effectiveness and school improvement, a number of Canadian trends are
evident. First, research and practice are focused on student learning and the need to
accommodate the diverse learning needs of individual students and those with special
needs. Second, there is an emphasis on a culture of continuous improvement. More
recently, the emphasis has shifted to developing capacity for learning communities.
Such a shift assumes that all stakeholders are learners students, teachers, adminis-
trators, parents, and community members. Third, inquiry and reflection are key activi-
ties that can be accommodated through planning, action research, and collaboration.
Evidence-based practice has also been prioritized. Through the collection, analysis,
and interpretation of data, it is assumed learning will improve. Fourth, there is a strong
emphasis on building capacity throughout the system. This can be achieved through
effective, practice-based professional development that is planned, systemic, and
sustained (Fullan, 2005). Fifth, knowledge management through networking and other
avenues of knowledge acquisition are emphasized. Many school jurisdictions are
developing different varieties of learning networks with other schools and systems.
Sixth, school self- and peer assessment are being utilized. The implications of these
trends are that school improvement is best determined at the school level rather
than at the provincial level. Hargreaves and Fink (2005), in Sustainable Leadership,
advocated this approach.
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On the improvement front, Canadians are recognizing that systemic reform and a
focus on sustainability are needed. Fullan is at the forefront of this shift. In his recent
book, Leadership and Sustainability: System Thinkers in Action (2005), he called for a
commitment to deep learning, intelligent accountability, and vertical relationships; lat-
eral capacity-building through networks; commitment to changing contexts at all
levels; public service with a moral conviction; cyclical energizing; and the promotion
of leaders as systems thinkers. Fullan (2005) defined sustainability as the capacity to
engage in the complexities of continuous improvement consistent with deep values of
human purpose (p. ix).
My view is somewhat similar. The problem I see with much of the school effective-
ness and school improvement literature is the need for a paradigm shift in how schools
work. We are living in a knowledge society where learning is paramount. This means
we have to get better at learning.
Knowledge management is imperative in a knowledge society. It is primarily a cul-
tural and social process that leverages knowledge, relationships, conversations, stories,
processes, and tools to enable knowledge fusion. Knowledge fusion is a cyclical process
that includes knowledge acquisition phases (creation or idea generation), a knowledge
transformative phase (tacit/explicit), and a knowledge-sharing phase (oral, written, or
electronic) and a creative destructive phase (Newton & Sackney, 2005). Unfortunately,
I have found that in most schools, knowledge management is lacking. Many staff have
great difficulty with the knowledge creation and destruction phase. We need to foster a
climate for improved research-based practices in classrooms and schoolwide.
We also need to ensure that there is coherence throughout systems (Fullan, 2005).
In essence, there is need for a systemic approach to reform. By this I mean that school
improvement efforts need to focus on improving learning throughout the system
classroom, school, district, and government. In Canada, a greater emphasis on better inte-
gration and coherence of strategies at all levels of the system is increasingly likely. One of
the trends I see developing at various levels of the educational system is the need for bet-
ter data for improving instruction. A number of Canadian school districts are jointly work-
ing on developing data information systems that will allow teachers to have access to data
on every student, schools to have a data profile that can be compared to other schools, and
governments to have data that provides comparisons both provincially and beyond.
We also have to improve leadership in schools. From our data on the learning commu-
nity study (Sackney et al., 2005; Sackney, Mitchell, Walker, & Duncan, 2005), we found
that leadership is crucial in providing a sense of vision and purpose, moral integrity,
coherence, and a culture necessary for improved teaching and learning to occur. We need
what Hargreaves and Fink (2005) called sustainable leadership.
Increasingly, parents and the community are being urged to get more involved in the
schooling process. This is a positive move that needs to be encouraged and fostered.
We especially need to help parents from impoverished and minority environments get
more involved in their childrens schooling. As the African proverb states, It takes a
whole village to educate a child. Parental engagement in their childrens lives and
schooling is essential for successful learning.
Another trend we see developing in Canada is a move to pre-school, full-day kinder-
garten, and early intervention programs. I see this trend continuing in the future. Such
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strategies cohere with what we know about childrens growth and development. The
earlier we can deal with children who come from socially disadvantaged backgrounds,
the greater are their lifes chances for future success.
Researchers and practitioners have taken a more holistic, ecological view of the
school and how to improve it as a social organism (Capra, 1996; Mitchell & Sackney,
2000; Sergiovanni, 1994, 1996, 2005). By a holistic, ecological perspective, I mean the
totality of patterns, connections, relationships, interactions, and mutual influences that
emerge among people and the forces that impinge on them. A better understanding
exists of the ecology of school improvement and the structure and patterns of relation-
ships among the various components of schooling. We recognize that a holistic, eco-
logical approach as advocated by learning community researchers leads to improved
teaching and learning practices in schools. Such a paradigm shift requires that the
various education agencies work together in more collaborative and integrated ways.
Unless school improvement strategies and policies are driven down to the learning
level, not much will change in student learning. As Hopkins (2001) stated, unless
school improvement strategies impact directly on learning and achievement then
we are surely wasting our time (p. xii). Future reforms need to focus their attention at
the classroom level if we are to have any chance at reforming education. Only the
future will tell whether this shift will come to fruition.
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Sackney L.,
& Mitchel C.
Introduction
Schools are the scenario of the education play complete with scripts, actors, directors
and choreographers; all charged with the task of inducing changes in an audience of
children and young people who are also actors in the play. At the end of the day, edu-
cational policies, reform proposals, particular curricular configurations, management
structures and diverse types of materials are all enacted and put to test in classrooms,
school corridors, teachers rooms, and playgrounds. What and how all this is done
will mark to an extent the success or failure of educational policies and reforms.
Neither are schools independent executors of state policies nor are state policies the
guarantee of success of educational purposes and decrees. In this chapter, I look at the
interplay of policies and school processes in the context of Latin American reforms
and school improvement efforts over some 25 years. To do so, I begin with contextual
information about this big geographical region of very diverse countries and situa-
tions and about the key educational issues that have marked the period under study.
I then consider the purposes and main forms taken by national educational reforms
over the period and how these have reached schools. In examining reforms, I consider
school improvement projects that have had importance beyond national boundaries
with lessons from which other school improvement initiatives have profited. Finally, in
a concluding section, I refer to what can be said about the effectiveness of reforms and
school improvement in producing better learning conditions for children and young
people in Latin America. I also note the unfinished tasks of educational reform, the
remaining uncertainties, unresolved issues and struggles to move ahead, and suggest
pointers that might guide policies and school improvement in their future efforts. In all
this, consideration will be given to the different chapters on Latin America in this hand-
book and how the issues those authors address refer to what is said in this chapter.
183
10
SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT IN LATIN AMERICA:
INNOVATIONS OVER 25 YEARS (19802006)
Beatrice Avalos
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2007 Springer.
The Latin American Educational Context
Use of the word Latin America suggests the exclusion of a group of countries that are
geographically in the same Region but with Anglophone origins,
1
or where Dutch is
spoken such as Suriname. Thus, in this chapter I will focus on countries in the Americas
with Spanish as a main language, Portuguese as the case of Brazil and French as in
Haiti. Although these countries are generally characterised as less developed, they are
countries with very big differences among them. For example, Brazil has one of the
biggest populations in the world (187 million people) with a very diverse racial compo-
sition (African, European, Indigenous, and Japanese origins). Country income differ-
ences range from US$ 5,920 GNP per capita in Mexico to US$ 440 in Haiti. Several
countries harbour diverse ethnic groups whose identity is defined by the language they
speak. Thus while 42% of people in Bolivia declared in the 1992 census to speak only
Spanish, 46% declared themselves as speaking both Spanish and an indigenous lan-
guage and another 12% only spoke an indigenous language (Alb, 1999). A similar sit-
uation is found in Guatemala, Mxico, Peru and Paraguay among other countries.
Mxico, in fact, in absolute numbers has the largest population of people who speak
indigenous languages (11 million). While some countries have a large urban population
(Uruguay, Chile and Argentina around 90%), in others more than half of the people live
in rural areas (El Salvador and Guatemala with close to 60% rural population), despite
the strong urbanization trend all over the Region.
Income and economic development differences among countries are reflected in the
operation of the education systems, in the differences between what private and public
schooling
2
can provide, in the qualifications of teachers and the resources and school
infrastructures available. The Latin American Region generally continues to show unsat-
isfactory educational indicators compared to developed economies. Using UNESCOs
Educational Development Index
3
we note that among 122 countries around the world
19 in Latin America and the Caribbean are ranked as medium educational development
(EDI), and only three appear among the high EDI group with Cuba on the top position
(21st, in the group), followed closely by Argentina and at some distance by Chile. The
recent United Nations report on progress towards the Millennium Goals (CEPAL, 2005)
in its chapter on education notes insufficient progress towards the goal of completion of
primary education for the population aged 1519 years old by 2015. High enrolment rates
in primary schools in Latin America and the Caribbean are marred by also high rates of
repetition meaning that schools are lacking in internal efficiency. Repetition has high
costs as shown in the case of Brazil (US$ 8,000 million). A key problem that is faced by
all Latin American countries is the unsatisfactory level of learning results despite efforts,
as we shall see, to improve the education systems. All countries now have school evalu-
ation systems (see di Gropello in this volume) and a certain number have taken part in
international assessments. These provide information on achievement in at least the four
major school learning areas: language, mathematics, science and social studies. The
Figure 1 shows the gap between Latin American countries participating in the PISA stud-
ies (2002) and the OECD countries in reading levels (CEPAL, 2005).
Thirteen Latin American countries that participated in the UNESCO regional study on
achievement (UNESCO-OREALC, 1998), with the exception of Cuba, performed at less
184 Avalos
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than satisfactory levels. Countries, such as Chile, that have taken part in the TIMSS stud-
ies also perform well below the international mean (Ministerio de Educacin, 2004a).
While the above descriptions refer to the average situation of Latin American coun-
tries, similarly to many other parts of the world, within-country learning results and edu-
cational attainment differ among the socio-economic groups, the ruralurban divide and
the indigenous populations vis-` a-vis the dominant linguistic groups. A recent report on
educational progress in Latin America (PREAL, 2005) notes that while the number of
poor, rural and indigenous children that attend school is increasing, they learn less and
leave school earlier than children from families with higher socio-economic levels.
It is in this context of variations in development levels, and persisting problems in
moving towards satisfactory education and learning results, that we need to consider
how both the education systems and non-government initiatives in Latin America have
generated a number of school reforms and improvement projects that are helping to
bridge the educational divide within countries and with the rest of the more developed
world. I shall consider these in the next two sections of this chapter.
Regional and Government-Initiated Educational Reforms
and Improvement Programs
Over 20 years, starting with the meeting of Ministers of Education in 1979 in Mexico
convened by the UNESCO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean,
there has been a steady set of education policies and reforms directed towards
improved coverage, better learning results, eradication of illiteracy, more efficiency in
the management of the systems, better teachers and better schools. UNESCOs analy-
sis of what came to be known as the Major Project of Education in Latin America and
the Caribbean (UNESCO, 2001) notes the greater concentration on improvement of
access in the eighties, and from the nineties onward, an emphasis on the quality of edu-
cation services.
School Improvement in Latin America 185
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9
Argentina Brazil Chile Mexico Peru OECD
Below Level 1 Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5
Figure 1. Reading ability among population aged 15 in PISA test 2000 per Level of Performance (%)
Source: UNESCO/OECD.
Reform directions in the eighties were encapsulated in the goals set at the Mexico
meeting in terms of combating poverty through eradication of illiteracy and achievement
of universal access to education. This meant investing more in education (7 or 8% of
GDP) and lengthening the compulsory primary education cycle from 5 or 6 years to 8 or
9 years of Basic School education. Policies and changes in the eighties therefore con-
centrated on expanding facilities for increased access of excluded populations to school-
ing: buildings, double-shifts and triple-shifts, incomplete schools, use of untrained
teachers, all of which made it possible to bring Latin America in general to Gross
Enrolment Ratios close around 90% in primary school (with the exception of Guatemala
and Haiti). However, this expansion was inefficient as high repetition and dropout rates
persisted. Also the economic crisis of the eighties in fact lowered spending in education
per person from US$ 88 to 60 between 1980 and 1986 and delayed structural reforms to
the extent that this period in Latin America is known as the lost decade (Rivero, 1999).
Towards the end of the eighties and beginning of the nineties it seemed important to
put an end to what was considered an exhausted style of education development:
Short-term views in decision-making, isolation of education in respect to other
sectors of society; a homogenized content for heterogeneous populations; educa-
tion processes concentrating more on teaching than on learning; and a greater
emphasis on curricular materials and designs than on the professional role of
educators. (UNESCO, 2001, p. 29)
The need for a real turnaround was expressed in a landmark publication (ECLAC-
UNESCO, 1992, p. 149) that highlighted the purpose of providing all children and
young people with universal access to the codes of modern society. This meant
focussing on the conditions that make for learning relevant to the needs of development
and participation in the global and knowledge society. Governments around the Region
formulated policies aimed at improving the quality of education opportunities for the
all the population, especially disadvantaged groups. Reforms of different magnitudes
began to take place, financed with increased resources from the countries, with loans
from multilateral agencies (World Bank and Interamerican Development Bank) and
with bilateral aid from different organisations.
Characteristics of the Educational Reforms in the Nineties
The breadth of changes occurring in education varied according to the different country
situations. Some were large-scale reforms, which involved establishing or modifying
legal frameworks in order to proceed with the changes envisioned (e.g., the Reform Law
in Bolivia); others concentrated on specific areas such as curriculum, teacher education
or management. Table 1 outlines the main change areas that were referred to improve-
ment of schools and learning opportunities in different countries of the Region.
The change areas shown in the table were all directly related to the quality of school-
ing. However, equity was equally central to these reforms. Governments that intro-
duced reforms in these areas in the nineties did so with the purpose of broadening
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opportunities for disadvantaged populations to receive better education. In order to get
some feeling for what these reforms entailed, I will refer briefly to examples that have
been subject to international scrutiny and research.
Education Reform (Laws and Implementation)
The Education Reform Law of 1994 in Bolivia announced a major transformation of
the education system that has been in process of implementation since then. Its main
areas of change include restructuring the system into an eight-year compulsory Basic
school and four years of secondary education
4
; changes in the curriculum to meet
demands of the new structure and of progress in knowledge; changes in classroom
teaching moving from the dictate-copy approach to a constructivist one; modernisa-
tion and professional strengthening of the administration of the school system; reform
of initial teacher training and school-focused professional development by preparing a
new cadre of teacher educators (Asesores Pedaggicos); decentralisation and new
institutional forms to allow for greater citizen participation (parents especially) and
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Table 1. Education and school improvement actions in the 1990s
Change areas Countries
Education Reform Laws Argentina, Bolivia, Panama
Curriculum reform and improvement Argentina, Aruba, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana,
Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama, Per, Dominican
Republic, Venezuela
Teacher Initial Education Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Suriname,
Uruguay
Teacher professional development Argentina, Bahamas, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, El
Salvador, Guyana, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Per
School quality for excluded populations: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador,
indigenous, poor, rural Mxico, Nicaragua, Panam, Paraguay, Per, Uruguay
Free textbooks and teaching resources Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador,
Guyana, Jamaica, Mxico, Panama, Dominican
Republic, Suriname
School management: greater Aruba, Brazil (Minas Geraes), Cuba. El Salvador,
autonomy for schools Guatemala, Nicaragua
Incentives for school improvement and Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay
innovation projects
Lengthening of school day Chile, Dominican Republic, Uruguay
ICT in schools Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Jamaica
Evaluation of learning systems Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa
Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador,
Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama,
Paraguay, Per,Venezuela
Source: UNESCO (2002), World Bank (n/d).
policies addressing intercultural bilingual education. This last component is in fact a
central and crosscutting element of the reform, especially as 37.6% of indigenous chil-
dren do not complete 5 years of schooling compared to 11.1% of non-indigenous
groups (CEPAL, 2005). Given the diversity of languages and cultures in Bolivia the
Reform proposed to offer all children the opportunity to begin schooling with teachers
who speak their language and to learn with materials in that language. Textbooks in the
four main languages have been provided to schools (Guaran, Quechua, Aymara and
Spanish), and teachers who speak the native language have been also prepared to teach
in this language. The implementation of this linguistic approach has been complex, not
always accepted by parents of non-Spanish speaking children for fear of exclusion from
the main society, and not sufficient has been done to bring the intercultural schools to
the cities, and provide equal opportunities for indigenous and Spanish speakers to
understand each others culture (Alb, 2002). Nonetheless, over 2,000 schools and
115,000 indigenous children are being educated in bilingual contexts (Alb & Anaya,
2003). In their case study on the Education Reform, Contreras and Talavera (2005) cite
research evidence that children in intercultural bilingual schools are better than control
students in language and mathematics after second grade, and marginally better in sci-
ence results.
Curriculum Reform
Most of the countries in the Region to a larger or lesser extent have made curriculum
changes. Among them a rather radical structural reform was carried out in Argentina in
the 1990s linked to the passing of the Federal Law of Education in 1993. The adminis-
tration of the system was changed from national to federal control (by the provinces).
The education system was reorganised in three levels: initial education (ages 45),
General Basic Education (9 years in cycles of 3 years each) and the three-year
polimodal
5
school (equivalent to upper secondary in other contexts). Education was
made compulsory from age 5 (pre-school) to the end of General Basic Education (10
years altogether). To serve this structure the curriculum was radically reformed
(Dussel, 2004, p. 390) from a discipline-based system to a framework of Common
Basic Contents for all the country. It is expressed in curricular areas that allow for flex-
ible interpretation and is geared to the achievement of a wide range of competencies
(cognitive, procedural and attitudinal). Its organisation in chapters, blocks and con-
tents is aimed at supporting greater interconnectedness amongst topics (Dussel, 2004).
The curriculum for the polimodal school, besides the Common Basic Contents,
includes specialisations that provide concentration and contextualisation in different
knowledge areas and socio-productive activities (Decibe, 2001, p. 151). The key cur-
riculum areas at this level are the natural sciences; economics and organisational man-
agement; humanities and social sciences; production of goods and services; and
communication, arts and design. Parallel to this polimodal school, the technical-pro-
fessional schools provide specific vocational training. Students who attend technical
schools may require an extra year of study to get a technical qualification not only for
industry, building or agrarian activities, but also for services such as health, environ-
ment, tourism, administration and similar areas (Decibe, 2001).
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Please pro-
vide com-
plete details
for the ref.
Alb, 2002
in ref. list
Chile also underwent a complete curriculum renewal though not based on changes to
the school structure, as these had already occurred in the late sixties (eight-year Basic
Education and four-year Secondary Education). A common framework of Key Objectives
and Minimal Contents was sanctioned for Basic Education in 1996 and for secondary
education in 1998. Initially, for secondary education, some consideration was given to fol-
lowing the Argentine path, but eventually it was decided to use a more conventional
approach similar to that used in other countries (e.g., England and Wales).
6
Schools would
be allowed to write and implement their own syllabuses, based on the framework (subject
to approval).
7
Like Argentina, the Chilean curriculum also adopted an area structure that
included: Language, Sciences, Social Studies, Mathematics, Arts, Foreign Language,
Physical Education and Religion. As in Argentina, it also introduced technology at
Basic and Secondary Education levels and both frameworks include cross-curricular areas
on values, citizenship and development of cognitive capacities (i.e., thinking skills). In
both the Argentine and the Chilean situation the curriculum has only recently been imple-
mented throughout the whole system so its effects are not yet noticeable as far as learning
results are concerned. Within the context of an assessment of reforms in three countries
(Argentina, Chile and Uruguay), Dussel (2004, p. 408) synthesises the innovation aspects
of their curricular changes as follows:
Generally speaking what is endorsed is the new concept of a basic curriculum to
prepare for competency and citizenship, centred on managing different lan-
guages and codes (mother tongue, mathematics) technology and English, and
with a somewhat still moderate degree of openness and choice. The [the curric-
ula] tend to be organised in more comprehensive and interdisciplinary structures
(areas, sectors, curricular spaces), and to include more up-to-date knowledge
linked to advances in the areas to which they refer. In general, they declare their
support for psychological criteria (meaningfulness for students) and social crite-
ria (contribution to building competencies and preparing citizens). They tend to
be more open and flexible curricula that embody in their design the notion of
curriculum development for the different levels of the education system.
8
The process of implementation of these new curricula continues, however, to be prob-
lematic in both countries, as teachers delay in taking in the new concepts (despite
efforts to communicate the changes to them) and because, as in the case of Chile, the
curriculum is more prescriptive in its content areas, than what is desirable. The chap-
ter by Jacinto and Freytes Frey in this volume illustrates how teachers in school receive
well-planned reforms in different ways and with different reactions to them.
Initial Teacher Education
While several countries introduced improvements in their teacher education system,
most of these consisted in raising it to tertiary level (in the case of secondary level
Normal Schools) or to University status. At present, practically all Latin American
countries, with the exception of Guatemala, prepare their teachers at Higher Normal
Schools or Institutes and at universities.
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Two countries stand out for carrying out substantial teacher education changes: Chile
and Uruguay. Chile supported in 19972002 the development of improvement projects
in 17 universities that covered about 80% of the student teacher population at the time.
With an investment of around US$ 25 million the universities improved the curriculum,
provided opportunity for post-graduate study to a large number of teacher educators, sti-
mulated international academic exchanges, improved libraries and ICT resources, and
most important, installed a system of field experiences from the first years of training
that replaced the limited practicum held at the end of a four or five-year course of study.
9
Besides this fund, the government also established a scholarship for high performing sec-
ondary leavers to pursue teacher education studies at a university of their choice, subject
to acceptance. These policies and reforms allowed for a gradual improvement of the
quality of teacher education and especially for a substantial increase in the number of
more qualified applicants to teacher education (Avalos, 2002).
The reform in Uruguay was unusual in that it consisted in the setting up of new
teacher education institutions to prepare secondary teachers. Up until 1997 when the
first two were established, there had only been one highly prestigious secondary
teacher education institution in the capital city of Montevideo. The new centres (five
altogether) were established gradually, under the management of the Ministry of
Education, in different geographical locations of the country. Known as the Centros
Regionales de Profesores (CERP),
10
these institutions accept secondary school leavers
wishing to prepare as teachers in five areas of study: language and literature, natural
sciences, social sciences and English. A careful period of planning preceded the open-
ing of the first centre. This included setting the curriculum for a three-year program
(it is highly intense as far as teaching activities are concerned) with field experience
occurring over the 3 years of study. The teacher educators for these Centres were care-
fully selected from a cadre of university graduates in the different subject areas and
prepared in a special pedagogy course during the summer preceding their appoint-
ment. They are contracted on a full time basis of which half is used in teaching activi-
ties and the other half in student attention, administration, professional development for
in-service teachers, coordination of field experiences in schools, etc. Students also
attend on a full-time basis (40 hours per week) and receive scholarships from the gov-
ernment. The low dropout level suggests that there will be a regular flow of well-
prepared teachers willing to work in the different regions of Uruguay.
Continuous Professional Development for Teachers
Besides the traditional forms of in-service teacher education, practically all countries
in the Region that engaged in educational reforms or improvement projects organised
activities to help teachers learn about the reforms and develop the skills needed to
implement them. These took many forms: regular up-dating courses, school-based
teacher groups or preparation to teach the new curricula (Avalos, 2004a). The Chilean
rural microcenters (see Avalos, 2004b), linked to a project to improve rural multigrade
schools, are an example of such activities. The rural microcenters are one-day monthly
gatherings of teachers from multigrade schools at one of the local schools in order to
review their work, learn about reforms in the system, and assist each other in the
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improvement of teaching and school management. The meetings are supported by a
school supervisor who acts as a facilitator. Evaluations of learning results of these
rural schools consistently show good results of their pupils in national assessments.
11
Despite the level of interest and commitment that continuous professional develop-
ment activities have awakened in teachers, the fact of not being linked to national
systems of teacher education has caused them to fade away with government changes.
This is why, the recent trend of some governments to establish coordinated systems of
teacher education (initial and continuing) that include diverse types of delivery forms, is
a promising step. For example, Paraguay and Peru are involved in the generation of such
coordinated systems in response to policy agreements by the Ministers of Education of
the Region. What is at stake in most of these efforts, however, is the extent to which the
capacity of teacher educators can be improved (Vaillant, 2005).
Disadvantaged and Excluded Populations
Much has been written and reported on the diverse programs of affirmative action to
provide better schooling opportunities for the poor (Reimers, 2000). Throughout Latin
America there have been a number of such programs that have as common characteris-
tics that they target disadvantaged groups, that they offer special preparation for teach-
ers, that they have special materials, they may have a special curriculum and provide
children with extra support in relation to their learning difficulties as well as food and
other material resources. Among these are those directed to rural populations such as
PAREIB in Mxico, the Accelerated Classes in Brazil, and in Chile the 900 Schools
Program as well as the Liceo para Todos scheme (referred to in this volume in the chapter
by Jacinto and Freites Frey).
A series of programs known as PARE, PAREB and PAREIB have been in place in
Mxico since the early nineties with the purpose of improving the quality of pre-school,
basic and secondary education for the rural poor. These projects encourage and fund
improvement projects developed by the states with social participation. Its activities
include textbooks and materials, infrastructure, teacher professional development and
supervision. The program in its PAREB version has been externally evaluated and shows
good results in learning improvement although with problems in the quality of imple-
mentation, especially the teacher development component (see de Andraca, 2003 &
Tatto, 2004).
The Acceleration Programs address one of the greatest problems of Brazilian edu-
cation which are the high rates of repetition and therefore of students being overage
in schools and classrooms. Most of these programs that have been in place since the
mid 1990s in various states of Brazil allow students to skip grades through separating
the over-aged ones in special classes. Students who are in 14 grades are taught in
1 year so they may continue on to fifth grade in regular classrooms; students in
58 grades are provided 2 years of accelerated teaching to achieve the 8th grade level.
Arajo Oliveira (2004) notes among their common characteristics that they use spe-
cially designed materials for the students, teachers are directly supervised during the
school year, programs are closely monitored and externally evaluated and students are
promoted by their own teachers. Many of these programs have been evaluated, but as
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Please
check inser-
tion of open
parenthesis.
Arajo Oliveira (2004, p. 63) states, while the well-designed and implemented ones
contribute quality, efficiency and equity gains, they do not of themselves, redress the
student flow problem. This assessment is true for other programs directed to disad-
vantaged populations, as was mentioned before in the case of the rural microcenters
in Chile. The well-known 900 Schools program in Chile (directed to urban schools
with poor results) was one of the first programs to provide special attention to the
900 schools that in 1990 had the worst learning results.
12
With all its merits and the
fact that it has increased learning results of the poor populations on which it focuses
compared to similar populations without the program the achievement of the 900
Schools students in national examinations are generally below national averages
(Ministerio de Educacin, 2002, 2003). These situations increasingly lead to con-
clude that while affirmative action programs are an important contribution to learn-
ing results for the most disadvantaged populations, that is equity, they are not the
solution if the broader causes of differential results amongst the poor (i.e., insuffi-
cient investment in social programs) are not dealt with (Arajo e Oliveira, 2004 &
Reimers, 2000).
Learning Resources and ICT (Information and
Communication Technologies) and Incentives for
School Improvement
Besides the special programs referred to above and those actions related to the
improvement of teacher education, countries have introduced teaching and learning
resources at school level, including the development of ICT programs, and incentives
for school improvement.
Learning Resources and ICT
Learning resources in the form of classroom libraries/reading corners for basic educa-
tion children have been part of reforms in Argentina Brazil, Chile and Mxico among
other countries. In these countries the interventions have been particularly effective in
improving language and mathematics scores, and in increasing the probability of pro-
motion of pupils to the next class (Anderson, 2002). Distribution of free textbooks also
have had an effect on learning and on decreasing the gap between high-ability and
low-ability poor children (Anderson, 2002). In Chile one of the important innovations
at secondary level was the distribution of free texts in publicly funded schools and the
provision of some degree of choice to teachers in their selection. ICT in schools were
first introduced in Latin America by the governments of Costa Rica and Chile (Alvarez
et al., 1998) in the early nineties, and in both countries the use of computers has been
extended to the whole of the education system. Cuba recently has also provided all its
schools with some form of computer technology. In other countries there are specific
programs to develop computer skills and its use in teaching and learning (UNESCO,
2001). The Chilean program ENLACES has been subject to wide international expo-
sure, and an indication of this was the countrys participation in the IEA SITES M2
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International Study (Kozma, 2003) on technology, innovation and education change.
Below is a quote from the results of the case studies on innovation that were part of
the Chilean study and that point to the effects of technology on school processes
(Hinostroza, Guzmn, & Isaacs, 2002, pp. 113).
International collaborative project My Homeland.
This project started in 1999 and was part of the international project World Links
(www.world-links.org). The aim was to share with other schools in the world some
characteristics of the province in which this secondary school is located. Students
participating in the project had to research about local traditions; historical events,
artistic and cultural manifestations of their communities and then share the results
with other schools participating in the international project. In order to produce the
material, students used productivity tools (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation
tools and colleagues). The products were shared using email and presented in a web
site specially created for the project (for results see: www.iie.ufro.cl/wlink/webs/ljfs/
milugar/index.html). The main innovative characteristics of this project:
It was interdisciplinary, involving subject areas such as arts, language, history
and earth science (it included 11 of the 14 different subject areas considered in
the curriculum).
Teachers and students changed their traditional role, engaging in research type
activities and working collaboratively.
Students developed their activities outside the classroom, collecting relevant
data from the community members and several historical places. Also, they were
responsible for implementing the activities planned in the international project.
School Improvement Projects
Some of the country reforms also introduced incentives towards innovation at school
level. In Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Mxico, Paraguay and Uruguay they are known as
school improvement projects and consist of funding or other support to implement
innovations designed by the schools. In those cases where teachers have time and are
well organised and managed, these projects are effective in generating motivation and
interest in learning on the part of pupils. But this has not always been the case
(UNESCO, 2001). Another form, but at a more structural level, are the Institutional
Education Projects (PEI) which are plans for school development that schools present
to their local authorities, a sort of blueprint of where they want to go and how they
expect to do it. The framing and institutionalization of these school projects in
Colombia involves the whole educational community (parents, teachers, students,
head-teachers and alumnae), and its contents which may affect the organisation of
teaching and curriculum implementation, within the scope of the ministry of education
guidelines (Rivero, 1999). More recently, countries are realizing that the key to an
effective school is its leadership. Chile has recently passed a law, which defines the
conditions under which head teachers will be appointed to schools and the length of
their tenure (formerly they were appointed until retirement). Together with this, it is
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supporting initiatives to provide specific training for head-teachers in the publicly
funded system.
School-Based Management: The Case of EDUCO
Another interesting change affecting management at school level in the eighties and
nineties were the different forms of decentralisation that occurred in the education
systems. (see chapter by di Gropello in this volume). Closer to schools were the cases
of school-based management implemented in El Salvador, Nicaragua and the state of
Minas Gerais in Brazil.
EDUCO (Community Managed Schools Program) in El Salvador is one of the most
researched and well known of these innovations. On the basis of community initiatives
that developed during the civil war in that country to provide schooling for rural chil-
dren, the government of El Salvador with assistance from the World Bank and the
Interamerican Development Bank in 1991 gave formal status to the establishment and
management of rural schools by their local communities. With training and supervi-
sion assistance from the Ministry of Education parents elected for 3 years by their
communities constituted managing bodies for the schools (ACEs). These bodies in
turn established councils charged with hiring teachers on a renewable basis for 1 year
and with supervising their performance, overseeing the use and maintenance of
schools and equipment and conducting fundraising activities to supplement subsidies
from the Ministry of Education.
The EDUCO experience stimulated the government in 1997 to establish school
governing councils in other schools. These are known as the CDEs (Consejos
Educativos Escolares). These councils have a wider composition than the ACEs as they
include not only parents but also the head-teacher, teachers and students. The CDEs
are entrusted with identifying and prioritising school needs, managing resources, set-
ting up and approving annual plans and the school budget. They also contract teachers
and decide on requests for transfers and re-hiring of teachers as well as matters relat-
ing to teaching hours and extra-payment for teachers and other school personnel. The
CDE president keeps track of each teachers performance portfolio. Both in the case of
EDUCO schools and those with CDEs these organisations have bank accounts to
which the government transfers their funding allocations.
The EDUCO program has been influential in increasing access of excluded children
in rural areas, diminishing absenteeism, repetition and dropouts (Cullar-Marchelli,
2003; de Andraca, 2003).
13
Over time, new classrooms have been built and relevant
materials have been provided. Parents show greater involvement with the education of
their children and there are signs of improvement of the educational level or parents
and of the community in general. However, these schools encounter difficulties such
as frequent teacher turnover and effects on the managing councils of parents insuffi-
cient preparation for their role as members. Students have little real participation in the
councils while parents do not always have sufficient time, or the time demanded from
them is more than they can offer. Teachers also tend to feel that they are being deprived
of power as they have to respond to the CDEs and could be sanctioned by them if found
incompetent.
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Non-Government or Private Initiatives Directed to School
Improvement
While for-profit private schooling in Latin America makes up a small proportion of
the educational offering, in most countries there are school systems and schools run by
private organisations that are non-profit and receive public subsidies. This has meant
the emergence of private school systems run by specific organisations that have pro-
duced their own schemes for improvement. Also, all over Latin America there are non-
government projects to assist in the improvement of schools or deal with specific areas
(such as prevention of violence in schools). Finally, as can be seen in the chapter on
the British School system by Bamford in this volume, there are regional systems of
private education that in turn are concerned with improving the quality of the educa-
tion they offer.
To illustrate these contributions of the non-governmental sector, I will refer to the
case of Fe y Alegra, a network of schools that operates in several countries, and to
some of the prevention of school violence programs that are particularly active in
conflict areas such as Colombia and Brazil.
Fe y Alegra
Fe y Alegra
14
set up its first schools in Venezuela in 1975 with the purpose of reach-
ing out-of-school children and since has extended to 12 countries in Latin America, of
which Bolivia has the greatest number of schools. Its main targets are the establish-
ment and running of primary schools for rural and marginal urban populations (56%).
But it also covers secondary education (30%) and a smaller number of children in pre-
school education. For its operation, Fe y Alegra receives funding for teacher salaries
from the respective governments of the countries in which it operates, while local com-
munities assist in providing buildings and infrastructure. In each country where Fe y
Alegra has schools there is a National Office that supervises the school system and
provides professional development to teachers and head teachers. A study of Fe y
Alegra in eight
15
of the twelve countries in which it operates (Swope, 2002, p. 92)
notes as characteristics of these schools the following traits.
Establishment of strategic alliances between national and local government as
well as with international donor agencies
Strong involvement of local community participation
Relevant and diverse educational strategies related to the needs of populations in
the different locations where the program operates
Careful selection of head teachers and teachers with a good offer of professional
development activities for them
Public credibility on account of the quality of leadership and management of both
the private and public resources that are allocated to the schools.
While all Fe y Alegra schools have a strong community participation component,
there is variation from country to country in the use of other strategies. For example in
Bolivia which has the greatest number of schools, the system combines the use of
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preventive strategies (health and nutrition), monetary incentives for parents to keep
their children in school and preschool programs. All these seem to concur in produc-
ing good results in terms of higher retention rates and completion of schooling in the pre-
scribed years. Also according to the study referred to above (Swope, 2002) Fe y Alegra
schools in a number of countries tend to retain students within a cohort to a greater
degree than their counterparts in the public system. Equally, Fe y Alegra students tend
to complete their primary school within the year-span that the system determines and the
schools also show a lower rate of repetition and a higher retention rate compared to pub-
lic schools. Finally, dropout rates are clearly lower than those of students in the public
school system.
16
Prevention of Violence Programs
Increasingly, children and young people that live in conflict-ridden situations (i.e.,
warfare, drugs, domestic violence) may have their schooling disrupted or may take
violence as a way of solving problems, of dealing with frustration or simply as a natu-
ral form of behaviour. This has led a number of both governments and non-government
institutions to work on prevention of violence policies and projects to help students and
teachers deal with the problem. Of interest, are the number of initiatives from grassroots
organisations that are focused on working with schools and communities in order to
develop peaceful school environments and help young people to cope with conflict
amongst themselves and in their surrounding communities.
Among these projects are six that were identified and evaluated under a special
grant from the Interamerican Development Bank (see Avalos, 2005b). They were
located in schools of the cities of Sao Paulo (Brazil), Medelln (Colombia), a rural
community in Ecuador, and the city of Santiago (Chile).
17
Besides sharing a location
in difficult and very poor contexts these projects have common features in their over-
all designs. All of them have a holistic focus in the sense of addressing teachers,
students, and parents and in some cases the larger community, although they differ in
the degree to which they focus more closely on one group rather than another. The
projects activities are directed to bringing out conflict issues and providing tools for
protection and management of such problems. In doing this, the projects may have as
their aim directly to reduce violence, especially overt violence, or to work preferably
towards the generation of a peaceful environment, or both of these aims. The projects
differ in the extent to which they have greater or lesser reliance on an existing model
used in previous projects. At the start of the interventions that were part of the study
(Avalos, 2005b), two of the implementing institutions had developed and tried out their
own model for violence prevention and for the establishment of a peaceful environment
in schools. One was based on detecting risk factors and providing protective stimulus to
face conflict when it occurs. Risk factors may be individual conditions such as low self-
esteem or lack of affection, as well as family factors such as economic problems, con-
flicts, and lack of role models, insufficient or excessive care, and others. The other
project used a modified form of the conflict mediation model stimulating the entire
school community (as well as parents) to work towards setting up conditions in schools
for peaceful resolution of conflicts and development of a harmonious environment.
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Effects on improvement of the school environment are different, but some of the
projects especially one located in Sao Paulo and the other in a semi-rural location in
Ecuador showed positive results in the commitment of teachers and the community
to involvement in prevention of violence in schools and the development of a good
environment.
Educational Reforms and School Improvement: How Much
of an Effect on Educational Progress in Latin America?
The preceding sketch of reforms and specific projects in the last 20 years directed to
furthering a better education for all is obviously not sufficient to establish how effec-
tive or not these have been, especially for those groups previously excluded from its
benefits. From a purely quantitative perspective, there is no doubt that efforts in the
eighties to widen the coverage of the educational systems meant that most of the Latin
American countries were able to achieve almost universal enrolment of students in
primary schools with net enrolment rates today around 80% (UNESCO, 2005). At
secondary level, some countries are also advancing towards net enrolment rates close
to 80%. However, as presented in the first section of this paper, learning results as
measured by national and international assessments remain low (with the exception of
Cuba
18
).
Each one of the countries that undertook extensive education reforms in the
nineties expected that these would reach the schools and would in turn transform their
teaching and learning contexts. Has this happened and to what extent? There is
enough evidence from publications and meetings occurring at different times that
there has been a certain amount of change in the schools affected by reforms. Thus,
for example, Hunt (2004, pp. 4142) composes two scenarios on the basis of visits to
schools in 1993 and 1995 before educational reforms in Peru, and then in 1999 and
2001 to illustrate its effects;
Since 1993 Peru has significantly tried to improve public primary schooling with
visible results in many schools. There is a better infrastructure (walls exhibit work
of students) and teacherpupil relationships are significantly warmer and more
open than before. There is a national revised curriculum for each school year and
many classrooms have books, learning resources and libraries. Many teachers
seem aware of the importance and benefits of encouraging active participation of
children in their own learning, and are anxious to learn more. The school system
has started a national evaluation system and provided the public with information
about results. The initial teacher training is being reformed, and in general one
can say that Peru has taken a valuable first step in the long struggle for an
education of quality.
19
Despite this assessment, Hunt concludes that reforms are still not sufficient. Teachers
need more opportunity for professional development to improve their knowledge base
and widen their teaching repertoire, schools still do not have enough autonomy, and
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there practically is no system of supervision or support for head teachers and teachers.
And educational spending is still woefully inadequate.
This reference to reforms in Peru is applicable to most other countries that have
engaged in broad or systemic reforms: They have moved the system ahead, schools app-
ear better, but the road to satisfactory results is still in the making. To an extent, there
has been a criticism of the reforms in the nineties in the sense of not having paid suffi-
cient attention to school factors such as support for better teaching nor recognised the
nature of the constraints affecting teachers such as inadequate preparation or large
classes (Reimers, 2003). Certainly, initially this was the case of Chile, where the focus
was placed on improving buildings and facilities, providing textbooks and learning
resources, introducing ICT into schools, reforming the curriculum, but all with insuf-
ficient attention and understanding of how teachers would and could receive these
reforms (Bellei, 2001). More recent studies of the implementation of the new curricu-
lum in primary schools illustrate how teachers teach selectively the new curriculum
topics and dilute the messages and emphasis suggested in the curricular materials,
especially for children who belong to lower socio-economic groups (Ministerio de
Educacin, 2004b).
While the above considerations have to do with the effect of large-scale reform
initiatives in the Latin American region, we can also ask about the effects of specific
programs or projects on schools and classrooms. Seen from this angle, in almost every
country of the Region it is possible to find successful experiences of change, some of
which are well established. Among these are the schools of the Fe y Alegra system
described in an earlier section of this paper, and the well-known experience of Escuela
Nueva in Colombia.
20
In this volume the paper by Deves and Lpez illustrates an
on-going experience of improving science teaching at primary level, which is a project
that joins academic initiative and support of the Ministry of Education.
More recently, in Latin America, and perhaps as an indication that all the answers about
how schools and teaching can be improved are not provided by large-scale reforms, there
has been a growing interest in learning about successful projects and about schools that
work, schools that achieve results and why this is so (i.e., Garca-Huidobro, 2004;
UNICEF, 2005; U. Cayetano Heredia, 2002).
21
These publications include accounts from
experiences in different countries that outline how and why it is thought that the schools
considered are successful.
A recent study using a framework from international literature on school effective-
ness was jointly sponsored by UNICEF and the Ministry of Education in Chile
(UNICEF, 2005). The purpose of the study was to identify a group of good-performing
schools that catered for the lower and middle low socio-economic groups in order to
examine what in the school environment and processes contributed to these results.
To a certain extent the search for effective schools indicated the sense of frustration of
the policy-makers regarding measurable improvement as a result of reform efforts in
schools attended by the poor. The difficulty of finding a large enough sample for the
study that met the criteria illustrates also to what extent this frustration is justified.
22
Many of the 14 schools eventually selected had moved from a very critical situation at
the beginning of the nineties (before educational reforms were started) to improvement
in many of the school processes: management, climate, teaching and learning. The
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study documents how this happened and concludes that the reforms stimulus and con-
tributions worked through certain existing characteristics of the schools leadership,
teachers and parent involvement. The appropriate trigger points in the schools studied
were described as follows (UNICEF, 2005):
An adequate initial diagnosis of the problems of the school and a will to search for
solutions (why are children not learning and what can the school do to improve the
situation?).
Decisions on priorities and clarity about what needs are greater than others, and
from thereon to take few, small steps towards improvement.
In situ professional development and teacher collaborative work linked to good
supervision.
A renewed understanding of the importance of discipline, from authoritarianism
to shared understanding and decisions on how to establish rules, as well as a focus
on responsibility, respect, solidarity and self control.
School identity, an explicit image of the kind of school everybody wants to
promote (parents, students, teachers).
Judicious use of resources allocated by the reforms selecting and appropriating
these in accordance with needs and goals.
External recognition of the schools progress in learning results (by the commu-
nity, the Ministry of Education or others).
The results of the study not only help to see what are the factors that make for improve-
ment (none of which are given but require working on). These results also explain that the
scarcity of effects of the reforms (as evidenced by the low number of effective schools
found for the sample) may be due to the lack of appropriate encounter points between
reforms and schools or perhaps, even more to the point, to the need for conditions that
generate initiative within schools such as contextual (teacher morale and teacher time) as
much as leadership and the will to work hard for change. These conditions require con-
tinued support and interest from educational authorities. The teachers in this study of
effective schools despite their satisfaction about their schools progress missed a greater
interest and involvement on the part of ministerial authorities. The authors of the study
noted that in fact the achievements of these schools were fragile and might succumb if
faced with unforeseen or greater difficulties than those they could manage. Maintaining
effective schools in difficult environments and conditions requires constant vigilance and
support until the schools are effectively able to stand strongly on their feet. To an extent
these reflections are also those of Harris and Chrispeels (2006) in their analysis of schools
in challenging conditions in the developed world, as they criticise the narrow focus of
school improvement that is directed only to raising standards, without adequate under-
standing of the interplay between contexts and possibilities.
A Final Word
Latin America through the educational reforms that have been in place in the last 20 or
so years, and through the initiative of non-government groups and single schools, has
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many examples to offer about how and in what way teaching and learning can be
improved. It also offers many lessons on the constraining factors for reform and
improvement and how important it is to face them, especially, with regard to the large
populations that continue to be undereducated. The chapters on Latin American expe-
riences in this book give us pointers on how improvement may take place and what can
be achieved. Knowledge derived from research on school efficacy in Latin America
should be considered by policy-makers and educators (see chapter by J. Murillo), as
should also the evidence from small-scale improvement. Deves and Lopez chapter on
how a subject such as science can be taught so that children in poor environments
experience the joy of scientific discovery, also illustrates how such experiences can be
widened as in concentric circles beyond the sites were they originats. How reforms are
received and the importance of recognising audiences, the experiences of others and
voice are highlighted in the chapters on decentralisation by di Gropello and on reform
effects by Jacinto and Freites Frey. These chapters also stress the complexities of struc-
tural reforms and processes at local and school level. From the other side, which is the
school itself, we have the chapter by Bamford on how a school faces evaluation and
how it learns and moves ahead as a consequence of the process. School evaluation is
far from being a reality in most of the Latin American education systems, but there are
promising experiences occurring. Many of these are linked to the framing by school
communities of a school project, but also there are guidelines on how to conduct these
processes emerging from policy-makers around the Region.
As in other less-developed regions of the world, Latin America has still enormous
challenges in being able to fulfil the Millennium Goals and provide a good education
for all, especially for the poorest groups, but it is on its way and will move faster as it
learns from research and experience.
Notes
1. These include the United States, Canada, Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Belize, Jamaica, Trinidad &
Tobago and Grenada.
2. One of the countries with the largest private school enrolment in the Region is Chile (48% of total enrol-
ment), while most of the others fluctuate between 23% (Argentina) and 8% (Uruguay) (UNESCO, 2005).
3. A composite of the following indicators: net enrolment ratio, adult literacy rate, gender related index,
and survival rate to grade 5 (see UNESCO, 2005).
4. From a 5-3-4 structure.
5. Literally means a multifaceted curriculum.
6. This scheme was also used for pre-school and the Basic Education levels.
7. This has not happened in reality, because schools and teachers do not feel competent to write their own
syllabuses, and so the Ministry of Education provides their own version for these schools which are
about 90%.
8. Authors translation.
9. For a description of the project and its results see Avalos (2002) and Avalos (2005a).
10. Vaillant and Wettsteins (1999) book on the CERPs not only describes what they are and do but also
includes chapters by other educators on the strengths and possible weaknesses of the project as they
saw it through visits or through their involvement in their establishment.
11. For example, the analysis of the 2002 SIMCE results (national measurement of learning system) show
an increase in language and maths scores of 6 and 5 points as compared to similar schools that do not
200 Avalos
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take part in the program (Ministerio de Educacin, 2003). Also an earlier evaluation of the program
found not only learning but other effects of the program such as teacher motivation and skills (see
Avalos, 2004b).
12. The name, linked to the number of original schools participating has remained because though some
schools improve and exit the program, new underachieving ones join in and keep the number rela-
tively stable.
13. While EDUCO schools still operate in the country, its major growth period was between 1991 and
1997 when the number of children benefited by the program increased from 8,416 to 193,984.
14. Supported by the Jesuit Order though managed mostly by lay contracted staff.
15. Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Per and Venezuela.
16. These results are not observed in all the countries where Fe y Alegra operates but in all of them some
of these are present.
17. The projects in Sao Paulo were run by the State Secretariat of Education and by a private NGO; those
in Colombia by the Red Cross Youth (with lengthy experience in this area) and by the social depart-
ment of a private organization, the project in Ecuador by DNI (International Defence of Children) and
the one in Chile, by a private NGO.
18. As measured by the UNESCOOREALC (1998) assessment of learning results in Latin America.
19. My translation.
20. For a description of this longstanding program see www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/monographseries.htm
21. See also the article of Murillo in this Handbook on research production in the field of school efficacy
and improvement.
22. The requirement that the schools selected enrol students in the low and middle-low socio-economic
groups and perform in the top 25% schools (according to national assessment tests) had to be lowered
as initially only eight schools out of a total of around 2,600 basic level schools met the achievement
criteria. Eventually, 14 schools were selected for the study.
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Introduction
The last 30 years have seen the emergence, development and increased maturity of
school effectiveness and school improvement in the UK. Most significantly, what
started as two separate fields of endeavour have merged together as researchers, policy
makers and practitioners explore the questions how, for whom and in what ways do
schools make a difference to children and young peoples life chances and continue to
improve over time? In this chapter, we examine this evolution. We start by outlining
the changing policy context. Next, we look at the early days of school effectiveness and
school improvement (SESI) when they were still separate fields. After discussing
influences that prompted their drawing together, we analyse how they have aligned and
grown closer over time, examining changing methodologies and evolving areas of
focus. Finally, we describe tensions and emerging areas of enquiry and focus as the
SESI field moves forward in the UK.
Policy Context
Major educational reforms have taken place in England during the last quarter century.
The Scottish and Northern Irish systems developed separately during this period while
the Welsh education system has recently adopted a somewhat different trajectory
following devolution.
Conservative governments from 1979 to 1997 sought to reduce the power of profes-
sional interests (teacher unions and Local Education Authorities) and increase the role
of consumers (parents and pupils) by emphasizing market-based reforms. The inten-
tion was to increase the efficiency of educational institutions and raise educational
standards via financial devolution and local management of schools and increased
parental choice. Successive reforms led to the introduction of a national curriculum
207
11
GROWING TOGETHER: SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS
AND SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT IN THE UK
Louise Stoll and Pam Sammons
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2007 Springer.
and assessments linked to four Key Stages of education (at ages 7, 11, 14 and exami-
nations at age 16). These set expectations for the level of attainment in the core
subjects of English, mathematics and science. Accountability was increased by pub-
lishing annual national performance tables of schools results from 1992. These were
ranked into high profile league tables by the media, with low performing schools
receiving adverse publicity. Parents were informed about school quality when regular
inspection of all schools and publication of inspection reports by the new Office for
Standards in Education (Ofsted) was established in 1993. Failing (later termed
special measures) schools were identified, and required to improve or, as a last
resort, closed if they made insufficient progress. The inspection system has recently
been amended, with a greater emphasis on validated self-evaluation.
The school effectiveness and improvement research base started to influence policy
directions across the UK during the 1990s, and research and improvement studies have
been commissioned in all countries. An Ofsted-commissioned review of school effec-
tiveness research (Sammons, Hillman, & Mortimore, 1995) identified key character-
istics of effective schools, informing its published inspection framework. Ofsted also
commissioned research on Assessing School Effectiveness (Sammons et al., 1994) to
provide fairer like with like comparisons adjusted for differences in pupil intakes.
From 1997, under three terms of New Labour, government education policies have
continued to emphasise the prime aim of raising standards, although there has been
greater recognition of the role of social disadvantage and need to combine pressure with
support for schools in challenging circumstances. A range of area-based measures were
adopted to try to raise standards and combat disadvantage, and a significant expansion
of pre-school provision recognized the importance of the early years. Significant year-
on-year increases in education spending also took place from 1998 onwards and edu-
cation, education, education was identified as the Governments priority. The emphasis
on improvement through inspection was retained, and an influential Standards and
Effectiveness Unit was established, drawing on SESI approaches, and headed first by
Prof Michael Barber then Prof David Hopkins, both of whom took up their role from
improvement research positions.
Daily literacy and numeracy lessons were introduced for primary schools in 1998 and
1999, based on reviews of research evidence and inspection evidence on effective teach-
ing of reading and mathematics. These later developed into a national primary strategy.
Ambitious targets for the percentage of children achieving the expected level (level 4) in
English and mathematics at the end of Key Stage 2 (age 11) were introduced. Significant
improvements in primary pupils attainment levels have been recorded in national tests
and international comparisons (e.g., PIRLS, 2001; TIMSS, 2003). A Key Stage 3
strategy for the 1114 age group was also introduced in 2001.
Use of performance data to inform school self evaluation was also promoted. The
Department for Education and Skills (DfES) drew explicitly on school effectiveness
research when developing national value added approaches to provide indicators of
pupil progress across Key Stages. Over time, these have become more sophisticated,
using multilevel approaches. In addition, the social inclusion agenda has received more
emphasis with greater attention paid to raising attainment levels of ethnic minority and
disadvantaged groups.
208 Stoll and Sammons
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A controversial feature has been the emphasis on greater choice and diversity in
the school system. Specialist and faith schools have been promoted, and the creation
of City Academies, involving sponsorship by private investors, is a more recent
innovation to turn around schools in disadvantaged areas that have failed to improve.
In 2000, the importance of school leadership at all levels was given greater recogni-
tion when the National College of School Leadership (NCSL) was created.
Early Work: School Effectiveness and School Improvement
as Separate Fields
In the first 15 years of UK school effectiveness research, the focus was on the quality and
equity of schooling trying to find out why some schools were more effective than others
in promoting positive outcomes, whether schools performed consistently over time,
across outcomes and areas, and the characteristics associated with better outcomes.
Seminal early work demonstrated that schools, indeed, made a difference (Reynolds &
Murgatroyd, 1977; Rutter, Maughan, Mortimore, & Ouston, 1979). For example, in the
Fifteen thousand hours study of 12 secondary schools in inner London, investigating the
reasons for differences between schools in terms of various measures of pupils behaviour
and attainments (Rutter et al., 1979), the researchers concluded that differences between
the schools outcomes were systematically related, at least in part, to their characteristics
as social institutions, and that associations between school processes and outcomes
reflected in part a causal process. While not denying that external social influences have a
profound impact on young peoples subsequent life chances and individual [ah1] school
performance [ah2] it emphasized that those in schools can take vitally important actions
to enhance the progress, achievement and social development of children and young peo-
ple. In addition, studies began benefiting from using new methodologies to help identify
progress made by pupils, after controlling for prior attainment 88 and background factors
(Mortimore, Sammons, Stoll, Lewis, & Ecob, 1988; Smith & Tomlinson, 1989; Tizard,
Blatchford, Burke, Farquhar, & Plewis, 1988). Work by Desmond Nuttall and Harvey
Goldstein on examination results pointed to the need for increased sophistication in study-
ing school effects (Mortimore, Sammons, & Thomas, 1994).
Meanwhile, during the 1980s, school improvement was practitioner-oriented, evi-
denced in the work of those involved in the teacher as researcher (Elliott, 1980) and
school self evaluation and review movements (Clift & Nuttall, 1987; McMahon, Bolam,
Abbott, & Holly, 1984). This holistic, organizational approach to change in schools was
also seen in the work of English participants in the International School Improvement
Project (Hopkins, 1987).
Coming Together
Closer alignment of school effectiveness and school improvement has been promoted
through increased collaboration between those working in the different research
traditions, and by greater involvement of stakeholders other than researchers.
School Effectiveness and Improvement in the UK 209
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Bridging Research Traditions
The merger of school effectiveness and school improvement in England, whereby
school improvement efforts drew on the findings of school effectiveness, and school
effectiveness studies took account of understandings about school improvement, took
several years, entailing some difficulties (Harris & Bennett, 2001; Reynolds, Hopkins,
& Stoll, 1993; Stoll, 1996). In particular, much school effectiveness research had a
quantitative emphasis, with measurement of pupil outcomes involving large numbers of
pupils and schools, while improvement research often focused on processes but not out-
comes and involved case studies, action research and other qualitative development
activity. The growing together of SESI was facilitated by a greater emphasis on mixed
methods research involving quantitative studies of effectiveness and detailed qualitative
case studies of more and, in some cases, of less effective schools. Also more recently,
developmental work with schools in difficulty has drawn on the growing knowledge
base of both fields.
Involving More Stakeholders
While in the early years, most of the UKs SESI energy came from researchers, it was
notable that a number of these were affiliated to local education authorities (LEA
school districts); for example, the School Matters research (Mortimore et al., 1988)
was sponsored by the countrys largest LEA, whose researchers collaborated with
seconded teacher researchers to carry out the study. For more than a decade, those
working in SESI in the UK have believed that the fields further development and
impact necessitates positive working relationships between researchers, policymakers
and practitioners.
There are many examples of LEAs sponsoring school improvement, drawing on the
SESI research base (e.g., Myers, 1996), of higher education (HE) institutions working
collaboratively with schools (e.g., Frost, Durrant, Head, & Holden, 2000; Hopkins,
Ainscow, & West, 1994) and HE institutions and LEAs working together with schools
(e.g., Halsall, 1998; Sammons & Smees, 1998; Southworth & Lincoln, 1999; Stoll &
Thomson, 1996) on school improvement efforts. One example of an attempt to bridge
research, policy and practice was the establishment of the International School
Effectiveness and Improvement Centre (ISEIC) in 1994 at the Institute of Education,
University of London, where school effectiveness and improvement researchers worked
together on projects (e.g., MacBeath & Mortimore, 2001; Taggart & Sammons, 1999),
as well as collaborating with practitioner associates (largely those in support roles in
LEAs and educational consultants) to promote research and development projects, and
dissemination strategies, including a National School Improvement Network (NSIN)
and research summaries. The advisory board for this centre included practitioners, local
and national policy makers and school effectiveness and improvement academics from
other HE institutions.
Increasingly, researchers involved in improvement-related studies have included a
specific mandate to disseminate findings accessibly to increase their value to teach-
ers and other educational professionals (e.g., Stoll & Harris, 2006). To further this,
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Ref. list.
Please pro-
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in ref. list.
a number of research teams have built in roles for seconded teacher researchers. There
is also an increasing effort to bring together research teams, encouraging them to share
ongoing findings with each other, policy makers and practitioners through joint presen-
tations at conferences or in specially arranged seminars.
The emerging interface between policy and, initially, school effectiveness research could
be seen as national policy agencies began to develop external strategies for improvement
(Reynolds, Sammons, Stoll, Barber, & Hammer, 1996). For example, the Literacy and
Numeracy strategies similarly drew on teacher and school effectiveness research in their
development. Increasingly school effectiveness and improvers have been involved in the
evaluation of policy developments such as the Making Belfast Work initiative in Northern
Ireland (Taggart & Sammons, 1999), New Community Schools in Scotland (Sammons,
Fink, & Earl, 2003) and the Key Stage 3 Strategy in England (Stoll, Fink, & Earl, 2003).
Growing and Developing Together
A significant amount of SESI activity has now taken place in the UK, including a num-
ber of projects using mixed methodological approaches. Increased sophistication can
also be seen in efforts to explore specific aspects of effectiveness and improvement
and how effectiveness and improvement play themselves out differently in diverse
situations, requiring differentiated strategies.
Developing Methodologies
Major methodological advances in the school effectiveness tradition in the 1980s
involved developing better statistical approaches to study effectiveness, commonly
referred to as value added measures. Recognition of the hierarchical structures of educa-
tion systems (pupils nested within classes, classes nested within schools, schools nested
within LEAs) led to adopting multilevel approaches that better enabled the estimation of
school effects. The need was recognized to take account of the statistical significance
of the residual estimates of differences between the predicted and actual outcomes of
schools (via the use of confidence limits) (Goldstein, 1995). Further developments drew
attention to issues of the stability of effects over time, and consistency in effects across
different outcomes, for example, between subject areas and between cognitive and
affective or social/behavioural outcomes. Studies of differential effectiveness found that
schools can vary in their effectiveness for different pupil groups.
Mixed methods approaches also developed often involving quantitative analyses of
effectiveness and case studies of processes in more effective or more improved schools.
The Forging Links research on effective schools and departments in inner London
(Sammons, Thomas, & Mortimore, 1997) and the Improving School Effectiveness Research
study in Scotland (MacBeath & Mortimore, 2001) provide examples in different contexts.
The Improving Schools research (Gray et al., 1999) in England focused explicitly on the
nature and extent of improvement in secondary schools academic effectiveness and case
studies of the correlates of school improvement. The longitudinal Effective Provision of
Preschool Education Project (Sylva, Melhuish, Sammons, Siraj-Blatchford, & Taggart,
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plete details
in ref. list.
2004) exemplifies how educational effectiveness approaches have been adapted to study
pre-school influences, including those of pre-school type, duration and quality on young
childrens progress and development.
Focusing on Different Elements
While there have been a number of generic studies of effectiveness and improvement
(e.g., English case studies as part of the seven-country European Improving School
Effectiveness project, Wikeley, Stoll, & Lodge, 2003), much research and develop-
ment activity has focused on specific aspects of improvement. Here we describe six:
leadership; teaching and learning; pupil involvement; self evaluation and use of data;
external involvement; and capacity building. More recent work in all of these areas
shows increasing sophistication in probing differences within and between schools in
their effectiveness and in considering the need for different improvement strategies in
different situations (Hopkins, 2001; Stoll & Fink, 1996).
Leadership
School effectiveness research has consistently drawn attention to the head teachers
leadership in promoting and maintaining school effectiveness, and as a key character-
istic of effective schools (see Sammons et al., 1995). Attention has also been drawn to
the head teachers role in primary school improvement (Southworth & Lincoln, 1999),
and the importance of instructional (Hopkins, 2003), and learning-centred leadership
(Southworth, 2005; Stoll et al., 2003) while research on improving schools in chal-
lenging circumstances also emphasizes the importance of leadership as a catalyst for
change, in setting the direction and goals for change, and in focusing on teaching and
learning (Cutler, 1998; Fox & Ainscow, 2006; Stoll & MacBeath, 2005). The role of
other leadership groups such as the senior leadership team and heads of department
have received increasing recognition since the 1990s (Harris, Jamieson, & Russ, 1995;
Sammons et al., 1997), while, more recently, different approaches to teacher leader-
ship have also been explored (Durrant & Holden, 2006; Harris, 2003).
Teaching and learning
Muijs and Reynolds (2001) have argued that insufficient attention has been paid to
teaching and learning, concluding that the wide variation in teacher behaviours, com-
petence and consequent outcomes identified by external inspectors results from this.
While the role of the classroom in school effectiveness has clearly been established
(Sammons, 1999), until recently exploring teaching and learning within school effec-
tiveness research has been limited, with notable exceptions (e.g., Mortimore et al.,
1988). Sustained school improvement, however, appears more likely where there is a
focus on learning rather than just employing tactical and strategic approaches (Gray
et al., 1999). A recent major Teaching and Learning Research Program funded by the
Economic and Social Research Council (www.tlrp.org) now aims to enhance research-
based practice in teaching and learning.
Several of its projects specifically focus on learning and teaching in schools, and the
program fosters partnership between practitioners and researchers in undertaking
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list.
research and ensuring its impact. A longitudinal Associate TLRP project funded by
DfES on variations in teachers lives and work and their effects on pupils (Vitae),
explored contributions to variations in teachers perceived and relative effectiveness as
well as how teachers become more effective over time (Day et al., 2006). The research
explores the impact of training and development, conditions of service, and profes-
sional and situated (school, department) and personal factors. A follow on study will
conduct observations of classroom practice in classes taught by teachers identified as
relatively more effective.
Pupil involvement
For more than a decade, Rudduck and colleagues have explored pupils responses to
schooling, providing evidence that young peoples involvement in discussing and
designing improvement interventions can contribute to school improvement (Rudduck
& Flutter, 2001, 2003). A growing English evidence base reveals that pupils have much
to say about their experiences of learning and their voices are generally constructive and
informative (e.g., Fielding, 2001).
Rudduck and Flutter (2001) propose four levels of engaging pupils in the improve-
ment process: listening to pupils, as a data source; students as participants, where they
play a role in decision-making although teachers initiate inquiry and interpret the data;
students as researchers, where pupils are involved in enquiry and actively participate in
decision making; and pupils as fully active researchers and co-researchers jointly initiat-
ing enquiry with teachers, planning action in the light of data and reviewing the inter-
ventions impact. Lodge (2005, p. 125) cautions, however, that pupil involvement can be
problematic. Through several teacher-led enquiry projects into learning Lodge (2005)
has found that young people develop better understanding of their learning through dia-
logue which develops a community approach to enquiries into learning between them
and their teachers. From research and development experiences around re-engaging dis-
affected pupils in learning, Riley also concludes that teachers need to gain greater insights
into pupils lives, involve them in their learning and create new learning opportunities
inside and outside the school (Riley, Ellis, Weinstock, Tarrant, & Hallmond, 2005).
Self-evaluation and use of data
School improvement researchers increasingly conclude that enquiry and reflection is
central to success (e.g., MacBeath, 1999; Southworth & Conner, 1999). The often dif-
fering accounts of teachers, pupils and parents provide practical school self-evaluation
opportunities and can lead to strategies for school improvement (MacBeath 1999;
McCall et al., 2001). A number of LEA projects have developed in collaboration with
HE institutions providing feedback to schools of performance data in accessible for-
mats assisting in the process of institutional self-evaluation and review. Most were
developed before the DfES started to produce national value added indicators.
The ALIS, YELLIS and PIPS projects led by FitzGibbon and Tymms from the CEM at
the University of Durham provide examples of such collaboration (e.g., Tymms, 2001),
while members of the ISEIC at London Universitys Institute of Education were also
involved in several projects. Since 1998, schools have received considerable guidance
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on using performance data and target setting by the DfES, through the Autumn Package
which later evolved into a web-based program, the Pupil Achievement Tracker. The
Fischer Family Trust also provides a nationwide analysis of schools performance data
For LEAs and schools.
The data revolution over the last few years means that schools in England have far
more information available to assist them in target setting, self evaluation and to eval-
uate improvement projects. There are concerns, however, that overemphasizing meas-
urement and outcomes particularly in literacy and numeracy may distract attention
from other important curriculum areas. Furthermore, revising the Ofsted inspection
schedule to emphasize school-self evaluation means that, inevitably, some self-
generated enthusiasm for self-evaluation has dissipated. Despite this, there is still a
considerable amount of voluntary research-based improvement activity (e.g., Halsall,
1998; Sharp, Handscomb, & Webster, 2006).
External involvement and critical friendship
Research and experience working in and with schools suggests that most require a sup-
port infrastructure. While the LEA role has been changing, studies have shown that it
can play a key role (e.g., Riley, Docking, & Rowles, 2000; Southworth & Lincoln,
1999), especially when schools are in difficult circumstances (Ainscow et al., 2006;
Whatford, 1998), although LEAs, themselves, sometimes struggle to provide support
for improvement (Watling, Hopkins, Harris, & Beresford, 1998). Critical friendship has
also been the theme for attention, particularly in research and development projects
(Doherty, MacBeath, Jardine, Smith, & McCall, 2001; Swaffield, 2004), with particu-
lar acknowledgement that when dealing with schools in difficulties, there are extra sen-
sitivities whereby the gift of support, is balanced by a subversive intent (MacBeath,
1998). In recent years schools have also become an increasing source of support and
stimulus for development of other schools (see section on Networking).
Capacity building in different schools
Bringing about significant improvement requires much more than superficial tinkering
with school structures and practices. To succeed in a rapidly changing and increasingly
complex world, schools need to grow, develop, adapt creatively to change and take
charge of change. Taking charge of externally driven change, rather than being con-
trolled by it, has been shown to define schools that are more effective and more rapidly
improving from those that are not (Gray et al., 1999; Hopkins, 2001; Stoll & Fink,
1996) and, at any one time, schools may be at a different stage of development, or
growth state (Hopkins, Harris, & Jackson, 1997). Evaluation of the implementation
of the pilot of Englands national Key Stage 3 (middle years) strategy demonstrated that
capacity at the school, department and individual teacher level influenced schools
ability to implement the Strategy. In that project, capacity was defined as:
a complex blend of motivation, skill, positive learning, organizational condi-
tions and culture, and infrastructure of support. Put together, it gives individuals,
groups and, ultimately whole school communities the power to get involved in
and sustain learning. (Stoll et al., 2003 p. 22)
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Individual, school and external contextual influences affect school capacity (Stoll,
1999). Capacity building involves: creating and maintaining the necessary conditions,
culture and structures; facilitating learning and skill-oriented experiences and opportu-
nities; and ensuring interrelationships and synergy between all the component parts
(Stoll & Bolam, 2005). Recent English research highlights potential for capacity build-
ing by creating and developing professional learning communities (PLCs) (Bolam
et al., 2005). Effective PLCs in all school phases exhibited eight key characteristics:
shared values and vision; collective responsibility for pupils learning; collaboration
focused on learning; individual and collective professional learning; reflective profes-
sional enquiry; openness, networks and partnerships; inclusive membership; and mutual
trust, respect and support. The PLCs were created and developed through four key
processes: optimising resources and structures; promoting individual and collective pro-
fessional learning; explicitly promoting, evaluating and sustaining an effective PLC;
and leadership and management supporting PLC development. The more developed a
PLC appeared to be, the more positive was the association with two other measures of
effectiveness; pupil achievement and staff professional learning.
Further work continues to explore how schools at different stages of the journey
developed their PLCs. In writing on differentiated school improvement, Hopkins (1996,
2002) highlights the need for a fit between specific improvement programs and the
schools developmental needs. In this framework, school improvement strategies fall
into three different types:
Type I strategies, assisting failing schools to become moderately effective. They
involve a high level of external support, and strategies involve a clear and direct
focus on a limited number of basic curriculum and organizational issues to build
the confidence and competence to continue.
Type II strategies, assisting moderately effective schools to become effective.
These strategies do not rely as heavily on external support but tend to be more
school initiated.
Type III strategies, assisting effective schools to remain so. In these instances
external support, although often welcomed, is unnecessary as the school searches
out and creates its own support networks. Exposure to new ideas and practices,
collaboration through consortia, networking or pairing type arrangements seem
to be common in these situations.
Recent English research has been carried out in areas of extreme economic and social
challenge, whether urban schools (e.g., Ainscow and West, 2006; Clarke, Reynolds, &
Harris, 2005) or former coalfield areas (Harris, 2003). This suggests that schools in
challenging areas have to work harder and be more committed than their peers working
in more favourable socioeconomic circumstances. They also have to maintain the effort
to sustain improvement as success can be fragile in difficult circumstances. Cullen
(2003) describes aspects of their communities including poverty which seriously
constrain what they are able to achieve, while elsewhere, schools in much more advan-
taged areas have been found to be equally resistant to improvement efforts (Stoll &
Fink, 1998). Only in relatively recent years, for example, have researchers focused their
attention upon improving failing or ineffective schools (e.g., Gray, 2000; Harris &
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for ref.
Hopkins
(1996,
2002) in the
Ref. list.
Please con-
firm the
change
made to
reference
Harris,
2003
Cullen
(2003) is not
given in the
Ref. list.
Please pro-
vide com-
plete details
in ref. list
Chapman, 2002; Reynolds & Teddlie, 2001; Stoll & Myers, 1998). A literature review
(Muijs, Harris, Chapman, Stoll, & Russ, 2004) revealed a number of common ele-
ments to improving and effective schools in socio-economically disadvantaged areas.
Effective leadership and collaboration has also been endorsed by the findings of studies
exploring improvement of urban schools (Ainscow & West, 2006), and inspection
has also been found to be a catalyst for improvement of schools in special measures
(Matthews & Sammons, 2005).
Networks and Community Partnerships
Increasingly, in England, as in several other countries, top-down approaches to
improvement are giving way to more lateral forms, through learning networks and
school collaboratives; recently described by Chrispeels and Harris (2006) as a fifth
phase of improvement of schools and systems. Partly intended to help transfer good
practice, in many cases teachers become more involved where there is a commitment
to reciprocity and practice creation (Fielding et al., 2005). The Network Learning
Communities (NLC) program, established by the NCSL, has been a large-scale devel-
opment and enquiry initiative involving 137 networks (1,500 schools) in England
between 2002 and 2006. Specifically designed to provide national policy and system
learning (as well as practice evidence), it was charged with generating evidence about
how and under what conditions networks can make a contribution to raising pupil
achievement, about the leadership practices that prove to hold most potential for
school-to-school learning and about the new relationships emerging between networks
as a unit of engagement and their local authority partners.
In contrast to the national strategies, NLC schools were given much autonomy to
adopt flexible forms of engagement with each other in networks. Evaluation evidence
indicates that the extent of engagement by participating schools varies much both within
and between individual NLCs. Earl et al. (2006) draw attention to the importance of net-
work attachment, which is correlated with an intermediate outcome of changes in think-
ing and practice in schools. While the evaluators describe the associations as fairly
erratic, they believe there may be connections between network participation and
improvements in pupil attainment. However, as yet evidence of significant improve-
ments in pupils attainment outcomes across NLC is weak, improvements being in line
with national trends. Improvement in attainment outcomes also varies considerably at the
school level, though there is some evidence that where staff perceive greater impact and
engagement of their school in networking, improvement in pupils attainment levels is
more likely (Earl et al., 2006; Sammons & Mujtaba, 2006).
The evidence on NLCs contribution to raising standards of attainment appears
much weaker than that concerning the impact of specific curriculum-based initiatives
such as the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies, and this is in line with findings
on the impact of other loose improvement strategies giving participants freedom to
develop their own strategies such as New Community schools in Scotland (Sammons
et al., 2003).
Lawton (1997, pp. 1718) cautions that research evidence that schools make a dif-
ference: should not be used as an excuse for societies being complacent about such
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citation
Muijs et al.
2004 is
appropriate.
Please pro-
vide com-
plete details
for ref.
Matthews &
Sammons,
2005 in ref.
list.
Please provide
complete
details for refs.
Lawton (1997,
p. 1718) in
the ref. list.
social problems as gross poverty and inadequate levels of housing, and Mortimore
and Whitty (1997) also emphasize the role of social disadvantage as well as of schools.
Increasingly, schools are working more closely with their local communities and other
agencies, through initiatives such as Extended Schools (in England) and New
Community Schools (in Scotland). Evaluations of early efforts show a willingness to
engage, but difficulties with developing partnerships.
Critiques and Tensions
Even in its early days school effectiveness research was criticized on a range of
grounds methodological, theoretical and political and there was a vitriolic reaction to
the Fifteen Thousand Hours study when first published in 1979. Tensions and critiques
of SESI research have been particularly evident in the UK academic community dur-
ing the last decade. In some instances this reflects a lack of knowledge of the research
studies and approaches and an aversion to the use of quantitative approaches and focus
on pupil outcomes. In other instances, there is concern that an emphasis on the role of
schools may lead to a neglect of the importance of social disadvantage. Elliot (1996,
p. 200) accused the field of a mechanistic methodology and an instrumentalist view
of educational processes. Responses to such criticisms (Sammons & Reynolds, 1997;
Sammons, Mortimore, & Hillman, 1996) have emphasized the roots of the effective-
ness field in a concern with the promotion of equity and strong links with practition-
ers in the improvement tradition.
Thrupp (2001) concluded that SESI researchers do not share the epistemological
commitments of their critics and drew attention to under-theorization of the field,
while Slee and Weiner (1998) have focused on supposed tensions between an empha-
sis on effectiveness and one on inclusive education. Teddlie and Reynolds (2001) have
responded to the various criticisms, emphasizing that the field has indeed reported the
influence of social class and role of context, but has also drawn attention to the impor-
tance of the schools contribution and ways of improving practice to benefit the
outcomes of disadvantaged groups.
As we moved forward, there are also a number of tensions (Stoll & Harris, 2006).
The burgeoning of research and development activity described in this chapter and
elsewhere space allows only a brief discussion of illustrative examples illustrates
the range and diversity of the field which does not attempt a unified approach or focus.
Also, with frequent policy changes, the difficulties of embedding and sustaining
improvement may be a challenge, especially for schools in difficult circumstances.
Furthermore, the informed professionalism that has been suggested is necessary for
continuing improvement (Barber, 2001) may be threatened by a dependency culture in
at least some schools (Earl et al., 2003; Stoll et al., 2003).
Conclusion
In many ways, SESI could be described as thriving in the UK. The enormous amount of
research, development and policy activity could not have been imagined 25 years ago, and
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Mortimore
and Whitty
(1997) in
Ref. list.
Please con-
firm
whether
change
made to the
citation slee
and Weiner
(1998) is
appropriate.
there is increased collaboration between members of the different stakeholder groups, but
the policy environment moves fast, and the pace of global change also means that what is
required to improve schools may not be what was needed even 5 years ago. The potential
of technology and a growing knowledge base, with a policy drive towards personalization
of learning means that the role of schools will continue to change through developments
such as school federations, consultant leaders and role of other organisations and net-
works of schools. While schools and teaching will continue to evolve it seems likely that
the methodological and theoretical insights of SESI approaches to enquiry will continue
to develop and the need for research and development work to support the improvement
of teaching and learning will remain urgent.
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publication
for Stoll
et al. (2003)
corresponds
to 2003a or
2003b in all
citations to
this ref. in
the text.
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Introduction
Stringfield (1994) defines educational effectiveness research (EER) as the process of
differentiating existing ideas and methods along dimensions deemed to be of value.
EER does not attempt to invent new ideas or programs but to concentrate on under-
standing the lessons to be drawn from existing practices. In this way, EER attempts to
establish and test theories which explain why and how some schools and teachers are
more effective than others.
The origins of educational effectiveness stem from reactions to the work on equal-
ity of opportunity undertaken by James Coleman and his collaborators (Coleman et al.,
1966) and Christopher Jencks (Jencks et al., 1972). These two studies coming from
two different disciplinary backgrounds (i.e., sociological and psychological) came
almost to a similar conclusion in relation to the amount of variance that can be
explained by educational factors. After taking into consideration student background
characteristics, such as ability and family background not much variance in student
achievement was left. This pessimistic feeling was also fed by the failure of large-scale
educational compensatory programs such as the Headstart in the U.S.A. and compa-
rable programs in other countries (MacDonald, 1991; Schon, 1971).
In addition to methodological critiques of the Coleman report, studies were published
that tried to prove that some schools did much better than could be expected on student
achievement tests than others did (using a research design of positive versus negative
outliers).
At almost the same point in time research was published in both the United States
and the United Kingdom that got much attention in both the scholarly and popular
press. Edmonds (1979), a school-board superintendent, particularly addressed educa-
tional practitioners and Brookover, Beady, Flood, and Schweitzer (1979) the educa-
tional community. These studies led to a movement in school effectiveness research
and in school improvement projects based on the findings of school effectiveness
223
12
EDUCATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS AND
IMPROVEMENT: THE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE FIELD IN MAINLAND EUROPE
Bert P. M. Creemers
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2007 Springer.
research in the United States. Quite a lot of research took place into the correlates of
school effectiveness, involving correlational studies focussing on the relationships
between the effects of education, that is, the outcomes of schooling, and the character-
istics of schools and classrooms. School change projects were based on these corre-
lates discovered in the effective school research. The most famous set of correlates
formed the so-called five factor model propagated by Edmonds. Most of the correla-
tional studies and outlier studies were heavily criticised (Ralph & Fennessey, 1983)
and this led to a reorientation in research and theory development after 1985.
In the United Kingdom school effectiveness research started with the Rutter study.
This study found that certain factors were not associated with overall effectiveness,
among them class size, school size, the age and the size of school buildings. The
important within-school factors determining high levels of effectiveness were the
balance of the intellectually able and less able children in school, the reward system,
the school environment, the opportunities for children to take responsibility, the use
of homework, the possession of academic goals, the teacher as a positive role model,
good management of the classroom and strong leadership combined with democratic
decision-making. In British school effectiveness research, in addition to academic
outcomes other measures like levels of rates of attendance, rates of delinquency, and
levels of behaviour problems were incorporated. The suggestion was that effective
schools were consistently effective across a wide range of types of student outcomes
(Reynolds, 1976; Rutter, Maughan, Mortimore, & Ouston, 1979). The Reynolds stud-
ies that were ongoing in the 1970s and 1980s utilised detailed observations of schools
in the collection of a large range of material upon pupil attitudes to school, teachers
perceptions of pupils, within-school organisational factors and school resource levels,
and revealed a number of factors within the school that were associated with more
effective regimes. These included a high proportion of pupils in authority positions, low
levels of institutional control, positive academic expectations, low levels of coercive
management, high levels of pupil involvement, small overall size, more favourable
teacher/pupil ratios and more tolerant attitudes to the enforcing of certain rules regard-
ing dress, manners and morals.
The publications by Brookover et al. (1979) and Rutter et al. (1979) were followed by
numerous studies in different countries into school effectiveness and school improve-
ment efforts, which were aimed at putting the results of research into practice (see for
an overview: Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000; Townsend, Clarke, & Ainscow, 1999).
The Early Stages of SESI in Europe
The start of the school effectiveness research and school improvement took place
initially in the United States and the United Kingdom. In other countries by the early
eighties preliminary studies and summaries of research were being carried out. In the
Netherlands for example the research was summarised in relation to an outline for the
structure of the secondary education (Creemers, 1983; Creemers & Schaveling, 1985).
In fact in these countries school effectiveness research was rooted in research on
teacher effectiveness, teacher behaviour, and other classroom studies (Veenman et al.,
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Reference
Veenman
et al., 1992 is
not listed in
the reference
list. Please
check.
1992). These studies too were strongly influenced by American studies (e.g., Brophy &
Good, 1986; Doyle, 1986; Emmer, 1987; Evertson & Green, 1986; Flanders, 1970;
Gage, 1972; Rosenshine, 1971) and replicated and expanded in other countries like the
United Kingdom (Bennett, 1988), Sweden (Lundgren, 1972), Germany (Bromme, 1981)
and Australia (Biddle, 1967; Fraser, 1986).
The country report submitted to the First International Congress of School
Effectiveness and Improvement provided an overview of school improvement work
done previously in the Netherlands which could be connected, afterwards, to the tradi-
tion of school effectiveness and school improvement. The projects took as the effec-
tiveness criterion student results in different school subjects and were especially
addressing conditions at class- and school-level to improve educational outcomes.
From 1980 onwards there has been a growing number of studies in which the
relation between school characteristics and the results at student level has been
explored. The research deals in a cross-sectional research or a longitudinal research
with the relationship between individual and educational characteristics on the one
hand and educational outcomes or individual school careers of students on the other.
A first attempt to replicate the American research into effective schools is the study by
Vermeulen (1987). Vermeulen investigated the relation between five school character-
istics and the effectiveness of schools among school leaders and teachers of 22 educa-
tional priorities schools in Rotterdam. By means of translating instruments used in
American research that measured school characteristics (Schweizer, 1984) and the
CITO primary school final achievement test he tried to verify the five effective school
characteristics model for the Dutch situation. Of the five, only the characteristic of an
orderly atmosphere aimed at the stimulation of learning could by reliably measured
and proved to have a relation with the average learning achievement. Because of the
unreliable measurements the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the question-
naires are not suited for the Dutch situation.
The country report also refers to the first studies of Van de Grift (1987) into the rela-
tionship of educational leadership of primary school leaders and average pupil
achievement. The instrument developed for measuring self-perceptions of educational
leadership proved to contain reasonably reliable scales for various aspects of this
educational leadership. The relations between these various aspects of educational
leadership and average pupil achievement were on the whole negative, non-existent or
at any rate non-linear. Van de Grift interprets these outcomes as an indication that
school leaders react to pupil achievements instead of being able to influence these
achievements. However, the lack of control for aptitude and socio-economic status of
pupils renders these conclusions debatable.
Further the first studies using new statistical programs like VAR-CL and HLM
(Brandsma & Knuver, 1988) might be seen as an indication of the interest in the
Netherlands for quantitative research using multilevel modelling.
The first country report concludes:
Most important in our view, however, is the research on what causes effectiveness.
In previous and current research we obtained many factors and variables which
could be important for explaining school effectiveness. But the results until now
The Development of the Field in Mainland Europe 225
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The publi-
cation year
have been
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ref.
Rosenshine
(1972 to
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match with
the list.
Please con-
firm
whether the
change
made in
appropriate.
have been very ambiguous, not stable, and sometimes even conflicting with those
from other programs. The use of the statistical techniques mentioned above in one
method to get more decisive conclusions might be one way to improve the
research. The other, more necessary, way is to improve theories and operationali-
sations of variables. The five factor model and the variables used in the research
programs lack a firm basis. Specifically, we cannot explain why variables at school
level cause the differences in achievement which are the result of the teaching-
learning situation. In this respect, a distinction should be made between instruc-
tional effectiveness and school effectiveness. (In fact, some factors of school
effectiveness are more related to instruction than others, for example, evaluation,
feedback and time distribution). This makes it possible to bring about a relation-
ship between school effectiveness research and educational research in teacher and
curriculum effectiveness and even to link with learning models developed by
Caroll, Bloom, Harnisfeger, Wiley and others. (Creemers & Lugthart, 1989, p. 98)
The report pointed at two important issues which guided research and improvement in
The Netherlands after 1990: the methodological and theoretical interest.
The growing interest in research and the improvement of educational effectiveness
was demonstrated by the large number of Dutch participants in the second Congress of
ICSEI, one year later. About 20 academics working in school effectiveness and
research improvement presented their work at this conference. Germany was presented
by Aurin (1989) who came to the conclusion that:
in Germany, effective school research does not exist as a distinct field,
although education research groups, administrations and governments of the
eleven Lnder are of course interested in knowing the causes of good school
effectiveness and the possibilities of improving the effectiveness of poorer
schools. Thus, effective schools research is indeed an important aspect of our
work and of course also an important political goal.
Consideration must however also be given to other problems in the field of
education which are currently in the focus of public attention, for example unem-
ployment among young people and the corresponding lack of motivation in
schools; further the questions of instruction in ethics and religion, the tasks of
social learning and of multi-cultural education and last but not least the prob-
lem of the contents and standards of general education.
This is then the reality of German schools. On the other hand, the solution to
these problems depends to a large extent on the pedagogical effectiveness of
schools and on the necessary research in this area. (Aurin, 1989)
The proceedings published after the second international congress (Creemers, Peters, &
Reynolds, 1989) confirm the growing interest in the Netherlands for research on edu-
cational effectiveness. The section on school effectiveness research reports contained
15 studies. Eleven of them are written by Dutch researchers. However, in the section
on school improvement there is no Dutch study at all. In the country report on the
Netherlands Creemers & Knuver (1989, pp. 7982) mention that there are some
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indications that educational policy and practice make use of the results of EER such
as the design for the evaluation of Educational Priorities Program makes use of the
available knowledge base on educational effectiveness and interest in educational
journals for practitioners which pay attention to educational effectiveness issues.
However, the majority of progress can be found in the research area. In the study of
Brandsma and Knuver (1988) 8% of the variance in language and more than 12% of
the variance in arithmetic could be connected to differences between schools, part of
which could be explained by school and classroom organisational factors. Van der
Hoeven van Doornum, Voeten and Jungbluth (1989) studied in 53 schools the effect
of aspiration levels set by teachers for their pupils learning achievement. The effects
of school and teaching factors on learning achievement appeared to be small. Higher
aspiration levels, however, tended to lead to higher test scores for children. Some 7%
of the variance in test scores could be explained by the aspiration level of the teacher
as a direct or interaction effect.
It is interesting to see that from early days on there is an interest in Dutch research for
methodological issues and the development of theoretical models for educational effec-
tiveness. With respect to the methodological issues the country report refers to the study
of Blok and Eiting (1988) about the size of school effects in primary schools. The results
show that real differences between schools (after correction for differences which occu-
rred by chance) as far as pupil achievement in language is concerned are very small. In
this research the intra class correlation coefficient rho has been used to estimate school
differences as compared to individual differences. Although rho was small for most
schools, some school factors could influence this measure. Especially the effect of being
a stimulated school appeared to be present. Another methodological issue is the stabil-
ity of school effectiveness. In former studies the effectiveness of schools over the years
or between forms did not seem to be very stable. Research conducted by Bosker,
Guldemond, Hofman, and Hofman (1988) shows that, for the data they analysed, school
effects seemed to be quite stable between school years and cohorts. Another study by
Hofman and Oorburg (1988) shows the same trend. The correlation between residual
scores of two successive school years was 0.73. It was also shown that this correlation
drops when these school years are more distant from each other, which was also the case
in the Bosker et al. research. Van der Eeden and Koopman (1988) studied the problem of
outliers in random coefficient models for multilevel analysis. Their conclusion is that in
interpreting the outcomes of analyses when using a random coefficient model, outliers
have to be considered because they can influence the estimated parameters. For the the-
oretical orientation the country report refers to an early study of Scheerens and Creemers
which contains the framework of a comprehensive model for school effectiveness taking
into account the contingency approach with respect to organisational factors at the
school level and the instruction-learning approach with respect to factors the classroom
level (Scheerens & Creemers, 1989).
In the country report two other countries appear: Sweden and Hungary. The section on
Hungary contains largely a description of the educational system of Hungary in transition
from centralised to more autonomy in individual schools. (Halasz & Horvath, 1989, pp.
7374). The section on Sweden presents an ongoing research and improvement project
into school ethos and social climate (Klintestam, Grosin, & Holmberg, 1989, pp. 9092).
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After the proceedings of the first two international conferences on school effective-
ness and school improvement, it was decided not to publish a country report every
single year. The start of the Journal for School Effectiveness and School Improvement
provided the opportunity to publish the papers presented at the international confer-
ences. Incidentally, country reports about the development of educational effective-
ness and improvement in specific countries were published (Creemers & Osinga,
1995; Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000; Townsend et al., 1999).
These country reports show that there is a stable interest in educational effectiveness
and improvement in the Netherlands. Also some other countries start with research into
school effectiveness and school improvement, such as Belarus (Zagoumennov, 1995). The
emphasis in Belarus is on educational reform such as the development of a new educa-
tional system, putting emphasis more on site-based than management and in relation to
that the transformation of a program for school-leaders (Zagoumennov, 1995) and later on
changes in the curriculum such as civics education program (Zagoumennov, 1999).
In the 1999 overview (Townsend et al., 1999) three new countries provide a report,
namely Norway (Hauge, 1999), France (Meuret, 1999) and Cyprus (Kyriakides, 1999).
In Norway and Cyprus, educational reforms are in progress. These changes deal
with the management of schools (from more centralised to decentralised) and the
curriculum of the schools. EER and improvement especially the evaluation of
improvement efforts are related to these reforms. Hauge comes to the conclusion that
his review reveals that it is difficult to differentiate between studies into school effec-
tiveness (research) and studies of school improvement. He addresses the point that
compared to other countries Norway likes to keep its own educational policy. Compared
to what happens in other countries in the Western world Norway has for many years
been very cautious in implementing extensive external school evaluation systems.
So far major efforts have been directed to school based evaluation programs focusing
on empowerment and professionalisation of teachers and school leaders. Major control
functions have been taken care of by other means of governing, for example, budgeting
en through national school curricula. However, the national policy of school evaluation
is gradually changing, influenced by societal demands on accountability, which are
becoming more visible than ever before at the end of the twentieth century. This move-
ment is challenging deep-rooted traditions in the Norwegian society, particularly those
concerned with equality and equity in education.
Meuret recognises that there is a growing interest in France for educational effec-
tiveness but the main institutions in the field are more interested in the teacher or the
policy level than in the school level. Results of school effectiveness research have been
interpreted as showing that school effects are rather weak. Moreover, a culture gap
remains between institutions mainly in charge of evaluation (Inspection Gnrale) and
the culture of teachers on the one hand and school effectiveness on the other. Studies
done in France show that at least for France the school process is highly dependent on
the student body (Grisay, 1995) which could be an argument for designing effective-
ness studies looking in more detail at effectiveness in schools and classrooms using
standardised tests.
A country that does not appear in the country reports is Belgium Flanders, where in
1989 a project on educational effectiveness was started, the so-called cohort study LOSO
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in which students for followed during their secondary education. From 1996 on there is a
growing number of publications, first in Dutch but later also in English, about the analy-
sis of this cohort (Van Damme, De Fraine, Landeghem, Opdenakker, & Onghena, 2002).
In mainland Europe countries are rather different with respect to educational effec-
tiveness and improvement. In The Netherlands effectiveness and improvement
research started in the eighties and caught up quite easily with international (US and
UK) research in this area. In some other countries, for example, Cyprus it started
rather late, and individual researchers picked up ideas from educational effectiveness
and improvement. Even at the start there were some differences in interest between
countries. In some countries the emphasis was originally on research into educational
effectiveness and the methodology which is used in studies, like in The Netherlands.
In other countries the emphasis or the starting point is educational reform and the
emphasis is on the research and evaluation of educational innovations. Sometimes this
turns into research on the effectiveness issues. This is not necessarily the case in all
countries. In The Netherlands the emphasis is on research and it is used more or less in
reforms. Belgium Flanders is another example where originally it started as a research
exercise and gradually it was used for reform efforts as well. In other countries however
the prime interest is on the reforms in education and especially curriculum reform and
decentralisation of education. In relation to the improvement interests there is also more
emphasis on issues like educational leadership, management organisation and curricu-
lum issues. Examples are Belarus and Hungary and to a lesser extent Norway, Sweden
and Germany. In some countries interest in educational effectiveness and improvement
comes up and gradually declines. This is reflected in country reports. Countries only
appear once and others are quite stable over time. When we also take into considera-
tion publications in international journals like the Journal for School Effectiveness and
School Improvement, we see quite a constant interest in EER in Belgium Flanders,
The Netherlands and Cyprus.
(Some) Results of SESI in Europe
It is difficult to give a description of European research on educational effectiveness
and improvement. As mentioned in the previous section, the research and improvement
processes in European countries are not related to each other. Countries have their own
program and might participate in international research projects like the International
School Effectiveness Research Project or the Effective School Improvement Project
(Reynolds, Creemers, Stringfield, & Teddlie, 2000; Creemers, Stoll, Reezigt, & ESI
team in this volume). Similar topics in research and improvement receive attention in
countries at different points in time. In the following we more or less disregard these
differences and describe the results independent of the period of time and the country.
In the specific format we make a difference between the effectiveness studies and
improvement studies, especially the evaluation of improvement efforts. Within effec-
tiveness studies we look in more detail in methodological studies which address issues
like the stability of school effects and the way to measure the effects, studies that
address different aspects of effectiveness and finally related to the European interest in
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volume)
needs to be
listed in ref.
list
development of theory and testing of theory, the development of theoretical models of
theories about educational effectiveness and the testing of these models. With regard to
the school improvement, we pay particular attention to the input and studies related to
effectiveness and evaluation of educational improvement efforts.
Methodology of Educational Effectiveness Research
Several studies address the issue of consistency of effectiveness across organisational
sub-units and across time (stability). Luyten (1994) found inconsistency across grades:
the difference between subjects within schools appeared to be larger than the general
differences between schools. Moreover, the school effects for each subject also varied.
Doolaard (1999) investigated stability over time by replicating the school effectiveness
study carried out by Brandsma and Knuver (1989).
Bosker (1990) found evidence for differential effects of school characteristics on the
secondary school careers of low and high SES pupils. High and low SES pupils simi-
larly profit from the type of school that appeared to be most effective: the cohesive,
goal-oriented and transparently organised school. The variance explained by school
types, however, was only 1%. With respect to the departmental level, some support for
the theory of differential effects was found. Low SES pupils did better in departments
characterised by consistency and openness, whereas high SES pupils were better off in
other department types (explained variance 1%).
Campbell, Kyriakides, Muijs, and Robinson (2003) found next to typical characteristics
of effective teaching also differential teacher effects which can be combined with school
characteristics. In a Flemish study into effective schools, De Maeyer and Rymenans (2004)
found also a differential school effect. Some school teachers do not equally enhance the
achievement level of different types of pupils. A strong educational policy has an effect on
boys reading scores but not on girls. Furthermore, some school features only seem to
work in a certain grade or discipline. De Maeyer and Rymenans study focuses on a
couple of methodological issues such as the design of the study. They show in simula-
tion studies that the multi-cohort design produces results of equal value as longitudi-
nal design. When the selection is not being taken into account, multi-cohort design
leads to conservative statements of school effects. The inadequate modelling of selec-
tion leads to an over-estimation of the standard errors of parameter estimations for the
effect of a school characteristic. Therefore it is more difficult to detect a significant effect.
Further they compare different models by means of multi-level Structural Equation
Modelling. Apart from direct effects also indirect effects (through an achievement ori-
ented climate) and antecedent effects (characteristics of the school population) have
been modelled. The last one shows the best fit in the research project.
Luyten (2006) and Kyriakides and Luyten (2006) propose different ways of meas-
uring school and schooling effects. The amount of variation between schools always
looks small in comparison to differences in student achievement within schools. This
is not a good indication for the effects of schooling. The effect of schooling might be
substantial even though the differences between schools are limited. Kyriakides and
Creemers (2006) suggest another way of measuring long-term effects of schools and
teachers which might provide a better estimation of the effects of schooling.
230 Creemers
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The methodological development in the past mainly concerned multi-level causal
modelling but we need more complex modelling in effectiveness studies. It seems
useful for instance to look at threshold levels of effectiveness characteristics, levels
where effectiveness of a characteristic might turn into its opposite. The development of
curvilinear model and system dynamic models to study the relationship between the
effectiveness school factors and outcomes in a process of educational change is one of
the major tasks in the near future of EER (see the section Modelling educational
effectiveness).
Correlates of Educational Effectiveness
Between 1985 and 1995 a number of studies were published in The Netherlands to find
out which factors mentioned in the literature show positive and negative correlations
with educational achievement. In their review Scheerens and Creemers (1995) table
says Creemers and Osinga make an analysis of these studies (see Table 1).
In the columns the total number of significant positive and negative correlations
between these conditions and educational attainment are shown.
The main organisational and instructional effectiveness enhancing conditions, as
known from the international literature, are shown in the left-hand column.
The total number of effectiveness studies presented in Table 1 in primary education
is 29, while the total of studies in secondary education is 13, thus indicating that
primary education is the main educational sector for effectiveness studies in The
Netherlands. Primary and secondary education schools with a majority of lower
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Table 1. Dutch school effectiveness studies: Total number of positive and negative correlations between
selected factors and educational achievement
Primary level Secondary level
Positive Negative Positive Negative
association association association association
Structured teaching/feedback 5 1
Teacher experience 3 1 1
Instructional leadership 2 1
Orderly climate 2 3 1
Student evaluation 5 0
Differentiation 2 0
Whole class teaching 3 0
Achievement orientation 4 4
Team stability/cooperation 3 3
Time/homework 4 4
Other variables 16 8
Average between school variance 9 13.5
Number of studies 29 13
Note: Not all variables mentioned in the columns were measured in each and every study.
Source: Creemers and Osinga (1995).
SES-pupils and pupils from minority groups comprise the research sample of about
25% of the studies.
The line near the bottom of the table that shows the percentage of variance that is
between schools gives an indication of the importance of the factor school in Dutch
education. The average percentage in primary schools is nine, and in secondary
schools 13.5. It should be noted that this is an average not only over studies, but also
over output measures. Generally schools have a greater effect on mathematics than on
language/reading, as suggested in Fitz-Gibbon (1992).
Since at the time the studies included in the review were conducted most primary
schools had just one class per grade level, the school and classroom levels usually
coincide. It is difficult to draw a firm conclusion about the contribution of factors at
classroom and school level separately although there are indications that in The
Netherlands the classroom level factors explain more variance in student outcomes
than factors at other levels.
A study related to both the instructional and school level carried out by the universities
of Twente and Groningen was an experimental study aimed at comparing school-level and
classroom-level determinants of mathematics achievement in secondary education. It was
one of the rare examples of an effectiveness study in which treatments are actively con-
trolled by researchers. The experimental treatments consisted of training courses that
teachers received and feedback to teachers and pupils. Four conditions were compared: a
condition where teachers received special training in the structuring of learning tasks and
providing feedback on achievement to students; a similar condition to which consultation
sessions with school leaders was added; a condition where principals received feedback
about student achievement; and a no-treatment condition. Stated in very general terms,
the results seemed to support the predominance of the instructional level and of the
teacher behaviour (Brandsma, Edelenbos, Boskers, Akkermans, & Bos, 1995).
Scheerens and Bosker (1997) confirm in a later review and an analysis of findings
of international studies on school organisational or structural characteristics of educa-
tional effectiveness the limited evidence of school and structural characteristics.
Qualitative reviews are more optimistic than the international analysis and research
synthesis. On the school level monitoring and evaluation might have small effects as
well as parental involvement and climate. Positive classroom conditions are related to
aspects of structured teaching such as cognitive learning feedback, re-enforcement and
adaptive instruction (Scheerens & Bosker, 1997, p. 305).
Later studies in The Netherlands and elsewhere confirmed the importance of the factors
mentioned (Reynolds, Teddlie, Creemers, Scheerens, & Townsend, 2000; Scheerens,
1999). Maslowski (2001) could identify five types of school cultures such as schools that
were primarily oriented towards internal processes, achievement-oriented schools, change-
oriented schools, control-oriented schools and strong comprehensive schools. The prob-
lem however was that none of these schools show a significant connection with student
performance.
In most studies, instructional factors dealing with structuring and evaluation could
explain small parts of the variance in student outcomes. Even at the university level the
quality of instruction and evaluation still have a (small) effect on student outcomes
(Bruinsma, 2003).
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In Belgium Flanders, the LOSO cohort study confirms largely the findings with
regard to student background characteristics like ability and home environment, class-
room characteristics like teacher and instructional characteristics and school organisa-
tional characteristics (Opdenakker, 2003). It is interesting to note that this study could
explain variance in student behaviour based on the joint effects of schools and
classrooms but also differential effects that are somewhat different than in other coun-
tries. When the strength was defined operationally in terms of family characteristics,
indicators for intelligence and mathematics achievements or efforts for mathematics
during the school year, it was found that students with a strong background have a
strong sensitivity to the educational environment. However, when the strength of the
student was defined in terms of motivation and general effort variables or in terms of
the indicator for economic capital, it was found that students scoring low on prior
achievement motivation or general effort or belonging to economically disadvantaged
families are more sensitive to the educational environment than students scoring high
on these characteristics (Opdenakker, 2003). Opdenakker found also evidence for con-
figurations (combinations of characteristics at school- and classroom-level) which
could explain variance in student outcomes. The other study in Belgium Flanders
(De Maeyer & Rymenans, 2004) could provide evidence for a relationship between
effective education characteristics on the one hand and student outcomes on the other.
As well as in the LOSO study (Van Damme et al., 2002) the study shows that the
overall picture of an effective school differs for the cognitive and the non-cognitive
criteria. Pupils perform relatively well on the cognitive level in a school with an
orderly and positive climate, a high degree of achievement orientation, a powerful edu-
cational leadership, a smooth integration of the school leader and the middle manage-
ment, and extensive co-operation within the team of teachers. Moreover, the school
communicates extensively with the business community, and representatives from
trade and industry from the non-profit sector participate in advisory committees. The
school is prepared to adjust its curriculum and the contents and didactics of its subjects
to suggestions from the business community. On the other hand pupils achieve worse
for mathematics and/or reading comprehension in a school where general and practi-
cal subjects are integrated, where pupil counselling and tutoring are highly developed,
and where an active policy is pursued on learning to learn. The school receives a sub-
stantial contribution of the business community on the technological and material
level, training for pupils is being organised and the business community provides
educational support for it.
In a school where pupils feel well, an active policy is pursued on learning to
learn, and tutoring is highly developed. And in a school where pupils feel bad, per-
formance interviews are held, self-evaluation is carried out and the educational policy
is evaluated regularly.
Trying to explain why certain school features influence pupils achievement level or
their well-being, is not always obvious. From our observations we have derived three
tendencies of plausible explanations. It can be assumed that some school characteris-
tics, such as educational leadership or an orderly and positive climate, influence
pupils performance or well-being positively in a direct or indirect way. The observed
negative effects we have tried to explain in two ways. It is plausible that school features
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such as pupil counselling or tutoring, are organised as a reaction on a negative situation
(a low level of performance or well-being). Another possible explanation is that
organising pupil counselling or tutoring is not sufficient to achieve good results; more
important is that these school features are implemented in the most effective way
(De Maeyer & Rymenans, 2004, pp. 361362).
Modelling Educational Effectiveness and the Empirical Evidence
As mentioned already in the first section there was from the beginning a strong inter-
est in the development of models and/or theories that could explain differences in
student outcomes in different schools. In the 1990s attention was given to studies that
are strongly related to more or less explicit models of educational effectiveness as
developed by Scheerens (1992) and Creemers (1994). The Scheerens model empha-
sises organisational factors such as the evaluation policy of the school in relation to
what happens at the instructional level. In the comprehensive model of Creemers ideas
about instructional effectiveness provide the main perspective. The emphasis is more
on the classroom instructional level, grouping procedures and mediums for instruction
like the teacher and instructional materials and the classroom-school interface. Larger
educational effectiveness studies like the LOSO study in Belgium Flanders (Van
Damme et al., 2002) departed from the international theory and research and
developed their own theoretical frameworks (see e.g., Opdenakker, 2003).
These models all have a multi-level structure where schools are embedded in a
context, classrooms are embedded in schools and students are embedded in class-
rooms or teachers. Most of the time, these models reflect the researchers own view on
effectiveness, just a few models are based on further empirical evidence.
In general, Deijnum can confirm in his study the importance of the classroom level
in the comprehensive model, but he was not very successful in tracing the influence of
policy- and school-level (Deijnum, 2000). This might be caused by the general
perspective (not precise enough) of his study.
Later on more studies have been conducted in order to test the validity of the compre-
hensive model in more detail (De Jong, Westerhof, & Kruiter, 2004) and in Cyprus
(Kyriakides, 2005; Kyriakides, Campbell, & Gagatsis, 2000; Kyriakides & Tsangaridou,
2004). All studies reveal that the influences on student achievement are multi-level. This
finding is in line with the findings of most studies into educational effectiveness con-
ducted in various other countries (Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000) and provide support for the
argument that models of EER should be multi-level in nature. The analysis of the studies
reveals that next to the multi-level nature of effectiveness the relationship between factors
at different levels might be more complex than assumed in the comprehensive model. This
is especially true for interaction effects among factors operating at the classroom- and stu-
dent-level which reveals the importance of investigating differentiated effectiveness
(Muijs, Campbell, Kyriakides, & Robinson, 2005). Further, the theories/models might
include more student background factors (also suggested by Opdenakker, 2003). Finally,
new learning and teaching processes related to a broader set of educational outcomes
(like meta-cognition, see also De Jager, Jansen, & Reezigt, 2005).
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School Improvement and Evaluation Studies
The International Congress for School Effectiveness and School Improvement (ICSEI)
was established with the purpose to make a combination between educational effective-
ness and school improvement. School improvement was particularly interesting for
educational policy and practice and got attention in different European countries. This
was mostly related to educational reforms within the countries and differed over time.
In The Netherlands for example this was the case in the early nineties. Later on it
became more important in other European countries as the process of decentralisation
and school autonomy took place (e.g., in Spain in the mid-nineties and in Cyprus in the
late-nineties).
In educational practice the interest in educational effectiveness and the link with
school improvement was may be like in educational policy triggered and stimulated by
the fact that a knowledge base was available and usable to implement in education. In
fact this was not the case and resulted in a distinction, and sometimes tension, between
school effectiveness and school improvement. This is described in several studies (see
e.g., Creemers & Reezigt, 1997; Reynolds, Teddlie, Hopkins, & Stringfield, 2000). All
these descriptions result in a plea to (re)-establish a relationship between the two in
order to make use of the mutual benefits of educational effectiveness on the one hand
and educational improvement on the other. Empirically validated knowledge should be
used in educational practice for educational improvement and the results of the evalua-
tion of improvement efforts create the basis for theories about educational effectiveness.
However, in general educational improvement concentrates on changes in schools
through specific improvement projects. These projects emphasise the role and co-oper-
ation of different participants such as school-leaders, teachers, parents, students
together and the support by internal and external advisors. Further educational improve-
ment takes place through specific projects like for example Improving Educational
Leadership (Huber, 2004) and specific strategies like school improvement through per-
formance feedback (Visscher & Coe, 2002). Educational effectiveness was more suc-
cessful in the evaluation of school reforms and improvement programs. The design of
the studies reflected the conceptual frameworks of educational effectiveness for exam-
ple, in the evaluation of the educational priority program in The Netherlands and the
design of the Dutch cohort studies in primary and secondary education and for the eval-
uation frameworks used by inspectorates in different countries like, for example, in
BelgiumFlanders and The Netherlands. Mostly smaller school improvement projects
make a link between the educational effectiveness knowledge base and the implementa-
tion of knowledge in the strategy for school improvement and finally evaluation in terms
of student outcomes. In The Netherlands, Houtveen carried out different projects in
which the school effectiveness knowledge base was combined with ideas about adaptive
instruction and was implemented in schools. The results are successful as can be seen in
the evaluation of the mathematics program (Houtveen, van de Grift, & Creemers, 2004).
In an international program in which several European countries have taken part an
attempt is made to combine the effective educational knowledge base with school
improvement programs and to look for successful combinations of the two in European
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countries. The project resulted in a framework that can be used to design and implement
an effective school improvement project (see for more details Creemers, Stoll, & Reezigt,
in this volume).
Conclusion
It is clear from this section that educational effectiveness and improvement is an
important topic. It combines different separated early research strands like teacher
effectiveness, learning and instruction and school organisation. From the start between
1985 and 1990 in The Netherlands and afterwards in other countries, educational
effectiveness has been an important program. Especially after 1990 different theoreti-
cal positions were developed and research has taken place to test specific arguments.
In different areas progress has been made. The research in different countries and the
elaboration of specific theoretical positions with respect to instructional and school
organisational issues has been investigated. Progress has been made in the methodol-
ogy and the scientific properties of EER (such as multi-level and structural equation
modelling). Specific components such as opportunity to learn and stability issues have
been studied intensively and successfully. The development of theories, models and
frameworks for educational effectiveness turned out to be beneficial for educational
effectiveness. Theoretical orientations have taken place in various areas of learning
and instruction and school organisation. These theoretical orientations have guided
research in mainland Europe in specific areas such as student background, instruction
and school organisation as well as in the testing of the model as a whole. The merging
between educational effectiveness on the one hand and educational improvement on
the other is still an important (and so far unsolved) problem. Together it might be that
their influence on educational practice and policy-making can be increased. At present
the influence of educational effectiveness on practice and policy is modest and some-
times criticised (Thrupp, 2001 and the debate around it). The results of improvement
projects in which effectiveness and improvement knowledge is combined points at the
possibility to increase the contribution of effectiveness and improvement on educa-
tional practice. This issue points also to the fact that international comparative research
and collaboration in the area of school effectiveness and school improvement is
needed (Creemers; Reynolds, 2000, in press).
Future
In the review of educational effectiveness and improvement in mainland Europe stud-
ies have been used that were done in different European countries and in different
periods of time. In these studies recommendations have been made for the future.
Some of them still hold.
Specific studies with respect to characteristics which can explain variance in
educational effectiveness and improvement are still needed. These studies can be
236 Creemers
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Please
update the
reference
Creemers
and also
provide
complete
details in
ref. list
directed to specific factors and characteristics such as opportunity to learn,
teaching, learning etc.
It is still needed to clarify specific important scientific properties of educational
effectiveness such as the size of the effects, stability, long-term effects of teachers,
schools and schooling, and the differential effects.
Operationalisation and instrumentation of variables needs improvement, prefer-
ably embedded in longitudinal, experimental and international studies.
It is advocated to develop further theoretical models for studying educational effec-
tiveness. In this respect it is important to note that new models should take notice of
the research results from the past, for example, look for differential effects, relations
between factors and between levels and the relationships between the factors and
student outcomes (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2005). This also holds for the ongoing
discussion in educational effectiveness in the relationship between the stability of
effectiveness on the one hand and educational change, that is, the improvement of
education on the other (see also Luyten, Visscher, & Witziers, 2005).
International studies are needed. They can increase the variation and also emphasise
the context in which the education takes place (Creemers, in press; Reynolds, 2000).
The foregoing review is based on national studies mainly, but the international stud-
ies such as the Effective School Improvement Project (Creemers et al., in this issue)
and the International School Effectiveness Research Project (Reynolds, Creemers,
Stringfield, Teddlie, & Schaffer, 2002) are examples of international studies which
show that international studies might, more than national studies, increase our
knowledge base. The same holds for the re-analysis of international comparative
studies like the data-sets provided by the TIMSS and PISA with research questions
derived from educational effectiveness theory (Kyriakides, 2005).
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den is con-
verted into
der
according to
intext cita-
tion. Is it
OK?
Please pro-
vide cita-
tion for the
ref. Freibel,
A. J. J. M.
(1994) in
text
Only one
reference is
given for
Kyriakides,
L. (2005).
Hence a is
deleted
Please
confirm
whether
editors
name
inserted
in the ref.
Evertson
& Green
(1986) is
appropri-
ate.
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the ref.
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Hoeven
(1989).
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Please pro-
vide cita-
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ref. Teddlie
& Reynolds
(2001);
Teddlie &
Stringfield
(1993);
Townsend
(2001a);
Townsend
(2001b) in
text
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publication
for Van de
Grift (1987)
corresponds
to 1987a or
1987b in all
citations to
this refer-
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ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
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In the past three decades, there have been numerous initiatives for school effective-
ness and improvement in many countries and areas of Asia. These initiatives were in
response to the influences and needs of social, economic, and political developments
in fast-changing regional and global environments. Given the increasing interactions
between Asia and its counterparts such as North America, Australia, and Europe in
the past decades, the review and analysis of the development and effect of these
efforts at the country and the regional levels in Asia may be in a larger international
context of educational reforms in different parts of the world. This chapter aims to
provide an overview of the development of initiatives for school effectiveness and
improvement in Asia. It also aims to show how the development has experienced
three waves of educational reforms with contrastingly different paradigms in policy
formulation and practical implementation. Furthermore, this chapter reviews the
nine trends and related challenges of initiatives for changing school education and
draws implications for research, policy, and practice in school effectiveness and
improvement.
Three Waves of School Effectiveness and Improvement
As part of worldwide educational reforms, the initiatives of school effectiveness and
improvement in various areas of Asia have experienced three waves of movement in the
past decades (Cheng, 2001d, 2005) (see Figure 1). The first wave focuses on internal
school effectiveness, and the second wave on interface school effectiveness. The third
wave emphasizes future school effectiveness. Each wave has a focus and a paradigm in
conceptualizing the theory of school effectiveness, initiatives for school improvement,
and methods of implementation and practice at the system, site, and operational levels.
These three waves of school initiatives, when considered together, are themselves a gen-
eral typology for capturing and understanding the key paradigms and characteristics of
245
13
SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS AND
IMPROVEMENT IN ASIA: THREE WAVES,
NINE TRENDS AND CHALLENGES
Yin-Cheong Cheng and Wai-ming Tam
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2007 Springer.
various educational reforms for school effectiveness and improvement in Asia in these
three decades.
First Wave: Effective School Movements
Since the 1980s, following the successful expansion of basic education systems to
meet the needs of national economic developments, many policy-makers and educa-
tors in Asia began to pay attention to the improvement of internal school process,
including teaching and learning. The aim was to enhance internal school effectiveness
in achieving planned educational aims and curriculum targets. In Hong Kong, India,
South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, and mainland China, numerous initiatives
were evident to target improving some factors of internal school process. Examples are
school management, teacher quality, curriculum design, teaching methods, evaluation
approaches, facilities, and environment for teaching and learning (Abdullah, 2001;
Cheng, 2001a; Gopinathan & Ho, 2000; Kim, 2000; Rajput, 2001; Tang & Wu, 2000).
There is a strong emphasis on using the benchmarking concept (Bogan & English,
1994) to ensure that the effectiveness or performance of some internal factors is at a
certain standard. For example, in Hong Kong, English language teachers were asked to
take a benchmark examination in order to show their English language proficiency
reached a given benchmark (Coniam, Falvey, Bodycott, Crew, & Sze, 2000).
Consistent with the effective school movements in the UK, the US, and Australia, the
efforts for school improvement in the above areas of Asia often assumed that goals and
objectives of school education were clear and had the consensus of all involved parties
parents, students, teachers, employers, policy-makers, and social leaders. Therefore, the
first wave of school initiatives in Asia focused mainly on internal effectiveness
246 Cheng and Tam
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3 Waves & Paradigm Shifts
2000s
Future
effectiveness
R
Relevance
World class school
movements
Q
Quality
1990s
Interface
effectiveness
Quality/competitive
school movements
E
Effectiveness
1980s1990s
Internal
effectiveness
Effective school
movements
Figure 1. Three waves of school effectiveness and improvement
assurance. Efforts were made to improve and ensure the internal performance of
schools generally, and the methods and processes of teaching and learning in particular,
to achieve the planned school goals. Then, higher achievement represented higher
school effectiveness.
As indicated in the latter part of this chapter on trends of educational reforms, many
of the initiatives and changes made were government-directed and top-down. The aim
was to rationalize institutional arrangements and improve educational practices for
enhancing their effectiveness in achieving the goals planned at either the site level or
the system level. Improvement of teacher performance and then student learning out-
comes to identified standards, particularly in public examinations or international
academic assessments, was obviously a popular and important target for school
improvement in this first wave.
Over the past decades, numerous initiatives of the first wave have been introduced
in Asia and other parts of the world (Cheng & Townsend, 2000; Dimmock, 2003).
Some focused on improvement of school management and classroom environment
(Cheng, 1996b); some on curriculum development and change (Baker & Begg,
2003; Cheng, Chow, & Tsui, 2000); some on teacher qualifications and competencies
(Cheng, Chow, & Mok, 2004; Fidler & Atton, 1999; Gopinathan & Ho, 2003; Lee,
2004; Walia, 2004; Wang, 2004); some on improvement of teaching and learning
processes (Bubb, 2001; Morgan & Morris, 1999; Renshaw & Power, 2003); and some
on evaluation and assessment (Headington, 2000; Leithwood, Aitken, & Jantzi, 2001;
MacBeath, 1999, 2000; Mohandas, Meng, & Keeves, 2003; Sunstein & Lovell, 2000).
Unfortunately, the results of these efforts were often very limited and could not sat-
isfy the increasing needs and expectations of the public. People began to doubt the
effectiveness of the improvement initiatives in meeting the diverse needs and expecta-
tions of parents, students, employers, policy-makers, and those concerned in the com-
munity. How can education be held accountable to the public? How relevant to the
changing demands of the local community are education practices and outcomes? All
these questions are concerned with the interface between education institutions and the
community. This means that assurance of school effectiveness is not only a question of
internal process improvement but is also an interface issue of meeting the stakeholders
satisfaction and ensuring accountability to the community.
Second Wave: Quality School Movements
In the 1990s, in response to concerns about school accountability to the public and the
quality of education satisfying stakeholders expectations, the second wave of interna-
tional educational reforms for school effectiveness and improvement emerged. This
wave emphasized interface school effectiveness, typically defined by education quality,
stakeholders satisfaction, and market competitiveness. Most policy efforts were directed
at ensuring the quality and accountability of schools to the internal and external stake-
holders (see, e.g., Coulson, 1999; Evans, 1999; Goertz & Duffy, 2001; Headington,
2000; Heller, 2001; Mahony & Hextall, 2000).
In some areas of Asia, such as Hong Kong, South Korea, India, mainland China,
Singapore, and Taiwan, there was a growing trend of quality school movements
School Effectiveness and Improvement in Asia 247
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emphasizing quality assurance, school monitoring and review, parental choice, student
coupons, parental and community involvement in governance, school charters, and
performance-based funding. These are some typical examples of the measures taken to
pursue and enhance effectiveness at the interface between schools and the community
(Cheng & Townsend, 2000; Mohandas et al., 2003; Mok et al., 2003; Mukhopadhyay,
2001; Pang et al., 2003).
In the second wave, school effectiveness (or more commonly, school quality) mainly
refers to the satisfaction of stakeholders (parents, students, policy-makers, etc.) with the
education services of a school. The accountability of a school to the public is often per-
ceived as an important indicator for satisfying the needs of key stakeholders. Therefore,
assurance of school effectiveness in this wave often means the efforts to ensure educa-
tion services provided by schools are satisfying the needs of stakeholders and are
accountable to the public.
In the past decade, there have been numerous initiatives of the second wave intro-
duced in Asia and other parts of the world. The use of school monitoring, school
self-evaluation, quality inspection, indicators and benchmarks, survey of the satisfaction
of key stakeholders, accountability reporting to the community, and school development
planning has become more and more popular in ensuring interface school effectiveness
and improvement (Cheng, 1997b; Glickman, 2001; Headington, 2000; Jackson & Lund,
2000; Leithwood et al., 2001; MacBeath, 1999, 2000; Smith, Armstrong, & Brown,
1999; Sunstein & Lovell, 2000). For example, in South Korea, Hong Kong, mainland
China, and Thailand, school-based management is being promoted as the major school
reform that includes most of these initiatives for ensuring interface effectiveness between
the school and the community (Caldwell, 2003; Cheng, 1996a, 2003a).
At the turn of the millennium, rapid globalization, the long-lasting effects of infor-
mation technology (IT), the drastic shock of the economic downturn, and strong
demands for economic and social developments in international competition stimu-
lated deep reflection on educational reforms in Asia (Keeves, Njora, & Darmawan,
2003; Ramirez & Chan-Tiberghein, 2003). Policy-makers and educators had to think
of ways to reform curriculum and pedagogy and to prepare young people to more
effectively cope with the fast-changing environment of the future. In such a context,
most policy-makers and educators began to doubt whether the second wave of educa-
tional reforms could meet the challenges in a new era of globalization, IT, and the
knowledge-based economy. They were concerned about the relevance of interface
school effectiveness to the future development of students. It is not surprising that,
even though school performance is accountable to the community and stakeholders are
satisfied, education may be useless or ineffective in the new millennium, if it has
nothing to do with the future needs of students and the society.
Third Wave: World-Class School Movements
To ensure that the younger generation can meet the challenges and needs of rapid
transformations in an era of globalization and IT, many educators, policy-makers, and
stakeholders in Asia and other regions urge a paradigm shift in learning and teaching.
They demand a reform of the aims, content, practice, and management of school
education, to ensure relevance to the future (see, e.g., Burbules & Torres, 2000; Cheng,
248 Cheng and Tam
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2000a, 2000b, 2003a; Daun, 2001; Ramirez & Chan-Tiberghein, 2003; Stromquist &
Monkman, 2000). In such a global context in the new century, there is an emerging
third wave of school reforms and initiatives in Asia, with strong emphasis on future
school effectiveness, often defined by the relevance of school education to the future
developments of individuals and their society. In particular, this relevance is in relation
to new education functions in the new century, and a new paradigm of education con-
cerning contextualized multiple intelligences, globalization, localization, and individu-
alization (Baker & Begg, 2003; Cheng, 2005; Maclean, 2003).
As a result of strong implications from globalization and international competition,
this third wave of school reforms is often driven by the notion of world-class school
movements. School effectiveness and improvement should be defined by world-class
standards and global comparability to ensure that the future developments of students
and societies are sustainable in such a challenging era of globalization. Therefore, the
pursuit of new vision and aims of school education, lifelong learning, global networking,
international outlook, and use of IT are just some evidence of the emerging third wave
in many advanced and developing areas of Asia (Cheng, 2001a; Pefianco, Curtis, &
Keeves, 2003; Peterson, 2003).
The above three waves of school reforms provide us with an overview to show how
educators and policy-makers in Asia have employed different paradigms and focuses in
conceptualizing initiatives and making efforts for school effectiveness and improvement
in the last decades.
Nine Trends for School Effectiveness and Improvement
Asia is one of the fastest developing areas in the world. Since the 1990s, huge national
resources have been invested in education and related initiatives in nearly every country
in the region, in order to bring about substantial improvement and development in vari-
ous aspects of society (Cheng, 2003a). Unfortunately, many countries are still very dis-
appointed with their school education, in view of the challenges of the new century. In
order to redress the problems in the school system, they are proposing more and more
reforms to improve the practice and effectiveness of education at different levels.
Therefore, we would like to know the following: What lessons can be learned and shared
from these ongoing educational reforms in Asia, so that we can avoid repeating failure,
thus preparing for policy formulation and implementation of educational changes in our
own countries? Particularly for policy-makers, educators, and researchers, the following
questions should receive due attention in considering educational reforms for school
effectiveness:
What are the major trends and characteristics of the ongoing educational reforms
for school effectiveness in Asia?
What are the major challenges that policy-makers and educators are facing in the
current educational reforms, particularly in such a new era of globalization, IT,
competition, and the knowledge-driven economy?
What implications can be drawn from these trends and challenges for research and
policy development in the areas of school effectiveness and improvement?
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Based on the comprehensive reviews of Cheng (1999, 2003a, 2003b) and Cheng and
Townsend (2000), and with reference to Keeves and Watanabe (2003), nine major
trends of ongoing educational reforms for school effectiveness and improvement in
Asia can be observed. These trends are mainly in the second and third waves (see
Figure 2). The discussion that follows is guided by a conceptual framework for a
four-level analysis that reflects the scope, focus, and general nature of the trends.
Trends of Reforms at Four Levels in the Second and Third Waves
At the macro level, the main trends include: (1) re-establishing a new national vision
and new educational aims for schools; (2) restructuring school systems at different
levels for new educational aims; and (3) market-driving, privatizing, and diversifying
school education. The first two are in the domain of the third wave and the last one in
the second wave. To a great extent, these trends address the important issues at the
societal level, particularly the following:
How can the national vision and aims in school education be redefined and,
correspondingly, the school systems be restructured to cope effectively with the
challenges in an era of globalization, IT, and a knowledge-based economy?
How can the consumption of limited resources be maximized in planning and
managing school education provision for meeting new educational aims and
satisfying the diverse and increasing demands from the society, the community,
and individuals?
How can the various educational services by schools be financed to achieve
national aims in a more equitable, efficient, and effective way?
250 Cheng and Tam
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Macro level
Towards re-establishing new national vision and education aims for schools
Towards restructuring school system at different levels
Towards market-driving, privatizing, and diversifying school education
Meso level
Towards parental and community involvement in school education
School site level
Towards ensuring education quality, standards, and accountability
Towards decentralization and school-based management
Towards enhancing teacher quality and lifelong professional
development
School operational level
Towards using it and new technologies in education
Towards paradigm shifts in learning, teaching, and
assessment
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Figure 2. Towards re-establishing new national visions and educational aims for schools
At the meso level, increasing parental and community involvement in school educa-
tion and management is a salient trend. The educational reforms in this trend often
encourage and promote wide participation and partnership in school education. The
purpose is to broaden support from the community and family for the provision of
quality educational services and to ensure the accountability of schools to the public.
This is especially important when the educational services provided are funded with
public money. This trend is in the domain of the second wave.
At the site level, the major trends are: (1) ensuring education quality, standards, and
accountability in schools; (2) increasing decentralization and school-based manage-
ment; and (3) enhancing teacher quality and lifelong professional development. In
general, these trends address the issues at the school level, the first two in the domain
of the second wave and the last one in both the second and third waves. The trends
address the following questions:
How can the quality, effectiveness, and accountability of education be provided in
schools to meet diverse expectations and demands?
How can an authority be decentralized to maximize the flexibility and efficiency
in consuming resources to solve problems and meet diverse needs at the school
site level?
How can teacher quality and educational leadership in schools be enhanced to
provide better educational services in such a fast-changing and challenging
environment?
At the operational level of schools, the main trends include (1) using information tech-
nology in learning and teaching and applying new technologies in management, and
(2) making a paradigm shift in learning, teaching, and assessment. The reforms aim to
facilitate change and development of educational practices in schools, particularly at
the classroom or the operational level, in order to meet the future development needs
of individuals and society. These two trends are in the domain of the third wave.
In facing the rapid changes and global challenges from economic, cultural, and
political transformations, national leaders in Asia have become dissatisfied with the
short-term achievements of their school systems. Political leaders increasingly draw
connections between the role of school education and the achievement of their national
visions for growth and prosperity in the new era. They propose new educational
visions and long-term aims for schools to prepare the new generation for the future in
a globally competitive environment. This trend is consistent with the third wave of
initiatives, which aims at future school effectiveness.
Malaysia is a typical example of this connection between national visions and
educational goals. Under Dr. Mahathir Mohammeds leadership, the Malaysian gov-
ernment put forward Vision 2020. This plan, developed during the 1980s, proposed
that Malaysia would transform itself from a commodity-export country to an industri-
alized and developed country by the year 2020. Education in general and schools in
particular played a central role in Vision 2020 as an instrument for promoting national
unity, social equality, and economic development (Lee, 2000).
By way of further example, Singapores national leaders took a similarly strategic
view of school education in their plans for nation building. Indeed, they accepted the
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challenge of making learning part of the national culture. Accordingly, they proposed
the slogan Thinking schools, a learning nation as a vision for directing national
educational changes. This is illustrated in Gopinathan and Ho (2000, p. 161):
While the national economy (Singaporean) is adjusting through structural
shifts, such as liberalisation, deregulation, and privatization, which help integrate
a national economy with the larger world economy , the education system must
also adjust structurally to a changing national economy.
Many similar examples can be found in Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan,
South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Singapore. Leaders in these countries
and areas have reviewed their educational aims and established new goals that reflect new
national and global visions (see, e.g., Castillo, 2001; Cheng, 2001a, 2001b; Rajput, 2001;
Rung, 2001; Sereyrath, 2001; Shan & Chang, 2000; Sharpe & Gopinathan, 2001; Suzuki,
2000; Tang, 2001; Yu, 2001).
Nonetheless, the changing role of school education in national development has
created serious challenges for educators, leaders, and practitioners in Asia. They have to
echo these new national visions and goals and consider changes in the aims, content,
process, and practice of school education. They are facing important challenges, such as:
(1) How can they conduct effectively these necessary changes in the school systems?
(2) How should they lead their teachers, students, and other stakeholders to face to
the changes and pursue a new school education that is relevant to the future?
(3) How can they ensure school changes that are relevant to the national growth and
development in a competitive global environment?
(4) How can the knowledge base of educational aims and school functions be
broadened to support more relevant policy-making and educational planning?
(5) Given that there are new functions of schools in the new century, including tech-
nical, economic, human, social, political, cultural, and educational functions
(Cheng, 1996a), it is necessary to ask to what extent the ongoing school reforms
take all these functions into consideration.
Unfortunately, there seems to be lack of a comprehensive knowledge framework for
policy-makers and country leaders in Asia to have a broader perspective for review and
development of the new school aims. There is an urgent need for educational research
to understand and tackle these issues in the process of redefining and re-establishing
school aims in the light of new national visions in the new century.
Towards Restructuring the School System at Different Levels
The development of the school system often has to meet the needs of the development
of the economy in the country (Chabbott & Ramirez, 2000). In the past two or three
decades, most developing countries or areas in Asia have made great efforts to expand
compulsory education to nine years, when they were establishing their industries.
Now, some of them are making efforts to expand their senior secondary school sectors
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and improve enrolment to higher education. Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, and
Taiwan are representative cases (Cheng, 2001a, 2001b; Kim, 2000; Lee, 2000; Shan &
Chang, 2000). Comparatively, some countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos put
more effort into further expanding compulsory education (Pok, 2001; Sereyrath, 2001;
Sisavanh, 2001). Singapore and Taiwan provide more vocational and technical training
opportunities at the secondary and post-secondary levels (Gopinathan & Ho, 2000;
Shan, & Chang, 2000). All these efforts directly or indirectly contribute to school
effectiveness and improvement at the system level.
In facing the challenges of globalization, the knowledge-based economy, and inter-
national competition, some areas in Asia such as South Korea, mainland China,
Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Singapore are very concerned with the effective-
ness and relevance of the school system to their national development in a highly
competitive global context. They have started to review and change the school system
from early childhood education to citizenship and lifelong education. For example,
they put more emphasis on early childhood education, enhancing the provision of
vocational education in quantity, quality, variety, and relevance, and to reviewing the
interface between levels of school education.
The reform of the examination system is also an important area of review in educa-
tion systems. For example, in mainland China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and
Malaysia, many different types of policy efforts are being made, to review and change
the examination system. The purposes of these changes are to reflect the changes
towards new aims of school education, to improve the process of selection and alloca-
tion of students, to promote multiple intelligences of students, to enhance educational
equality, to redirect educational practice, and to redress serious drawbacks in the exam-
ination-oriented culture, particularly in some Asian countries. This trend of efforts is in
the line of the third wave of reforms for school effectiveness and improvement.
In the process of reviewing and restructuring the school system, policy-makers,
educators, and researchers in the region have to face some challenges in such a funda-
mental structural change. For example:
(1) Given changes in educational aims and national vision, how can the restructur-
ing of the school system serve the needs of these changes and be relevant to the
future?
(2) There may be a number of options for school systems that can serve new educa-
tional aims and national visions. How can policy-makers identify those options
and understand which one is most appropriate for the country within the exist-
ing cultural, political, and economic constraints (Cheng, Ng, & Mok, 2002)?
(3) Reform of the school system is in fact a fundamental structural change, involv-
ing complicated and extensive political interests and concerns of nearly all key
parties and actors in education and the larger community. As such, how can
policy-makers and stakeholders overcome all existing structural and political dif-
ficulties and conflicts involved in review and reform, and then reach a rational,
feasible, and commonly acceptable plan for action (Cheng, & Cheung, 1995)?
(4) The reform of the school system is a very complex and large-scale social
endeavor and should be founded on a very comprehensive knowledge base for
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review, planning, and implementation at different levels of the school system.
How can policy-makers, educators and other key actors be provided with such a
knowledge base for their actions?
Clearly, all these challenges and issues would inevitably become a core agenda for
policy debate that needs to be examined and investigated extensively by research.
Unfortunately, there would seem to be a gap between the ongoing reform and the
research being undertaken in many countries in Asia.
Towards Market-Driving, Privatizing, and Diversifying
School Education
There are tight financial constraints on meeting the rapidly increasing needs of diverse
developments in nearly all countries in Asia. Policy-makers in some countries are
trying to shift the exclusive public funding model to privatization as an important
approach to expanding, diversifying, and improving school education. For example,
China is caught in the stream of development, and its market economy playing an
increasingly important role. It is confronting more complicated and tighter financial
constraints in developing its school system to satisfy the huge and diverse needs for
education (Tang & Wu, 2000).
In South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China, and the Philippines, it is generally believed
that privatization will allow schools to increase the flexibility of use of physical and
human resources. How to create a market or semi-market environment for promoting
competition between schools has become a salient issue in reform at the turn of the
century. Some areas in Asia (e.g., Kong Hong) are experimenting with funding meth-
ods designed to encourage self-improvement as well as competition among schools.
Some (e.g., Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong) are trying out different types of parental
choice schemes.
As this trend is in the domain of the second wave of initiatives for interface school
effectiveness, some critical issues are emerging to challenge policy-makers, social
leaders, and educators. Salient examples are listed below:
(1) How can equity and quality in school education be ensured for students in
disadvantaged circumstances? This is often a crucial issue in policy debate in
many developing countries in the region (Cheng et al., 2002).
(2) There are diverse and conflicting expectations of stakeholders about school
education in Asia. For example, teachers or educators emphasize the citizenship
quality of their graduates. Parents are more concerned about whether their chil-
dren can pass the examinations and get the necessary qualifications for employ-
ment. Employers often doubt whether the graduates have the necessary knowledge
and skills to perform in the workplace. In view of the above, how should the
expectations of these key stakeholders be identified and given priority, if schools
have to survive in a competitive market environment? How should schools deal
with the diverse and even conflicting expectations of different stakeholders on the
aims, content, practice, and outcomes of school education?
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(3) The market forces may or may not aim at achieving and realizing the national
aims and visions through school education. As such, how can policy-makers and
educators ensure that the market forces at the local or the community level are
in operation in the direction of development at the national or international
level?
(4) Specifically, how consistent are the parental or individual choices in school edu-
cation with the national visions and goals? How should these choices be supported
by the state?
(5) To what extent should a national framework of school education be set accord-
ing to the market system and privatization, without hindering initiatives from the
marketplace but maintaining the national direction and forces within global
competitiveness?
The above are just some of the dilemmas and issues that policy-makers and educators
face in formulating changes in school education towards marketization and privatiza-
tion. Unfortunately, the knowledge for understanding and handling these challenges in
Asia is slight. Research in this important area to address and inform the management
of the above challenges is inevitably necessary, if the trend towards marketization and
privatization in education is to be maintained.
Towards Parental and Community Involvement in Education
During the past several decades, parents and the community have increased the expec-
tations of education and are becoming more demanding of better school performance
for their children. Also, there is an increasing demand for school accountability to the
public and to demonstrate value for money, because school education is mainly
financed with public funds (Adams, & Kirst, 1999). Inevitably, educational leaders at
the school, district, and national levels have to provide more direct avenues for parents
and the community to participate in developing the schools.
In many Asian areas like Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, and
Thailand, a tradition of parental participation and community partnership in school
education has been largely absent. Recently, people in these areas have become more
aware of the importance of involving parents and local communities in school educa-
tion (Pang et al., 2003; Wang, 2000). Although there is seldom legislation in some
areas to guarantee parental involvement in school education, sentiment is growing that
parents should be given this right (Tik, 1996).
In addition to parents, the local community and the business sector are direct stake-
holders in school education. Their experiences, resources, social networks, and knowl-
edge are often very useful to the development and delivery of school education. From
a positive perspective, community involvement can benefit schools by providing more
local resources, support, and intellectual input, particularly when schools are facing
the increasing but diverse demands for quality education. This growing trend of
parental and community involvement in education in Asia is in the domain of the
second wave for pursuing interface school effectiveness. The major concerns in this
trend may include the following:
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(1) How to promote and implement parental and community participation in
schools effectively is still difficult. Most Asian countries lack a culture of
accepting and supporting the practice of parental and community involvement.
This type of involvement is often perceived as an act of distrust of teachers and
principals. How can policy-makers and educators change this culture?
(2) Parental and community involvement in school management and leadership will
inevitably increase the complexity, ambiguities, and uncertainties in the political
domain of schools. Would the induced political problems and difficulties from
external involvement in fact dilute the scarce time and energy of teachers and
leaders from educational work with students? How can they be well prepared to
handle these problems?
Unfortunately, research in this area is still underdeveloped, particularly in the context
of the Asian tradition.
Towards Ensuring Education Quality, Standards and
Accountability
Along the second wave of educational reforms, since the 1990s, there have been a lot
of school initiatives in many areas of Asia with a strong emphasis on school quality
assurance, and accountability to the public (Mok et al., 2003). Particularly following
quality movements in the business and industry sectors over the last two decades,
concepts and measures such as quality control, quality assurance, total quality man-
agement, and benchmarking have been included in efforts for school effectiveness and
improvement (Mukhopadhyay, 2001).
In Asia, some areas such as China, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, and Thailand have
introduced different types of quality assurance initiatives to monitor and promote
education quality and accountability as a major approach to school effectiveness and
improvement (Abdullah, 2001; Lloyd, 2001; Mok et al., 2003; Mukhopadhyay, 2001;
Townsend, 2000). In planning and implementing these initiatives, some issues are
challenging policy-makers, educators, and researchers (Cheng 1997a, 1997b):
(1) How can they know the satisfaction and expectations of existing stakeholders
are relevant to the future development of the new generation and the society?
(2) How can they ensure a balance between a schools internal development and
accountability to the public? A very strong emphasis on accountability to the
public is often accompanied by close supervision and control that restricts
initiatives for internal development and creates stronger defensive mechanisms
that limit effective organizational learning of schools.
(3) How can different stakeholders with diverse and even conflicting interests
handle the potential contradictory purposes between school self-evaluation and
external evaluation for quality assurance?
(4) Educational processes are complicated, involving many factors. How can they
know what indicators are valid and reliable to reflect quality and effectiveness in
education, and what combinations of indicators of input, performance, and out-
comes are appropriate to schools in specific contexts or a specific time frame?
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(5) Monitoring education quality at the school site level should be different from
that at the system level. How could this difference be managed in a more
efficient and effective way, so that schools are not overburdened?
Towards Decentralization and School-Based Management
As discussed, school-based management is a major school reform of the second wave
in many areas of Asia and other parts of the world. Since the 1990s, it has aimed at
enhancing school autonomy and then interface effectiveness to meet the changing
expectations of the local community and stakeholders.
For example, in Hong Kong, the School Management Initiative was implemented in
1991 with the goal of enhancing education quality through school-based management.
Hong Kongs Education Commission further reinforced school-based management as one
facet of its quality assurance process for all schools in 1997 (Education Commission,
1997). In South Korea, hundreds of public primary and secondary schools experimentally
organized a School Governing Board involving teachers, parents, principals, alumni, and
community leaders, to promote school self-management and to enable schools to provide
diverse educational services to meet the needs of their local communities (Kim, 2000). In
Malaysia, the administrative system is being decentralized, to encourage school-based
management and teacher empowerment (Lee, 2000). In Singapore, the government set up
autonomous schools as early as 1991, as a mechanism for improving quality in education
(Gopinathan & Ho, 2000). In China, decentralization of power from the central govern-
ment to local communities and to the school level is becoming evident. School autonomy
and the participation of local communities are now being encouraged, to facilitate school
development and effectiveness (Tang & Wu, 2000).
According to Cheng and Townsend (2000), in the change from traditional external
control management to school-based management (SBM), Asian countries may confront
a number of issues that have to be tackled in the process of school reform. These are:
(1) After decentralizing authority and power to the school site level, there is a
need to keep self-managing schools and teachers accountable with respect to
the quality of education provided and the use of public money. Even though a
concept of tight-loose coupling (Cheng, 1996a) has been proposed to tackle
this issue, it is still a long way from being put into practice. It remains a key
area in ongoing policy discussion about decentralization in education (Cheng
& Ng, 1994).
(2) Often, people believe that better schools may take advantage of having greater
autonomy to recruit better students and teachers, and procure more resources so
that educational inequality will not only be maintained but enlarged, particularly
for disadvantaged students.
(3) The shift to SBM represents a type of change in management technology. Yet,
whether or not it can be effectively implemented at both the system and school
site levels depends heavily on the cultural change for those concerned (Levy,
1986; Ng & Cheng, 1995). Numerous studies have reported that various barriers
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and conflicts exist in implementing SBM, because both educational officers at
the system level and school practitioners at the school level still have the attitude
of external control management when implementing management change to the
SBM model (Cheng & Chan, 2000).
(4) Many contemporary SBM studies address self-management only at the school
level and often assume that increased autonomy and responsibility given to
schools will result in increased school effectiveness in producing quality. Yet,
this assumption is questionable, and past empirical studies do not yield a con-
sistent view (Sackney & Dibski, 1994). From the perspective of Cheung and
Cheng (1996), the linkage of SBM to educational outcomes should be strength-
ened through multi-level self-management at the individual, group, and school
levels. Even though multi-level self-management may be a theoretical effort to
bridge the gap between management change and student performance, the
debate on this issue is still strong and will continue until there is sufficient
empirical evidence to show a clear linkage.
The above issues together present a wide spectrum of research areas that need a great
deal of intellectual effort in order to understand the complexity of school transforma-
tion and to inform policy-making and implementation of school-based management
for school effectiveness and improvement.
Towards Enhancing Teacher Quality and Lifelong
Professional Development
In response to the fast-changing educational environment and the increasing and
demanding challenges from the local and global communities, there is a trend for educa-
tional reforms in many areas of Asia to emphasize teacher quality and continuous life-
long professional development of both teachers and principals (Cheng, Chow, & Mok,
2004; Chen, Lim, & Gopinathan, 2003; Hallinger, 2003; Kennedy, 2003). Many policy-
makers understand that teacher quality is the key to school effectiveness and improve-
ment. For example, China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand,
Singapore, and Vietnam have made major policy efforts in recent years to enhance the
quality of teachers and principals. More and more professional training is provided to
teachers through in-service professional development programs. The required profes-
sional qualifications for entering the teaching profession also tend to be gradually
enhanced, even though the extent of progress may be different in different countries.
Nowadays, educational environments in the region are changing very quickly, and
goals are not so clear and unchanging anymore. This is evident in the context of the
second and third waves of educational reforms in Asia. In the past decade, numerous
changes of the second wave have been imposed on schools and teachers in different
parts of Asia, and the changes of the third wave seem to be accelerated in the new
century. If teachers, principals, and the schools are not enabled and prepared to deal
with these changes, all the efforts for enhancing education quality and effectiveness
will result in failure. Because educational change and development are ongoing in
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such a changing environment, there is inevitably a strong need for continuous lifelong
professional development of school practitioners. Most areas in Asia, like China, Hong
Kong and South Korea, have already reviewed their teacher education programs and
put lifelong professional development of teachers and principals onto their agenda for
educational reform (Gopinathan & Ho, 2003; Hallinger, 2003).
This trend of enhancing teacher quality and professional development is in the
domains of both the second and third waves for interface and future school effectiveness.
In such a trend, educators, leaders, and researchers are facing some new challenges
(Cheng, 2002).
(1) How can school leaders build up a new culture of continuous lifelong staff
development among their colleagues and related school stakeholders (Cheng,
2001e)? In other words, how can they develop their schools as learning organi-
zations that can support all types of continuous learning and development of
students, teachers, and the school organization itself (Senge et al., 2000)?
(2) How can we ensure that professional development or formal teacher education is
relevant to ongoing educational reforms and major shifts in education (Elliot, &
Morris, 2001)?
(3) How can a knowledge management system be built in schools to encourage
active learning, accumulate experience and knowledge from daily practices, and
inform further development of staff?
(4) How can the diverse needs of ongoing school improvement and staff develop-
ment be identified and satisfied within a limited resource framework?
(5) Given the challenges from the second and third waves of educational reforms,
there is a strong local and international demand for a major shift in approach to
educational leadership (Walker, 2003). What kind of new leadership should be
developed in such a context? How should the necessary shift be conceptualized,
organized, and implemented successfully among educational leaders?
When compared with the magnificent scale of ongoing school reforms, the existing
advances in understanding the nature of staff development, teacher education, and
leadership development are still insufficient. Clearly, a broad spectrum of research
effort is needed in these areas in coming years.
Towards Using Information Technology and New
Technologies in School Education
The increasing and tremendous effects of IT on every aspect of society are evident to
most national leaders and educational leaders in Asia. Many policy-makers take IT in
education as one of the most strategic initiatives for school effectiveness in ongoing edu-
cational reforms in Asia (Birch & Maclean, 2001). Countries like Japan and Singapore
implemented strategies to promote IT in education a few years ago; other countries have
developed their IT plans during the last three years (Gopinathan & Ho, 2000; Suzuki,
2000). In Hong Kong, schools are getting more and more computers and other IT facili-
ties, and they are helped to network both locally and internationally through the intranet
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and Internet. More and more training is provided for teachers in the use of IT in teach-
ing. Teachers and students are often expected to become IT competent in a very short
time (Education and Manpower Bureau, 1998).
In addition to IT in education, there has been a clear shift of emphasis from using
simplistic techniques towards applying sophisticated technology in educational
management in the past decade. Traditionally, all schools or educational institutions
were under external control and dependent on management by central authorities.
Educational leaders or managers did not see a need to use sophisticated management
technologies. Today, however, the environment is changing much more rapidly.
Consequently, such management technologies as strategic management, development
planning, participative management, and quality assurance are increasingly empha-
sized for school improvement. Policy-makers in Asia and in other parts of the world
are promoting the use of these methods (see, e.g., Bush & Coleman, 2000).
The trend of initiatives for promoting information and communications technology
(ICT) in school education in Asia is confronting some basic concerns (Cheng &
Townsend, 2000).
Although ICT is very powerful for creating opportunities for learning and faci-
litating learning and teaching in a very efficient way, its functions should not be
over-emphasized. ICT is a means rather than the end of education. Therefore, when
formulating strategies for ICT in education, both policy-makers and educators have to
consider its relevance for the achievement of educational aims. Some basic questions
have to be answered. How and what types of ICT are related to existing or new aims?
To what extent and in what aspects can the use of ICT help to achieve school aims?
What are the potential limitations for ICT within education?
From the experiences in some countries, it seems easier to purchase hardware, such
as computers and other ICT facilities for schools, than to provide appropriate software
and training for teachers and students. Many school practitioners spend a lot of time
and energy developing so-called homemade software, due to a lack of a more com-
prehensive and sophisticated software system to support teaching and learning in ICT.
Unfortunately, the quality of the homemade software is often questionable, and the
development is time-consuming. How to provide a comprehensive package including
the necessary hardware, software, and training, as well as an ICT platform to support
and maintain the effective and efficient use of ICT in teaching and learning, is an
important question, particularly in some developing sub-regions and countries where
resources for development are limited.
Stakeholders wonder whether the aims, subject content, instructional process, or
assessment of the existing school curriculum should be changed to adapt to the new
ICT learning environment. Moreover, teachers do not know how to do this. There is
often a lack of new framework for integrating the strengths and benefits of ICT into
curriculum development. The advances in ICT happen very fast. There is a clear gap
between the rapidly changing ICT environment and curriculum development in most
countries in Asia.
In the past few years, the efforts by many policy-makers in Asia to implement ICT
in schools have met with strong resistance from school practitioners. There have been
not only technological difficulties but also cultural problems. Implementation of ICT
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in school education is an extensive technological transformation and inevitably involves
cultural change for teachers, principals, education officers, other change agents, and
even students, if successful change is expected (Cheng, 1996a; Levy, 1986). Therefore,
how to change the existing attitudes and beliefs into a new ICT culture is clearly a seri-
ous challenge for the reform program, whether in developing countries or developed
sub-regions in Asia.
How to lead the implementation of ICT and other new technology for school effec-
tiveness and improvement is a completely new issue for most policy-makers, educa-
tors, and leaders in Asia. The effective strategies for handling the issues and challenges
raised above depend heavily on a thorough understanding of them and a knowledge
base of implementation of cultural and technological changes in different contexts. All
this are in need of support from educational research.
Towards Paradigm Shifts in Learning, Teaching, and
Assessment
In response to the challenges of globalization, IT, and a knowledge-based economy in
the new millennium, there is a growing trend for educational reforms to emphasize
paradigm shifts in learning, teaching, and assessment in many areas of Asia. As
discussed above, this is the rise of the third wave of school reforms. For example, Hong
Kong, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan have started new initiatives with the
support of IT and networking, to promote major changes in curriculum, pedagogy, and
assessment. The hope is to bring about a paradigm shift in learning and teaching in the
classroom.
As pointed out in Cheng (2000a), the whole world is moving towards multiple glob-
alizations and is becoming a global village with boundless interaction among countries
and areas. Many societies in Asia are diverse and moving towards becoming learning
societies. In such a fast-changing environment, the aim of educational reform tends to
develop students as lifelong learning citizens who will contribute creatively to the
formation of a learning society and a learning global village with numerous develop-
ments in technological, economic, social, political, cultural, and learning aspects.
There should be a paradigm shift in school education from the traditional site-bounded
paradigm to a new paradigm with an emphasis on the development of contextualized
multiple intelligence (CMI) for the new generation. This can be accomplished through
the processes of globalization, localization, and individualization in school education
(Cheng, 2000a, 2005).
The ongoing educational reforms in some parts of Asia, like Hong Kong, South
Korea, Singapore, and Japan, have already provided evidence of moving to a new trend
with various types of initiative in globalization, localization, and individualization in
education, for future school effectiveness. The learning and teaching will tend to be
globalized, localized, and individualized in the coming years, with the help of IT and
boundless multiple networking. Unlimited opportunities and various global and local
sources will be created for lifelong learning and development of both students and
teachers.
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These shifts in education inevitably induce a completely different set of concerns
and challenges for educational reform. The following are just some of them:
(1) A major paradigm shift is not only a kind of technological and theoretical
change but also a kind of deep cultural change including changes in the attitudes
of all concerned stakeholders and in their whole line of thinking about the future
of the global world, the vision, aims, content, methods, processes, practices,
management, and funding of education. How can such a comprehensive para-
digm shift be achieved at different levels in ongoing educational reforms?
(2) Clearly, teachers will play a crucial role in the whole process of globalization,
localization, and individualization in education and in the development of stu-
dents CMI (see Cheng, 2001e). Without them, such a major shift in learning and
teaching is impossible. How, then, can teachers be prepared to develop them-
selves as globalized, localized, and individualized CMI teachers, and facilitate
their students becoming CMI leaders and citizens? Also, how can they help trans-
form curriculum and pedagogy into something that meets world-class standards?
(3) As explained by Cheng (2001a), there should be a new conception of quality
assurance responding to the paradigm shift in learning, teaching, and assess-
ment. How can students learning and teachers teaching be well placed in a
globalized, localized, and individualized context? How well can students learn-
ing opportunities be maximized through ICT application, and networking of
teachers in educational reforms? How well can students self-learning be facili-
tated and sustained as potentially lifelong? How well can students CMI and
ability of self-learning be developed?
Conclusion
The three waves of educational reforms provide an overview for educators, policy-
makers, and scholars to understand the paradigm shifts in conceptualizing and imple-
menting initiatives and efforts for school effectiveness and improvement in Asia in the
past decades. Different countries or areas in Asia may have different historical and
contextual constraints. Therefore, up to now the progress and characteristics of their
school reforms for school effectiveness and improvement may be different and moving
forward in different waves. Some areas may still be in the first wave, struggling to
enhance internal school effectiveness and focusing mainly on the improvement of
internal process. Some areas may be moving forward in the second wave or a mix of
the first and the second waves, pursuing both internal and interface effectiveness.
Responding to the challenges of globalization and influences of IT, some areas may
have already started the third wave of educational reform to pursue future school effec-
tiveness. To deepen the understanding of the dynamics and complexity of school
reforms, further studies should be conducted to observe the progress of national or
regional cases in pursuing school effectiveness and improvement in these three waves.
In addition to the three waves, we would understand and investigate the initiatives
and efforts for school effectiveness and improvement in Asia from the nine major
trends of educational reforms. The nine trends at the macro, meso, site, and operational
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levels in association with the three waves present a comprehensive framework to discuss
and analyze numerous reforms and changes conducted for educational development and
school effectiveness in Asia.
There may be mutual influence of initiatives across levels on the pursuit of inter-
nal, interface, and future school effectiveness in each area or country of Asia. It is
hardly surprising that the educational environment shaped by the educational reforms
at the macro and the meso levels will often influence the management, functioning,
process, and output of school education at the site and the operational levels. Clearly,
the effectiveness and quality of school outputs from the operational and site levels
may also influence the development of policies and initiatives at the macro and meso
levels. Even though the congruence or mutual support between educational reforms
of different trends or different levels is strongly expected in policy-making and imple-
mentation, unfortunately it is often not the case in the reality of educational reforms
in some areas in Asia, for example, Hong Kong (Cheng, 2005, Ch. 8). In the past
decade, policy gaps between initiatives inevitably became a major problem and chal-
lenge accounting for reform failure in education (Cheng & Cheung, 1995).
Clearly, the implications from the issues and challenges of educational initiatives
for studying school effectiveness and improvement in Asia are significant and fruit-
ful. A great deal of inter-disciplinary and long-term research effort is needed to study
major shifts in learning, teaching, curriculum, and assessment; to investigate and
understand the above issues in policy-making, school management, and practice; and
to develop appropriate strategies and methods for implementing major shifts and
reforms at different levels of school system in each area or the whole region of Asia.
Some challenges arising from the ongoing trends of educational reforms in different
parts of Asia are crucial and greatly influence the policy formulation and reform
implementation in school education in many countries. It is therefore of great concern
to consider how those challenges can become priorities on the urgent agenda of
educational research, if reforms for school effectiveness and improvement are to be
fully informed and finally successful in implementation.
All in all, given the complexity of research on such comprehensive reforms of
school education in many countries in Asia, there is an urgent need to develop a criti-
cal mass of research intelligence through different types of networking in the region.
This work is a necessity not only for individual countries but also for the whole Asia
region to meet the numerous challenges in educational reforms in the new millennium.
It is hoped that this chapter will open a wide range of issues and implications for policy
development as well as educational research on initiatives for school effectiveness and
improvement in Asia and other parts of the world.
Part of this material is adapted from Cheng (2003a, 2003b), Cheng (2005, Ch. 2, &
Ch. 7), and Cheng & Townsend (2000).
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Introduction
A number of international research studies indicate that students in Asian countries
receive higher scores of achievement than do their Western counterparts (e.g.,
Stevenson & Stigler, 1992). This has prompted researchers to investigate the causes of
the phenomenon. In the past, school effectiveness research was criticized for a lack
of contextual perspective. Then, studies investigating the characteristics of school
effectiveness across different SES, areas, and even nations were generated. But even
so, educational systems and policies in many regions of the world, ironically, seem to
be homogeneous, as supported by the Western English-speaking literature (Walker &
Dimmock, 2002). This symbolizes the trend of globalization. Situated in this global
village, one cannot escape the influence of globalization. However, globalization
reflects the fact that the Western-based values transmitted through various media,
including economy, politics, technology, and culture, have become the norm to regu-
late peoples life. How to avoid the disappearance of indigenous cultures has become a
great concern for some, especially those in disadvantaged positions.
Localization is a response to the strong force of globalization. Although indigenous
cultures face global convergence, it is believed that some parts of these cultures are
resistant to such homogenization. In many ways, globalization of policy and practice
in education is a response to common problems faced by many of the worlds societies
and education systems (Walker & Dimmock, 2002). How to think globally and act
locally is an unavoidable path for developing countries. As Porter (2000) pointed out,
cultural differences can contribute to specialized advantages so important in improv-
ing the prosperity of nations (p. 27). The accumulation of globalized narrations from
different countries is conducive to enriching the academic field of school effectiveness
and educational change. Thus, it becomes significant for researchers from various
nations to propose conceptions and practices of school improvement, based on the
context they are located in.
269
14
SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS AND IMPROVEMENT
IN TAIWAN
Wendy Hui-Ling Pan
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2007 Springer.
Taking a cultural perspective at the societal level, this chapter first aims to help
readers understand the context of school changes in Taiwan. After the abolition of
Martial Law in 1987, an open and democratic atmosphere has freely circulated
through the political system, but other elements of the society are exposed as well.
Education is no exception. Maladies in education over the past decades finally have the
opportunity to be cured, and a campaign for a more liberal, pluralist education system
has heated up the debate between the trends of localization and of globalization. The
blueprint of education reform is sketched by civil organizations and the government
responding to the new concerns in Taiwan. Deregulation is used as the basic tone of
this recent wave of education reform. Second, practices of school improvement are
analyzed. Over the past decade, deregulation of power and curriculum, two main
initiatives taken, generated the school improvement experiences of success and failure.
But, what are the factors influencing school practices? This is the discussion in the
third part of the chapter. Finally, some directions for future efforts are proposed.
Contexts for School Effectiveness and Improvement
In order to counter the belief that education cannot compensate for society (Berstein,
1970), and to establish that schools make a difference, school effectiveness research
has been booming since the 1970s. Especially over the last ten years, school effective-
ness has become one of the most important educational movements and discourses in
the West (Weiner, 2002). The findings of school effectiveness research have been used
by policy-makers to enhance the quality of education.
The Recent Education Reforms
Different from what is shown in the Western history of school effectiveness research,
the belief that school matters is deeply embedded in the Confucian-heritage culture
of Taiwan. Practices of school improvement are not based on the results of school
effectiveness research. Rather, they are responses to long-standing educational mal-
function. Pupils suffer from the pressure of entering higher-level schools after the
nine-year compulsory education requirement. Education has become a tool for prepa-
ration of the school entrance examination. Centralization of educational administra-
tion constrains diversity and results in lack of flexibility. The individual learning needs
of students are hard to meet in schools. The dissatisfaction with problems in education
consequently culminated in the April 10th parade in 1994 (Pan & Yu, 1999). Since that
time, Taiwan has had over a decade of the most recent wave of education reforms.
Responding to peoples eagerness for educational change, the Ministry of Education
held the 7th National Education Conference in June 1994 and declared two main aims:
(1) to lessen pressure on students to enter higher-level schools, and (2) to liberalize edu-
cation. The Council on Education Reform affiliated with the Executive Yuan was estab-
lished at the end of the same year. The concluding report issued in December 1996
outlined the master plan of education reform for the coming ten years. Five reform direc-
tions were proposed: deregulating education, helping every student to learn, broadening
the channels for student recruitment, promoting educational quality, and establishing a
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lifelong learning society (Council on Education Reform, 1996). Here, deregulation was
used as the main thread linking all the initiatives of improvement.
Changing Conception of School Effectiveness
and Improvement
Increasing levels of achievement in the basics has been the focus for school effec-
tiveness researchers (e.g., Reynolds & Teddlie, 2000). But, is this the only goal of
education? This question has stimulated educators thinking for decades. Taiwan is a
society that deeply believes that education is a significant means for social mobility.
Parents expect that the main tasks of schools are to have students thoroughly learn the
content of each subject and to have a high rate of students passing the school entrance
exam. These expectations result in the instrumental use of education. How to transfer
schooling from helping students master subject knowledge to helping students develop
competence has been a new concern in education reform during these years. In other
words, the new policy emphasizes competence-based curriculum instead of content-
oriented curriculum. This indicates that the conception of school effectiveness nowa-
days is changing in Taiwan. Although one may still observe that the newspapers use
headlines to celebrate students outstanding performance in the entrance examination
(e.g., China Daily News, 2006), the definition of an effective school is broadened, at
least in education circles.
A policy is not simply a document that mandates action. The past failure of large-
scale innovations shows that the top-down approach has limitations. The school as a
center of change and teachers as agents of change are new claims for this wave of
educational changes. The new Grade 1 to Grade 9 Curriculum delegates some decision-
making to the schools: twenty percent of the curriculum is left for the school to design.
This is a substantial measure of school-based management. The schools are expected to
assume the role of developing the curriculum. As a result, teachers are not subjects to be
reformed; rather, they play a leading role in curriculum development. In the implemen-
tation process of the new curriculum, frustration unavoidably exists in schools. There
are schools that still think that curriculum development is an event that relies on
quickly produced paperwork rather than as a long process of curriculum activity. Also,
the visions drafted by schools look similar across campuses, and the products of a frag-
mented integrated curriculum are shared and celebrated among schools. All of this
reflects that schools do not really realize how to take advantage of their autonomy and
use the school as a base for innovation. Nevertheless, after several years of trial and
error, there are schools that have broken out of the cage and have created admirable
experiences of innovation.
Practices of School Improvement
Under the influence of globalization and localization, Taiwans education, driven by
the ideology of educational deregulation, has made great changes. Market orien-
tation, accountability, democratic participation accompanied with professionalism
School Improvement in Taiwan 271
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and educators autonomy all led to the delegation of some power from the central
level to the local government and schools. In the Education Basic Law, educational
affairs that need to be undertaken are clearly stipulated. And the new system of
principal recruitment, the establishment of a Teachers Review Committee and
Teachers Association in schools, and parents participation in the school meetings
have indeed altered the power balance in schools. Such innovation broadens the
dimensions of teacher decision-making. It also permits the school consumers the
parents to have a say in school affairs. Viewed as a subject, the school has a right
and a responsibility to select competent teachers, and some schools have even chosen
the principal they want. Empowering schools is an important feature of this wave of
educational reform. It is hoped that decentralization may help schools move toward
self-renewal, in which teachers act as agents of change. In addition to the restructur-
ing of school management, the new Grade 1 to Grade 9 Curriculum emphasizes the
development of school-based curriculum so that teachers may embody their profes-
sional role.
A number of initiatives were launched by the government to advance teachers capac-
ity, such as a teaching portfolio, action research, and the system of mentor teachers.
Facing external policies initiated by the government, schools are managed in their own
way. According to Fink and Stoll (1998), restructuring and reculturing were two
approaches adopted by schools in addition to the school effectiveness movement and
school improvement processes, to boost change in schools. Restructuring describes
mandated change through top-down directives from the government, and usually the
agenda included some version of site-based management. Reculturing emphasizes
the process of developing new values, beliefs, and norms; it involves building new
conceptions about instruction and new forms of professionalism for teachers (Fullan,
1996). It is observed that the restructuring approach has been adopted in a large num-
ber of schools in Taiwan, but some schools take advantage of the autonomy granted by
the government and walk away from the route to school innovation. Involving teachers
in school decision-making and curriculum development have been the two main
initiatives in Taiwan over the past decade. Therefore, the following paragraphs focus on
the analysis of how schools face the two large-scale reforms and create their own ways
of changing their schools.
Decentralization of Decision-Making
Over the past ten years, several breakthroughs have been seen in the primary and
secondary school systems, after a number of laws were passed. The promulgation of
the Teachers Act in 1994 created two bodies: the Teacher Review Committee and the
Teachers Association. In addition, the amendment of the Compulsory Education Law
and its Enforcement Rules altered the process of selecting a principal and the function
of staff-faculty meetings. These policies are attempts to, first, offer autonomy to
schools so the administration group of a school is able to build up the environment
most suitable for its students and teachers; and second, offer teachers more freedom in
developing teaching materials and methods and involving them more in administrative
affairs beyond their classroom concerns.
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The voices of parents is another major issue. The Education Basic Law and the
Compulsory Education Law guarantee the right of parents to be involved in school
affairs. The Teachers Act allows parents to participate in teacher recruitment. The
numerous directional interactions among school administration, teachers, and parents
reveal a new era of power ecology in schools. Thus, the principal as the sole pilot
steering a school has become history.
Following the Teachers Act in 1994, the Teacher Review Committee (responsible for
teacher recruitment and appraisal) must be established in the school. As well, the
Teachers Association is allowed to be established voluntarily at the school level,
creating a channel for teachers to get involved in the decision-making of school affairs.
The two bodies signify the realization of school-based management and teacher
empowerment. In the past, it was the business of the City/County Education Bureau to
recruit teachers. Now, the power is delegated to the school. Teachers, and even the
parent delegates, have the right to select the teachers they want. The Teachers Asso-
ciation, playing the role of another eye of administration, mainly looks after teachers
benefits. The Teacher Review Committee and the Teachers Association embody the
decentralization from the local level to the school level and from the principals control
to the teachers control.
In response to the mandated directives from the government, schools set up the Teacher
Review Committee (Chang, 2002), and most schools have a Teachers Association.
However, in an authority-oriented cultural context, it is not easy to share power. In the
early stage of implementing the two policies, a great many problems occurred. The lack
of legal process to elect teacher representatives in the committee, the operations of the
committee dominated by the principal, teachers troubled by lobbying, and the narrow-
mindedness of the faculty all contributed to the ineffectiveness of the committee. This
ineffectiveness caught the attention of the public and gave rise to debates. After a few
years of experimentation, although there are still some obstacles restricting the func-
tion of the committee, the difficulties that schools now face are somewhat different.
Teachers reluctance to devote time to the committee and the high cost of teacher
recruitment are two of the major concerns faced by schools. The satisfaction the
schools expressed about the function of the committee is around moderate to above
moderate (Hong, 2003; Huang, 2000).
With respect to the Teachers Association, Wang and Pan (2000) found that teachers
in schools that did not have the association got higher scores on the empowerment
scale than did teachers in schools that had the association. Many reasons might explain
this finding. Probably, teachers in schools that had the association had higher expecta-
tions of the schools, making them use a stricter standard for answering survey
questions. But there is a possibility that teachers used power improperly when they had
the opportunity to become involved in school decisions. Confrontations between the
administration and the TeachersAssociation often took place. The aim of professional
development of the association was not realized in most schools, although there were
high expectations that this could be achieved. Teachers fighting for their own benefits
caused agitation in the school. School administrators often complained that members
of the association were hungry for power. However, people do learn from the past.
After more than a decade, the TeachersAssociation is maturing. Conflicts among staff
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are not as serious as they were previously. Several studies indicate that the develop-
ment of the association usually goes through different stages, from confrontation to
peaceful coexistence between the administration and teachers (e.g., Lin, 2001).
Curriculum Development
The form and content of a national curriculum document may vary according to a
nations administrative system. Following the path of deregulation, Taiwans Curriculum
Standard was replaced in recent years by the Curriculum Framework, for example, as the
Grade 19 Curriculum Framework issued in 2002, and the High School Curriculum
Framework issued in 2004. The Curriculum Standard had been the guide for schools.
The teaching content of every subject was clearly stipulated in this standard. In this
wave of reform, promoting teachers autonomy is an important strategy. Therefore, the
Curriculum Framework replaced the Curriculum Standard.
In the Grade 19 Curriculum Framework, ten basic competences for pupils to
achieve are illustrated, and competence indicators of seven learning areas for assessing
students learning are listed. This reform has the intention of breaking the boundaries
of subject-based curriculum, to promote school-based curriculum, to encourage team
teaching, and to use competence indicators in place of content prescriptions. The
curriculum initiative may be seen as influenced by Western curriculum reform.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, defining student learning outcomes became a common
educational initiative in many countries such as the United States, Australia and Canada.
Since the late 1990s, standards-based reform has replaced its outcomes-driven predeces-
sor. The more broadly defined outcomes-driven curriculum establishes the ends of edu-
cation but leaves methods to the teachers themselves. Standards-based curriculum is
more specific in content prescriptions and performance demands (Hargreaves, Earl,
Moore, & Manning, 2001). What students should learn is what teachers should teach is
the new focus on curriculum reform in these two decades, although there are different
ways of defining students learning outcomes and the degree of teacher autonomy in
teaching.
Under this global trend, the new curriculum implemented in Taiwan not only
changes the concept of students achievement but also changes the concept of the
teaching profession. The concept that students should learn subject knowledge is
replaced by the concept that students should be educated to have the competence that
they need. And teachers have to alter their role from a curriculum implementer to a cur-
riculum planner. This policy demands not just first-order changes, which are initiatives
for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of what is currently done, without dis-
turbing the basic organizational features and substantially altering the way that children
and adults perform their roles (Cuban, 1988). It also demands second-order change,
which is systemic and comprehensive, to alter the fundamental ways that affect the cul-
ture and structure of schools, to restructure roles and reorganize responsibilities of
school participants (Fullan, 1982). Each school implementing the curriculum develops
it own strategies. Some schools have only the structure of the Curriculum Development
Committee without its effective functioning; some are engaged in second-order change
when implementing the curriculum policy and experience great success in school
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improvement. Of the successful schools, two approaches, joining school networks and
establishing university-school partnerships, are noteworthy.
The School Networks Approach
The newly implemented curriculum leaves schools more freedom to develop their own
curriculum than they previously had. As mentioned, from Grade 1 to Grade 9, 20% of
the curriculum is left for schools to design. In this context, schools are encouraged to
develop school-based curriculum. The Curriculum Development Committee is set up
in schools, as required by the government. Curriculum reform might be viewed as the
core element of school changes in Taiwan during these years.
In order to implement the new curriculum policy effectively, three strategic networks
in the northern, central, and southern areas of Taiwan were established at the central
level by the Ministry of Education. At the local level, school networks were also estab-
lished within the city or county. Responding to this large-scale reform, some schools
enacted the policy passively, whereas other schools were transformed into centers of
change. Taipei City is an example of a typical bottom-up model of this wave of cur-
riculum reform. The local education authority, the Bureau of Education, left time and
autonomy to schools at the pilot stage of implementation. Eight strategic networks were
established by the schools, eventually resulting in nine networks. The initiation for the
networks was prompted by disproving the idea that teachers thought they were doing
what the principal commanded and their schools were the only ones doing the job of
curriculum design. Through collaboration among schools, teachers regularly shared
their curriculum products with faculties from other schools. These dynamic group inter-
actions enabled schools to have the opportunity to improve themselves and create peer
pressure for positive competition among schools. In addition to the operation of each
strategic network, a common session every Monday morning was arranged for dialogue
between the network schools and the members of the Curriculum Committee of the
Education Bureau, for discussion on issues of common concern by the nine strategic
networks. Each network developed its own features to enhance the quality of curricu-
lum design and teacher development.
Voluntary school networks might also be found in Taipei County. Northern Corner
Strategic Network and Hishan Strategic Network are well-known ones. Zueifong Strat-
egic Network, part of the Northern Corner Strategic Network, is composed of seven
elementary schools. The schools are situated in rural areas and are small in scale.
These characteristics make them more flexible in curriculum development. Concern of
parents for pupils academic performance is not so strong as in cities and in families
from a higher socio-economic background. In-service training courses and curriculum
workshops are offered. In the monthly curriculum workshops, teachers are introduced
to cases of different countries and they do exercises on curriculum mapping. Through
knowledge sharing and skill training, teachers gradually construct curriculum con-
sciousness. In the past, teachers were simply curriculum implementers. Now, teachers
have the role of curriculum designers. In addition, the Bureau of Education in Taipei
embarked on a program entitled Community as Classroom, which started in 2000.
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This program embodies the concept of using the community as a learning space. The
traditional boundary of a classroom is broken. Recognizing that the community is
the root of schools, integrating community resources into the curriculum is the main
idea of the program. So far, approximately 100 schools have joined in the program
(Yu, 2004).
Because schools are given a certain degree of autonomy in curriculum decisions,
experiences of site-based curriculum development have gradually accumulated in
recent years. Exploring the school exemplars, we may find that enhancing teachers
competence in curriculum design and their intrinsic motivation to change are the main
strategies for principals. Principals need to identify the school goals and mission with
the faculty, clarify the conception of curriculum, and then work with teachers to develop
the school curriculum. Many professional development activities are arranged for teach-
ers, and organizational learning in schools is common. A survey revealed that nearly half
of the 88 sampled schools (51 elementary and 37 secondary) are engaged in some
kind of organizational learning (Lam, Wei, Pan, & Chan, 2002). This offers a general
picture of schools in Taiwan.
University-School Partnerships Approach
As an initiator of curriculum reform, the government needs to draft relevant action
plans to ensure that the policy has been carried out. After two years of implementation
of the New Curriculum, the Ministry of Education recognizes that the school as a base
for curriculum development is significant for the success of the policy. Consequently,
the Deep Planting Project, a concept borrowed from agriculture, was initiated in 2002.
One part of the project, Collaborative Hand in Hand Project between the University
and Schools, is to establish partnerships between the university and schools. Every
year, the Ministry of Education calls for proposals on the project. A number of projects
have been conducted under this categorical funding.
The establishment of partnerships between the university and the schools benefits
both sides. The university may have an opportunity to apply theories in schools, and
the reflections and feedback can benefit the university in teaching and research. At the
same time, schools may receive professional support from the university. Hence, this
dynamic interaction between theory and practice actually benefits both parties.
In these university and school networks, three partnership models are possible. The
first is the experts taking the leading role and the teachers acting as assistants. The sec-
ond is the experts and teachers collaborating equally. The third is the teachers taking
the leading role and the experts acting as assistants. The overwhelming majority use
the first model, followed by the second one. The third one is the rarest.
Enhancing the capacity of schools in developing curriculum is an intended outcome
of the partnership projects. Furthermore, in rural areas, the partnership may assist
schools and teachers to re-create their own local cultural values. Gu (2004) worries
that the rise of the knowledge-based economy may widen the gap between the rich and
the poor. People living in rural areas are more likely to be disadvantaged under the
social changes that accompany globalization. Gu proposed using the school-based
curriculum development model to empower marginal groups to deal with the difficult
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situations caused by the knowledge-based economy and by globalization. Through the
model, teachers reflect the local values they possess to counteract the negative self-
concepts in students. The development of school-based curriculum is found as an
empowering process for both students and teachers.
Factors Influencing School Improvement
Societal and Cultural Factors
After decades of martial law, there has been a thirst for democratic participation in
Taiwan in the past 20 years. The claim for sharing power has sprawled from politics to
education. After 1987, more involvement from educators in shaping educational laws
can be seen in the revision of the University Act. The democratization of college
governance has expanded to secondary and primary schools. Under the grand slogan
of deregulation proposed in the 1990s, more participation in decision-making of
school affairs is demanded. The result is that schools have the right to be involved in
selecting their principals and teachers. In addition, parents, as consumers, have a say
in school operations. In other words, the power is delegated from the local level to the
school level and from the principal to other school stakeholders. The clamor for grass-
roots involvement resulted in the establishment of a Teacher Review Committee and a
Teachers Association at the school level.
The culture and values are like the soil for all initiatives. The nature of the soil
determines what will blossom and what will grow. Importing educational initiatives
too soon, without sensitivity to the local context, could cause problems. In Chinese
societies, leadership is exercised in a more authoritative manner. Teachers traditionally
were not encouraged to step out of the classroom. Democratic participation in school
affairs is not commonly accepted as an ideal practice of teachers. So, in the initial
years of implementing shared governance, some schools were in chaos. Principals
were reluctant to share power and some teachers were eager for power. This situation
brought about tremendous tensions in schools. Power struggles among stakeholders
produced questions about the justification of power (Huang, 2002). Also, the Teachers
Association became a territory for a certain group of teachers who stood in opposi-
tion to the school administration. No wonder it was found that teachers in schools with
a TeachersAssociation had a lower perception of empowerment than those without the
association (Wang & Pan, 2000).
Past experience of failure gives people wisdom to proceed. After several years of
mutual adaptation, principals and teachers gradually changed their attitude. They are
more willing to share power and more capable of doing so. This also removes the label
of the Teachers Association as a barrier to school progress. Furthermore, some
associations are actively engaged in promoting teachers professional growth.
In addition to the authority-oriented culture that may limit the function of demo-
cratic participation, the concept of achievement (different from that in the West) is a
variable for the recent curriculum reform in Taiwan. Intensely dominated by traditional
belief, people in Taiwan take education as a path of upward mobility. In a number of
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international studies on students performance, it was found that, as well as schools,
many societal and cultural factors affect students learning (Lee, Chang, Pan, & Hsu,
1998; Pan, 1999). In order to make up for childrens deficits, parents in Taiwan spend
more time helping children with their homework than do parents in Western countries.
This suggests that people with a Chinese cultural background still hold onto the belief
in effort, in contrast to the ability model held by Western people. More effort,
more gain is often deemed a creed. The high expectations of parents brings pressure
not only to children but also to teachers and school administrators. The result is that
compromise will inevitably occur among all types of reforms.
School Factors
Principal leadership and teacher participation play a crucial part in school reform. In
addition, school characteristics, teacher characteristics, school culture, and the school
support system all affect the process and outcomes of improvement.
Leadership of principal
Many studies have pointed out that the principal plays a key role in school reform
(Leithwood, Jantzi, & Steiback, 1998). The principal needs to adjust herself or himself
to take new responsibilities, absorb new ideas, and demonstrate new styles of leader-
ship. According to Huang (2002), school reform inevitably will influence the power
structure of schools. Principals unable to share power will face conflicts with the
Teacher Review Committee. Wang and Pan (2001) found that many principals failed to
recognize that they needed to change their conception of power. In response to the
establishment of a TeachersAssociation, some schools ignore it, some struggle to hold
onto their waning power, and some persist in using the association as an instrument for
leadership to fight against new advances. Such styles of leadership only bring endless
strife to schools.
If every member of a school possesses a sense of belonging and is aware that her or
his future relies on the schools future, school reform will proceed more smoothly.
How does the school administration cope with the transitional period, and how does
the principals hands-on curriculum development decide the fruitfulness of school
reform? After interviewing many principals who implemented the Grade 19 Curri-
culum or the school-based curriculum, Lin (2000) pointed out that principals
personally involved in leading faculty in reading the Curriculum Framework and
playing the role of coordinator and who provided assistance during each phase of cur-
riculum development contributed to the success of reform to a significant degree.
However, as curriculum leadership is a new role for school leaders, many principals
are not familiar with it. Thus, assisting principals to re-skill with the necessary ability
to relieve their sense of crisis is an important task for policy promoters.
Attitudes of teachers
The attitude, belief, perception, capacity, and sense of responsibility of a teacher
means a lot to the realization of reforms. The teaching milieu is like an egg carton.
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Each teacher takes an independent section and feels isolated. This environment makes
them feel agitated when asked to work on the new curriculum with their colleagues
(Fullan & Hargreaves, 1992; Wagner, 2001). Cheng (2002) found that, even after
setting up a curriculum development committee, teachers tended to finish their
assigned job independently. Teamwork is rarely seen among teachers.
Without active participation, teachers can suffer from frustration in developing
school-based curriculum or show an indifferent attitude. Sometimes they even resist
adopting the new curriculum (Cheng, 2002). Though most English teachers recognize
the goals of the new curriculum, few feel they are capable of carrying it out (Su, 2002).
These observations remind us that school reform needs to start with a thorough
understanding of the teachers situation, their faith, and their interests in their career.
The school support system
Three fundamentals or the 3Rs are to be considered when a policy is formulated: rele-
vance, readiness, and resources (Fullan, 1982). Resources for education reform are the
support systems covering administrative support and facilities as well as time and
space arrangements. Su (2002) found that school reform proceeded more smoothly in
schools with more support systems, because teachers got more support when they
implemented the new curriculum. After visiting the pilot schools that implemented the
Grade 19 Curriculum, Cheng (2002) discovered that schools that failed to put
resources and budgets together, failed to reschedule instructional time, and failed to
arrange team teaching hinder curriculum development.
Researchers also pointed out that there are several approaches schools can take to
create a better working environment for teachers. In the aspect of teacher workload,
schools may prioritize school activities according to how educational and meaningful
they are. Furthermore, improving efficiency in meetings, making better use of tech-
nology, fostering teachers competence in time management, giving occasions for
teachers to exchange professional experience, and recruiting volunteers from outside
the school are all possible approaches to consider (Gao & Shan, 2002). However, the
culture of a school determines the quality of interaction among teachers. If the school
fails to create a collaborative culture, teachers still work alone even though they are
given time for sharing. Moreover, in the aspect of space arrangement, researchers
suggest that under the framework of human-environment, teaching/learning is used
as a basis for consideration. By providing teachers with studios and a common area
where they can get together, it is possible to break down the boundaries between teach-
ers. A home-like space, with upholstered couches, a refrigerator, a microwave oven,
and a stereo system could comfort teachers, too (Tang, 2002).
School Ecology
Location, organizational characteristics, and the culture of a school are influential
contributors to school reform. Using the operation of the Teachers Association as an
example, it was found that elementary school staff had a higher perception of empow-
erment than did their secondary counterparts. And there is no significant relationship
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among location, school size, and teacher empowerment (Wang & Pan, 2000). However,
some more subtle findings were obtained in qualitative interviews. Few teachers of
schools in the suburbs or even more remote places are interested in participating in
Teachers Associations, because they do not work in the school nearby. After school
hours, they usually hurry home (Wang & Pan, 2001). The age and sex of teachers are
also determinants of the operation of the Teachers Association. In schools with a large
proportion of young female teachers, it is found that many are either of childbearing age
or are busy taking care of their children. Female teachers who are occupied by domes-
tic affairs are deprived of the chance to be involved in the school and to develop
professionally (Wang & Pan, 2001).
Reshaping school culture is the first step in building a quality learning school. In a
more open and autonomous environment, teachers and students will have more inter-
actions and will be more willing to try new ideas. Wei (2002) compared two schools.
One successfully created learning organization in an open atmosphere on campus, and
the other failed due to its conservative style.
Prospects
Based on the experiences in efforts for school improvement over the past few years,
some directions for future efforts are proposed.
Being Sensitive to Cultural Context
Since the 1970s, the inapplicability of Western paradigms in the context of Taiwan has
stimulated the Sinicization of social science, which evolved into indigenization in
the 1990s. The marginalization and colonization of educational science has been criti-
cized (Department of Education, NTNU & National Professorship, MOE, 1999; Wu &
Chen, 1985). However, there are few reflections on the transplantation of Western
theories and models associated with school reform.
The overwhelming tide of globalization from developed countries justified the
cultural hegemony over developing countries. Education reform will not work without
the cultural sensitivity of the reformers (Dimmock & Walker, 2001). Because of very
limited experience in participating in public affairs and in school-based management,
the Teachers Association and Teacher Review Committee created chaos in schools.
Dimmock and Walker (2001) pointed out that it was easier to implement school-based
management in a society that has more even allocation of power. Therefore, cultural
context needs to be taken into consideration when adopting the decentralized initiatives
proposed by Western countries.
In addition, school reform demands consideration of the locality of each school.
Reformers are expected to build an environment supporting school self-renewal after
a thorough understanding of the culture of the school and the community.
Creating a Healthy School Ecology
The democratic movement in Taiwan has altered the power structure of schools, but
principals do not seem to be ready for their new roles and the teachers are still learning
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how to use the power they have recently acquired. Therefore, school-based management
is a goal rather than a strategy of innovation. This has resulted in teachers being given
more power, but their responsibilities, competence, and passions do not increase along
with the power.
The design of staff-faculty meetings and the Teacher Review Committee produces
an imbalance of power within schools, because principals are asked to be responsible
for the decisions made by teachers in meetings. Also, the current system for recruiting
principals will inevitably hamper those principals seeking longer tenure in conducting
reforms. In some cases, parents manipulate principal recruitment through parents
associations or the Teachers Association. Such a power struggle seriously undermines
school functioning. Fullan (2001) argues that education is a highly intellectual and
caring enterprise, and without caring minds, education reform is destined to fall apart.
Thus, creating a healthy school environment, in which teachers may engage in rational
dialogues and in which an atmosphere of respect, trust, and caring is molded, is the
first step to save school reform from becoming mired in petty controversy.
Using Evaluation as School Improvement
Hopkins (1989) sees school evaluation as playing three functions: evaluation of
school improvement, evaluation for school improvement, and evaluation as school
improvement. Evaluation can be a tool for examining school improvement, for facil-
itating school improvement, or as a path to proceed along in the course of school
improvement. Hopkins suggested internalizing evaluation in schools that take the
future development of the school as their core mission and respond to national and
local school reform policies. Such an evaluation is used as a mechanism of feedback
for school development.
In Taiwan, evaluation of education reforms was rarely implemented. But in recent
years, school evaluation is very commonly enforced for accountability purposes. Some
schools even express fatigue from being evaluated too frequently. It is recognized that
evaluation can be used to investigate the effects of school programs as well as to improve
them. Therefore, internalizing evaluations in school is a good way for organizational
improvement and development.
Building Learning Communities
In order to enhance the learning achievement of students, teachers apply various teach-
ing methods. Cooperative learning is one of them. However, teachers seldom realize
that they are actually engaging in collective learning (ONeil, 1995). Organizational
learning has become a necessary strategy in school reform. It facilitates interaction
among teachers in school and creates potential cooperation among schools. Many
school networks emerge in the United States that facilitate organizational learning.
Some of these networks are Accelerated Schools (McCarthy & Still, 1993), Coalition of
Essential Schools (Prestine, 1993; Sizer, 1992), Success for All (Slavin, Madden, Shaw,
& Donnelly, 1993) and The League for Professional Schools (Allen & Glickman, 1998;
Blas, Blas, Anderson, & Dungan, 1995).
The network of elementary and high schools can be extended to colleges (Seller &
Hannay, 2000). There are several types of collaboration between schools and colleges.
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The first type is college researchers simply extracting data from schools. The second
type is the building of clinical partnerships. And the third is a co-learning relation-
ship. It is only in the third type of relationship that faculties of colleges and schools
are equal partners and they can learn from each other (Wagner, 1997). In postmod-
ern society, the dominant status of college researchers is challenged. It is believed
that the realities are constructed and there is more than one truth. Different forms of
knowledge are valued. Practical knowledge that teachers construct is significant in
understanding the world of education (Clandinin, 1986; Connelly & Clandinin, 1988;
Elbaz, 1983).
Compared with the practical knowledge schoolteachers create on a daily basis,
knowledge pursued in college is abstract, universal, and alienated from daily life. It is
suggested that such a boundary should be gradually blurred (Hargreaves, 1996). When
building equal partnerships between schools and colleges, educational science may
further develop through the dialectics of theory and practice.
Providing Opportunities for Professional Growth
Too many previous failures in education reforms tell us that teachers might have been
placed in the wrong position in reform. Fullan and Hargreaves (1992) proposed the
idea of total teacher, suggesting the need to motivate teachers. In Taiwan, courses of
staff development have started, in order to meet teachers needs in reform; however,
many strategies of staff development are fragmented, and top-down in imposition. The
courses treat teachers as partial instead of total. In other words, the teachers
purpose, the teacher as a person, the real world context in which teachers work, and the
culture of teaching are the four aspects ignored in past school reforms.
In the process of education reform, reformers have overlooked teachers intentions.
A teacher is simply treated as a policy implementer. However, when facing changes, the
teacher will question whether the change is really worthwhile, whether there are side
effects caused by the reform, and whether the reform is practical. Therefore, the voices
of teachers must be heard. In order to trigger teachers passions for action, it is necessary
to let them gain ownership of the changes so that motivation of self-actualization may be
aroused. Understanding teachers needs and offering them opportunities according to
the stage of their career development may recharge teachers to improve schools.
Moreover, teachers and school administrators need to adjust their roles in the
ever-changing world. New roles such as organizers and mentors are what teachers
should be able to take on. Personal traits that used to be necessary only for principals,
such as good communicative skills, innovation, analytical ability, self-confidence, and
persistence, are in fact necessary for teachers now (Fullan, 1992). Principals nowadays
also need to assert diverse styles of leadership, such as transformational leadership
(Fullan, 1993; Sergiovanni, 1995), cultural leadership (Caldwell, 1993), moral leader-
ship (Sergiovanni, 1992), empowering leadership (Blas & Anderson, 1995; Short &
Greer, 1997), educational leadership (Caldwell, 1993; Marsh, 2000), strategic leader-
ship (Marsh, 2000), and curriculum leadership (Glatthorn, 1997). Providing courses
for teachers and principals to learn the new roles is the persistent driving force of
professional growth.
282 Hui-Ling Pan
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Please pro-
vide com-
plete details
for ref.
Blas &
Anderson,
1995 in ref.
list.
Investigating Educational Changes
Failure of so many education reforms over the past made researchers investigate them
cautiously. Fullan (1998) probed three phases of education reforms underlining three
periods: the Implementation Decade, 19721982; the Meaning Decade, 19821992;
and the Change Capacity Decade, 1992present. The Implementation Decade revealed
the innovation process that involved teaching materials, structure, roles, behaviors,
knowledge, understanding, and values. The Meaning Decade addressed a question to a
broad audience including teachers, principals, students, school district officers, con-
sultants, parents, and communities: what is the meaning of education reform? The
Change Capacity Decade is devoted to inspiring teachers, principals, and school admin-
istrators to enhance their capacities in a changing environment. In addition, Hargreaves
and his colleagues analyzed educational change not only as intellectual effort but also
as emotional work (Hargreaves et al., 2001). In order to fully grasp the nature of educa-
tion reforms, to investigate how practitioners think and act in the process of change,
how school improvement may be sustained, and how effective innovations are, many
more indigenous studies are needed in Taiwan.
Education reform is not necessarily a move triggered by university researchers.
While given greater autonomy and identified as knowledge constructors, schoolteach-
ers are able to relate reform and practice in classrooms through action research
(Mctaggart, 1997; Oja & Smulyan, 1989). Teachers may conduct research, reflect in
action, and explore problems in situations systematically, to find the solutions through
critical dialogues and to be courageous in changing the status quo.
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Wang, L. Y., & Pan, H. L. (2000, December). A survey study on the empowerment of school participants and
the cause analysis in junior-high schools and elementary schools: Teacher Association as a focus. Paper
presented at the Meeting of the Vision and Planning of Educational Development in the new Era, Taipei,
Taiwan.
Wang, L. Y., & Pan, H. L. (2001, June). Using empowerment perspective to examine the operation of
Teacher Association. Paper presented at the Meeting of the School Innovations, Department of
Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Wang, L. Y., & Pan, H. L. (2002). Seed and soil: The role and practice of school principals and teachers in
school innovations. In H. L. Pan (Ed.), School innovations: Theory and practice (pp. 101137). Taipei:
Xue Fu.
Wei, H. C. (2002). Constructing a learning school: An action research. In H. L. Pan (Ed.), School innova-
tion: Theory and practice (pp. 363401). Taipei: Xue Fu.
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Please
provide cita-
tions for the
ref. Wang
and Pan
(2002) in
text.
Weiner, G. (2002). Auditing failure: Moral competence and school effectiveness. British Educational
Journal, 28(6), 789804.
Wu, C. T., & Chen, B. C. (1985). The preliminary review of educational research for forty years in Taiwan.
China Forum, 21(1), 230243.
Yu, A. B. (2004). Looking back is a kind of nostalgia : Curriculum experiences of community as class-
room in Taipei county. National Education, 44(6), 5661.
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Introduction
School effectiveness and improvement has long been an important educational issue for
researchers and practitioners worldwide. According to Levine and Lezotte (1990),
school effectiveness is the production of a desired result or outcome. However,
school effectiveness is still a very vague concept, even though it is often used in the
literature of school management and improvement (Cheng, 1996, p. 7). The definition
of school effectiveness may vary for individuals as well as for different countries.
Relatively speaking, Mortimore has given a clearer meaning when he defines an effec-
tive school as one in which students progress further than might be expected with
respect to its intake (Mortimore, 1998, p. 258). This definition suggests that an effec-
tive school should add value to the students outcomes in comparison with other schools
serving similar intakes (Sammons, 1999, p. 76). The author of this chapter agrees with
Mortimores definition and believes that the most convincing fruits of school effective-
ness and improvement practices should be the improvement of quality in disadvantaged
schools.
1
This point of view is not groundless but builds on Chinas unique history in
school effectiveness and improvement. Thus, this chapter begins with a brief historical
review of school effectiveness and improvement practices in China and then presents
the general context of Chinas experiences. The second section of the chapter examines
the role the Chinese government plays in promoting improvement in disadvantaged
schools, by presenting and discussing the contribution of related initiatives and efforts
at the system level. In the third section, the factors at the site level that contribute to
improvement in disadvantaged school are identified, through studying a typical case of
successful practice in improvement in disadvantaged schools. The fourth section
provides researchers and practitioners in other countries with the implications and
lessons drawn from Chinas best practices in improvement in disadvantaged schools.
Throughout this chapter, the author argues that the most valuable and convincing expe-
riences of school effectiveness and improvement are not in traditional, high-performing
287
15
SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS AND
IMPROVEMENT IN MAINLAND CHINA
Daming Feng
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2007 Springer.
schools but in disadvantaged schools. Also, the initiatives and efforts at system level
can substantially promote and enhance the effectiveness and improvement of schools,
particularly in disadvantaged schools. Yet, these initiatives and efforts do not work
automatically. Rather, they work better if they are matched with the appropriate strate-
gies at the site level. Finally, to develop effective strategies at the site level, an individ-
ual school has to fully consider the status of the students, based on information from
the results of psychological tests, questionnaires, and surveys. Also, the author makes
the assertion that school effectiveness and improvement may have a negative side; that
is, the excessive expectations and workload in school improvement practices might
weigh teachers down. Further, school leaders adopting leadership approaches or
management strategies directly from other political and cultural contexts, without con-
sidering the appropriateness for their organizations, might do more harm than good.
School Effectiveness and Improvement Efforts in China
School effectiveness and improvement has been one of the priorities for Chinas
education since the founding of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949. However, by
the end of the 1980s, Chinas efforts in this area were focused exclusively on a very
small proportion of schools.
When confronted with immediate economic and technological problems in the early
years, the newly established communist government in mainland China was eager to
prepare qualified scientists and technicians within a short time. Thus, the government
was unable to allocate enough resources to improve all schools in the country. Also, the
country experienced a civil war from 1946 to 1949, and the per capita GDP was only
US$1419 in the first five years of the 1950s (Ministry of Education [MOE], 2003a,
p. 666). Under these circumstances, the Chinese government decided to develop a policy
that classified some schools as key schools and others as ordinary schools, in a top-down
manner. In 1953, the central government named 194 schools key schools. This was a
very small percentage (4.4%) of the large number of schools in China (Li, 2003, p. 276).
In 1962, the National Congress of Education again emphasized the importance of
key schools and called for accelerating the development of the key schools program.
In 1978, the Ministry of Education formulated a new policy regarding the building of
a key schools system. According to this policy, key schools were given further priority
in funding, human resources, school facilities, and selection of students (Liu, 2005).
These particular policies and efforts giving priority to the key schools had constantly
improved the quality of these schools and prepared quite a few excellent graduates by
1980s. But these same policies and efforts, which benefited only the key schools,
resulted in the problem of uneven development in Chinas education. The limited
resources for education were allocated unevenly between the minority key schools and
majority ordinary schools. Consequently, some of the ordinary schools gradually fell
behind and became disadvantaged, whereas the key schools became privileged under
such policies and efforts. The statistics in the mid-1980s showed that nearly 40% of
Chinas elementary and middle schools were identified as disadvantaged (Zhang,
2004, p. 1).
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As a result of the improvement of the national economy during the first five years of
the 1980s, the law-making branch of the government, the National Peoples Congress,
decided to establish the system of nine years of compulsory education in China. Then,
the Compulsory Education Act was passed and came into effect when the per capita GDP
reached US$138 in 1986 (MOE, 2003a, p. 666). At this time, the Chinese government
became aware of the problem of uneven development between key schools and ordinary
schools and, in the late 1980s, began to reallocate the resources for education. In 1989,
the problem of the effectiveness of ordinary schools, particularly in disadvantaged
schools, was placed on the agenda of the Ministry of Education (Zhang, 2004, p. 3). This
was seen as a turning point in Chinas educational priority, as the policy began to shift
from key schools to ordinary schools. In November 1998, the Ministry of Education
issued an important document titled Reinforcing the development of disadvantaged
schools and making every school work in large and medium cities. This central govern-
ment document put forward the initiatives and efforts aimed at improving the disadvan-
taged schools, by introducing changes in funding, governance, policy of enrolment,
personnel distribution, and teacher development (MOE, 1998). Since this time, improv-
ing the quality of disadvantaged schools has been a focal issue at both system and site
levels, because no school should be left behind is the essential requirement in the
implementation of the Compulsory Education Act.
In the above historical account, it is evident that the government in mainland China
has shifted its focus from key schools to disadvantaged schools. The purpose of the
earlier focus was to breed a corp of lite students from the vast student population for
the service of the country, and to make the key schools the benchmark of excellence.
The purpose of the latter focus was to reverse the unfavorable conditions of schools
suffering from a lack of resources and poor management. Now that the historical
context for Chinas development has been presented, we turn out attention to the next
section, which focuses on the recent practices in disadvantaged schools.
Initiatives and Efforts at System Level
Since 1998, the Chinese government has taken various initiatives and made efforts to
improve disadvantaged schools. These initiatives and efforts were put into practice with
special extra funding, by changing the policy of enrolment and the style of governance,
approaching innovation in teacher development, and encouraging school leaders to
move to disadvantaged schools.
Special Extra Funding
It is a universal consensus that increasing funding is one of the critical factors in
improving the quality of disadvantaged schools. In the late 1980s, it was apparent that
it would be impossible for the Chinese government to allocate necessary funding
to assist these schools. However, things changed in the past decade, as Chinas eco-
nomy has constantly and rapidly developed and improved. As mentioned, Chinas per
capita GDP was US$19 in 1955 and US$138 in 1986. It reached US$1023 in 2002
School Improvement in Mainland China 289
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(MOE, 2003a, p. 666). In some coastal cities, the per capita GDP was even higher. For
example, in Shanghai, it was US$5642, according to statistics in 2003 (Wen Hui Daily,
2006a, p. 12). This improvement in economy provides the precondition for an increase
in funding.
Both the central government and the local governments have established various
special foundations for restoring the quality of disadvantaged schools in the last
decade. The foundation established by the central government mainly aimed to support
programs for rebuilding disadvantaged schools in less developed areas.
2
For instance,
the central government established a special foundation for disadvantaged schools in
inland China, where the economic level was low in 1995. By the year 2000, this foun-
dation had provided disadvantaged schools in 852 less developed countries with
approximately US$1.6 billion (Li, 2003, p. 251). In another development, the govern-
ments in coastal cities tended to establish special foundations themselves for local dis-
advantaged schools. The most developed coastal city in China, Shanghai, put US$1.1
billion extra funding into 194 local disadvantaged schools from 2002 to 2005 (Wen
Hui Daily, 2006a, p. 12). These foundations are employed for building renovations,
campus reconstruction, fitting classrooms and laboratories with necessary equipment,
and covering expenses in teacher development in disadvantaged schools.
Changing the Enrolment Policy
Traditionally, elementary school graduates were required to take a formal entrance
examination before they were promoted to middle school. The candidates that got high
scores would enter key schools, but the rest had to go to ordinary or even disadvan-
taged schools. To emphasize equity in the nine-year compulsory education and to pro-
vide better support to disadvantaged schools, the Ministry of Education in the late
1980s established several pilot districts in four provinces, to explore the possibility of
abolishing the middle school entrance examination and implementing a new policy.
This policy stipulated that the key school system at the elementary level and middle
education would be abolished. The elementary school graduates in these four pilot dis-
tricts would be allocated to middle school close to their neighborhoods (MOE, 1993,
pp. 1011). This change of enrolment policy gradually spread to the other 26 provinces
and autonomous regions of China, after receiving positive responses from those in the
pilot districts. By the end of 2005, all schools in the country had adopted the new pol-
icy of enrolment; even the government of the Tibetan Autonomous Region claimed to
have adopted the policy of no entrance examination and going to a school nearby
(Dawarenci, 2005).
Changing the Approach of Support
In the past, both the Ministry of Education and the local educational authorities would
govern schools in a bureaucratic manner by issuing top-down rules. Now-a-days, this
approach is slowly being replaced by a client-centered one in the disadvantaged
schools targeted for reform. Evidence of this approach is that the Ministry of
Education has recently established a website for a consulting service to provide local
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educational authorities and schools with professional advice (MOE, 2005a). Another
example is the National Teacher Networking Program (NTNP) established by the
Ministry of Education and supported by eight normal universities.
3
In September 2003,
the ceremony to launch the NTNP was held in Beijing (MOE, 2003b). According to the
news report, the NTNP runs as a supermarket of teacher development for all teachers
nationwide. Teachers in any part of the country can select to learn any online course and
have access to any presentation any time they wish, through the Internet. The online
courses and presentations are prepared by the experts and professors in the field of
teacher education in the eight most renowned normal universities. This is one of the solu-
tions to the problem of teachers at disadvantaged schools in inland China having little
chance for access to qualified and excellent teacher educators (Chen & Gong, 2004).
The changing approach in the support of the Ministry of Education has influenced
the administrative behavior of local educational authorities. In Anhui, one of the inland
provinces, three initiatives have recently been formulated by the provincial govern-
ment, to help the leaders and officers at the system level who are concerned about dis-
advantaged schools. The first initiative is that individual officers at local educational
authorities must keep in touch with several disadvantaged schools and assist these
schools in addressing difficult problems. The second is that every superintendent of
the local authorities must play the role of chief coordinator to organize or coordinate
local resource personnel and research institutions of education to support local disad-
vantaged schools. The third initiative is to build up an accountability system for local
educational authorities, related to the condition and extent of improvement in local
disadvantaged schools (AEN, 2005).
Innovative Approaches in Teacher Development
Based on past experience, we know that teachers in disadvantaged schools are usually
good at discipline in the classrooms but lack knowledge and skills in curriculum devel-
opment and in giving instructions. A survey in 2000 revealed that 25% of the teachers
at disadvantaged schools in less developed areas did not have rudimentary knowledge
or minimum skills for classroom teaching (Xu, 2003).
As a result of the development of the rebuilding program for disadvantaged schools,
the matter of professional development for teachers in disadvantaged schools becomes
salient. Thus, teacher development in disadvantaged schools has been repeatedly
emphasized as the infrastructure for improvement in these schools. Therefore, quite a
few innovative approaches beyond the traditional training institute or ordinary work-
shops for teacher development have emerged in recent years. In addition to the NTNP
stated above, the following innovative approaches for teacher development are widely
accepted and employed.
Big Name Teacher Studio (BNTS) Approach
The BNTS is named after a local excellent and renowned teacher; for example, Steve
Teaching Studio, Susan Teaching Studio, etc. The hosts of the studios are selected
and named by the local educational authority. Usually, these studios cover all subjects
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such as math, science, Chinese, English, etc. at the elementary, middle, and high
school levels. Each host signs a one- or two-year contract with the district. The local
educational authority provides the studio with funds and other necessary resources,
and each host delivers his or her subject knowledge by mentoring a group of promis-
ing young teachers from neighboring disadvantaged schools. It is also necessary for a
host to have online presentations and online question-answer sessions for all teachers
in the same district (Xinhua, 2004).
Subject Highland Approach
It is a universal phenomenon that the level of teaching and learning in different sub-
jects gets uneven development in different schools in a district. Usually, a high-
performing school
4
may get one or two strong subjects but not all. For example,
high-performing school A is strong in math and science, whereas high-performing
school B is strong in language and social studies. The local educational authorities
have recently identified the distribution at the highest level of teaching and learning in
different schools within a district and named such schools with the strongest subjects
Math Highland, Science Highland, Language Highland, etc. The individual
schools with the name of subject highland must take up the responsibility of providing
teachers who teach the same subject at disadvantaged schools within the same district
with opportunity to join field trips, classroom observation, professional experience
sharing sessions, and problem-centered workshops. Of course, these schools will
receive extra funding from the local educational authority (Feng, 2002; Wen Hui Daily,
2006b, p. 11). Essentially, it is an inter-school but has a within-district supporting
approach for teacher development at disadvantaged schools.
Inter-District Supporting Approach
Sometimes, it is impossible for a district that has few high-performing schools to
employ the subject highland within-district supporting approach. Thus, the inter-
district supporting approach is advocated and promoted by the local educational
authorities to be in charge of more than one district.
In 2004, the Shanghai Education Commission (SEC) published its new action plan
for educational development. As one of the strategic actions, SEC required its 19 dis-
tricts to carry out the inter-district supporting approach for teacher development, in
case the chances to improve the quality of teachers were unevenly distributed among
different districts (Wang and Su, 2004). In implementing this requirement of SEC,
several inter-district supporting approaches have been developed. These include inter-
district partnership, inter-district internship, inter-district mentoring, and inter-district
volunteering (Wen Hui Daily, 2006b, p. 11).
Inter-district partnership
An individual disadvantaged school in one district builds up a partnership with a high-
performing school in another district, with the assistance of the local educational
authority in charge of these two districts. Then, the two schools negotiate what and
how the latter helps the former in a fixed period (e.g., one year or two years).
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Inter-district internship
A disadvantaged school in one district selects a few promising young teachers to learn
instructional skills and acquire other knowledge in practice for a period at a high-
performing school located in another district. This is accomplished through the coordi-
nation of the local educational authority in charge of these two districts. These young
teachers will go back to the disadvantaged school after one semester or one school year.
Inter-district mentoring
An experienced teacher at a high-performing school in one district meets and talks with
a group of promising young teachers teaching the same subject from several disadvan-
taged schools in another district. These meetings occur once a week, and the teachers
give guidance and advice on their teaching and their professional development, accord-
ing to the expectations and objectives set by the local educational authority in charge of
these two districts. The actual needs of these young teachers are also considered.
Usually, the mentor will get a little extra pay from the local educational authority.
Inter-district volunteering
According to the rule of teacher promotion formulated by some local educational
authorities, it is necessary for a candidate who is a senior teacher working in a high-
performing school to work at a disadvantaged school in another district located in a
less developed town or rural area, for at least one school year. Consequently, many
qualified teachers who want to be promoted to senior positions from high-performing
schools become inter-district volunteers.
Encouraging School Leaders to Move to
Disadvantaged Schools
Historically, high-performing schools pool excellent human resources in leadership,
whereas disadvantaged schools lack qualified personnel in leadership. In recent years,
a new system of performance to pay for school principals has been developed in
Shanghai, to encourage school leaders to move to disadvantaged schools (Wu, Feng, &
Zhou, 2000, p. 193). According to this system, all serving principals in Shanghai are
divided into 4 grades and 12 levels (see Table 1). The principals at Grade 1 Level 1 sta-
tus will get the highest pay; the principals at Grade 4 Level 2 status will get the lowest.
Every principal has the right to apply for the grade and level he or she considers
appropriate. However, a special committee will evaluate the performance of each
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Table 1. The system promotion ladder for school principals
Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4
Level 1-1 Level 2-1 Level 3-1 Level 4-1
Level 1-2 Level 2-2 Level 3-2 Level 4-2
Level 1-3 Level 2-3
Level 1-4 Level 2-4
applicant and decide the appropriate professional status for him or her, using a newly
developed evaluation system based on a set of indicators. The evidence of the per-
formance of each principal is gathered in four ways: field observation, data-based
review, interviews of stakeholders, and evidence-based task reporting by individual
principals. This evaluation process ignores the schools historical achievements and
does not care about the status of the school in which a principal is working at the
moment. It mainly focuses on the current performance of the school and the evidence
of school improvement after the candidate became principal. To encourage qualified
leaders to move to disadvantaged schools, a principal will get extra marks in evalua-
tion if he or she is working at a disadvantaged school. The allocation of the principals
to a particular grade and level determines their income, as mentioned (Feng, 2003a;
Feng & Tomlinson, 2002).
This system apparently provides not only performance related to a pay mechanism
but also an orientation of qualified human resources in leadership toward disadvan-
taged schools. This system of performance related to pay for school principals devel-
oped by the Shanghai Municipal Government was encouraged in 2001 by the central
government (State Council, 2001). There is a distinct possibility that this system will
be implemented in the whole country.
The Case of Shanghai Zabei No. 8 Middle School
Before and After Improvement of the School
Shanghai Zabei No. 8 Middle School is located in Zabei District, an inner-city, work-
ing-class community in Shanghai. Most of the students come from families of lower
socio-economic status. The statistics and psychological tests conducted in 1986 and
1987 show that it was a typical disadvantaged school (Chen, 2003, p. 2; Wang, 1993,
pp. 283285; Xiong & Yu, 2005, pp. 749750):
The equipment and facilities for teaching and learning were out of date.
The focal issue of school leadership was not the improvement of quality in learn-
ing but keeping order.
Most of the teachers had little confidence in improving their students learning.
20% of the teachers were identified as unqualified.
Out of 35 middle schools in the district, the average score of students in this
school in the entrance examination for middle school was at the bottom, but the
ratio of criminal behavior was at the top.
One-third of the students had the experience of repeating grades in elementary
school.
Only 22% of the graduates of this school passed the final standardized test.
Only 14.9% of the students had the habit of preparing lessons before class.
Only 16.2% of the students reviewed lessons after class.
Only 11.1% of the students completed their homework without plagiarizing the
work of others.
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Only 10% of the students had confidence that they would succeed in passing the
final standardized test.
More than 60% of the students had little motivation for learning.
10% of the students completely lost heart in learning and had little hope for their
adult life.
Only 10% of the students expressed satisfaction with the school.
Supported by the local educational authority, this school started its project in 1987,
aimed at improving the effectiveness of teaching and the quality of learning. By the end
of the 1980s, the positive outcome of the project was apparent. The following facts and
data show that this school is no longer disadvantaged (Chen, 2003, pp. 4, 19; Xiong &
Yu, 2005, pp. 761762):
Some of the equipment and facilities for teaching and learning have been replaced.
The focal issue of school leadership has shifted from keeping school in order to
the constant improvement in teaching and learning.
Most of the teachers have confidence in improving their students learning.
Most of the teachers are qualified to teach.
Out of 35 middle schools in the district, the average academic achievement went
from the bottom (in 1987) to the middle range. Student criminal cases dropped
from the top to zero.
Of all ordinary schools in the district, the average performance of the students
conduct/behavior of this school is in first place.
The students proficiency in English listening comprehension, speed reading and
comprehension, and oral expression is significantly higher than that of students
from ordinary schools in the district.
Almost 100% of the graduates of this school pass the final standardized examination.
Students tend to have confidence in participating in various academic events and
contests and for the first time won third place in an English contest with all ordi-
nary and high-performing schools in the district.
74.3% of the students have the habit of preparing lessons before class.
86.5% of the students review lessons after class.
91.1% of the students complete their homework without plagiarizing the work of
others.
More than 90% of the students have confidence that they would succeed in pass-
ing the final standardized test.
More than 90% of the students believe that they will have a promising future after
graduation.
More than 90% of the students expressed their satisfaction with the school.
Major Strategies for Improvement in the School
To restore the quality of Shanghai Zabei No. 8 Middle School, the school improvement
project team was established in 1987, funded and organized by the local educational
authority of Zabei District. The project team consisted of school leaders and a few pro-
fessional researchers from the local research institution of education. The project
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began with a series of psychological tests, questionnaires, surveys, and interviews with
individual teachers and students. The results showed the following (Xiong & Yu, 2005,
p. 750):
The prime reason for students who have difficulty in learning is not intelligence
but psychological factors.
The prime reason for students with little motivation for learning and little confi-
dence in learning is that they have too often experienced failure in learning.
Based on these two findings, the project team decided to regard helping students to
regain their confidence as a fundamental effort, which provides students with opportu-
nities of success in their learning experience. Later, this project was named Successful
Education.
In implementing the Successful Education project, six major strategies were
developed in Shanghai Zabei No. 8 Middle School (Chen, 2003, pp. 33, 135136; Liu,
2005, pp. 913; Xiong & Yu, 2005, pp. 756760):
Building Guiding Values and Beliefs
The following guiding values and beliefs leading all members of the school in search
of success were gradually built into the school by various data-based demonstrations
and evidence-based presentations. There was also repeated two-way communication:
The precise value of education is to help children pass through the fog in their life
to find themselves.
Success is not the exclusive privilege of one person or some people. Rather, it is
something that belongs to everyone.
It is essential for educators to believe that every student has the potential to be
successful.
One of the most important responsibilities for educators is to teach children
learning to learn and learning to strive for success.
Success refers to a persons relative progress in comparison with his or her past.
The core meaning of success is constant development and constant improvement.
Adjusting Expectations for Students
According to Liu Jing-hai (2005), head of the project team and the principal of
Shanghai Zabei No. 8 Middle School, Successful Education is an education approach
aimed at serving students with difficulties in learning. It does not try to create an lite
for society. Rather, it aims to turn the failures into successes through the process of
appropriate education, in order to avoid the educational tragedy of so many school grad-
uates entering society and the labor force with the memory of failure and frustration
(pp. 910). Appropriate education here refers to the education based on S f
(e. c. a), the formula of Successful Education developed by the project team. In this
formula, S stands for success in learning, e stands for appropriate expectations
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for students, c stands for the chance to experience success by suitable pedagogy,
and a stands for encouraged appraisal. According to this formula, the expectations
for the students at disadvantaged schools must be adjusted. In other words, the expecta-
tions for students in this school should be different from the expectations for students at
high-performing or ordinary schools. Or, to be more precise, the expectation for most
students at this school is just to PASS the final standardized test, not to pursue EXCEL-
LENT achievement in that test. Thus, expectations should start from the current status
of individual students rather than from the general requirements of the national cur-
riculum standards. Keeping in mind the progress of individual students, the expecta-
tions for them will gradually approach the requirements of national curriculum
standards. To accomplish this, a suitable pedagogy is needed.
LSMI Pedagogy
From 1987 to 1988, the project team developed a pedagogy with four characteristics in
classroom teaching, to create chances of success and increase the experience of
success for students. These four characteristics of this so-called LSMI pedagogy are
lower starting point, slow pace, many activities, and instant feedback.
Lower starting point
A teacher gets to know and understand the status of individual students by interviewing
them and their parents, checking students previous homework, conducting quizzes
before class, and conducting question and answer activities during class. The teacher
will set proper starting points for individual students at the beginning of a semester.
Given the status of the students at Shanghai Zabei No. 8 Middle School, the starting
points are usually lower than the general requirements of national curriculum standards.
Slow pace
To minimize the chance of frustration and maximize the chance of success in class-
room experience for students, teachers set a slow pace of learning for students with
difficulty, in keeping pace with normal requirements. In this way, students with diffi-
culty in learning will get more chance to see progress and success in learning.
Many varieties of activity
Usually, students having difficulty with learning become easily distracted if a teachers
presentation lasts for 15 minutes or more. Given such a fact, teachers shift the format
of teaching and learning from time to time, by providing students with various inter-
active activities with other students.
Instant feedback
Teaching (by teacher), doing and practicing (by students), checking and correcting (by
teacher), identifying problems and problem-solving (by teacher together with students)
is a basic cycle in every lesson. Through this instant feedback, teachers or students can
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identify problems in their teaching or their learning, respectively. This enables them to
improve their work. Also, students can see progress day by day through instant feed-
back. This recognition is essential to rebuild confidence in learning over time.
Encouraged Appraisal
Encouraged appraisal is central to cultivate students interest in learning and to provide
students with positive reinforcement. In explaining the meaning of encouraged appraisal,
Liu (2005, p. 13) argues that effective appraisal for students with difficulty in learning
should include the following encouraging factors: Through the appraisal, (1) students
will recognize the relation between their endeavors and improved learning outcomes;
(2) students will learn to attribute failures in the learning process to their insufficient
input, insufficient previous knowledge, or inappropriate methods rather than to their own
intelligence; (3) students will learn how to identify problems, how to analyze the reasons
for errors, and how to adjust the goals for further learning; and (4) students will learn to
respect each other.
Innovative Approaches to Teacher Development
From the very beginning, the project team recognized that the quality of teachers was
the precondition and assurance for carrying out the Successful Education project
effectively. By the end of the 1980s, the project team had developed several useful
approaches to school-based teacher development. Of these, micro study with peers
and co-authored script were widely acknowledged.
Micro Study with Peers
The school videotapes a ten-minute portion of a teachers teaching period, selected by
the teacher, and shows it to the teacher and other teachers in the same department. The
teachers discuss and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of the teachers teach-
ing mirrored by this ten-minute period and find ways for the teachers further improve-
ment through peer feedback (Chen, 2003, p. 6; Xiong & Yu, 2005, p. 760).
Co-Authored Script
The school encourages every teacher to show a selected lesson plan for a 45-minute
class. This lesson plan will be presented to other teachers in the same department. Each
teacher who receives the plan is required to revise or refine the original one based on his
or her values, perspectives, and understanding for teaching and learning. The plan is
revised and refined many times and then passed back to the original author weeks later.
It is very helpful for the original author (particularly for a teacher at an early stage of his
or her career) to read and understand the refined lesson plan in which the wisdom and
experiences of other teachers are included. Later, the school will collect all of the
co-authored plans as common materials to be shared (Wen Hui Daily, 2006b, p. 12).
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Making Full Use of External Factors
During the process of implementing Successful Education in the late 1980s, the
school consistently employed the strategy of making full use of external factors. The
school made full use of such government initiatives as inter-school supporting and spe-
cial funding for rebuilding disadvantaged schools, which emerged in the late 1980s in
Zabei District, to improve the quality of the teachers and renew the facilities and
equipment for teaching and learning. Also, the school made full use of the forces from
the local community and families to establish a parent council at the school level, a
parent team at the grade level, and parent volunteers at the class level, to provide the
school with various types of support for rebuilding a secure and supportive atmos-
phere within the school (Xiong & Yu, 2005, p. 760).
Contributory Factors at Site Level
The author chose the case of Shanghai Zabei No. 8 Middle School to identify the inter-
nal factors contributing to school improvement, because it is one of the best-known
and most influential stories in the movement of restoring the quality of disadvantaged
schools in China. As one of the few successful experiences in school improvement, it
was strongly recommended by the Ministry of Education in the 1990s (Liu, 2005,
p. 8). It has been influencing the movement of restoring the quality of disadvantaged
schools in China since then, by conferences, symposiums, and publications on
Successful Education, Since 1995, a number of disadvantaged schools in different
parts of China have used the strategies of Shanghai Zabei No. 8 Middle School to
improve the quality of their school and have achieved satisfactory results (Chen,
2003, pp. 1921). For example, the Lanzhou No. 11 High School (in inland China
where the economic level is less developed) was identified in 1996 as disadvan-
taged. By employing the school improvement strategies from Shanghai Zabei No. 8
Middle School, the Lanzhou school had greatly improved its quality by the year 2000
(Zhang, 2004).
Through the case of Shanghai Zabei No. 8 Middle School and other successful cases
elsewhere in China (Chen, 2001; Chen, 2003; Liu, 2005; Qian, 2004; Xiong & Yu,
2005; Zhang, 2004), the contributory factors for effectiveness of disadvantaged schools
at site level can be identified:
Guiding values and beliefs is a set shared assumptions for learners and educators,
learning and teaching, failure and success, and the essential purposes and func-
tions of school and education, through which a school will be led to the vision of
quality.
Research-based leadership refers to the major decisions of leadership and changes
of school policy, based on findings of research literature and the results of
psychological tests, questionnaires, and surveys.
Appropriate expectations for students means the expectations are adjusted
according to the status of individual students in a certain school.
Suitable pedagogy creates chances of success for students and provides students
with the experience of success.
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Encouraged appraisal is central to cultivating students interest in learning and to
providing students with positive reinforcement.
School-based teacher development is problem-centered teacher development
within a school.
Making full use of external factors requires a school to make full use of govern-
ment initiatives and policies aimed at developing school strategies to match these
initiatives and policies.
No doubt the initiatives and efforts at system level have substantially contributed to the
improvement of Shanghai Zabei No. 8 Middle School. Yet, the extent or degree of
improvement in quality may be different in another school under the same policy in the
same system. In fact, some of the disadvantaged schools have been merged with other
ordinary schools or high-performing schools since 1998, in the program of school
redistribution, because little change has taken place in these disadvantaged schools for
years (Li, 2003, p. 255). This fact convinced us that the initiatives and efforts at system
level are only external forces and preconditions for the improvement of individual
schools. When these initiatives and efforts reach an individual school, they do not
work automatically. Rather, they work when they are matched with internal changes in
an individual school. In this sense, the final extent or degree of quality improvement
for an individual school largely depends on the effective strategies at site level.
Implications and Lessons to Learn
Many lessons and implications can be drawn from the school improvement experience
in mainland China. Many of these lessons and implications are valid not only for dis-
advantaged schools but also for ordinary schools as well. First, the effectiveness of dis-
advantaged schools should be given necessary attention. According to the 1990 World
Declaration on Education for All, all children, shall be able to benefit from educa-
tional opportunities designed to meet their learning needs and an active commitment
must be made to removing educational disparities (UNESCO, 1990). The provision of
quality education for poorly motivated students at disadvantaged schools is not only a
focal issue in Chinas education, but it is also a big challenge in many countries. The
experiences gained in China suggest that the most valuable and convincing experience
of school improvement is not from traditional high-performing schools but from dis-
advantaged schools.
Second, the initiatives and efforts backed by fiscal policy at system level are indis-
pensable for endeavors in school improvement, particularly in disadvantaged schools.
Yet, these initiatives and efforts are only external factors. They will not work automati-
cally if they are not matched with appropriate strategies at site level. In this sense, the
leverage of school improvement still largely rests at site level rather than at system level.
Third, to develop effective strategies for school improvement at the site level, an
individual school has to consider fully the current status of its students based on infor-
mation from the results of psychological tests, questionnaires, and surveys. For exam-
ple, in many international studies, high expectations for students has been identified
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as one of the key factors in school effectiveness. However, based on the experience of
Successful Education, high expectations for students may not work when dealing
with students who are having learning difficulties in disadvantaged schools.
Problems and Concerns
As an important part of Chinas educational development, improvement in Chinas
disadvantaged schools has made apparent progress thus far. But a cluster of explicit and
implicit problems is impeding the progress of Chinas effort in school improvement.
The document, Reinforcing the development of disadvantaged schools and making
every school work in large and medium cities, issued in 1998 by the Ministry of
Education, is seen as the beginning of Chinas effort in school improvement for disad-
vantaged schools. However, the scope of application is rather limited. Given policy-
makers preoccupation with the challenges associated with urban schooling, school
improvement for disadvantaged schools in small towns or rural settings has not been
given priority, though there are several central government foundations for disadvan-
taged schools in inland China. Also, the local educational authorities in small towns or
rural areas of inland China are unable to allocate extra funding for local disadvantaged
schools, because of the less developed economic conditions. Hence, in solving the
problem of uneven development between key schools and ordinary schools, a new
problem of uneven development between the schools in coastal cities and those in
small towns or rural areas of inland China is created (CPUA, 2005; Dong Fang
Prospect, 2005; Liu, 2005). This is the first major problem of school improvement for
disadvantaged schools in China.
The second problem is the workload of teachers. As a result of the implementation
of such projects as Successful Education, the requirements and expectations for a
teacher are increasing. In Chinese culture, the primary responsibility of a teacher is
not to teach students subject knowledge but to guide them towards socialization.
Therefore, the term educator is quite different from instructor in the Chinese
cultural context, because an educator is not only an instructor but also a moral
guide. If a teacher acts only as an instructor, he or she will be seen as an underper-
forming teacher. In this sense, when the question What is a performing teacher? is
raised, the traditional answer is very simple: a performing teacher is an educator. For a
teacher who is implementing a school improvement project in a disadvantaged school,
the answer has recently changed to not only an educator but also a learner. Now, the
answer is an educator, learner, innovator, facilitator, researcher Consequently, the
teachers workload has increased because of the endless requirements and expectations
of the role of a teacher (Feng, 2003b). What is the maximum workload for a teacher?
Perhaps it is not in the job assignment but in the conscience of a teacher.
The third problem is the leadership dilemma. As the knowledge of school improve-
ment in disadvantaged schools has been accumulated, the school leaders of these
schools have begun to introduce such Western leadership and managerial approaches
as Distributed Leadership and Total Quality Management (TQM) into their schools.
However, these leadership and managerial approaches are based on the cultural
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context of Western societies. Hence, there may be a conflict in values when Western
leadership and managerial approaches are introduced into the schools. Basically, the
traditional Chinese culture rooted in Confucianism is quite different from the Western
Judeo-Christian culture (Walker & Quong, 1998). For example, in contrast to the
original sin of Judeo-Christian religion, Confucianism believes that man, by
nature, is good. Given this fundamental assumption about people, a school leaders
priority, according to the Confucian perspective of leadership, is not supervision
but tapping the natural moral source from his or her subordinates and bringing every
positive factor into being. This assumption about school leaders priority is apparently
contradictory to the assumption of school leaders priority in TQM. Taking another
example, to address the challenges from school improvement practices, a school prin-
cipal is planning to apply the distributed leadership approach. But Confucius (1998),
the founder of Confucianism, said 3,000 years ago in The Analects, He who holds no
rank in a State does not discuss its policies. In the light of this teaching, a true gen-
tleman, even in his thoughts, never departs from what is appropriate to his rank. That
is, leadership in a school is the principals job and no one elses business. Thus, a
school leader sometimes finds himself or herself in a cultural dilemma: To attain
school improvement goals in the school, the school leader needs to introduce distrib-
uted leadership or other Western leadership and managerial approaches. But the
leader will very likely encounter resistance from subordinates and other stakeholders.
To be more exact, a school leader is likely to fail to lead the school to attain the
planned school improvement goals if he or she does not apply some Western leader-
ship and managerial approaches. However, the same leader will probably meet strong
resistance and fail to achieve the goals of improvement at the school if he or she
decides to implement Western leadership and managerial approaches based on
Western culture (Feng, 2005).
Given the above problems, educators and policy-makers in other countries would
draw the following conclusion:
First, like any effort at change, school effectiveness and improvement has both a
positive and a negative side. Fullan and Miles (1992) remind us, Changing is a learn-
ing process that is loaded with uncertainty. No one should ever be fooled into thinking
that the change process works the way it is supposed to. Anxiety, difficulties, and
uncertainty are intrinsic to all successful change (quoted in Hanson, 2003, p. 331).
Educators and policy-makers thus should be ready to face new challenges when they
enjoy the fruits of school improvement.
Second, it is necessary to bear in mind that a teacher is a person, not a machine. It
is possible for teachers engaging in the improvement of their schools to be weighed
down by the excessive expectations and a heavy workload. How to set priorities,
what should be retained, and what should be abandoned is an enduring challenge for
school leaders.
Last but not least, cultural conflicts inevitably exist when school leaders, in the prac-
tice of school effectiveness and improvement, employ leadership approaches or strate-
gies rooted in other cultural contexts. How can we solve the problems resulting from
cultural conflict and resulting in leadership dilemma? So far as the author knows, this
is still a problem that awaits resolution in China.
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Conclusion
In the last 7 years, the issue of disadvantaged schools has emerged as a focal issue in the
education system in China, and the education community has witnessed unprecedented
initiatives and efforts aiming to improve these schools. National and local policy-makers
appear to realize that the most convincing evidence of school effectiveness should be the
improvement in quality in disadvantaged schools rather than in key schools. This realiza-
tion has led to significant changes of policies and priority given to disadvantaged schools.
The initiatives and efforts for school improvement at system level, matched with appro-
priate strategies at site level, have produced positive outcomes in disadvantaged schools
since 1998. However, the emerging problems in Chinas efforts to improve schools remain
to be solved. These problems, from the perspective of the author, can be categorized as
explicit and implicit. It is not very difficult for the Chinese government to recognize and
to deal with the explicit problems. For example, in further promoting the even develop-
ment in nine-year compulsory education, a document published by the Ministry of
Education in May 2005, the government affirmed its position to give high priority to dis-
advantaged schools in small towns and rural areas in inland China. In this document, the
Ministry of Education also called for local educational authorities in inland China to make
further efforts and to develop effective strategies to combat problems in disadvantaged
schools (MOE, 2005b). In another development, society has recently turned its attention
to the problem of the excessive workload of teachers. The Shanghai teachers union, for
example, has been working for about 2 years on a project of setting an appropriate work-
load of teachers. The problem of the excessive workload of teachers is likely to be solved
in the near future (Feng, 2005).
Comparatively speaking, both researchers and practitioners have not paid sufficient
attention to such implicit problems as the cultural dilemma in school leadership thus
far. Also, there is only a very small body of educational literature on the theme of cul-
tural conflicts or cultural dilemma in school leadership of China. So far as the author
knows, the reasons underlying the conflicts and the solution for the dilemma have not
been carefully analyzed and explored (Feng, 2005). How to effectively resolve these
implicit problems would be an important theme for researchers and practitioners to
work on in the field of school effectiveness and improvement.
School improvement experiences in China presented in this chapter suggest that
there is no easy path to successful school improvement, because success is accompa-
nied by problems. Therefore, the author would like to close this chapter with the advice
from Fullan and Miles (1992):
Problems along the journey should be embraced rather than avoided. Educational
change is a problem-solving process; only by seeking out problems and resolving
them through deep coping can we confidently continue the journey. (Quoted in
Hanson, 2003, p. 331)
Notes
1. In China, a disadvantaged school is the lowest performing school among ordinary schools, in which at
least four major characteristics can be observed: (1) lack of sufficient funding and necessary equipment
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for normal operation; (2) most students coming from working-class families and having lower motiva-
tion for learning; (3) most teachers having lower confidence in improving students achievement and not
being skillful in instruction; and (4) the focal point of school leadership not being improvement of qual-
ity in learning but keeping order.
2. The terms developed and less developed are for domestic comparisons and not international ones.
3. A normal university is a teacher education university.
4. After abolishing the key school system at the stage of elementary and middle education, educators and
parents would like to call an ex-key school a high-performing school to make a distinction between
ex-key schools and ordinary schools.
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Xiong, M., & Yu, B. (2005). A history of educational explorations and experiments in modern China. Jinan:
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Introduction
Three decades of studies have resulted in a broad consensus on the characteristics of
an effective school. There is now impressive evidence from empirical research and
sophisticated case studies on how an ineffective school can become an effective
school. The challenge at this time is to scale up the use of this knowledge to ensure that
all schools are effective. The focus is shifting from creating an effective school to
creating an effective school system. Achieving such an outcome is an indicator that the
school effectiveness movement is reaching its maturity.
The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate the extent to which such maturity has been
achieved in Australia by tracking the evolution of research, policy and practice in respect
to one particular factor in school effectiveness and school improvement, namely, the
locus of decision-making in a shift in the balance of centralization and decentralization.
More specifically, the focus is on what is variously known as school-based management
or self-management or devolution, defined here as significant and systematic decentral-
ization to the school level of authority and responsibility to make decisions within a cen-
trally-determined framework of policies, standards and accountabilities. The time frame
of the review is three decades, from the early 1970s to the early 2000s. The author has
been involved in research, policy and practice on the phenomenon for much of this time,
and this work is summarized, with cross-referencing to other chapters in this book which
have contributed to and helped complete the story.
It is concluded that there have been five stages in development to maturity in this
particular field: Stage 1 Values building a case on the basis of what ought to be;
Stage 2 Reputation identification of good practice based on early indicators of effec-
tiveness; Stage 3 Modeling refinement of practice in the light of a better data base
and more robust analysis; Stage 4 Dependability achieving clarity and confidence in
what ought to be done at the school level; and Stage 5 Alignment achieving coher-
ence and certainty in moving from school effectiveness to system effectiveness.
307
16
THE MATURING OF A MOVEMENT: TRACKING
RESEARCH, POLICY AND PRACTICE
IN AUSTRALIA
Brian Caldwell
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2007 Springer.
It seems that research, policy and practice are moving from Stage 4 to Stage 5. It is
proposed that these stages of maturation may be discerned in other work in school
effectiveness and school improvement. There are implications for linkages of policy,
practice and research.
Context
In Australia, the constitutional responsibility for education lies with the six states and
two territories, each of which administers its schools through a department of educa-
tion responsible to a minister. Australia is one of the few nations where constitutional
responsibility for education does not lie with a national government. For example, only
3 of the 21 members of the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) consortium
locate such responsibility with state or provincial governments, these being Australia,
Canada and the United States.
While the state and territory departments have constitutional responsibility for
schooling, the Australian Government exerts a powerful influence on primary (elemen-
tary) and secondary education because it is the only level of government that can raise
an income tax. It can allocate funds to the states and territories for any purpose provided
state and territory governments and non-government school authorities meet certain
conditions. Many of the current federal education policies aim to increase national
consistency, for example, the starting age of students. Others require testing in literacy
and numeracy for primary and secondary students. There is considerable tension on
these arrangements, but a degree of cooperative federalism is achieved through
meetings of all ministers in the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Train-
ing and Youth Affairs.
Across the country, about 70% of students attend schools owned and operated by gov-
ernment. These are referred to as government, state, or public schools. About 30% attend
schools that are owned and operated by a non-government entity, and these are referred
to as non-government, private or independent schools, the majority of which have an
affiliation with a church. All non-government schools receive some public funding on a
scale that reflects the socio-economic status of their communities. In recent decades
there has been a steady drift of students from government to non-government schools to
the extent that in the capital cities of most states and territories more than 40% of
students at the senior secondary level now attend a non-government school.
Students in Australia are among the top performers in international tests such as the
Program in International Student Achievement (PISA) or the Trends in Mathematics
and Science Study (TIMSS). However, the gaps between high performing and low per-
forming students are among the widest in participating countries, especially in differ-
ences between girls and boys, students in urban and rural settings, non-Indigenous and
Indigenous students, and those in high and low socio-economic communities. There is
concern to close these gaps and this underpins the intentions of governments and other
authorities to ensure that all schools are effective schools. Each of the states and terri-
tories has its policy counterpart to No Child Left Behind (USA), Every Child Matters
(UK) and Nurturing Every Child (Singapore).
308 Caldwell
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Australia has traditionally been considered to have a highly centralized system of edu-
cation. Reports of distinguished scholars were highly critical of the arrangement (Butts,
1955; Kandel, 1938). In a report for the Australian Council for Educational Research, R.
Freeman Butts from Columbia University wondered whether undue centralization
caused Australians to miss something of the vitality, initiative, creativeness and variety
that would come if the doors and windows of discussion were kept more open all the way
up and down the educational edifice (Butts, 1955, p. 11 cited by Partridge, 1973, p. 67).
Consistent with developments in most public and private sector organizations and
institutions around the world in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a loosening
of the central grip on public schools but, even in the early 2000s, Australia was still
considered to have a highly centralized system of public education. There are excep-
tions to this pattern with some states giving schools more authority and responsibility.
This is particularly the case in Victoria, where local school councils determine policies
and approve the budgets of schools within centrally-determined guidelines, and more
than 90% of the state budget for schools is decentralized for local decision-making.
Stage 1 Values
While there were precursors at the state level, the seminal event in shifting the balance
of centralization and decentralization was the release of the report of the Interim
Committee of the Australian Schools Commission (1973), generally known as the
Karmel Report. Decentralization, or devolution as it was referred to at the time, was ele-
vated to the status of a value that underpinned its recommendations. The Committee
agreed that there is an obligation on it to set forth the principal values from which its
recommendations have been derived (p. 10). The seven values were devolution of
responsibility, equality, diversity, public and private schooling, community involvement,
special purposes of schools, and recurrent (lifelong) education. The key statements on
devolution are set out below:
2.4 The Committee favours less rather than more centralized control over the oper-
ation of schools. Responsibility should be devolved as far as possible upon the
people involved in the actual task of schooling, in consultation with the parents of
the pupils whom they teach and, at senior levels, with the students themselves. Its
belief in this grass-roots approach to the control of schools reflects a conviction
that responsibility will be most effectively discharged where the people entrusted
with making the decisions are also the people responsible for carrying them out,
with an obligation to justify them, and in a position to profit from their experience.
2.5 Many consequences follow from this basic position. In the first place, a
national bureaucracy, being further removed from the schools than are State ones,
should not presume to interfere with the details of their operations. Secondly, the
need for overall planning of the scale and distribution of resources becomes more
necessary than ever if the devolution of authority is not to result in gross inequal-
ities of provision between regions, whether they are States or smaller areas .
[Interim Committee for the Australian Schools Commission, 1973, pp. 1011]
The Maturing of a Movement 309
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Is the
change
made Ok?
These excerpts show unmistakably that the Committee was concerned with control
over the operation of schools, not limiting its view of devolution to concepts such
as participation or consultation, and that a role for the center, at a state or territory
rather than national level, was important in determining an equitable approach to the
allocation of resources.
The report led to the creation of the Australian Schools Commission, later known as
the Commonwealth Schools Commission, that administered a program of grants to gov-
ernment and non-government schools, most of which called for local decision-making.
The intention was to improve access to schooling, reduce disparities in funding, encour-
age diversity, address special educational needs, build capacity in the profession, and
foster community involvement in decision-making. While proposals were prepared by
and implemented in schools, grants for government schools were administered by state
and territory departments of education.
The scheme was well-received at all levels and there is little doubt that it had a major
impact. It is important to note, however, that while there was substantial evidence of need
for funding of the kind that flowed from the work of the Australian Schools Commission,
there was little research to support the efficacy of the particular approaches that were
funded. There was a strong sense of what ought to be, that is, there was a strong foun-
dation in a set of values about local decision-making that was consistent with the social
movements of the times. As cited above, there was a conviction that responsibility will
be most effectively discharged where the people entrusted with making the decisions are
also the people responsible for carrying them out.
Stage 2 Reputation
The late 1970s and early 1980s were characterized by concern for accountability and
the effective use of resources, especially in the public sector. It was also the time when
the school effectiveness movement gathered momentum. The author was the chief
investigator of a Project of National Significance funded by the Commonwealth
Schools Commission in Australia. The Effective Resource Allocation in Schools
Project (ERASP) was conducted in two states (Victoria and South Australia) in 1983.
Two sets of schools were identified on the basis of their reputation among knowledge-
able people in the education sector. One set consisted of schools that were deemed to
be highly effective in a general sense; the other comprised schools considered to be
highly effective in the manner in which they allocated their resources. Schools that
were nominated in both sets were selected for detailed study (see Caldwell & Spinks,
1988 for a detailed account of the project and its methodology).
A comprehensive review of literature in the effective schools movement was under-
taken to provide a list of characteristics of highly effective schools. The limitations of
this literature were acknowledged at the time and are reported elsewhere in this vol-
ume, for Australia and elsewhere. Table 1 contains the list. Senior officers in depart-
ments of education provided nominations of schools that had these characteristics.
Nominations reflected different levels, size, location and socio-economic status of
schools. Nominators were asked to include schools that had shown marked improve-
ment in areas in which they had been deficient. A second review of literature resulted
310 Caldwell
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Table 1. Characteristics of highly effective schools as employed in a 1983 study of school effectiveness
in Australia (Caldwell & Spinks, 1988, pp. 3132)
Domain Characteristic
Curriculum 1. The school has clearly stated educational goals.
2. The school has a well-planned, balanced and organized program which
meets the needs of students.
3. The school has a program which provides students with required skills.
4. There are high levels of parental involvement in the childrens
educational activities.
Decision-making 1. There is a high degree of staff involvement in the development of school goals.
2. Teachers are involved in decision-making at the school.
3. There are high levels of community involvement in decision-making at the school.
Leadership A principal who:
1. Enables the sharing of duties and resources to occur in an efficient manner.
2. Ensures that resources are allocated in a manner consistent with
educational needs.
3. Is responsive to and supportive of the needs of teachers.
4. Is concerned with his or her own professional development.
5. Encourages staff involvement in professional development programs and
makes use of skills teachers acquire in these programs.
6. Has a high level of awareness of what is happening in the school.
7. Establishes effective relationships with the Education Department, the
community, teachers and students.
8. Has a flexible administrative style.
9. Is willing to take risks.
10. Provides a high level of feedback to teachers.
11. Ensures that a continual review of the school program occurs and that
progress towards goals is evaluated.
Resources 1. There are adequate resources in the school to enable staff to teach effectively.
2. The staff has motivated and capable teachers.
Outcomes 1. There is a low student drop-out rate.
2. Scores on tests reflect high levels of achievement.
3. There is a high degree of success in the placement of students in colleges,
universities and jobs.
Climate 1. The school has a set of values which are considered important.
2. The principal, teachers and students demonstrate commitment and loyalty
to school goals and values.
3. The school offers a pleasant, exciting and challenging environment for
students and teachers.
4. There is a climate of respect and mutual trust among teachers and students.
5. There is a climate of trust and open communication in the school.
6. There are expectations at the school that all students will do well.
7. There is a strong commitment to learning in the school.
8. The principal, teachers and students have high expectations for achievement.
9. There is high morale among students in the school.
10. Students have respect for others and the property of others.
11. There is provision for students to take on responsibility in the school.
12. There is good discipline in the school.
13. There are few occasions when senior administrators in the school need to
be directly involved in the discipline of students.
(Continued)
in a list of characteristics of effectiveness in the allocation of resources. Table 2
contains the list. The same methodology was used to secure nominations of schools
that were considered on the basis of their reputation to be highly effective.
A model derived from experience in the school that received most nominations in
both categories (Rosebery District High School in Tasmania), but reflecting practice in
many schools among those nominated, became the centerpiece of a training program.
The program was conducted from 1984 to 1986 for more than 5,000 principals, teach-
ers and parents, and in some cases students, in a three-year project to build capacity for
local policymaking, planning and budgeting in the state of Victoria. This followed the
adoption of new policies in Victoria for the further decentralization of authority and
responsibility for schools within centrally-determined guidelines. The model consisted
of an orderly approach to goal-setting, policy-making, planning, budgeting, and program
evaluation, with distinct but complementary roles for policy groups, such as a school
312 Caldwell
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Table 1. (Continued)
Climate 14. There is a low absentee rate among students.
15. There is a low student suspension rate.
16. There is a low delinquency rate among students.
17. There is high morale among teachers in the school.
18. There are high levels of cohesiveness and team spirit among teachers.
19. There is a low absentee rate among teachers.
20. There are few applications from teachers for transfer.
Table 2. Characteristics of schools that allocate their resources in a highly effective manner as employed
in a 1983 study of school effectiveness in Australia (Caldwell & Spinks, 1988, p. 33)
Process There is a systematic and identifiable process in which:
1. Educational needs are determined and placed in an order of priority.
2. Financial resources are allocated according to priorities among
educational needs.
3. There is opportunity for appropriate involvement of staff, students
and the community.
4. Participants are satisfied with their involvement in the process.
5. Consideration is given to evaluating the impact of resource allocation.
6. A budget document is produced for staff and others which outlines
the financial plan in understandable fashion.
7. Appropriate accounting procedures are established to monitor and
control expenditure.
8. Money can be transferred from one category of the budget to another
as needs change or emerge during the period covered by the budget.
Outcomes 1. High priority educational goals are consistently satisfied through the
planned allocation of resources of all kinds.
2. Actual expenditure matches intended expenditure, allowing for
flexibility to meet emerging and/or changing needs.
3. There is general understanding and broad acceptance of the outcomes
of budgeting.
council, and program teams, consisting of teachers and other staff who contributed to
policy but were largely concerned with implementation.
The workshop program was subsequently refined and adapted for use in different
settings, including England, Hong Kong and New Zealand, from 1988 to 1992. These
coincided with major policy initiatives in each setting; for example, the introduction of
local management of schools in England as set out in the 1988 Education Reform Act;
the School Management Initiative (SMI) in Hong Kong; and the Tomorrows Schools
initiative in New Zealand.
These developments in self-managing schools were sometimes the subject of fierce
attack. Some tackled the topic from an ideological perspective, with the practice seen
as an example of market-oriented reform by conservative governments (e.g., Smyth,
1993). There was often a demand for evidence that self-management led in cause-and-
effect fashion to improved student outcomes.
This was a reasonable demand. It was sobering to note the consistent finding in
early research that there appeared to be few if any direct links between local manage-
ment, self-management or school-based management and learning outcomes (Malen,
Ogawa, & Kranz, 1990; Summers & Johnson, 1996). Some researchers noted that such
gains are unlikely to be achieved in the absence of purposeful links between capacities
associated with school reform, in this instance, self-management, and what occurs in
the classroom, in learning and teaching and the support of learning and teaching (see
Bullock & Thomas, 1997; Cheng, 1996; Hanushek, 1996, 1997; Levacic, 1995; Smith,
Scoll, & Link, 1996; OECD, 1994).
Stage 3 Modeling
Further reform in Victoria in the 1990s provided an opportunity to explore the links
between self-management and learning outcomes because this was an explicit objec-
tive. Significantly, in the context of the chapter, school effectiveness and school
improvement had moved on; there was a much sturdier data base on student achieve-
ment than had existed before and those researching in the field were employing more
robust methodologies.
The Victorian reform began in 1993 with a significant tilt to decentralization in the
Schools of the Future program. About 90% of the states education budget was decen-
tralized to schools for local decision-making, extending to staff, but within a centrally-
determined framework of curriculum, standards and accountabilities. Employment
arrangements were determined within collective agreements that applied to all schools.
Longitudinal research was conducted over five years in the Cooperative Research
Project, steered by a committee of senior officers of the education department, princi-
pals and scholars at the University of Melbourne, including several with skills in struc-
tural equation modeling.
The objectives and purposes of the Schools of the Future (SOF) program ranged
over educational (to enhance student learning outcomes, actively foster the attrib-
utes of good schools); professional (recognize teachers as true professionals,
allow principals to be true leaders); community (to determine the destiny of the
school, its character and ethos) and accountability (for the progress of the school and
the achievement of its students).
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Please pro-
vide cita-
tions for the
refs.
Hanushek,
1996 and
Levacic,
1995 in
text.
Successive surveys in the Cooperative Research Project (1994, 1995a, 1995b, 1996,
1997, 1998) consistently found that principals believed there had been moderate to
high level of realization of the expected benefit in respect to improved learning
outcomes for students. In the final survey in 1997, 84% gave a rating of 3 or more on
a 5-point scale (1 is low and 5 is high).
Such findings did not illuminate the issue of the extent to which the capacities fos-
tered by the reform impact on learning outcomes. Structural equation modeling using
LISREL 8 (Jreskog & Srbom, 1993) was employed in the analysis of data in the
1995, 1996 and 1997 survey. It was conducted by Ken Rowe who contributes else-
where in this volume on the theme of teacher effectiveness. The model reported here
derives from the 1997 survey (Cooperative Research Project, 1998).
The first step was to create seven clusters of related survey items and to treat these
as constructs. These constructs were formed from 45 survey items concerned with atti-
tudes to the reform (Confidence in the Attainment of Schools of the Future Objectives),
support (Curriculum and Standards Framework Curriculum Support), and outcomes
(Curriculum and Learning Benefits, Curriculum Improvement due to the Curriculum
and Standards Framework, Planning and Resource Allocation Benefits, School and
Community Benefits, Personnel and Professional Benefits).
Figure 1 contains the explanatory regression model that shows the interdependent
effects among variables (in this instance, latent variables that represent the constructs)
314 Caldwell
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Confidence in
attainment of
SOF objectives
Curriculum and
learning benefits
Curriculum
improvement
due to CSF
CSF curriculum
support
Planning and
resource
allocation
benefits
School and
community
benefits
Personnel and
professional
benefits
0.343
0.299
0.271
0.230
0.359
0.420
0.173
0.388
0.309
0.226
0.364
Figure 1. Explanatory regression model showing interdependent effects among factors influencing per-
ceived Curriculum and learning benefits (Cooperative Research Project, 1998)
Note: SOF = Schools of the future (the reform initiative that included a higher level of self-management);
CSF = Curriculum and standards framework.
on the variable Curriculum and Learning Benefits. Standardized path coefficients are
shown, representing the direct effects (all paths are statistically significant beyond the
p 0.05 level by univariate two-tailed test). The fit between the data and model is very
good indeed, with an Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index of 0.969, indicating that almost all
(96.9%) of the variances and co-variances in the data are accounted for by the model.
Two sets of case studies in Victoria (Hillier, 1999; Wee, 1999) helped illuminate the
links illustrated in the model in Figure 1 under conditions where principals reported
improved learning outcomes. Are the linkages evident in the model confirmed in deep
on-site investigations in particular schools where improvement is claimed? The research
design in both studies thus started with schools where principals made such a claim. The
first task was to test the validity of these claims, drawing on evidence in the particular
schools selected for study. The second task was to seek explanations for how such
improvement occurred and then to match it against the linkages or pathways that are
shown in the model in Figure 1.
The findings revealed that schools could cite evidence that their efforts had led to
improved outcomes for students. They drew on many sources of data in recognizing
improved student learning in their schools. This illustrated the capacity being devel-
oped in the system to gather information about the performance of schools.
Maps of direct and indirect links were prepared by Wee (1999) for each school
using the rigorous approach to data collection, data display and data reduction for
qualitative research proposed by Miles and Huberman (1994). These maps showed
how school capacity associated with being a School of the Future had led to improved
outcomes for students. Actions at the school level that had a direct impact on student
learning are in the domains of professional development, implementation of the cur-
riculum and standards framework, and monitoring. The impact of resource allocation
is indirect, mediated through curriculum, professional development, monitoring and
staffing.
It is noteworthy that the government that implemented the Schools of the Future
program in 1993 was defeated in elections in 1999. It was one of the reforms criticized
by Smyth (1993) as being a market-oriented project that threatened the future of public
education. The Kennett Coalition, generally perceived as a right wing government, was
replaced by Bracks Labor, which is a left of centre government. The self-management
thrust in Schools of the Future was the subject of independent review (Connors, 2000)
and was affirmed, with self-management extended so that 94% of the states education
budget is now decentralized to schools. Much of the ideological overtone in debates
about self-management has disappeared and the focus is on how schools use their
authorities and responsibilities to secure improved learning outcomes. Schools are
encouraged to frame their efforts in a school effectiveness model adopted from
Sammons, Hillman, and Mortimore (1995).
Stage 4 Dependability
Research reported in Stage 3 sharpened the focus on processes whereby the capaci-
ties associated with self-management led in identifiable ways to gains in student
improvement. Robust methodologies and a better data base were helpful. The next
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stage in the maturing of the movement, as illustrated in the context of the self-
managing school, is the association with studies of teacher effectiveness (see Rowe,
elsewhere in this volume).
It is worthwhile to briefly review the evidence on the relative impact of quality of
teaching and socio-economic circumstance. Rowe, who chaired the National Inquiry
into the Teaching of Literacy for the Australian Government, concluded that:
In every case more variance [among measures of student achievement] was
accounted for at the department level than between schools, and the proportion of
variance at the class level was more than at the departmental level. A general prin-
ciple emerges from data such as these and that is the smaller the unit of analysis
and the closer one gets to the pupils experience of education, the greater the
proportion of variance explicable by that unit. In accountability terms the models
indicate that teachers have the greatest influence. (Adapted from Rowe, 2004, p. 9)
Hattie (2003) drew on an extensive review of literature and a synthesis of findings in
more than half a million studies and reached a similar conclusion. Percentages of
explained variance were students (50), teachers (30), home and peers (510) and
schools and principals (510). He concluded that:
We should focus on the greatest source of variance that can make the difference
the teacher. We need to ensure that this greatest influence is optimized to have
powerful and sensationally positive effects, but they must be exceptional effects.
We need to direct attention at higher quality teaching, and higher expectations
that students can meet appropriate challenges and these occur once the class-
room door is closed and not by reorganizing which or how many students are
behind those doors, by promoting different topics for teachers to teach, or by
bringing in more sticks to ensure they are following policy. (cited in Rowe, 2004,
pp. 1213)
The work of Silins and Mulford in their Leadership for Organizational Learning and
Student Outcomes (LOLSO) project, reported elsewhere in this volume, reveals how
effects such as those reported by Hattie can be facilitated by the efforts of leaders.
They remain skeptical about the impact of decentralization of decisions about
resources but conclude:
Our research on leadership, OL and student outcomes provides the strongest
support for the four critical conditions to refocus school-based management
strategies. School leaders need to establish systems and environments that pro-
mote improved teaching and learning by involving teachers and the school com-
munity in shared decision making, increasing participation of students in school
activities and creating a culture of collaboration and trust where leadership
sources are distributed throughout the school community. Where teachers believe
they are empowered in areas of importance to them, especially in schools where
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there are collaborative, cooperative, and consultative decision making processes
in place, teachers will respond to reform as actors and leaders. Shared learning,
empowerment and leadership are pre-requisites for school improvement. Where
school-based management is implemented to promote student outcomes, condi-
tions that promote shared learning, empowerment and leadership must first be
established. (Silins & Mulford, 2007)
Silins and Mulford have affirmed the findings of the later work in the Cooperative
Research Project but have produced a more fine-grained analysis of the role of leaders
and the links to learning. There is now a sense of dependability in research on school
effectiveness and school improvement that has been achieved with a focus on learning
and teaching. A broader view of resources is accommodated in their models.
This dependability is illustrated in the case studies by Lewis and Paphitis reported
elsewhere in this volume. An ideal case is furnished in what has been achieved at
Bellfield Primary School, which serves the Melbourne suburb of West Heidelberg, a
community characterized by high levels of aggression, gambling, alcohol and drug
abuse. Enrolment is about 220 and remains steady. About 80% of childrens families
receive the Education Maintenance Allowance (an indicator of socio-economic status),
nearly 60% of students come from single parent families, and slightly more than 20%
are from Non-English Speaking Backgrounds. Many of these students are refugees
from Somalia. There is an Indigenous (aboriginal) enrolment of about 20 students. It
is one of the most disadvantaged schools in Victoria. The 1996 Triennial Review
revealed that over 85% of students were behind state-wide benchmarks in literacy and
numeracy.
School improvement at Bellfield Primary School is reflected in the performance of
students on tests that show remarkable gains. Trends in results on state-wide tests in
the Preparatory Grade and in Grades 1 and 2, as summarized in Table 3, illustrate what
has been accomplished when comparisons are made with schools in similar settings
(like schools), with all schools across the state, and with results in 1998. The kinds
of data summarized in Table 3 illustrate approaches to benchmarking in Victoria.
These data were not available in the early years of self-management.
Transformation was achieved by building the capacity of staff. It also called for out-
standing leadership, furnished in this instance by former principal John Fleming.
A visit to the school reveals a quiet, safe and orderly environment. A teaching vacancy
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Table 3. School improvement at Bellfield Primary School (Caldwell, 2006, p. 139)
Bellfield 2004 Like schools 2004 State-wide 2004 Bellfield 1998
Preparatory grade: Percentage reading with 100% accuracy at Level 1
97.4 58.5 67.5 33.3
Grade 1: Percentage reading with 100% accuracy at Level 15
100 26.3 35.9 34.6
Grade 2: Percentage reading with 100% accuracy at Level 20
83.3 38.7 47 30.6
results in scores of applications to fill the post, with the school able to make such
appointments because it is self-managing.
A key feature of Table 3 is the performance of students at Bellfield compared to
those in like schools. If socio-economic circumstance can be overcome at Bellfield it
can be overcome in similar settings if similar strategies to build the capacity of staff
prove as successful. A first step is rejection of the view that socio-economic circum-
stance necessarily leads to low achievement even if research has shown that it is an
important predictor of such an outcome. Indeed, approaches to the allocation of
resources that simply direct additional resources to schools to compensate for socio-
economic circumstance may be ineffective, as they clearly have been in the case of
many of the like schools whose performance is summarised in Table 3. Leadership was
important at Bellfield, as it was in the case studies reported by Lewis and Paphitis (see
Caldwell, 2006 for a detailed account of Bellfield).
Stage 5 Alignment
The final stage of maturation in the school effectiveness and school improvement
movement is to ensure that all schools in a system of education can perform as well as
the best schools. Expressed another way, in the context of Table 3: how can like
schools, and state-wide schools perform as well as Bellfield?
There is an impressive literature building around this theme, especially in the light
of experience where large-scale system-wide change has occurred. Those who have
been involved in or have evaluated such change are contributing (see, e.g., Fullan,
2005). However, there is not yet the same degree of dependability as has been achieved
in relation to strategies for effectiveness and improvement in a single school (Stage 4
Dependability).
In 2004, the author conducted a review of developments in several countries,
notably Australia, especially Victoria, and England, and found that the best practice of
self-management had far outstripped its initial conceptualization and that the opera-
tions of self-managing schools and the roles of their leaders were changing in signifi-
cant ways. Further information was gathered in nine workshops conducted over nine
weeks in four countries in early 2005 (Australia, England, Chile and New Zealand).
It was found that the changes were so deep that they amounted to a new enterprise
logic of schools. The concept of new enterprise logic was taken from the work of
Zuboff and Maxmin (2004) who found that profound changes that went deeper than
structure and function were underway in education, health and a range of enterprises
in the public and private sectors. The following were proposed (Caldwell, 2006) as
major elements in the new enterprise logic of schools:
(1) The student is the most important unit of organization not the classroom, not
the school, and not the school system.
(2) Schools cannot achieve expectations for transformation by acting alone or oper-
ating in a line of support from the centre of a school system to the level of the
school, classroom or student. The success of a school depends on its capacity to
join networks to share knowledge, address problems and pool resources.
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Fullan,
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(3) Leadership is distributed across schools in networks as well as within schools.
(4) Networks involve a range of individuals, agencies, institutions and organizations
across public and private sectors in educational and non-educational settings.
Personnel and other resources are allocated to energize and sustain them.
(5) New approaches to resource allocation are required under these conditions. These
take account of developments in personalizing learning and the networking of
expertise and support.
(6) Intellectual capital and social capital are as important as other forms of capital.
These elements were explored in workshops of educational leaders in England and
Australia, notably in the latter where 19 were conducted by the author in every state and
territory in mid-2006 under the auspices of the Australian College of Educators. Two
directions for research, policy and practice emerged. One is the shift in focus from
determining the relative effectiveness of top down or bottom up approaches to
effectiveness and improvement. It is both of these, but also lateral, and there is height-
ened interest in the networking of knowledge. There are impressive reviews of policy
and practice (Hildreth & Kimble, 2004; OECD, 2003) but there is a need for more
research on processes and outcomes. It illustrates the disjunction of research and pol-
icy that characterized the earlier stages of the school effectiveness and school improve-
ment movement, as illustrated in the shifts in the balance of centralization and
decentralization under consideration in this chapter.
More recent work by Caldwell and Spinks points to the importance of alignment in
two senses. One is between policies and practices at different levels of government and
within school systems. The other is in relation to resources. In our earlier work, as
reflected in the Effective Resource Allocation in Schools Project (ERASP) reported
earlier (Stage 2 Reputation), resources were narrowly conceived in monetary terms. The
new enterprise logic suggests a broader view that includes intellectual capital, social
capital and financial capital and the need to align these, one with the other, with each
directed at securing high levels of achievement by all students in all settings. An align-
ment for transformation model has emerged from the authors work described above.
New approaches to resource allocation (element 5 above) have been identified in
Spinks recent work on needs-based funding at the system and school level in Victoria
and South Australia (see Caldwell & Spinks, 2007). One outcome has been the devel-
opment of a new set of characteristics of effectiveness in the allocation of resources
at the school level, as summarized in Table 4, which takes a broader view than the
narrowly financial perspective in Table 2.
Discussion
There are impressive aspects in the Australian experience in school effectiveness and
school improvement. Some are illustrated in the contributions of Australian authors in
this volume. The International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement
(ICSEI) has been held in Australia on two occasions and three groups of key stakehold-
ers (policymakers, practitioners and researchers) have been engaged on each occasion.
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Senior policymakers in several states have participated elsewhere and are clearly in
touch with developments around the world. There is now a robust evidence base to
guide school improvement, as illustrated in the kinds of data contained in Table 3.
Other aspects of the Australian experience are more limiting. At the national level,
the Australian Government has produced a digest of research on school effectiveness
(Department of Education, Science and Training [DEST], 2004) but, while it refers to
developments in research methodologies such as multilevel modeling and value-added
indicators, it consists mainly of lists of characteristics of effective schools. At the state
level, Victorias Blueprint for Government Schools (Department of Education and
Training, 2003) is shaped by the somewhat dated model of Sammons, Hillman and
Mortimore (1995). On the other hand, its Department of Premier and Cabinet com-
missioned an analysis of school performance across Australia that utilizes state-of-the-
art multilevel analysis and value-added measures (Lamb, Rumberger, Jesson, & Teese,
2004). The challenge is to ensure that policy and practice are shaped by the findings.
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Table 4. A contemporary view of indicators of effective resource allocation (Caldwell & Spinks, 2007)
Process There is a systematic and identifiable process in which:
1. Annual planning occurs in the context of a multi-year development
plan for the school.
2. Educational needs are determined and placed in an order of priority
on the basis of data on student achievement, evidence-based practice, and
targets to be achieved.
3. Resources to be acquired and allocated include intellectual and social capital.
4. A range of sources are included in plans for the acquisition and allocation
of resources, including money allocated by formula from the school
system, funds generated from other sources, other kinds of support from
public and private organizations and institutions, and resources shared for
the common good in networks or federations.
5. There is appropriate involvement of all stakeholders in the planning
process including representatives of sources of support.
6. The financial plan has a multi-year outlook as well as an annual budget,
with all components set out in a manner that can be understood by all
stakeholders.
7. Appropriate accounting procedures are established to monitor and
control expenditure.
8. Money can be transferred from one category of the budget to another as
needs change or emerge during the period covered by the budget.
9. Plans for knowledge management and the building of social capital,
including philanthropy and the contributions of social entrepreneurs, are
included in or complement the financial plan.
10. All plans specify how processes and outcomes are to be evaluated.
Outcomes 1.Targets are consistently achieved through the planned allocation of
resources of all kinds.
2. Actual expenditure matches intended expenditure, allowing for flexibility
to meet emerging and/or changing needs.
3. There is general understanding and broad acceptance of the outcomes of
resource acquisition and allocation.
This chapter has traced developments over more than three decades in an important
issue in effectiveness and improvement, as reflected in the locus of decision-making and
decentralization of authority and responsibility to schools within a centrally-determined
framework (self-management). Five stages were identified, with much yet to be done in
the final stage of moving from effective schools to effective school systems. However, in
respect to the issue under consideration, there is a sense of maturity in the movement, but
it has taken more than three decades. These five stages and sense of maturity are likely
to have counterparts in other facets of effectiveness and improvement.
It is unlikely that policymakers and the public at large will countenance such a time-
consuming effort in this or any other field in the future, given expectations for schools
and school systems. The good news is that the time frame is tightening as a better evi-
dence-base is built and more robust methodologies are employed. However, there must
be renewed efforts to more closely align the work of researchers, policymakers and
practitioners.
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Introduction
The New Zealand education system, since 1989 has experienced considerable reform
and policy change. These have occurred in the context of major economic, social and
public sector reforms. Fiske and Ladd (2000) comment that Rarely has any country
engaged in such a sustained and far-reaching overhaul of its education system. In
1989 major administrative reforms were initiated followed closely by the development
of a new national curriculum and qualifications framework. From 1996 to 2002 the
emphasis shifted much more directly onto a sharpening professional and policy focus
directed towards lifting achievement. The period since 2002 has extended the focus on
raising student achievement through a concentrated emphasis on increasing the effec-
tiveness of teaching and strengthening the roles of family and community as the two
most important levers to influence student achievement.
Associated with this has been a major investment in building a strong evidence base,
professional development more strongly judged in relation to its impact on student out-
comes and increased monitoring of the performance of the school system. Over this
period the role of government has evolved from one that initially emphasised a sharp
separation of roles to one that now looks for greater clarity and understanding of the dif-
ferent roles and relationships between government, schools, profession and communities
within an interdependent system.
Brief Description of the New Zealand System
Within the 2,650 New Zealand schools (of which 350 are secondary), are approxi-
mately 750,000 pupils who generally start school when they turn five and leave when
theyre 16 or 17 years old. Within our student population are a growing student
proportion identifying as M aori, Pacific or Asian.
325
17
SCHOOLING REFORM: REFLECTIONS
ON THE NEW ZEALAND EXPERIENCE
Howard Fancy
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2007 Springer.
Less than 3% of schools are private schools. There are also around 90 M aori
language immersion schools. Around 10% of the schools are integrated schools with a
range of special characteristics including religious affiliations.
There are no layers of local government or state government administration between
central government and schools. Schools since 1989 have been governed by Boards
appointed by the schools parent community and carry the full legal responsibilities for
governance including compliance with the law, the employment of the principal and
staff and curriculum delivery.
On international measures New Zealand students generally perform well, ranking
above OECD averages in surveys. But relative to other countries with similar aver-
ages New Zealand has a wider dispersion in achievement between top and lowest
achieving students. For a significant minority of students the system has failed to
engage them effectively in learning at school with the lack of engagement of some
students also evidenced by comparatively poor indicators of absences, exclusions and
bullying.
Administrative Reforms
In the late 1970s and 1980s, New Zealand in grappling with a changing global context
and rising unemployment undertook major economic reforms to address major macro
economic imbalances and deregulate product, financial and labour markets. The many
more students staying longer at school and the wider economic reforms set context for
the major education reviews that were initiated. Reviews of the school administration
(Department of Education, 1988) known as the Picot Report, the early childhood
education sector (Report of the Early Childhood Care and Education Working Group,
1988), known as the Meade report and the post compulsory sector (Hawke, 1989)
reflected concerns that:
the existing education administration was over centralized, cumbersome, and too
intertwined with the profession to be an effective driver of change;
the scale of remedial education needed for young people who did not have the life
skills or educational knowledge to succeed in a modern economy and society;
the education system needed to become more responsive to a changing economy
and attuned to the different interests of students, communities and employers;
the role of government in education needed clarifying.
As Hawke (2001, p) said in respect of this period the reforms were not simply the
next step in a process of continual adaptation, a new reforming government had
few commitments to existing institutions . Education was caught up in the general
thrust (and excitement) of a questioning of all conventions and a determination to
focus public policy on efficiency and equity . Whether education was best delivered
through a large public bureaucracy or through some other units which looked more
like business firms may have been a strange question to many educationalists but it
was very natural to those who wanted to ensure that the public sector contributed as
much as possible to living standards in a vibrant society.
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Again to quote Hawke (p ), the pressure on education was not frontal. Rather,
the governments program of reform generated levels of unemployment that were
unprecedented in NZ . The standard educational institutions were not, in the view
of officials, involved responsive to what was required.
The report that triggered the school administrative reforms known as Tomorrows
Schools transferred responsibility for running schools to parent-elected school
boards of trustees from October 1, 1989. Boards became the legal employers of teach-
ers, appointed principals and became responsible for the overall management and
performance of a school. A layer of departmental administration that had previously
taken the form of ten regional education boards was removed.
The reforms shifted decision-making closer to parents, communities and schools
seeing these groups as being better informed to tailor education to local needs and
priorities. Responsibility for a national curriculum and industrial relations was left at
the centre while a higher level of flexibility in resource use at the school levels was
seen to enable improved responsiveness at a school and community level.
Brian Picot, who chaired the review of school administration review, described the
issue as a good people/bad system problem. Hawke states The basic argument was
the standard one against excessive centralisation. The proposal was never to substi-
tute local control for central. The Picot language of local autonomy within central
guidelines was carefully chosen and the intention was to shift the balance between
central and local in favour of the latter while retaining both central and local compo-
nents. The critical judgement was not to abandon a central administration but to
eliminate the existing regional organisations, district education boards.
The focus on parents and communities was reinforced through the role of the newly
created specialised review and evaluation agency, the Education Review Office
(ERO), whose reports on individual schools were to be publicly available. This move
was consistent with the wider moves in public sector reforms towards increasing
transparency in accounting, departmental and official information.
Curriculum and Qualification Reforms
On the heels of Tomorrows Schools, major curriculum and qualification reforms
were initiated.
1
These emphasised a life long learning and a seamless education system
that could support learning from the cradle to the grave. This recognised the need for
students to acquire the skills to keep learning and adapting in a rapidly changing world.
The curriculum changes, rather than prescribing precisely what was to be taught, set
out learning outcomes being sought. For example, objectives for written language
specified the ability to use language for expressive, poetic and transactional purposes.
Reflecting the growth in teaching in M aori language, each curriculum area was also
available in the M aori language.
Schools were required to ensure their students develop core skills including com-
munication skills, numeracy skills, information skills, problem-solving skills, self-
management and competitive skills, social and co-operative skills, physical skills, and
work and study skills. The school curriculum through its practices and procedures, was
Reflections on the New Zealand Experience 327
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Please pro-
vide page
no. for the
citation
Hawke (p)
Please
check
whether the
closing
quotes
inserted in
appropriate
expected to reinforce the commonly held values of individual and collective responsi-
bility that include honesty, reliability, respect for others, respect for the law, tolerance,
fairness, caring or compassion, non-sexism, and non-racism. The intention was to allow
teachers to focus much more explicitly on learning outcomes while at the same time free-
ing them up to use a much wider range of resources, learning materials and methods in
the pursuit of these outcomes.
Some specific curriculum changes represented major shifts. The technology cur-
riculum emphasised the need to develop an understanding about how technology both
shapes and is shaped by society. It linked to areas that are critical in a modern economy
such as information and communication, electronics, bio-technology, materials tech-
nology, design and graphics. It represented a substantial lift in academic content from
the much more practically orientated technical subjects previously taught. The Health
and Physical Education curriculum introduced much deeper and broader concepts of
well being. It looked to develop in students the ability to learn about and develop con-
fidence in themselves and their abilities, to take responsibility for their own health and
physical fitness and to contribute to the well being and safety of others.
National Qualifications Framework
The National Qualifications Framework (NQF), initially developed during 1990 and
1991, was designed to create a single co-ordinated framework of nationally assured
qualifications and a consistent basis for recognising educational achievement wher-
ever that achievement occurs in vocational, academic, workplace or formal education
settings. Emphasis was placed on recognising a wider range of skills for working life
and enabling different pathways through the education system to develop. The new
framework was a modular system that allowed for units of learning, with assessment
against defined standards, and a flexible system of delivery. It recognised different
levels of qualifications. It looked to recognise prior learning.
Not all schools, though, performed well in this new environment. In reality this
would not have been a new phenomenon but ERO was helping make non-performance
more obvious and with this came requirements for policy responses. In 1994 a policy
was developed that provided the Minister or Ministry with power to intervene where
schools were experiencing serious difficulties.
Initially these powers were quite limited but progressively a school support and
monitoring capability within the Ministry of Education has developed that now allows
for a wider range of interventions to address financial management, curriculum deliv-
ery, governance, performance issues or to replace a schools board with a commis-
sioner. At any one time approximately 10% of all schools receive some form of support
or assistance from the Ministry. The focus of any intervention looks to impose strong
disciplines on schools to take necessary corrective action and build the capability to
sustain performance.
One significant project symbolised this shift in approach as well as proving very
influential in terms of subsequent policy development. In 1997 ERO released a very
critical report (Education Review Office, 1996) about the widespread educational
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failure in two Auckland communities that were amongst the economically poorest in the
country. A strengthening education project involving some 45 schools was initiated
Strengthening Education in Mangere and Otara (SEMO).
Some essential judgements were made. First, that significant change would require a
sustained approach over a period of years. Second, durable change would require new
policies, practices and relationships. Third, the development and ownership of such suc-
cessful strategies would need to reside within those schools and communities. Fourth,
government support would be essential but such support would need to complement
where schools committed their own resources.
The project involved an initial extensive and difficult series of public and school
meetings to draw out anger and build understanding of the issues. This was followed
by an intensive period of problem identification and the development of strategies to
address these problems. This was then followed by implementation of school based
strategies complemented by government support. Throughout facilitation and action
research was funded by the government (Timperley, Robinson, & Bullard, 1999).
The project concentrated on literacy and over a period of several years has seen
significant lifts in student achievement (Phillips, McNaughton, & MacDonald, 2002).
The new entrants targeted as part of this project by the time they were 6 years old were
reading and writing close to the expected levels achieved by 6 year olds across the
country. The professional development associated with the project looked to enhance
teachers ideas, expectations and practice. Professional development, coaching and a
much greater problem solving approach saw teachers increasingly recognising the rel-
evance of the experience and strengths in language and literacy that different children
bring to school. It also led to teachers making more effective connections between the
childrens diverse worlds and understandings with those of the school. The project
showed that low rates of progress in literacy are neither inevitable nor unchangeable.
Around the same time results from international achievement surveys (Garden,
1996) in the mid 1990s triggered an intensive focus on aspects of student achievement.
These surveys indicated that New Zealands past comparative high standing in inter-
national surveys in science, reading and mathematics could not be taken for granted.
Taskforces
2
were established to review literacy mathematics and science teaching.
The Taskforces revealed that it could not be assumed that all teachers were equally
confident or competent in particular curriculum areas. They highlighted the need to
raise expectations of success among parents and teachers; the need to address a lack of
skill and confidence amongst some teachers and provide access to different resources
and professional development to teachers.
The late 1990s also saw growing public and political awareness that New Zealand had
a significant proportion of its population over represented in poor social, economic and
education statistics. There was also recognition that for groups of students with special
needs and disabilities, new and more effective approaches were needed. The voice of
M aori was also becoming much louder and more critical about the failure of main-
stream systems and institutions to work for them. Addressing these issues increasingly
became a major focus for policy.
Three main factors were seen as significant influences behind the disparity in
achievement. First, too many people made deficit assumptions that the background of
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students was the major barrier to learning. Second, teachers were finding it difficult to
adapt their teaching knowledge, practice and classroom strategies to a growing diver-
sity of students in schools. Third was the need to develop effective teaching strategies
that utilised different student cultures and home backgrounds as strengths in teaching
and learning processes.
One project highlighted these factors. The Te Kotahitanga project (Bishop, Berryman,
Tiakiwai, & Richardson, 2002) looked at M aori achievement in mainstream schools. The
project team interviewed some 100 M aori students, their teachers, principals and fami-
lies about what they each saw as major reasons for their success or failure. While a small
project, the results were significant and attracted nationwide professional interest. At its
simplest, the research showed that 80% of the students identified their relationship with
their teacher as the critical influence over their learning. By contrast 60% of teachers
identified the students home and family background as the major influence. Teachers
when confronted with this evidence and supported with professional development came
to recognise the power they had to make a difference if they adapted their profes-
sional beliefs, values, and practices. When they did the results were marked in terms of
improved engagement and increased academic achievement. At the heart of the policy
response were three things.
First, was a drive for both policy and practice to be informed by good evidence
about what all children should be capable of achieving.
Second, central to improving student outcomes was the need to develop more
effective professional practices.
Third, the government and the Ministry needed to see itself as an integral part of
the system with the need to work differently with professionals and communities
in developing a wider range of responses to obtain better outcomes.
Several underlying shifts in thinking were implied by these changes. First, that the back-
ground or particular needs of a child should not act as a barrier to learning. Rather the
challenge for policy and practice was to find strategies and support that enabled that
child to succeed. Second, there was the need to move away from underlying assumptions
of homogeneity where implicitly all teachers and students were assumed to be similar to
one where diversity was a reality. Third, instead of a system where students and commu-
nities were expected to adjust to it, the challenge was seen to be to build the capabilities
within the system to adjust to the realities of diverse students and diverse teachers and
develop policies and practices that were successful. Fourth, especially at senior second-
ary schools, importance was placed on the need to develop broad ranges of pathways and
progressions into tertiary and in doing so move away from time served assumptions.
The emphasis on developing strong and effective professional practices and capa-
bilities was a key reason why New Zealand did not go down the national testing route
followed by a number of other countries. Rather than risk a narrowing down of teacher
and school focus our approach emphasised the importance of teachers and schools
being able to benchmark and report on how student achievement aligned with national
norms. The importance of assessment for learning rather than assessment of learning
was emphasised. This was expected to see teachers more explicity involve their
students in goal setting. We also saw the information base and reporting over time
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strengthening the role of parents with the role of the ERO continuing to be critical in
the evaluation of school practice and effectiveness.
Schools have been required by law to report to their parent community on the learn-
ing goals for their school and in terms of how well they did in relation to those goals.
Again, the growing evidence base strengthens the ability and the expectation of
schools to benchmark against national norms.
Since the mid-1990s there has been a major investment in growing an evidence
base. A sizeable increase in student achievement information is becoming available
through national sampling of students at school entry, Year 4 and Year 8; through par-
ticipation in international surveys, and through an extensive development of exemplars
at different curriculum levels and through research and evaluation.
Alongside the growing evidence base, priority was given to develop the ability of
teachers, schools and policy makers to better assess and analyse information about
achievement. For example the information gained about different student groupings in
different curriculum areas and in different settings showed not only shortcomings in
achievement but much more significantly demonstrated what students from all kinds
of backgrounds and different needs were capable of achieving.
The increase in achievement information was seen as progressively enabling more
fine grained analysis at a system, school and classroom level to occur. The develop-
ment of new diagnostic tools and assessment resources was an important element of
this approach. For example, a new assessment tool was developed to enable teachers to
track the progress and achievement of both individual students and groups of students
in literacy and numeracy in Years 5, 6, and 7, in English and M aori. These tools are
called asTTle, Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning. These tools:
link to an underlying achievement continuum in each curriculum area;
are available for teachers to assemble electronically into tests that suit the learn-
ing needs of their students;
electronically generate results that provide useful feedback about students achieve-
ments and future learning needs in literacy and numeracy; and
contain options for teachers to seek information about how their students are
progressing in relation to national standards.
Another example of the emphasis on professional development related to ICT. The
Government deliberately did not invest in computers in schools. Rather it funded a
range of school clusters where the emphasis was on learning, understanding and dis-
seminating the different ways in which ICT could support and enhance better teaching
and better learning outcomes.
In 2002 a series of research reports were commissioned by the Ministry of
Education called Best Evidence Syntheses (BES). These reports reviewed a wide range
of international and New Zealand studies from the perspective of identifying the influ-
ences that most contributed to key learning outcomes. Put differently, this research
identified the essence of effective practices that makes the difference to learning out-
comes. This contrasts with research that evaluates program effectiveness or analyses
from the perspective of a specific paradigm. Figure 1 shows the essence of the research
findings in Quality Teaching for Diverse Students in Schooling (Alton-Lee, 2003).
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Some ten characteristics of effective teaching for diverse students were identified.
These included a teachers focus on student achievement, pedagogical practices that
enable classes to work as cohesive working communities, effective links being created
between school and other cultural contexts, responsiveness to student learning processes,
alignment of curriculum goals, resources, task design and school practices, teachers and
students engaging in goal orientated assessment, pedagogy scaffolding, providing appro-
priate feedback on students task engagement and multiple task support learning cycles.
The SEMO, Te Kotahitanga and the BES research highlighted a number of things that
have subsequently had a significant influence on policy. They highlighted the effective-
ness of teaching as the most powerful system lever available to change learning outcomes.
This research revealed how much debate and effort in the past years had centred on
issues at a school or system level where the influences on education outcomes were
much less direct. They highlighted the different ways in which cultural inclusiveness,
peer support, evidence-based practice, task design could all help develop stronger
learning communities that better succeed with diverse students.
The research emphasised the importance of focusing on family and community influ-
ences and the effectiveness of teaching practice. In doing so it also suggested that it was
relatively easier to change teaching practice than it is to change many of the influences
in a childs home or social background. Hence the focus on effective teaching in New
Zealand is now seen as the biggest and most powerful system lever to change outcomes.
Such research and experience also highlighted how past policies and practices
implicitly made assumptions of homogeneity in other words that all students were
similar and all teachers had similar experiences, prior knowledge and confidence and
instead the view was to build policies and supports and practices that recognised the
diversity of student, teacher and community.
Schooling improvement projects and the growing evidence base made it clear that
effective teaching could overcome adverse influences in a childs life and that a criti-
cal aspect of effective teaching lies in the relationships between teachers and learners
and in teachers having the knowledge, skills, strategies, beliefs and confidence to
much more explicitly recognise and build from the varied life experiences of their
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Outcomes
Learner
participation &
involvement
Leadership
Physical
resources &
organisation
Educators,
teacher education
and research
infrastructure
Quality
teaching
Families &
Communities
1660% of
variance in
outcomes
020.9% of
variance in
outcomes
About 4065%
of variance in
outcomes
Figure 1. Research findings in quality teaching for diverse students in schooling
different students. The focus on effective teaching was a much broader one than sim-
ply focussing on teachers. Clearly the quality and ability of teachers is important but
so was the way in which a whole system focuses its different capabilities to support
and enhance the effectiveness of teaching.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s there had been deep divisions amongst secondary
schools over future school qualifications policy. Secondary schools had been almost
divided equally between those who supported the shifts towards unit standards and an
explicit shift towards standards based assessment and those who supported a continu-
ation of the external assessment systems. In late 1998 a new approach was announced.
This saw students earn credits through both external and internal assessments that
assessed achievement against defined standards. It did not seek to change what was
being taught but to make changes that made explicit standards required within a sub-
ject. This National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) took four years to
develop and is now in its third year of implementation. The NCEA looks to better inte-
grate into one qualification structure a wider range of achievement than was the case
previously. As implementation proceeds a new challenging agenda is emerging relat-
ing to coherence of different pathways, the need for different supports for students and
teachers, greater curriculum alignment between schools and tertiary. The more trans-
parent information relating to student achieving raises interesting questions about
learning objectives in different subjects; issues of curriculum and standards design and
professional development needs in different areas.
Results
The curriculum changes helped shift the focus of teaching towards learning outcomes
and provided greater flexibility to adapt teaching strategies. The qualification frame-
work supported the development of a much wider range of learning pathways through
the senior secondary schools and tertiary systems and this has been reflected in a grow-
ing range of courses being provided to students at the senior secondary level. The real
test of policy lies in whether student achievement is rising. Here there are a number of
early but positive indicators. These include:
32% of school leavers in 2004 gained entrance to degree level programs an
increase of almost 6% points since 2002.
The performance of Year 5 students in mathematics and science has improved
significantly.
In numeracy, evaluation of a project involving some 17,000 teachers and 460,000
pupils has shown improvements across all groups along with some reduction in
disparity between top and lowest achievers.
In a number of schooling improvement projects significant improvements in
different aspects of literacy and numeracy are all being reported.
Where success is happening, one characteristic has been the way in which teachers
have focused on achievement data and collectively undertaken deeper analysis and
diagnosis of achievement information to analyse it and test assumptions relating to
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their beliefs and practices. The associated professional development has emphasised
different dimensions of teaching effective content, knowledge, knowledge of the
students, and the range of teaching strategies that could be used.
As Timperley (2004) has argued, the evidence-based enquiry model requires a new
professionalism that emphasises the need for schools to become strong professional
learning communities, teachers to open their doors for others to observe and critique
and for all teachers to believe in their ability to make a difference.
Concluding Thoughts
By any measure the overall degree of change faced by the New Zealand school system
over the period has been huge. Over a relatively short period all the major levers of
influence over schools were significantly changed with major changes in funding, reg-
ulation, funding, curriculum and qualifications and with this, major shifts in roles and
responsibility.
The Tomorrows Schools reforms of 1989 had a goal of reformed administration and
increased system responsiveness to different students and different communities.
Today the involvement of parents in the governance of their school is deeply embed-
ded. This has helped schools to be more responsive and accountable to the needs of
their communities and their different students. It has allowed innovation at local level.
The role ERO has played has proved central in providing evidence both of failure and
success and in becoming a major driver of school performance.
The popular beliefs and rhetoric in 1989 and 1990 suggested that the architects of
the reforms expected the teaching profession would not only continue to do what they
currently did but that there could be more focus on learning because the systems of
support would be more direct with decision-making at the school and tertiary levels
closer to the learners and their learning needs. But the degree to which schools, and
indeed the system had to develop new skills and understandings for administration,
governance, management and legal compliance substantially was under estimated
both in terms of the shifts in governance and management responsibilities and in terms
of the wider curriculum and qualification reforms initiated in the early 1990s.
Building new capabilities took much longer than envisaged.
The loosening of the rules and constraints certainly allowed for innovation and
trial and error learning but with the benefit of hindsight were poorly supported from
the absence of a consistent evidence and research base to inform policy and supports
for implementation. The sequential changes to curriculum saw teachers concentrat-
ing on each subject as it changed before they could start exploiting the potential of
the changes. Although each new curriculum statement was introduced with consid-
erable investment in professional development for teachers, with hindsight this was
inadequate in both duration and the means.
In practice many teachers spent a lot of time internalising the intended learning out-
comes and then developing or modifying existing resources to create new curriculum
resources. This created workload pressures and a feeling that the same wheel was
being invented many times over.
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These initial reforms laid foundations for greater success but were not going to be
sufficient without a much more explicit focus on the expectations that should be held
regarding learning outcomes and a stronger system focus on raising achievement.
From the mid-1990s the focus of policy began to switch to one that was more explic-
itly focussed on achievement with a growing emphasis on teaching effectiveness.
A strong outcome focus has been progressively developed with an associated
emphasis on evidence and a growing information base relating student achievement
and system performance. The system now is a lot more transparent with decision mak-
ing at all levels increasingly being able to be informed by a growing body of hard edu-
cation indicators, achievement data and research at both a policy and practice level.
Experience over the past 16 years highlights for me a number of things that are
important to successful change.
Hearts and minds matter. The experience of the last 16 years confirms this. If
people believe a child can succeed and that as a teacher that they can make a dif-
ference then that child probably will succeed. If those beliefs are not there, then
the child probably wont. Therefore shaping expectations and beliefs has to be a
key element aspect of policy and professional development. Some of the key
shifts now starting to take hold in our schools are characterised by significant
shifts in beliefs.
Good information plays a powerful role, especially when it can demonstrate what
is possible irrespective of a childs background and circumstances; when it can
inform and assist positive changes to teaching practices and when it can support
stronger relationships between teachers, schools, students and parents. I see
increasing transparency, increasing the availability of hard evidence and linking
every debate and discussion to learning outcomes is important. This helps ensure
that teachers, trustees, parents, students, communities and government are not
only well informed but are also informed in ways that strengthens their roles and
the value gained through different relationships.
Effective teaching and the role of families are the two most powerful influences over
student achievement and it is important that policies focus on these. Increasing
teaching effectiveness in ways that sees the prior knowledge and experiences of a
student as integral to effective teaching strategies is seen as vital. Alongside this
strengthening the ability of parents and communities to engage effectively with
teachers and schools and to effectively support the learning of their children is also
vital. Tomorrows Schools had at their heart greater family and community influ-
ence. We have gained deeper understandings about the nature of the understandings
that need to be gained and shared between families and a schools and the nature of
the information and understandings needed to support both parties in this relation-
ship. The SEMO and Te Kotahitanga projects demonstrate the gains in achievement
that occur when the ability to bridge communication and understandings across
different worlds is built.
We have found that processes with a clear long term focus and a genuine engage-
ment with the profession may take longer in the initial phases but are more likely to
make change more effective in the longer term. Success is more likely when there is
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agreement about common goals and the kind of shifts needed to achieve them. When
this happens the less polarised debates become and the easier it becomes to focus
effort on the things that matter most. In these processes it is important to shift the
focus away from what is not working to what is working and how other parts of the
system can learn from what is. This takes time.
System change requires recognition of the realities of building new capabilities, ways
of working and different relationships. The new capabilities need to be understood and
building them does take time and does require a sustained focus. Assumptions of homo-
geneity are being replaced by recognition of diversity but also imply big shifts in
beliefs, practices and supports. Different strategies are needed to succeed with different
students. Different teachers have needs for different support. It also requires a broaden-
ing to concepts of building effective professional communities and the capabilities that
are needed within a wider system to support effective teaching and learning.
The original idea of greater independence is gradually being replaced by an empha-
sis on interdependence and a growing understanding about what this means. Debates
that were originally expressed in terms of decentralisation or centralisation or self
management struggled to come to grips with the need for understanding, aligning and
integrating of the different perspectives and capabilities that make up the entire
system. Working though, within a framework of interdependency, is demanding and
more complex. It requires committed effort to invest in building shared understand-
ings, strong and trusting relationships, and good understandings of respective roles
and relationships. It also requires a willingness to confront evidence that might be
unpalatable and to have robust critical but constructive challenges and debates with
each other not with a view of assigning blame but as creating a basis to learn from,
and build future improvements from. It also highlights the important role of the centre
to help build a more sophisticated infrastructure of knowledge, support, networks and
specialised capabilities.
The issue of trust is important trust is hard won, fragile and can be easily lost. The
more willing people are to see the world through different eyes the more likely will
be the development of common understandings and shared goals. This applies in the
classroom when different family and cultural capital are seen as strengths rather than
barriers to learning. It applies to how the perspectives of a classroom teacher can be
effectively bridged with the system views of a government.
Compared to other countries New Zealand is a public education system with little
debate about this. The administrative flexibility provided by the initial reforms has
been complemented by curriculum and qualification frameworks that also allow for
flexibility in teaching and learning pathways for students. This is all now strength-
ened by a stronger outcome focus, an increasing emphasis on evidence and effective
teaching practice. More support available to schools and teachers in the form of more
information and specialist resources.
I am optimistic about how our system has developed over the past 16 years and the
future prospects for our students. While we have been diverted at times I think there
has been a willingness across all levels of our system to respond to evidence and to
allow the model to evolve and develop in the light of that evidence. The past 15 years
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has seen a marked shift in focus away from issues at a school or system level where the
influences on education outcomes are much less direct to ones explicitly focussed on
learning outcomes and evidence. Policy centres on the two areas of greatest influence
on learning outcomes teaching and families. In this emerging world the governance,
curriculum and qualification reforms now provide the ability for teaching and learning
to much better take account of the diverse students who attend our schools. I now see
a number of indicators that suggest we are making good progress through many excit-
ing and positive things happening in our schools. These suggest that the past 15 years
has seen a wide range of changes put in place that in aggregate offer the promise of not
only greater responsiveness but now also of higher achievement.
Notes
1. Minister of Education, Education for the 21st Century, 1994.
2. Report of the Mathematics and Science Taskforce, December 1997; Report of the Literacy Taskforce,
March 1999.
References
Alton-Lee, A. (2003). Quality teaching for diverse students in schooling: Best evidence synthesis.
Wellington, NZ: Ministry of Education.
Bishop, R., Berryman, M., Tiakiwai, S., & Richardson, C. (2002). Te Kotahitanga: The Experiences of Year
9 and Year 10 M aori students in mainstream classrooms. Report to the Ministry of Education.
Wellington NZ: Ministry of Education.
Department of Education. (1988). Administering for excellence: Report of the Taskforce to Review
Education Administration (Picot Report). Wellington: Government Printer.
Education Review Office. (1996). Improving schooling in Mangere and Otara. Available: http://www.ero.
govt.nz/ero/publishing.nsf/Print/Improving%20Schooling%20in%20Mangere%20and%20Otara.
Fiske, E. B., & Ladd, H. F. (2000). When schools compete A cautionary tale. Washington DC: Brookings
Institution Press.
Garden, R. (Ed.). (1996). Mathematics performance of New Zealand Form 2 and Form 3 students: National
Results for New Zealands Participation in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study.
Wellington, NZ: Ministry of Education.
Hawke, G. (1989). Report of the working group on post-compulsory education and training (the Hawke
Report). Prepared for the Cabinet Social Equity Committee, Wellington.
Hawke, G. (2001) Education Reform: The New Zealand Experience; a paper prepared for the First
International Education Reform Experiences of Selected Countries, The Office of the National
Education System, Government of Thailand, Bangkok, 29 July2 August 2001.
Ministry of Education. (1997). Report of the mathematics and science taskforce. Wellington: Ministry of
Education.
Ministry of Education. (1999). Report of the literacy taskforce. Wellington: Ministry of Education.
New Zealand Qualifications Authority. (1992). Developing the National Qualifications Framework.
Phillips, G., McNaughton, S., & MacDonald, S. (2002). The Child Literacy Foundation and Woolf Fisher
Centre. Picking up the Pace. Report to the Ministry of Education.
Report of the Early Childhood Care and Education Working Group. (1998). Education to be more.
Wellington: Department of Education.
Timperley, H. S. (2004). Enhancing professional learning through evidence-based enquiry. Auckland:
Auckland University.
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The foot-
note refer-
ence
Ministry of
Education,
1994 is not
cited in the
Ref. list
Please
check
whether the
year given
for the ref-
erence
Phillips
et al. (2002)
is appropri-
ate.
Refs
Ministry of
Education,
1997 and
1999 is not
cited in the
text. Please
check.
Please pro-
vide pub-
lisher details
for reference
New
Zealand
Qualifications
Authority.
And the ref.
is not cited
in the text.
Please
check.
Timperley, H., Robinson, V., & Bullard, T. (1999). Strengthening education in Mangere and Otara: First
evaluation report. Wellington, NZ: The Ministry of Education.
Timperley, H., Robinson, V., & Bullard, T. (2000). Strengthening education in Mangere and Otara: Second
Timperley, H., Robinson, V., & Bullard, T. (2004). Strengthening education in Mangere and Otara: Final
338 Fancy
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confirm
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the references.
Timperley
et al. (1999),
(2000), (2004)
are appropriate.
AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST
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Introduction
The notion of a history of an indigenous school effectiveness and improvement movement
in Africa is a bit of a misnomer. While there have been scores of education improvement
initiatives in specific countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and some exemplary research proj-
ects in the past 30 years, a home-grown movement such as exists in North America,
Europe or even Latin America is yet to come to the fore. A community of scholars, pol-
icy-makers and practitioners from various institutions across national borders, committed
to common intellectual projects, engaged in a dialogue with both internal and external
critics, meeting regularly at conferences or in symposiums, publishing in regional jour-
nals, has never taken hold in Sub-Saharan Africa. While the biannual meetings of the
Association for the Development of African Education (ADEA) has become an important
forum where donors, government policy-makers and international researchers now meet,
it has not developed into a decisive catalyst for regular and robust debate and exchange on
themes related to school effectiveness and improvement.
While a genuine home-grown movement is yet to emerge, there has nonetheless been
research and practice in this field on the African continent. This research and practice
has largely been initiated, supported, directed and undertaken by international aid agen-
cies and external researchers. The origins of these efforts can be traced directly to the
education crises of the late 1970s and early 1980s (which were in part the consequence
of the implementation of fiscal austerity policies at that time). Supported with donor
funding, undertaken mainly by American and European researchers and consultants, the
school effectiveness and school improvement research and practice in Sub-Saharan
Africa was initially focused on the identification of cost-effective policy and interven-
tion options. Once the intractable problems of institutional culture and limited central
government capacity became evident, the emphasis in the foreign directed research
began to shift towards school improvement.
341
18
HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS AND
IMPROVEMENT MOVEMENT IN AFRICA
Brahm Fleisch
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2007 Springer.
This chapter explores reasons why an indigenous school effectiveness and improve-
ment movement has not flourished in Sub-Saharan Africa. While the continent has not
produced a home-grown movement, researchers and clusters of practitioners often
based outside Sub-Saharan Africa have contributed and continue to contribute to the
field in important ways. As demonstrated in the chapters on aspects of school effec-
tiveness and improvement in Africa, empirical research and practitioner experience
from the continent have consistently pointed to the centrality of context as key to
understanding schooling and achievement. Alain Mingat provides an overview of key
aspects of financial and economic aspects of education on the continent. Nick Taylors
chapter points to the unique contribution that South Africas recent experience and
research has to offer to the knowledge base in the field.
Why No Movement?
Reviews of the research in the fields of school effectiveness and school improvement in
developing countries seldom refer to research undertaken by Africans working in insti-
tutions on the African continent. While a sprinkling of articles has been published in
international journals and some regional publications and a number of noteworthy
books in the field have appeared, a critical mass of writing indicating the existence of
an indigenous movement has not emerged on the continent. How can we explain this?
There are at least three possible explanations. First, in North America, Australia and
Europe, the school effectiveness and school improvement movements were largely spear-
headed by university researchers. While the successes of the movements were contingent
on the dialogue with policy-makers and practitioners, the core of the movement was orig-
inally and has remained university-based academic researchers. No such critical mass has
emerged among university researchers based in Africa. This is unsurprising given the gen-
eral decline of university research on the continent in the 1980s and 1990s as competing
forces under-funding, repressive central governments, and the academic staff shortages
have undermined the academe (Nyamnjoh, 2002). While Teferra and Altbach (2004) cau-
tion against generalizing about higher education on the continent, they similarly note that
diverse challenges such as inadequate funding, lack of adequate governance and auton-
omy, poor management and the brain-drain have limited many institutions research
capacity. This problem is particularly acute in the applied field of education as financial
pressures often means that research becomes consulting (Samoff, 1999).
Second, while the seeds of an African school effectiveness movement have been
planted by foreign-based and funded research, they have not taken root because of com-
peting concerns in the sector. While the low quality of education offered to many chil-
dren in schools across the region has been highlighted periodically, the primary
concerns has been the low levels of enrolment, gender imbalances, and the lack of basic
infrastructure. Improving access, gender equity, and internal efficiency have come to
dominate much of the intellectual energy of many leading scholars on the continent.
Concerns about the problem of low primary school enrolment have been reinforced by
education targets set at the Jomtein World Conference for Education for All (1990) and
more recently the Dakar Conference (2000).
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Nyamnjoh,
2002 corre-
sponds to the
ref.
Nyamnjoh, F
& Jue, N
(2002) in ref.
list
Finally, where the issues of quality education and equity have been on top of the
agenda, there has not been a consensus on the utility of the effectiveness/improvement
paradigm. In South Africa in particular, there has been considerable hostility to the
school effectiveness approach. For example, Harber and Muthukrishna (2000) and
Harber (1996) have been critical of the Western school effectiveness tradition for the nar-
rowness within which outcomes are defined. Given the particular history of education in
South Africa, they argue that democratic values, safety and non-violence are possibly the
most important measures of the effectiveness of schools and the school systems. Jansen
(1995) on the other hand, has criticized the mainstream school effectiveness research for
its positivist paradigm which assumed that schools basically consist of interrelated units
which can be fixed by applying the right mix of policy and resource inputs which would
result in greater effectiveness (p. 190) and suggested the extent to which ethnographic-
informed approaches had begun to eclipse the older paradigm.
History of the Field in Africa
Riddell (1998) observed that school effectiveness and school improvement research in
developing countries emerged in the 1970s and 1980s as a reaction to the quantitative
expansion of the education systems in the immediate post-colonial era. The quantita-
tive expansion did not provide the envisaged solutions to the social and economic
problems experienced by developing countries, but more importantly the massive
expansion of the sector became increasingly difficulty to afford under the conditions
of economic austerity.
Scholars like Riddell (1998), link the rise of school effectiveness research in Sub-
Saharan Africa to the introduction of the Structural Adjustment Programs in the 1980s.
Unlike the pre-occupation with understanding if and how schools make a difference in
many developed countries, the leitmotif of school effectiveness research in Africa was all
about value for money. Encouraged by research that pointed to the importance of
school effects relative to the influence of family characteristics (Heyneman, 1976) the
school effects research appeared to show the cost-effectiveness of the three ts teachers
inset, textbook provision and time-on-task (Fuller, 1987; Fuller & Clarke, 1994;
Lockheed, 1991). This research was generally undertaken within production-function
framework, often aligned to donor interest in identifying discrete cost-effective inter-
ventions. Riddell (1998) notes that within this research, only infrequently were cost-
effectiveness studies carried out to further substantiate them as policy variables, and
building investment programs developed around them, alongside other factors. There
are important exceptions such as Fuller, Hua, and Snyders (1994) insightful study that
shows the gendered aspects of time effects in Botswana junior secondary schools.
Fuller and Clarkes (1994) review (in which they coined the terms policy mechanics
and classroom culturalists) cited 15 school effectiveness African country studies
published prior to 1994. The dominant figures in this school effectiveness literature
included Marliane Lockheed, Abby Riddell, Kenneth Ross, Neville Postlethwaite, Bruce
Fuller, Paul Glewee and Hanan Jacoby, and Emmanuel Jimenez. This literature review
mentions only two scholars working on the continent, Levi Nyagura and Indira Chacko.
History of the School in Africa 343
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While the Fuller and Clarke review was certainly not exhaustive as school effective-
ness studies have appeared in national journals such as the Zimbabwean Journal of
Education, the imbalance reflects the dominance of American and European scholars
over those working and living on the continent. Many of the studies cited were pub-
lished by and/or undertaken for the World Bank and other leading donor organizations.
Drawing on the research findings undertaken by classroom culturalists, Fuller and
Clarke convincingly argue that, even in instances where determinants of achieve-
ment appear consistently across studies and countries, the cultural meanings can vary
dramatically. For example
Earnest policy mechanics . . . have conducted country studies which show an
association between the supply of pupil exercise books and higher achievement.
The inference is then make that more exercise books lead to more frequent cogni-
tive exercise and independent work by students, either in class or at home.
Resulting policy advice: buy and distribute more exercise books. . . . Our research
group, however, is currently observing classrooms in the South African commu-
nity of Soweto, where the majority of teachers simply instruct their students to
copy material from the board or from the teachers recitation into their exercise
books. This same instructional tool is assigned a particular local meaning by
Soweto teachers, quite different from its actual meaning and use elsewhere in the
southern African region. Unless these local meanings, activated by classroom
teachers in a specific institutional culture, are taken into account, researchers will
fail to understand the process by which a classroom input influences student
learning. (p. 141)
During the course of the past two decades, a number of World Bank publications have
defined the field. Alexander and Simmons (1975) began much of the debates about the
determinants of school achievement. While Lockheeds (1991) study was not exclu-
sively focused on education in Africa, it drew extensively on African sources and was
frequently cited on the continent. Verspoors (2006) review is the most recent summa-
tion of knowledge in the field in Africa. In addition to the identification of the fairly
standard factors of effective schools and knowledge about how schools improve, the
review also includes recent perspectives on curriculum adaptation and the language of
instruction, two themes that have not typically been featured in school effectiveness
and school improvement studies.
The Fuller and Clarke (1994) literature review marked a significant shift that began
to take place within the field. The concerns about the impact of local context and the
cultural specificity of educational practices, as well as the failure of many centrally-
driven policy reform efforts, allowed studies within school improvement perspective to
gain prominence. In the mid-1990s, leading scholars were increasingly airing concerns
about the earlier generation of scholarship. As Riddell commented:
If the production functions were the craze in the 1960s and 1970s and the educa-
tion processes received more attention in the 1980s, it is the cultural context that
344 Fleisch
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is drawing increasing interest in the 1990s. Do the same list of effective factors
apply across contexts for all students? This question is starting to be investigated
more carefully in the industrialized countries, but not unfortunately in developing
countries. Instead, the approach tends to be piecemeal research in a handful of
countries, all too often with questionable research design, driven by a small number
of industrialized country academics utilizing donor funds and with donor timetables
that emasculate the measures or make case studies out of what otherwise could be
major longitudinal studies. (p. 202)
Within this trend, the publication of Heneveld and Craigs (1996) seminal study Schools
Count signaled the degree to which the discourse had shifted away from production-
function studies of school effectiveness toward research on the underlying dynamics of
educational projects and institutional change.
While the older school effectiveness literature continued to be cited in reviews (see
e.g., Scheerens, 2000), by the 1990s, key donor institutions began to engage more
actively with studies of school improvement. The preoccupation with decentralization
of education on the continent in the 1990s reflects the recognition of the complexities
of institutional reform and the weakness of many African governments. The emer-
gence of decentralization as a reform theme and its links to school improvement
paralleled similar developments in developed countries. The various kinds of decentral-
ization reforms in education came in the wake of growing recognition of the weak-
nesses of many central governments in low-income African countries. Some of these
decentralization efforts concentrated on the development of districts and district edu-
cation officers, others on clustering schools to make specialized services more afford-
able; still others concentrated on the development of teacher centres, and head teacher
training (Naidoo, 2002).
One of the important exceptions to the dominant role played by North American and
European researchers and donor agencies in school effectiveness and improvement on
the continent is a collection of initiatives funded by the Aga Khan Foundation. Beginning
in the late 1980s, the Aga Khan Foundation initiated a number of teacher development
projects that gradually overtime evolved into a whole-school reform model. While most
projects were relatively modest in scale, the fact that the initiatives were undertaken in a
range of countries, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya at every levels and over an extended
period meant that the lessons learnt from these school improvement initiatives have con-
tributed significantly to the knowledge in the field. Important insights have been docu-
mented in Andersons (2002) edited collection. The collection of studies consistently
point to the importance of curriculum models within school improvement.
While the majority of the school effectiveness research studies in the African context
have been undertaken by researchers outside the continent, there are a number of schol-
ars working in African institutions that have taken on the task of researching the field of
school leadership and management. For example, the work of George Oduro from
Ghana has contributed to our understanding not only of the limits of leadership, but
more importantly of the real challenges of undertaking field research in remote study
sites. Oduro (2003), working in a classroom culturalist framework, has convincingly
shown that rural primary school heads face a range of profound constraints linked to
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for the ref.
Oduro,
(2003) in
list.
the geographic isolation and cultural and gendered expectations. These constraints
severely limit their potential to contribute to school improvement. Oduro and other
scholars (see e.g., Crossley, Chisholm, & Holmes, 2005) working within the culturalist
framework are mapping context variables at local and national levels.
By the late 1990s, concerns about the absence of a genuine home-grown movement
have increasingly come to the fore. A number of efforts have emerged to remedy the sit-
uation. The ADEA, which was originally established as a network for donors working on
the African continent, now serves as a forum for the exchange of ideas between African
ministries of education, development agencies, education specialists and researchers and
non-government organizations working in education. Reviews of research within the
school effectiveness and school improvement field frequently take centre stage at the
biannual meetings. For example, the ADEA 2003 meeting held in Mauritius focused on
improving quality education. The Gabon ADEA meeting in March 2006 had as its
theme what makes effective learning in schools and in literacy and early childhood
development programs? At the 2006 meeting, two of keynote papers, delivered by
Verspoor (2006) and Michaelowa (2006), reviewed the literature on effective schools
and cost-effective inputs for Sub-Saharan Africa. At the most recent meeting, two new
themes, the language of instruction and curriculum relevance, were placed high on
school effectiveness/improvement agenda.
The Southern and East African Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality
(SACMEQ) represents another effort to move away from legacy of the exogenous
reform. Beginning in the early 1990s, the initiative drew on the work of a consortium of
fifteen national ministries of education brought together to develop capacity to monitor
and evaluate the quality of education. SACMEQ mission, as originally conceived, was
to assist educational planners and researchers in Southern and East Africa to understand
the dynamics of quality. It has subsequently become an important vehicle for account-
ability within education systems and is increasingly becoming the forum where experi-
ences and insights about policies in basic education are shared. While significant
technical assistance has been provided by the International Institute for Educational
Planning in Paris, the secretariat is based in Harare, Zimbabwe. Preliminary findings
from this research (Lee, Zuze, & Ross, 2005), however, suggest few consistent factors
that are strongly correlated with achievement, save students economic background.
School Effectiveness and School Improvement in South Africa
While there is little evidence of a school effectiveness and school improvement move-
ment on the continent as a whole, in South Africa such a movement has emerged
around the work of the Joint Education Trust and university academics. Since the polit-
ical transition began in 1990, there has a been a growing dialogue between research
and practice about what constitutes evidence on the one hand and the mechanics of
school change on the other. Despite the decade and a half of work, a movement is
still very much in its infancy, and the insights gained are small.
While the momentum of South Africans school change proto-movement was given
impetus by the political transition that began with the freeing of political prisons and the
346 Fleisch
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is appropri-
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whether the
citation
Michaelowa
(2006) cor-
responds to
the ref.
Michaelowa,
K &
Wechtler, A
in ref. list.
unbanning of political parties in 1990, during the apartheid period a number of impor-
tant initiatives did take place. Possibly the most important of these was an initiative
known as the Primary Education Upgrading Program (PEUP) in one of the homeland
governments. While little was published on its implementation and impact, profession-
als in the field widely recognised its success as a large-scale multi-level intervention
aimed at improving first- and second-language literacy in the disadvantaged primary
schools. As with most other improvement initiatives on the continent, the model that it
adopted was borrowed from an external developed country source, the initiative was
crafted around the findings of an extensive and robust research project (Macdonald,
1990). Of particular interest in this context was that the evidence that pointed not to the
predictable findings in both the school effectiveness and school improvement literature,
but rather was built on evidence from the field of applied linguistics. While PEUP
stands out as unique example of a relatively successful evidence-informed large-scale
education improvement initiative, given its association with the homeland state, the les-
sons from this program did not feed into the practitioner knowledge or the collective
memory or point of reference of the local research community.
The period immediately after 1990 marked the start of South Africas proto school
improvement movement. With substantial state funding, a group of non-governmental
organizations coordinated by leading academics launched the Thousand Schools Project.
Building on models from Latin America, and consciously designed around what was
considered best-practice in school improvement at the time, this project was a dismal
failure. While concerns were subsequently raised about the appropriateness of the some
of the design features, the underlying reason for the failure was contextual. In the early
period of the transition, disadvantaged schools, particularly secondary schools, were at
the epicenter of political and social struggles. This contestation was also evident at man-
agement levels and within and between service providers (Fleisch, 2002).
It was only after the first democratic election in 1994, when tensions and contradic-
tions could be managed, that genuine progress in the field could be made. A milestone in
the national school effectiveness and school improvement movement was the establish-
ment of the Joint Education Trust (JET). With a mandate to spearhead research and pro-
gram implementation, as an external agency with strong linkages to government, it was
strategically positioned to advanced research and implementation. One of the first major
achievements of the Trust was management of the Presidential Education Initiative,
which culminated in Getting Learning Right (1999). For the first time in South Africas
history, the initiative brought together both researchers from different backgrounds and
different research traditions in intensive process to begin to map the terrain. Alongside
this initiative, smaller but nonetheless important initiatives began exploring exceptional
schools, trying to understand the psychological mechanism of dysfunctional schools and
the features of resilient schools in profoundly hostile environments (Carrim, 1999;
Christie, 1998).
Running parallel to the revitalized research community, a number of large-scale
school improvement projects were initiated in the late 1990s. Based on an analysis of the
failures of earlier generations of improvement projects and drawing international knowl-
edge-base and recent empirical evidence, many of these initiatives attempted to combine
systemic intervention design features (working at the levels of the learner, classroom,
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school and district) using a government/NGO partnership approach. Increased emphasis
in the new design models focused on the role of district offices (Fleisch, 2006a). While
designed, managed and implemented by South African service providers, many of the
projects were externally funded. The South African school improvement movement
had gained considerable experience and expertise by the time the first evaluations began
to show limited success of the generation of projects initiated in the late 1990s. As with
the failures of earlier generations, contextual factors, both political and organisational,
remained key features of the school improvement landscape. Even as the South African
community began to show research leadership in some of their flagship publications on
school change (Taylor, 2003) particularly in the insertion of strong theoretical base,
large-scale school improvement in practice has remained elusive (for an interesting
exception see Fleisch, 2006b).
Nick Taylors chapter in this volume reflects on the findings of the numerous
research projects and school improvement baseline studies that have been undertaken
in the past 5 years. While mirroring many of the themes in the international literature,
South African school effectiveness and school improvement research has the potential
to contribute important insights. Given its political history and the profoundly con-
tested nature of schooling, Taylor has identified the weak central government as man-
ifest in unstable and ineffective district offices as a key obstacle in the way of
implementing comprehensive school improvement models. His work also points to the
conceptual issues related to the difficulties in working with profoundly dysfunctional
schools.
Conclusion
One of the major conclusions about the history of school effectiveness and school
improvement movement in Africa is that a home-grown movement per se has never
existed, even if there are some promising signs for the future. Equally clear is that
much of the research within these traditions has been undertaken by outsiders. With
few noteworthy exceptions, few research centres have developed extensive and sustai-
ned research capacity in these fields. Certainly one would be hard pressed to find
examples of major methodological or theoretical contributions emanating from the
continent. Much of the sporadic work is largely dependent on research design models
and theory from the European and the American literature. Questions need to be asked
about the appropriateness and relevance of these to the various contexts of education
on the continent.
One of the most sobering findings is the recent publication of an initial analysis of
the SACMEQ II data (Lee et al., 2005). In addition to re-evaluate the optimistic
assumptions that have pervaded the developing country literature about the relative
importance of schools on learner achievement, this cross-national study has not pro-
vided clear evidence of uniform or consistent school-level determinants translatable
into policy options. Equally, the numerous school improvement project and program
evaluations consistently point to consistent patterns of failure and the absence of
sustainability.
348 Fleisch
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References
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Anderson, S. (2002). Improving schools through teacher development: Case studies of Aga Khan Foundation
projects in East Africa. Lisse, the Netherlands: Swets & Zeitlinger.
Carrim, N. (1999). School effectiveness in South Africa. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in
Education, 12(1), 5983.
Christie, P. (1998). Schools as (dis)organisations: The breakdown of the culture of learning and teaching
in South African schools. Cambridge Journal of Education, 28(3), 283300.
Crossley, M., Chisholm, L., & Holmes, K. (2005). Educational change and evaluation in eastern and southern
Africa. Compare: Journal of Comparative Education, 35(1), 16.
Farrell, J. (1992). International lessons for school effectiveness: The view from the developing world.
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World Bank.
Fertig, M. (2000). Old wine in new bottles? researching effective schools in developing countries. School
Fleisch, B. (2002). Managing educational change: The state and school reform in South Africa.
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Improving schools and educational systems: International perspectives. London: Routledge.
Fleisch, B. (2006b). Accountability in the education action zone. South African Journal of Education, 26(3),
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Fuller, B. (1987). What school factors raise achievement in the Third World? Review of Educational
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Harber, C. (1996). Educational violence and education for peace in Africa. Peabody Journal of Education,
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Harber, C., & Muthukrishna, N. (2000). School effectiveness and school improvement in context: The case
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Samoff, J. (1999). When research becomes consulting. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the
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Scheerens, J. (2000). Improving school effectiveness. Paris: IIEP/UNESCO.
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insertion of
initial of
Zuze, T. Please pro-
vide the
access date
in ref.
Michaelowa,
K. (2006).
Taylor, N., Muller, J., & Vinjevold, P. (2003). Getting schools working: Research and systemic school reform
in South Africa. Johannesburg: Pearson.
Taylor, N., & Vinjevold, P. (1999). Getting learning right: Report of the presidential education initiative.
Johannesburg: Joint Education Trust.
Teferra, D., & Altbach, P. (2004). African higher education: Challenges for the 21st century. Higher
Verspoor, A. (2006). Effective Schools in Sub-Saharan Africa. Paper presented at the Association for the
Development of Education in Africa. Gabon 2731 March 2006. Retrieved on July 12, 2006, from
http://www.adeanet.org/biennial-2006/en_papers_B-2006.html
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Taylor, &
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(1999) in
text.
Introduction
The ethos of equality has been a driving force of Israels education system since Israel
became an independent state in 1948. This deep concern for equality was closely allied
to the view that education is the main means of consolidating Israels largely immigrant
population into one nation.
With this focus on equality, national policy mainly looked to improve school atten-
dance rates and to convey a national heritage to young citizens. It was felt that a
centralized system would be most appropriate in meeting the extensive educational
needs of the young country. Priority needs included the construction of new schools,
the training of teachers, the development of curricula and learning resources. By cen-
tralizing decisions and policies on pedagogical and administrative matters, the Israeli
government sought to avoid inequities among schools and communities.
The pattern of government involvement in all the schools spheres of activity devel-
oped gradually and systematically. The state determined by law, regulation, circulars
and procedures all matters and concerns, including pedagogic issues such as curric-
ula, class structure and organization; procedures for preparing homework; how pupils
should write in their notebooks; school climate; as well as other areas such as for
example, the physical planning of schools the schoolyard, the width of hallways, size
of the classrooms, and the precise angle at which light should fall on the pupils desks.
In 1953, all teachers working in the official education system became employees of the
public service sector. This move further increased the involvement of the Ministry of
Education in all aspects of personnel management. Now, the Ministry was required to
regulate the movement of teachers between cities, between schools and between the
public (secular) and religious public schools at the same time it was expected to engage
in issuing authorizations for in-service training, retirement, vacations, transfers, disci-
plinary warnings, dismissals, etc. This involvement of central and local authorities with
the schools increased over time. This was true for the slowly expanding authority of the
351
19
SCHOOL AUTONOMY FOR SCHOOL
EFFECTIVENESS AND IMPROVEMENT: THE CASE
OF ISRAEL
Ami Volansky
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2007 Springer.
Ministrys district office and its inspectors, the various units at the Ministry which
were increasing in number and the local authorities. It was only natural, of course,
that the greater the authority of such external agencies, the lesser the space given to
any consideration of those who were responsible for actually teaching the children
the principals and teachers.
This arrangement has several flaws. First, it reflects limited confidence in the school
principals capacity to undertake leadership roles when representing the schools interests
in interactions with its environment. School principals are, in such a case, allowed mini-
mal freedom to launch their own school-based initiatives or to engage in shared decision-
making within their schools. Second, Ministry of Education regulations and policy
guidance have tended to be fragmentary, complex and multi-layered, with formal and
informal policy components, very often in conflict with each other, something which is
typical of strongly centralized systems. Principals and schools in such a situation are,
then, confronted daily with guidelines, incentives, sanctions, and programs prepared by
numerous Ministry divisions and regional inspectors.
It is no wonder, therefore, that teachers themselves claimed that the extreme cen-
tralization that developed took away all their pedagogic initiative and ability to think
autonomously and creatively. It was therefore no surprise that they were the ones who
began to call for greater autonomy.
The subsequent shifts in policy which occurred in Israel from the 1970s from a
strong and dominant centralized system to school-based management can be seen to
have involved new educational meanings and changing educators roles for effective
leadership; this process can be seen to divide into three phases. The first turning point
toward pedagogic autonomy occurred during the 1970s.
First Phase 1970s1980s
The first phase, towards school autonomy, occurred during the 1970s and 1980s.
Pressures from parents, local authorities, various interest groups and from within the
school themselves are part of the explanation of a perceived gradual departure from strong
centralization towards school decentralization and greater autonomy (Gibton, Saabar, &
Goldring, 2000; Goldring, 1993). Goldring (1992), in her study of Israels school system,
found that autonomous schools, like other forms of restructuring, are the result of princi-
pals leadership and the demands of the social environment. Yogev (1997), and Haymann,
Golan, and Shapira (1997, p. 11) explain the process of school autonomy as a result of
local and community empowerment which increased participation of local authorities in
planning educational policy, enhancement of the schools autonomy, empowerment of
teachers, diversification of curricula and teaching methods, and parental participation.
Gibton and Goldring (2002) explain the process of decentralization as a result of re-
stratification and disengagement from the unifying ethos and melting pot policy in
Israels early years and the move towards a civil society in which various groups struggled
to maintain their particular identity.
In 1972, concern about the impact of sweeping external initiatives was raised by the
Ministry of Educations Initiative in Primary Education committee. The committee,
352 Volansky
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Initiative in Primary Education, recommended encouragement of teacher-led initiatives
and identified the need for a platform for addressing the widespread apathy, weari-
ness, and even bitterness experienced by teachers vis a vis the existing style of central
management. The committee argued that in an education regime as centralized as the
Israeli system, even the most dedicated teachers will lose interest, suffer low morale and
avoid taking personal responsibility in school. There was a dominant feeling that the
centralized structure had made management clumsy, had slowed down decision-making
and led to faulty supervision. The 1972 Initiative in Primary Education report sowed the
initial seeds for the movement towards school autonomy, which gained momentum
throughout the 1970s and the 1980s.
The programs main point was to encourage initiatives among teachers so that elec-
tive subjects would constitute 25% of the national curriculum, leaving teachers with
pedagogic autonomy concerning the organization of three class hours, rotation in job
positions, and so forth (Reshef, 1984). The main assumption was that an autonomous
school satisfies its own needs; it must therefore adopt its own educational philosophy,
determine its operative goals in the academic sphere and independently assess its own
performance.
However, the Ministry of Educations encouragement of initiative, flexible methods
and greater pedagogical and managerial autonomy encountered problems in the sec-
ond half of the 1980s. Heavy budget cuts meant that from the middle of the 1980s,
classrooms hours decreased by 9.2% in elementary education and by 20% in junior
high schools. This meant a reversal in the freedom and flexibility already delegated as
schools no longer had the capacity to implement elective programs and subjects.
Another factor that eroded school autonomy was central administrations reluctance to
relinquish its power and control. This change in conditions left the schools dependent
on the bureaucracies that constituted the Ministrys network of decision-makers and
inspectors. Efforts made during the 1970s and 1980s to provide schools with greater
autonomy thus had limited success. Dan Inbar, in his 1987 article Is Autonomy Possi-
ble in a Centralized Education System? analyzes the limitations of Israels system. In
his view, the efforts towards decentralization were unsuccessful because those who
held power, including inspectors and supervisors, were reluctant to relinquish their
hierarchically rooted power and the right to control school policies, plans and activi-
ties. School autonomy therefore remained an abstract concept, bereft of any real
opportunity for implementation.
Second Phase 1990s
The failure to implement school autonomy and the disparity between hopes and real-
ity in the previous two decades were carefully studied by Ministry of Education offi-
cials in the early 1990s. The gap between the early expectations for a full range of
school empowerment and greater institute flexibility, were among those motivating a
new initiative to formulate a full-scale model of school-based management (SBM) and
school leadership. Another major effort to change the status quo was begun in 1992
when the Ministry established the Steering Committee for the Self-Management of
The Case of Israel 353
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Schools. At the conclusion of its deliberations in 1993, the Steering Committees rec-
ommendations made it clear that a self-managed school was not an independent
school, totally free to chart its own course. The Steering Committees definition of a
self-managed school was of one that acts within the framework of national goals while
responding to the declared needs of the students and community it serves. The model
identified six central elements for implementation, drawn from findings on effective
schools and other school reforms (Beare, 1989; Brown, 1990; Cheng, 1993; Dimmock,
1993; Volansky, 1992):
Identification of clear and focused (school-based) goals
Development of a working plan in accordance with defined goals
Implementation of a school-based monitoring and assessment system
Broadening school authority in personnel matters (staff recruitment and dismissal)
Establishing school-based budget decision making
Establishing a governing body for each school
Consistent with the concept developed, the Steering Committee recommended that
schools operate as closed fiscal systems with budgets based on a per capita allocation
formula. This formula would be published to ensure equitable treatment. The alloca-
tion formula would also be differentiated to reflect the special needs of low SES pupils
in poor neighborhood schools (Ministry of Education, 1993).
These recommendations sparked a bitter public debate. The opposition argued that
shifting power from the government to the schools and the principals would undermine
equality. They claimed that school-based management would benefit only affluent com-
munities, and that the proposal would broaden the gap between advantaged and disad-
vantaged school populations. On this view, school-based management would culminate
in privatization while relieving government of its obligation to prevent inequities
between schools. In addition, the teachers unions objected to running schools with the
help of a governing body, arguing that it would diminish the principals status and role as
well as damage the teachers professional authority. Opposition to the systemic change
was regularly reflected in partisan slogans and newspaper headlines, such as: The
Privatization of Education, The End of Government Control and The Penetration of
Market Principles into Education. Suffice to say, these antagonistic reactions were sim-
ilar to those expressed in response to school reform in England and Wales during the late
1980s (Volansky, 2003).
After a long and acrimonious confrontation, Israels main teacher union agreed to
devise a model for implementation of systemic reform, beginning with a nationwide
pilot project in 1996. Two Steering Committee recommendations were, however, dis-
carded: the requirement that each school establish a governing body and that the
principal be empowered regarding teacher dismissals.
So long as the program operated on an experimental basis, its impact on Ministry of
Education authority and budgets was minimal. However, once the transition was made,
from the end of the 1998, from pilot to policy, with the program expanded to over 44%
of all elementary schools (about 650 elementary schools and another 50 high schools),
it became clear to Ministry officials and decision-makers that the transition to school-
based management meant a serious reduction in their power and authority over the
354 Volansky
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schools. That is, the move towards a new formula for public budget allocation left offi-
cials with much less freedom than they had previously enjoyed, as budgets now had to
be transferred to the schools on the basis of clear and specified criteria. The school
leadership, and it alone, had the right to determine how those resources would be used.
This step created tremendous pressure and tension within the Ministry of Education
and between the Ministry and the schools much of this , however, resulted from wor-
ries about the loss of power among some of the Ministry officials, as a result of further
spreading of school-based management in new LEAs.
Similar obstacles were identified in LEAs. In some of them, officials continued to
determine the internal distribution of resources that had actually been allocated to the
schools according to the stipulated criteria and in contradiction with the wishes of prin-
cipals and school staff or school working plan. Attempts were consequently made to
reduce the scope of criteria-based allocations in order to allow Ministry of Education
and LEA officials to retain more of the power and authority that they had originally
agreed to relinquish.
The response to the idea of school based management in the 1990s was, in effect,
as serious as the opposition to the idea of school autonomy observed in the 1980s.
Systemic difficulties arose within the Ministry of Education regarding loss of author-
ity and power over budgeting and other aspects of decision making. In several cases, a
crisis of faith erupted between the Ministry and school principals. The latter lacked the
power to decisively halt reform and the introduction of school-based management.
Thus, by the end of 2001, about 700 schools within 44 LEAs had adopted school-
based management although significant diversity in the power to lead and manage
their schools can be observed among the various LEAs and districts. Even though the
introduction of school-based management had progressed significantly, schools,
school staff and particularly principals were quite embittered as a result of some dis-
crepancies between the Ministrys and officials early promises and reality, particularly
where management freedom actually became more restricted (Volansky, 2003). Still,
when the Jerusalem principals union asked their membership whether they would
prefer to move back to the old system, the response was unanimously negative. The
principals mentioned many weaknesses and unfulfilled promises but they preferred to
run their schools through SBM.
Research findings on SBM
Early in the 19951996 academic year a pilot study, initially introduced in 9 schools
and at later expanded to 700 schools, was launched to study the effect of the new pol-
icy. The research was sponsored by the Ministry of Education who needed data about
the pros and cons of SBM policy as the main platform for structural and educational
change.
The study, carried out by The National Institute for Research in the Behavioral
Sciences, (Szold Institute), was the first to consider in depth a pilot sample of 6 case
studies out of 9 schools, and a year later, closely examined the process of transition of
the entire City of Jerusalem (70 schools) to SBM. This study, however, didnt look at
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the effect of the new management system on any particular school, at that stage. The
researchers (Friedman & Barma, 1998; Friedman, Barma, & Toren, 1997) in the six
case studies identified a new culture of management and independent thinking in
those schools that were trained and empowered in school based decision making. The
schools which participated in the experiment underwent two key changes:
(1) In the organizational-pedagogic sphere the schools improved their pedagogi-
cal goals; curricula were implemented so as to better serve the set goals.
(2) In the operational resources sphere the schools authority grew with regard to
personnel and budget management.
In another study, Nir (2001) cast some light on the effect of SBM introduction in
Jerusalem when he looked at changes in teachers commitment to school, as a result of
transition to SBM, in 28 local schools. The research, which started soon after SBM
reform introduction, was conducted over the course of 3 years. Nir (2001, p. 11) found:
As for teachers commitment, the study reveals that SBM positively affects teach-
ers commitment to the teaching profession and to students academic achieve-
ments and negatively affects their commitment to the school and to students social
integration in the classroom. At the same time the findings show, that teachers
autonomy on the job remains unchanged after SBM is introduced in schools.
It is argued that SBM is perceived by teachers as having a potential to increase their
professional autonomy. Yet at the same time, it is perceived as an immediate demand
to increase the effectiveness of the teaching processes which they conduct.
Following the annual national assessment of schools, a further attempt to investigate
SBM effectiveness was carried out by the Ministry of Education. In the academic year
20032004, 1,448 primary schools were tested in four subjects: mathematics, Hebrew
or Arabic, science and English. The analysis compared two groups of schools those
with SBM (637 schools) and traditional schools (809 schools). The researchers (Giladi,
Assolin, & Shild, 2005) found that the average score of the four subjects of based man-
agement schools is higher than in traditional schools, with modest differences which is
statistically insignificant (p. 2). The following Figure 1 presents these findings.
The researchers conclude by stating that school based management has a positive
impact on pupils achievement without any dependency in the sector or social setting
that the school is affiliated to. The pupils of a school in the same sort of inspection and
at the same level of SES will perform better if he would be managed as a school
based in comparison to the traditional schools (Giladi et al., 2005, p. 3).
Another study on SBM effectiveness was published in 2005 by Gaziel, Bogler, and
Nir. The research project covers 44 SBM schools which are compared to 109 traditional
schools. The main research findings were as follows:
SBM implementation didnt lead to substantive change, when comparing between
the two groups of schools.
There is no significant difference between schools that introduced SBM earlier
compared to those that did so later.
356 Volansky
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The researchers mentioned that the fact that their research was carried out soon after
the implementation of SBM might explain the absence of significant change and that
more time might be needed for schools to adjust to the reform. The researchers argued
the study was premature, insofar as it came to measure the effect of SBM, (Gaziel
et al., 2005, p. 204).
Another study, currently only in its initial stages, is a case study analysis on the mean-
ing of school accountability and the changing role of school staff in self managing
schools. The research findings are so far limited to only one case study, and therefore
this study cannot be informative on the effect of SBM in the Israeli system as a whole.
1
Tadmor primary school, located in a less affluent area of Tel Aviv, adopted SBM in
1997, and has since then been awarded some significant prizes. The research findings
on the changing role of school staff identified the following five main factors which
characterized the school management style:
Shared values of the staff members
Strong group decision making
Encouraging creativity
Recognition of staff members personal achievement
Shifting power from the principal to staff members
In a series of 15 interviews designed to gain information about the school characteristics
(Volansky, 2005, p. 17), a young teacher explained:
Before I arrived at Tadmor School I worked in two other schools. There was a
very clear difference between the way the other two schools were run and Tadmors
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Maths Hebrew/Arabic Science English
Traditional management School-based management
Figure 1. Test result of School-based management in comparison to Traditional management
Source: Giladi et al. (2005).
management style. In the other two schools I would spend the day doing routine
work, fulfilling my formal duty and then go home with minimum confrontations
or without taking any initiative. When I started at Tadmor I couldnt figure out why
everybody was taking their work so seriously. It took me about two to three weeks
to realize that it was not one big show this was the reality of this school . . . for
example a deep personal commitment to disadvantaged pupils for individual
enrichment, having an action plan, setting priorities, class based evaluation and
making decisions for further improvement you couldnt compare this with my
previous experience at the other schools.
A more experienced staff member in the school explains the sense of commitment to
the schools missions as follows:
. . . as a staff member you are deeply involved. There is a feeling of controlling
the events and the daily life at school and I feel that I have fulfilled myself and am
very satisfied doing my job as a result of constructive pressure and a constant
sense of responsibility that things should be done.
She elaborated her view by adding that:
You are asked to be responsible and to lead one of the schools objectives . . . so
I feel highly committed to be a leader of my colleagues and to attain our shared
mission successfully.
The school principal explains her management approach:
Moving into school based management all staff members become much more
involved and responsible. The outcome of such an approach is that staff members
are eager to get more duties at school and to get more responsibility. Junior as
well as senior staff generated many more activities than a school could supply
even in a longer school day. It has created a high-intensity school life, and I have
found myself having to balance staffs too many initiatives and plans. Part of my
role since we became school based is long-term planning of several initiatives and
encouraging greater creativity in staff members.
Tadmor schools SBM reform is representative in the way it shares management values
with all the staff members and encourages the latter to take responsibility for school
results the national approach of schools that have turned from traditional management
to SBM. This doesnt have automatic implications for other schools performance and
improvement: it only is about the new approach of leadership at the school level. The
approach emphasizes greater decentralization and new meanings of school empower-
ment and effectiveness.
Concluding on the basis of the research findings that were reviewed, we might say
that at this early stage of the reform implementation, only 25 years after SBM was
launched, there is no conclusive evidence that such a policy has a dramatic impact on
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school performance and school improvement. We have, however, much evidence that
staff members working with SBM feel encouraged and empowered to create many more
education initiatives, have a deeper internal locus of control in managing school targets
and a greater self efficacy alongside principals and senior school staff. In these aspects
we can say that SMB has so far made a modest contribution. Though SMB has come to
be seen as a precondition for school organization for greater effectiveness, it has, in fact,
not yet brought about such effectiveness, at least not at the early stage of its develop-
ment and introduction. For this to be the case, some other conditions should be fulfilled,
such as constant support of schools in fostering the new style of management, particu-
larly during the first years of transition. Five years after launching SBM as a national
policy, the Ministry of Education ceased to play an active role in leading the process.
New administration led by a new political leadership, new slogans, new flags replaced
the old ones. SBM has become a secret garden of the Israeli education system: as
of 2001 this reform even though an explicit announcement was made on further
Ministerial commitment to SBM policy no longer receives any priority or support
from the Ministry of Education. The message has been very clear to all involved heads
of divisions, Chief Education Officers, principals and inspectors. This had a direct
adverse impact on any further dedication to the idea of SBM as the main platform for
school improvement policy.
Two years later, in 2003, the new administration set up a National Task Force. This
committee was to recommend on reform that would improve education standards
2
and
would establish a much more effective system.
Third Phase
The first draft of recommendations by the Task Force, submitted to the government
and approved in May 2004, demanded a comprehensive and radical reform throughout
the education system; this would include a new step towards SBM. The recommenda-
tions stressed that the school-based management reform, along with further steps lead-
ing to full school empowerment, begun in the 1990s, should be completed. The
measures to be taken include:
90% of the education budget will be managed and fully controlled by school staff
exclusively
Principals will exercise full power over schools human resources including selection
and dismissal of school staff
Each school will design its own working plan and be responsible for its success
Schools will institute internal monitoring and assessment systems
Each school will be required to publish its success rate regarding school targets
and national standards
Further recommendations of the Task Force, approved by the Government, were: exten-
sion of the school day to 8 hours; cutting the school week from 6 days to 5; lowering the
age of compulsory schooling to 3; establishing standards and a new Central National
Evaluation system; adding hours to the teachers working day; introducing changes in
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the matriculation examinations; restructuring the roles of the Districts and LEAs;
reducing the powers of the Ministry of Education Inspectorate and restructuring the
role of the Ministry of Education. From now on, it was recommended, the Ministry
would undertake the following tasks:
Planning of policy and national curriculum
Budgetary planning to improve equality
Setting of standards
National evaluation and assessment of agreed-upon standards
This comprehensive and radical reform, which was approved by the government,
touches on almost every function and role in the education system from an individual
teacher in the class to senior officials at the Ministry and at each of the LEAs. A bitter
dispute was sparked because many educational workers, as interested groups, regarded
the Task Force recommendations as a threat to their position. LEAs, the two teacher
unions, the head of the districts, the Inspectorate, senior officials at the Ministry of
Education and even senior officials within the Ministry of Finance all of whom were
asked to take an active role in implementing the Task Force recommendations ignored
it. The reform, which touches on almost every part of the education system, and mainly
on the old pillars of the system aroused cynicism and very little trust that it would
actually be implemented. The two teacher unions argued that the Task Force didnt meet
the main challenges or obstacles for high educational standards, namely: overcrowded
classes, low teachers salaries, and the need to improve the school climate.
3
So unsurprisingly, towards the end of 2005, the Task Force recommendations were far
from being implemented. The drive for a comprehensive and radical change in many
aspects of education simultaneously, or in the words of the Minister of Education: turn-
ing over every stone has not been able to gain momentum. One result of this failure
and the ambitions for radical reform is a failure to continue SMB reform, which had
already been initiated and was appreciated by many as a necessary step for greater effec-
tiveness of the school system, an issue that was central in the recommendations of the
Task Force. We can say, therefore, that the move towards School Based Management,
which was initiated in the middle of the 1990s ground to a halt at the beginning of
the 2000s.
Conclusions
From the early 1970s school autonomy and, later on, School Based Management were
regarded as the main platform for greater effectiveness and school improvement in the
Israeli education system. Some research projects, such as those carried out by
Friedman et al. (1997), by Friedman and Brama (1998), by Nir (2001) or by Giladi
et al. (2005) and Volansky (2005) offer evidence on the modest benefits of SMB while
Gaziel et al.s (2005) findings were less conclusive. The fact that principals in Jeru-
salem, Givatayim and Tel Aviv declared that they did not want to return to the
traditional way of managing their schools, and the request by the mayors of 64 LEAs
to join the SBM reform, in addition to the 44 LEAs that were already implementing it,
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testifies to some of the appreciation and respect that this reform actually gained on the
national level.
The implementation policy of SBM suffered from a lack of dedication and determi-
nation. Frequent reshuffles of Ministers of Education, General Directors and senior
officials at the Ministry, as well as at the LEAs, obviously affected this process.
SBM as a school improvement policy gained momentum during the 1990s but from
the beginning of the 2000s it has progressively lost visibility and attention. The main rea-
son for this was not related to any questioning of the merits of the policy. On the contrary,
three committee recommendations and several other Ministry circulars, including some
research findings, consistently supported further elaboration and expansion of school
empowering policy. The search for a panacea for fast improvement of the school system,
and the political leaderships need to make its mark rapidly and clear, are major explana-
tions for this neglect of school empowerment policy. Pressure to gain high standards via a
faster, shorter way, left long-term reform in the shape of school empowerment neglected
and abandoned.
On the other hand, it would be overly ambitious and unrealistic to think that the
Ministry can implement both SBM and the Task Force recommendations at the same
time. This is not a comment on either the quality or the necessity of the recommenda-
tions, but only about the ability of the government and the Ministry of Education to suc-
cessfully implement such complicated reforms at the same time. Furthermore, the
decision to implement part of the Task Force recommendations completely ignored what
had already been agreed and achieved with all the stakeholders of the education system,
namely, to extend SBM as a prime improvement system to the entire education system.
So the first decade of the twenty-first century can be regarded as the losing decade
in term of moving towards a greater school effectiveness by empowering schools as
self managed organizations. So, increased school effectiveness through greater school
autonomy and flexibility of school action is formally on the agenda of the Israeli educa-
tion system but not in practice. The ideas behind SBM are still and only in use as slogans
but not in practical terms at the beginning of 2006.
Notes
1. The rest of the case studies are on the way to be accomplished in the coming 2 years.
2. In 1999 Israel had appeared in the league table of international comparison test as last third in the table.
Such a result was one of the reasons for setting up a national Task Force to recommend school improve-
ment policy.
3. The unions agreed upon part implementation of the recommendation, mainly a long learning day of
8 hours per day and shortening the number of learning days for 5 a week instead of 6 on experimental
basis.
References
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Please pro-
vide the
publisher
location for
Giladi, A.
(2005).
Introduction
In order to gain a perspective of the school effectiveness and improvement efforts in
Turkey, one needs to know the economic and social contexts of the issues at hand.
Hence, the following section is a brief summary of the current economic condition and
the education system of Turkey. Turkey is located in the north-east of the Middle East.
The population of the country is about 70 million, with a GNI per capita about
US$2,500, and 2% of the population has income below US$1 a day. Hence, in this
country, poverty in general and growing urban poverty in particular, is a matter of
concern. The illiteracy rate of Turkey is approximately 14%. Secondary school enrol-
ment has reached 60 and 24% of the adult population has upper secondary education.
In the early 1980s, the Turkish government carried out a series of economic reforms to
reverse the previous decades of state-led industrialization. The main focus of the change
was the opening of the economy through trade liberalization. However the government
failed to follow through with enterprise privatization and was unable to reduce the over-
all deficit of the government budget. After the Asian and Russian crises, the Turkish
economy began to slow down in 1998. The Government kept the key elements of the
reform package in place and committed itself to the negotiation for membership in the
European Union. Therefore, the social and cultural sectors of the country were working
hard to join the European community (MEB, 2004; World Bank, 1997).
The Turkish national education system is divided into two main parts, namely, formal
education and non-formal education. For formal education, the Turkish education sys-
tem consists of preschool, 8 years of elementary and 4 years of secondary education,
and higher education. Compulsory education is free in the public schools. Secondary
education is made up of general and vocational/technical schools where, depending on
the type of secondary school, an additional three or 4 years of training takes place after
elementary education. Higher education has been organized as four-year degree
programs in the universities or two-year sub-degree programs in post-secondary
363
20
RECENT INITIATIVES IN SCHOOL
EFFECTIVENESS AND IMPROVEMENT:
THE CASE OF TURKEY
Ismail Guven
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2007 Springer.
institutions. Also, there are two-year pre-bachelor degree programs that offer vocational
training. The Higher Education Council (YK) governs all Turkish universities. Non-
formal education in Turkey aims to teach adults how to read and write, to provide basic
knowledge, to develop further knowledge and skills already acquired and to create new
opportunities for improving their living standard.
Given the Turkish education system is situated in such an economic and political
environment, the question for policy makers to contemplate is: how can the national
government enhance the effectiveness of the system and consolidate efforts to support
school improvement endeavors? In the following sections, the author describes the
current education reform endeavors of the country, focusing first on the primary and
then secondary education, and asserts that teacher education is the primary means for
achieving the reform objectives.
Reform in Primary Education
Since 1970, governments of Turkey have aimed to provide 8 years compulsory educa-
tion to all children and to expand coverage to 100% of school-age children. However,
there was much difficulty covering the last segment of the target population, namely,
children from the ages of 11 to 13. The Government established the legal status of
eight-year compulsory education in 1997. These developments contributed to the
restructuring of Turkish elementary education. The legislation was buttressed by sub-
stantial new funding, which financed additional infrastructure and human resources to
raise five-year primary schools to eight-year schools. The government also provided
incentives to encourage all families to send their children to school. In the four years
immediately after the legislation, the government spent nearly $2 billion from a World
Bank loan to construct and furnish school buildings, provide new educational materi-
als and equipment, and recruit additional teachers. As a result, enrollment in compul-
sory education increased from 85.63% in 1997 to 96.30% in 2002. Enrollment of girls
in rural areas rose impressively, increasing by 160% in the first year of the program
alone in the 9 provinces (out of 81) with the highest gender disparity (Ho sgr, 2004;
MEB, 2003a).
During the past 10 years, reforming and improving school effectiveness has become
acutely politicized. The concept of improving quality of education, a critical issue in
debates about educational effectiveness, was the main issue the politicians are facing.
Nationwide, there was an emerging consensus that quality makes a significant dif-
ference in learning and in overall school effectiveness. There was no consensus, how-
ever, about how to define effectiveness of education and there appeared multiple
thinking about this issue. The focus of the discussion was the relationship between
incentives and accountability. In simplest terms, the objective is to improve the per-
formance of education and the effectiveness of education was the central focus of
policy. Political debates about school effectiveness were to a great extent enacted in
pithy face-to face debates, sound bites, bold-printed newspaper headlines, and policy
briefs with charts, graphs and statistical numbers. The integration of Europe produced
intensive debates on school effectiveness at international levels. Many representatives
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from the World Bank, OECD and EU criticized Turkish education as lacking quality
and effectiveness. Turkey has one of the lowest levels of preschool education coverage
among the lower to middle income countries. In 1996, there were only 175,000
students participating in pre-primary schooling. This represented less than 7% of the
cohort. By 2002 the enrollment rate increased to 11%, a significant improvement but still
well below the average rate for countries in the same income group (28%). This means
that the vast majority of children entering first grade have had no prior experience in a
school environment.
A number of pilot projects were introduced during the pilot phase of implementation
of the new program. The Government has experimented with school-improvement
grants, total quality management for school quality improvement, elective courses to be
decided by the school, and school-developed curricular revision. One-year pre-school
classes in primary schools, teacher empowerment and flexibility for multiple intelli-
gence approaches in education, more democratic modeling for school climate, open-
doors policy at schools have dominated the policy agenda. Empowerment of school
administrations, decentralization of the central bureaucracy, alternative primary school
and school buildings, variations in social areas and physical education space, differen-
tial school construction projects according to regions, workshop rooms and skills prac-
tice schools, networking and computer-aided instruction have been implemented. There
were laboratory schools, where the projects to be scaled up were tested (Gzc &
Ziariti, 2002).
The private sector also supported the extension of the compulsory education pro-
gram. More careful planning for utilization of the additional funds and existing infra-
structure have saved the reform effort from becoming too unidimensional. The planning
has directed attention and resources toward addressing qualitative and organizational
issues, such as the need for incentives and support for teacher development, reorgani-
zation of the central ministry structure and its related general directorates, empower-
ment of the local authorities and school administrations, curricula revision, and higher
quality standards. The budget also included investments toward the construction of new
schools and the renovation or expansion of existing ones, a massive provision of
computers, educational equipment and materials, recurrent spending on the remunera-
tion of teachers and other educational staff, and on new recruitment, and additional staff
training to expand the provision and quality of schooling (MEB, 2003a).
Nonetheless, improvement on other measures of educational performance, such as
learning achievement, secondary school access and completion, and school-to-work
transition rates, were not commensurate with the gains in access to basic education.
Recent international assessment results, such as TIMSS and PIRLS, and other compar-
ative measures, place Turkey well behind most of its counterparts on student learning
achievement
1
(Berbero glu, 2004).
In Turkey, the primary aim of education reform was to enhance education opportu-
nities throughout the country and promote particular skills such as problem solving
ability, global awarness, social skills and particularly proficiency in ICT and foreign
languages. With the approval of the 8 years Compulsory Basic Education Law, the
Government of Turkey implemented an expansion of the basic education system as
quickly as possible to capitalize on political momentum for growth. In the 6 years
The Case of Turkey 365
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following the laws enactment, Turkey increased the supply of primary education class-
rooms by 30%, making room for an additional one million students. However, all these
are still far from the expected targets. In order to meet the education challenges of
European integration and EU accession, a pradigm shift is needed to focus the education
system on creating high-quality education opportunities and outcomes for all students.
The Turkish Government recognized the risks the country faced with respect to an
inadequately prepared labor force and has countered with an ambitious agenda of pol-
icy reforms across the entire education sector. Besides increasing the coverage of
preschool education, the government also sought to improve the vertical integration
between secondary and postsecondary education. The proposed reforms, some of
which were stated in the 8th Five-Year Plan, and others in the Governments Emergency
Action Plan, include extending upper secondary from 3 to 4 years and promoting the
availability of secondary education through distance education and modernization of
the curriculum; and improving the efficiency of academic and vocational programs.
The plan urges the elimination of regional, gender, and other demographic disparities at
all levels of education.
Raising the learning standards and outcomes for all students at all levels of schooling
through improvements in curriculum, instruction, standards, and delivery, including
through the use of information communication technologies (ICTs) were other impor-
tant aims.
Contemporary Education 2000 Project
The Contemporary Education 2000 Project was put into effect when compulsory
primary education was extended to 8 years. The following principles have been adopted
as the aims of the Project:
Eliminate the double-shift mode of schooling, which is currently in practice in
some schools in big cities.
Gradually decrease the class sizes down to 30 by the year 2000.
Bus pupils from small settlements to centrally located schools, (where lunch
would be provided), thereby assuring a better quality of education for these pupils.
Provide education opportunities at Regional Primary Education Boarding Schools
(YIBO) and Primary Schools with Pension (PIO), with the State covering all
expenses.
Eliminate the practice of multi-grade education gradually by expanding YIBO
and PIO alongside bussing.
Provide clothing, bags, books and notebooks to pupils with insufficient financial
means.
Complement formal education through the method of distance education.
Install computer laboratories at primary schools, using these laboratories for
Computer Assisted Learning.
Provide the means to our children to learn at least one foreign language at the
level of primary education.
Equip the schools with adequate facilities in line with contemporary requirements.
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Raise individuals who learn and question ways of learning, through a rational
and scientific approach.
Put in place the physical infrastructure that would assure the physical development
of our children, along with the development of their mental abilities.
Provide Distance Education opportunities to all primary school graduates who are
older than the compulsory education age group.
School Improvement in Rural Areas
The Government introduced an open basic education program, using the distance-
learning mode, to provide core basic education skills to young people over 15 years old
who dropped out in the compulsory education stage. Extending the duration of com-
pulsory education from 5 to 8 years and reducing overcrowdedness in existing schools
would require a major expansion of school capacity, particularly for Grades 6 through 8.
In most urban areas, school attendance was constrained primarily by inadequate class-
room capacity, and inadequate numbers of teachers. In rural areas, primary schools
(Grades 1 through 5) were generally available, but a beneficiary assessment done in the
Eastern and Southeastern provinces found that school attendance in those regions was
inhibited by poverty and poor public perception about the quality of village schools.
Some rural classes suffered also from the lack of teachers, frequent teacher turnover
due to the isolation, as well as poor teaching and living conditions in rural schools. In
rural areas, there was a widespread shortage of capacity in the upper grades of basic
education (Grades 6 through 8), and parents often could not afford to send their chil-
dren to school. To address the classroom problems in the rural areas, the Ministry of
National Education (MONE) proposed the construction of nearly 3,900 new basic edu-
cation schools, and the addition of 15,300 classrooms. Schools were designed in such
a way that they could also accommodate handicapped children. To address the problem
of teacher shortage, MONE planned to recruit an additional 150,000 teachers and
inspectors for elementary education, improve the attractiveness of rural schools by
upgrading teacher housing, and provide better financial incentives for teachers in dis-
advantaged areas. MONE also planned to experiment with new teacher recruitment
and assignment policies which were currently administered centrally, in order to iden-
tify more effective and efficient ways to deploy teachers in elementary education. The
Program aimed to respond to difficulties encountered in elementary education by
increasing the quality of basic education, providing material incentives to children
from poor families in the form of free school meals, student uniforms, and textbooks,
and improving the incentives for husbands and wives who are both teachers to teach in
the same rural schools (World Bank, 1997).
Computer Literacy in Primary Schools
To improve computer literacy of the population, the government established computer
laboratories at all primary schools thus assuring that all teachers and inspectors of
primary education become computer-literate and trained in computer-aided education.
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The metaphor of becoming a knowledge society is a driving force in Turkey, as the
country ranks among the last 50 countries in the use of ICT worldwide. World Bank
provided loans to the Turkish Government for equipping 2,802 primary schools with
ICT facilities. Despite all the current limitations, students are well aware of the poten-
tial of ICT in terms of educational opportunities. This investment in education was
vital in supporting the country in taking part in the global knowledge economy.
This was another important development in teacher competence building in ICT. As
the majority of teachers did not have computer lessons in their preservice education,
they did not feel confident using ICT, and even some of them were afraid that computer
may take their places. With support of the above efforts, teachers felt at ease to use ICT
facilities (Guven & Gulbahar, 2004). However, international research shows that tradi-
tional training seminars and academically focused training programs are ineffective
because they do not provide the opportunity for practice, follow-up, and reflection
(World Bank, 2005).
Reforms in Secondary Education
The Secondary Education Development Project includes the following targets:
(1) increasing compulsory education from 8 to 12 years (a longer-term goal), (2) enroll-
ing 95% of basic education graduates in secondary education (which was to start in the
2001 academic year); (3) increasing secondary education from 11 to 12 years. MONE
has also initiated several related reforms, including: (1) making Grade 9 a common
core general education program for all secondary education students to ensure all
graduates have good basic skills; (2) delaying vocational specialization until Grade 10;
and (3) reducing the number of vocational subjects from 130 specialty programs to 30
broad vocational programs (World Bank, 2006).
The World Bank recommended against early placement of students into vocational
specializations. MONE pointed out these issues by reforming secondary education,
including strengthening guidance programs in primary and secondary schools, updating
and increasing the proportion of general education classes in vocational schools, and
finalizing selection of vocational training at a higher grade level. MONE broadened the
nature of vocational training to prepare students for further specialized post-secondary
training and for lifelong learning. The Government made a Law to ease the entry of voca-
tional graduates into post-secondary education. As such, the differences in content and
goals of general and vocational education have decreased. The proposed Secondary
Education Project directly supported these technical reforms through an interrelated set
of components. It should be emphasized that the project focused on program develop-
ment, as opposed to expanding the duration of, and enrollment in, secondary education.
The rationale for this choice was twofold. First, a simple expansion of existing outdated
programs could not meet the needs of the country, and the Government has requested the
Banks support for system reform, not simple expansion of the existing system. Second,
the costs of expansion were considerable with regard to construction and equipping of
new schools, and the size of the proposed project would not have made a significant
contribution to these activities, which were supported from Government resources.
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Objective and Key Indicators
The overall development objective of the project was to improve the quality, economic
relevance, and equity of secondary education to support lifelong learning. There were
several key outcome indicators. First, the project provided technical assistance, equip-
ment and materials to strengthen the institutional structures, developed technical
procedures and new curricular content, implemented revised general education and
vocational education curriculum programs, and provided related in-service training for
MONE managers and teachers. Second, the project financed technical assistance,
goods and materials to utilize ICT to improve instruction, access on-line educational
content and services on the Internet, and assess the educational impact of the ICT
investments. Third, the project provided technical assistance, equipment, and materials
to facilitate interagency cooperation, develop core career information and guidance
resources and supply them to education and labor institutions, train staff for career
guidance and improve the integration of career guidance and counseling into the over-
all basic and secondary education programs. Finally, the project attempted to improve
the quality and outcomes of secondary education by developing systems to collect and
disseminate reliable information on student learning and outcomes, on the perform-
ance of the education system staff and institutions, as well as to use information from
these assessments to improve system performance and student outcomes.
These quality assurance measures have implications for institutions within the Turkish
Higher Education. In Turkey, there are 72 universities, of which 19 are classified as pri-
vate universities managed by non-profit making foundations. The Turkish Government
therefore decided to review the situation in the higher education sector and so, based on
encouragement received from the OECD (2005), a pilot program was instigated to imple-
ment the British system of quality assessment in some 20 universities across Turkey. This
pilot program was implemented in the 1997/1998 academic year.
Human Resources Planning
The availability of highly qualified and motivated teachers was an essential require-
ment for the success of reforms. The government has undertaken a number of impor-
tant measures to staff the new schools and to improve the overall efficiency of teacher
allocation across Turkey, including the following:
MONE planned to advance the skills and motivation of education staff across the
system, including inspectors, teachers, principals and provincial officials of the MONE.
In accordance with the Ministrys approach to basic education, training programs for all
staff emphasized the role of educators as leaders within the local community, inspectors
were responsible for organizing and implementing in-service training activities for
teachers and education managers, and for providing on-site support to teachers through
school visits. MONE expanded these activities under the reform program, through the
hiring of additional inspectors in order to provide teachers with more frequent contact
and mentoring opportunities.
Training of managers and principals aimed to strengthen management capacity at
the school level, in order to improve decision-making, parental participation and
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support for teachers professional development. MONE has developed a number of
in-service training courses for managers addressing education planning, communica-
tion, leadership training and the use of technology in schools. MONE developed a
resource guide on guidance issues, including psychological counseling as well as
career guidance for teachers and school managers, and plans to incorporate training on
guidance as well as counseling into in-service training curriculum for teachers and
administrators (MEB, 2003a). Many schools have improved their resource usage. The
service have been delivered to the public schools effectively, and effective support
services in the local and school centers have also been developed.
Teaching Materials
In order to jump-start the change from the traditional declaratory method of teach-
ing to a new student active learning approach, MONE has commissioned the develop-
ment of an entirely new generation of textbooks for a broad spectrum of basic
education courses. They were also intended to complement the multimedia and IT
resources. A teachers guide and a parents guide accompanied each of the new student
textbooks. The parent guides were prepared to enrich the students learning at home, to
help parents understand what their children are doing in school and to equip them to
be more supportive of and more involved in their childrens learning.
Building an information network was an important challenge to Turkey as it imple-
ments its strategy for economic development based on open competitive markets. The
young population is potentially the nations greatest competitive asset, provided that
the talent and skill base central to an information-based economy can be developed.
MONE intended under the Basic Education Program that all basic education age
students have access to computers in the learning process to attain computer literacy,
support and enhance the existing curricula and open the computer laboratories to the
local community as technology-intensive learning environments. All these helped
students access to resources provided by schools effectively. The students have the
opportunity to use the latest ICT facilities, even for homeworks and exercises.
Strategies to Support Education Reform
Knowledge of school effectiveness and improvement is new to policy makers in
Turkey. Hence, efforts for improving schools are now mainly focused on building more
classrooms, supporting students from rural and poverty-ridden areas, and hiring qual-
ified teachers. Nevertheless, policy makers also realize that it takes the entire nation to
enhance the effectiveness of schools, and there needs to be a broader scope as well as
long-term perspectives. In the following section, two school improvement initiatives,
namely, institutional renewal and special needs education, will be mentioned which are
aimed at a more long-term perspective of school effectiveness.
Institutional Renewal
Surprisingly few changes in institutional arrangements were made to support the edu-
cation reform mentioned above. No new formal accountability mechanisms were
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introduced. The education system remained centrally managed and operated. The
MONE maintained its existing structure with minor modifications. The one organi-
zational change MONE of Education undertook was with regards to the ICT direc-
torate. This general directorate was strengthened and elevated in importance within
the structure of MONE. The high inflation of the 1990s, deteriorating standard of
living, worsening income distribution and the appearance of a poverty-stricken popu-
lation in the 67 years preceding the program were risks the government felt it needed
to address. There were rising complaints that the government was not protecting the
rights of the poor, especially since corrupted officials misused resources. The gov-
ernment had introduced some minor poverty alleviation measures, but these were
generally thought to be uncoordinated and a waste of public resources. In addition,
studies had shown that there were serious lags in the implementation of the compul-
sory education policies (Dulger, 2004; World Bank, 2005). Education directors from
provinces and subprovinces, were given additional responsibilities, but made little
change to the existing management structure. Also, departments and units within
MONE headquarters in Ankara were integrated electronically, and connected to many
of the units in the provinces and sub-provinces by means of a new Management
Information System (the ILSIS). MONE has begun to provide some additional infor-
mation to the public in response to the controversy sparked by the inadequately
consulted Law and Program. Although some reengineering was proposed for such
areas as reorganization, change of MONEs legislative authority, curriculum develop-
ment, institutionalizing in-service training, assignment and transfer procedures, these
were evaded because of central bureaucracys resistance to change. The proposal to
integrate small primary schools with lower-secondary schools into a virtual education
administration was never realized for the same reason. Finally, the MONE currently
has some pilot activities to introduce a modern inspection and quality supervision
system (MEB, 2003b).
A temporary set of earmarked taxes were targeted to finance the expansion of
schooling. These new taxes raised US$2 billion in new revenues to support the con-
struction of new schools, the hiring of new teachers, and the provision of educational
materials to new students. The government supported the Program as a way of enhanc-
ing social cohesion through reduction of economic disparities and social inequities.
Other initiatives included the Social Solidarity Fund, organized at the sub-province
level with demanded programs by the local people. Most of the help ended in handing
out money. Only computer-aided instruction, pre-school classes and physical facilities
improvement received any significant inclusion in the scaling up of the Eight-Year
Compulsory Education School as is reflected in the Three-Year Catch 2000 Project of
MONE. These innovations were mostly limited to construction or to purchase and
installation of equipment rather than any substantial innovations in the way in which
education was organized. The World Bank played a supportive and advisory role
during the lending discussions, from which the Ministry benefited. Finally, the IMF
indicated its acceptance of the Program and did not restrict expenditures on education
and health (MEB, 2003c; MEB-Ankara niversitesi, 2002).
More careful planning for the utilization of additional funds and existing infrastruc-
ture have saved the reform effort from becoming too unidimensional. These had
directed attentions and resources towards addressing qualitative and organizational
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issues, such as the need for incentives and support for teacher development, reorgani-
zation of the central ministry structure and its related general directorates, empower-
ment of the local authorities and school administrations, curricula revision, and higher
quality standards. The budget also included investments towards the construction of
new schools and the renovation or expansion of existing ones, a massive provision of
computers, educational equipment and materials, recurrent spending on the remuner-
ation of teachers and other educational staff, and on new recruitment, and additional
staff training to expand the provision and quality of schooling (MEB, 2003a). How-
ever, the infrastructure for providing support and technical assistance to schools was
ineffective. Furthermore, the recommendations relating to school improvement or
classroom pedagogy are not conveyed by inspectorates to schools in any formal,
documented form (World Bank, 2005). The Government should count on circulars,
mandates, punishment or other mechanisms of the central authority to address all of
the myriad and individual factors that constrain school effectiveness. Funds must be
provided to schools for self-managed school improvement projects and achievement of
the quality targets.
Supporting Students with Special Needs
School quality was to be improved through greater parental involvement and partici-
pation in school based activities. The program contained an innovative component,
called the Monitoring Response Facility (MRF), which allowed Parent Teacher
Associations, school committees and other school-based organizations to apply for
funds to support local initiatives consistent with the Basic Education Program. The
MRF provided direct support to schools to facilitate innovative projects, which could
be approved based on a pre-defined set of criteria, and help them respond to children
with disabilities. Activities supported through the MRF built upon the results of the
studies and assessments carried out under the monitoring and evaluation component
of the Program. The social aid program for improving school attendance and per-
formance for low-income students has been supported and expanded through the
Program. The MONE used its network of girls vocational schools and adult educa-
tion centers to make and provide school uniforms and meals to poor students. The
program was actively supported through donations from the public. Evidence illus-
trates that the provision of social aid positively impacted on school attendance and
student performance.
Precautions have been taken for accommodating people with physical handicaps.
The entertainment and recreation centers have been planned for easy access and to
avoid vertical circulation, multiple stores were avoided, apart from buildings on small
sites, which were limited to four floors. The new schools offered science and computer
laboratories, art as well as music rooms and workshops were designed for individual
and group work. Faculty rooms were also designed for both individual work and meet-
ings. The schools have outdoor fields and the community could use the recreational
areas (MEB, 2003a). Thus handicapped students had better opportunities for their
education and school life. They could have access to educational resources with much
easily than before.
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Reform in Teacher Education
The first Turkish teacher training institution, known as the Darulmuallimin, was estab-
lished in 1848. While many different models of teacher training have been imple-
mented since then, the most important change in the Turkish teacher education system
took place in 1981 when the responsibilities and activities of teacher training were
transferred from MONE of Education to the universities (Akyz, 2004). Before 1981,
all teacher education institutions were both academically and administratively under
the control of MONE of Education. The Higher Education Reform in 1981 changed all
four-year teacher training institutions and three-year foreign language high schools
into four-year faculties of education.
Today, most of the faculties of education in Turkey have programs for training pre-
school (kindergarten) teachers, elementary teachers (both primary school teachers and
subject teachers for middle schools), and secondary teachers who are employed by both
MONE and private schools. Apart from graduating from teacher training programs, stu-
dents who have completed a bachelor degree in the faculties of science and letters, and
have completed pedagogical course requirements in the faculties of education are also
eligible to apply for a secondary teaching position. Today, there are 77 (53 public and
24 private) universities in Turkey, 43 (one private and 42 public) of them have faculties
of education, and most of them offer dual (both full-time and part-time evening) pro-
grams. Although students in the evening programs are required to pay much higher
tuition than the ones enrolling in the full-time programs, they are admitted to the same
courses of study with relatively lower scores than the full-time students.
Problems and Challenges
For the selection of those who will enter university programs, a student must pass a
highly competitive central university examination to enroll in a college and make a list
of 18 choices of their desired fields. Teacher education departments do not usually
attract talented students. National Advisory Council for Teacher Education, convened in
June 1989, advised the MONE to launch a scholarship program to attract gifted students
into the teaching profession. Although a significant increase in university admissions
was observed as a result of this, the quality of students is still a great problem in many
departments of the education faculties.
Although the number of academic staff at education faculties has dramatically
increased since 1981, one cannot say whether the staff quality has improved. This area
desperately needs further study. During the Higher Education Reform in 1981, many fac-
ulty members, especially from the Departments of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry,
History and Western Languages, were transferred from the colleges of letters and sci-
ences, which were amongst the first colleges opened in every university, to the education
faculties. Most of them held a doctorate degree and many of them obtained an adminis-
trative position in education faculties. The new departments or the new positions in edu-
cation faculties continued to recruit graduates from colleges of letters and science.
Unfortunately, this tradition is still alive, though not to the same degree. Although
these faculties were qualified in their subject, they were not trained in curriculum and
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pedagogy. Education faculties were graduating students who resembled graduates of col-
leges of letters and science, who may know their subjects well, but may not be competent
inside the classrooms (Altan, 1998).
Therefore, most academic staff in education faculties, except perhaps for primary
education, educational administration or instructional technology, were not producing
research or writing about education. The subject was important to them, but most of
them did not see a need to relate theory to practice. This situation still prevails, though
not on the same scale, in all education faculties. But in departments such as Arts,
Physical Education, and Music, the situation differs somewhat, where the selection of
staff members is based on the skills and talents of the artists, professional sportsmen,
as well as musicians, and courses are designed accordingly.
For many years, there has been a consensus among teacher trainers that teacher
training should include the development of both a knowledge base and skills in
instruction. The knowledge base includes emphasis on such areas as teaching theory,
pedagogy, child development, educational research, and subject content. The skill
development part of the curriculum consists of practice, including early field experi-
ence and student teaching experiences where students must put into practice the
knowledge they have gained through their course work. Both these elements were
totally neglected in the curriculum of the education faculties. A close analysis shows
that it lacked coherence and that the purpose of many courses was outdated and hazy.
There is also a lack of empirical evidence on the impact of the courses (YK, 1998).
Recruitment of teachers, which was managed by the MONE, was based on expected
number of vacancies. Approximately 70,000 new teachers were recruited each year. All
teachers had to have university graduation, plus they acquired pedagogical formation
through theoretical and practical courses. However, because the program started up
immediately without a scale-up phase, many students in the pre-service courses could
receive only a very short teacher training program. Teachers with little pedagogical prepa-
ration were sent out to schools. Many of these new teachers were given temporary gradu-
ation certificates and were expected to complete training in the summertime. Universities
launched massive summer courses in order to keep up with the needs in the field.
As was mentioned above, in addition to the graduates of education faculties, large
numbers of graduates from the colleges of science and letters apply for positions in sec-
ondary schools because they cannot find jobs in their own field. In 1995, MONE
employed some 12,000 graduates, regardless of their college and subject, as teachers at
elementary schools due to the teacher shortage. Hence, any university graduate, even
without a teaching certificate, could become a teacher. This proved the old saying in
Turkey: If you cannot be anything you can at least be a teacher! But teachers in Turkey,
as in many countries, also suffer problems such as low salary, heavy demands made upon
time, crowded classrooms, outdated textbooks, less sophisticated physical facilities and
a lack of opportunity to improve their professional knowledge and performance.
The Reform Agenda
Being aware of the importance of teachers and teacher training, MONE and the Council
of Higher Education implemented reforms in teacher training collaboratively. Special
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National Advisory Council for Teacher Education was convened in June 1989 to advise
MONE. As a result, a scholarship program to attract talented students into the teaching
profession was launched, and some three-year teacher high schools were transformed
into four-year schools, which poor but able students prefer to attend because they will
receive free accommodation and extra scores in the General University Examination if
they choose to attend education faculties. Other resolutions include creating programs
for in-service training centers in major universities throughout the country, establishing
a teacher education academy to train mentor teachers, and, more recently, the creation
of professional development schools in pilot cities.
With a US$177.2 million loan (US$90.2 million from the World Bank and US$87
million from the Turkish Government), academic staff and research fellows from edu-
cation faculties were sent abroad to attend higher degree or Post Doctoral courses. The
World Bank supported the project provided that the Higher Education Council revised
and improved pre-service teacher training curricula, textbooks and pedagogical mate-
rial and support research projects. The National Education Development Project
(NEDP) was launched with the loan agreement concluded between the Turkish
Government and the World Bank in 1990 (Karagzo glu, 1991). It was administered by
the Higher Education Council and the British Council provided technical assistance.
The goals of the project were:
to improve the quality of primary and secondary education to reach OECD levels;
to reach standards that are identical to those in OECD countries so as to upgrade
the quality and validity of teacher training; and
to ensure more effective and economical resource utilization in the areas of
administration and management.
Another important issue was integrating technology into the curricula in education
faculties. Recent advances in interactive multimedia computer practices have provided
teacher educators with the means to develop technology-enhanced class presentations.
Audio, video, film and slides have been integrated into lecture outlines and course
content to illustrate learning models and instructional methods. Instructors were
expected to develop presentations that might provide trainee teachers with examples of
classroom contexts where they can apply their learning through multimedia. The
benefits for student teachers might also extend beyond their actual experience with the
technology.
Further Education Opportunities
To improve graduate education in teacher training, the government has undertaken the
following measures. First, the curricula of the graduate programs have been changed
according to changes made in undergraduate programs. Second, the examination
procedure has been assessed and redesigned and, universities that specialize in certain
subjects have been allowed to introduce masters and doctorate programs according
to demand. An important issue here was to send research assistants abroad for mas-
ters and doctoral studies. For each subject, the government would restrict the uni-
versities and the number of graduate student advisors. The subject of theses and
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dissertations were directly related to education, and, more specifically, to the problems
encountered in the education system of the country (YK, 1998).
Over 50,000 additional teachers for basic education have been recruited. In addi-
tion, four annual cycles of in-service training have been provided to these teachers,
principals, inspectors, and provincial education staff. Reconstruction of education
faculties in Turkey was commenced in December 1994, under the scope of the Turkish
Higher Education Council (YK) and World Bank Project. With the expansion of
compulsory education to 8 years, YK and MONE were confronted with the need for
mathematics teachers for 68 and 911 levels and then split 611 level teacher educa-
tion programs as the elementary (68 level) and secondary (911 level) schools pro-
grams. The teacher education program was revised in 1998. The purposes of these
changes were: the need for elementary school mathematics teachers for 68 levels, the
need for secondary school mathematics teachers for 911 levels, to increase the qual-
ity of teachers, to enhance the teaching and learning process, to get teachers to better
place in the special teaching methods of mathematics, to give more rational structure
to faculties, to strengthen the education side of the teacher training programs. The sec-
ondary school mathematics teacher-training program was raised to graduate level. Two
different programs were formed for the training of secondary school mathematics
teachers: The Five-Year Integrated Programs (3.5 1.5) and the Masters Program
(4 1.5). The program model is described in more detail in YK (1998).
The program improved the pedagogical knowledge of the prospective teachers. They
now produce postgraduates with the maturity and experience to deal with the type of
situations they may get in guidance and counseling in the schools or inspection, cur-
riculum development, and materials production in the Ministry or other institutions.
During teaching practice the student teacher can also extend the experience to wider
school issues by, for example, working with teachers on some needed curriculum
development, helping teachers to produce resources, searching the Internet, joining
extracurricular activities, or other tasks. The partnerships formalized the arrangement
between faculties and schools, with designated roles and responsibilities on each side.
However, teacher preparation and support need to be aligned with the new approaches
such as child centered competency base and new examination system with collabora-
tion of MONE.
Conclusion
Education is one of the most crucial factors that shape the future of individuals and
societies. The strategic importance of education is more obvious in the era of global-
ization. The future of Turkey depends on how well it can integrate with the world econ-
omy and transform itself into an information society. An education system with high
quality is needed for development, industrialization, democratization and security for
today and tomorrow. The Turkish government has done much to improve education
quality both by its own efforts and through the help of external bodies. External bodies
such as the World Bank, OECD and the European Community pushed Turkey to mod-
ernize its educational system. The most important efforts have been made at the basic
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education level in the last two decades, especially extending 5 years of compulsory
education into 8 years. To support these efforts, the World Bank provided loans to the
Turkish Government. The government implemented these efforts through MONE. The
efforts of investing in educational effectiveness focused mainly on elementary educa-
tion, and the government revised the whole compulsory school curriculum under the
basic education program.
Experts on organisational change agree that in order for large, complex organisa-
tions to change, they need to create not only a vision of a different future but also a new
field of vision made up of concepts that spread so effectively throughout the organ-
isations that nobody can avoid them. Unless and until there is a commitment to
enhance the quality and professionalism of the teaching body, it is unlikely that the
national goal of reaching the level of the developed countries in the near future can be
achieved. It is clear that many attributes that characterize the profession are not
hallmarks of todays teaching profession in Turkey.
The teacher education institutions needed to change as well. Teacher education fac-
ulties in the universities have been reorganized to support changes in the basic educa-
tion levels. All the education faculties followed the curriculum designated by the
government. Also, in order to implement the smart school concept, the government
established computer laboratories in all primary schools thus assuring that all teachers
and inspectors of primary education become computer-literate. The government
organized in-service education programs in ICT competencies and MONE established
infrastructure for providing free Internet services in schools. Yet the issue of whether
this has changed the level of effectiveness of the school system is yet to be answered.
Note
1. Among the 38 countries that participated in the 1999 TIMSS science and math assessment, Turkey
scored in the 33rd place in science and 31st in mathematics. Of the 35 countries in the 2001 PIRLS read-
ing literacy test, Turkey scored 28th.
References
Akyz, Y. (2004). Trk e gitim tarihi (Ba slangtan 2004e) (9th ed.). [History of Turkish educaiton: From
beginning to 2004 (9th ed.)]. Ankara: An Yaynlar.
Altan, Z. (1998). A call for change and pedagogy: A critical analysis of teacher education in Turkey.
European Journal of Education, 33(4), 407418.
Berbero glu, G. (2004). The quality and effectiveness of teaching and learning in Turkey: Quantitative study.
In Turkey Education Sector Study (Ed.), Sustainable pathways to an equitable, effective, and efficient
education system. Istanbul.
Dulger, I. (2004). Turkey: Rapid Coverage for Compulsory Education The 1997 Basic Education Program.
Ankara, Turkey: MEB Yayinlari.
Guven, I., & Gulbahar, Y. (2004, June). Integrating ICT in Social Studies Teachers Education: Efficacy and
Knowledge of ICT of Social Studies Teachers in Turkey. Paper presented at the conference of The
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Hosgr, S. (2004). Status and trends in the education system. In Turkey education sector study (Ed.),
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E gitim Etkinliklerinde Kullanm Ynergesi, 66(2554), 663668.
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Ili skin Rapor [Government Proposal for the 2004 Fiscal Year
Education Budget]. Ministry of National Education APKYayinlari; Ankara.
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Ilk gretim Okullarnn Sosyal Etkilerinin De gerlendirilmesi Ara strmas

[Social Impact Assessment of Primary Education Schools]. MEB Projeler Koordinasyon Merkezi
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OECD. (2005). Education at a glance 2005. Paris.
World Bank. (1997). Turkey: Rapid coverage for compulsory education. The 1997 Basic Education
Program. Washington DC. (Report by
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YK (1988)
Historical Background
The written history of Iran began at about 800 years B.C. The culture of ancient Iran,
particularly in the Sassanian Dynasty (226641 A.D.) was focused on developing
citizens who were patriotic with moral character and good behavior.
At the beginning, only parents and fire-temples were responsible for education.
However, at the time of Sassanian dynasty royal schools and universities were estab-
lished, but only princes, nobles and aristocrats had the right to study and common
people were deprived.
Zoroaster and his religion appreciated education very much and Zoroastrians
believe that humanity is achieved only by learning. At the time of Zoroaster, children
were trained in the households for 7 years and then they were sent to the fire-temples
to be trained for another 8 years. The aim of training was to bring up youth to serve
both the house and the society. The children usually took over their fathers profes-
sions, so vocational education was taught by the parents or the professionals. The
rulers, too, were chosen from the princes.
After the entrance of Islam in 628 A.D., education in Iran, like other Muslim countries,
was run by religious authorities and Muslim Scholars. Children and youth attended
Maktabs and Madrasahs where they were taught reading, writing in Persian language,
arithmetic, the Quran and religious instruction.
It is interesting to note that Iran witnessed great scientific progress during the cen-
turies 913 A.D. A number of Iranian scientists of the classical period such as
Kharazmi (died 863) in mathematics, Razi (died 926) and Avicenna (died 1037) in
medicine, Khayam (died 1123) in algebra and astronomy, Tusi (died 1274) in astrology
were considered as great scientists in their time.
This traditional system of education remained unchanged until the end of the
eighteenth century. In the mid nineteenth century, along with the establishment of
foreign schools, a few Iranian educators who had either been educated in European
379
21
RECENT INITIATIVES IN SCHOOL
EFFECTIVENESS AND IMPROVEMENT: THE CASE
OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
Azam Azimi
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2007 Springer.
countries or visited there, established a number of modern schools. Yet, it was Amir
Kabir who, during the reign of Nasser al-Din shah (18481896), tried to establish a
modern institute aimed at training manpower for the government. Military subjects,
mining, engineering, medicine and mathematics constituted the fields of study of
this institution.
The number of modern schools increased in the second half of the nineteenth
century and the first two decades of the twentieth century. The Council for National
Schools was formed in 1898, and the Ministry of Education was established in 1910.
In 1911, the Parliament passed a law and called upon the Ministry of Education to
organize a system of public education.
It is worth mentioning that in the first three decades of the twentieth century, two
separate and parallel systems of education, the modern and the traditional, existed in
the country. Gradually, as the modern schools benefited from the financial support of
the government, Maktabs were dissolved and the Iranian educational system was put
into a unique mold.
After the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the education system underwent essential changes.
It was necessary to re-examine the philosophy, objectives and policies of the previous edu-
cational system. The Council for Fundamental Change in Education, established in 1986 as
a commission affiliated to the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, revised the
education system, and studied some ideal alternatives, and finally proposed a system
of education at the Pre-university level, based on the Islamic doctrine, as well as the
new social, economic, and the political needs. So, during recent years, reforms were
introduced into the education system and school curricula, in order to modify them.
At the beginning of the new millennium and in the midst of the global changes tak-
ing place in the world, the Islamic Republic of Iran is faced with internal and external
pressure, both to meet global challenges and preserve its cultural identity. In order to
do these, the schooling system must be reformed and made effective. But what is the
purpose of school effectiveness in Iran? How to reform the schooling system in a way
that satisfies the needs of the country and conforms to the norms of the society? How
to develop the schooling system that is sustainable and effective in the future? These
are the questions that decision makers in the Council were struggling with.
The present chapter is divided into four main sections. The first section sets the
stage for a school effectiveness discussion by outlining the structure of the school sys-
tem and the goals of education. The second section describes teacher education in Iran
as the means of achieving quality in the school system. The third section summarizes
the recent school improvement and innovations endeavors. Finally, challenges within
the system and future prospects are discussed (Hakimi, 2005).
The Present School System
Structure of the School System
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, primary education begins at the age of 6 and lasts for
5 years. Then follows a guidance course (lower secondary) lasting 3 years. These
8 years of education are assumed as basic education. Upper Secondary education lasts
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three years and is divided into three main branches: Academic, Technical and Vocational
and Kar-Danesh which is a new flexible vocational branch. The school year lasts nine
months (about 35 working weeks/200 active days), which begins from September 23rd
of each year and ends in June 21st of the subsequent year (Academic, Technical and
Vocational and Kar-Danesh, 2003).
Pre-school education is a program which is accessible in most regions and is
financed through parents and the government. The one-year pre-school program
enrolled 404,000 in 20022003. The government intends to expand Pre-school educa-
tion with the participation of the private sector.
Pre-university Cycle is a one-year course for students who complete their upper sec-
ondary education and seek to enter universities or other higher educational institutions
(Academic, Technical and Vocational and Kar-Danesh, 2003).
The last decade saw a period of considerable reform in Iranian educational structure.
The structure changed from 5 3 4 to 5 3 3 1, and the one year pre-university
course was introduced in the educational system. New strategies were carried out for the
expansion of techno-vocational courses and improving its quality, and for the first time in
Iranian system, the students were given permission to have optional units (Ministry of
Education, 2003a).
During the past few years, the Ministry of Education has put special emphasis on the
reform and promotion of education in Iran. The efforts and educational reforms have
helped Iran toward a massive development program, which has resulted in much
progress in the education system (Hakimi, 2005).
Literacy Rate and Schooling Population
In the 25 years from 1976 to 2001, there have been increases in the overall literacy rate
of the country from 47.5 to 85.1% , womens literacy rate from 35.5 to 81%, and liter-
acy in rural areas from 30.5 to 79.8%. In addition, in the 20002001 school year, with
the system successfully maintaining a low dropout rate, the population of school age
students receiving basic education had reached 99.2%, and the ratio of female students
in the student population was 48% (Literacy Movement Organization, 2002, 2003;
Ministry of Education, 2003b).
In the last decade, there have been significant improvements in many aspects in the
educational service. These include a large reduction in the number of teachers holding
high school diplomas, decrease in the teacher-student ratio in primary education, an
increase in the opportunity to access Technical-Vocational and Kar-Danesh education
in 86% of country regions especially in rural areas, and reform in the curriculum and
assessment methods (Hakimi, 2005; Ministry of Education, 2003b).
Goals of Education
In order to set the goals of the education system for the Islamic Republic of Iran, the
Supreme Council of Education of Iran established six domains as the educational
goals. These include the ideological, moral, scientific and pedagogical, cultural and
The Case of the Islamic Republic of Iran 381
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artistic, social, biological and economic goals. It is worth mentioning that many of
these goals are related to the Islamic religion and the teaching of the Quran.
Ideological goals:
Paving the ground for self-knowledge and monotheism.
Strengthening the spirit of truth seeking.
Strengthening the religious beliefs of students with respect to Islamic tradition.
Moral goals:
Fostering the spirit of conscious obedience to Islamic teachings, and the growth
of ethical virtues, based upon faith & piety.
Fostering the spirit of self-reliance and independence, order and discipline.
Strengthening the belief in moral generosity & self-respect.
Developing balanced humanitarian affections and peaceful coexistence
Scientific & Pedagogical goals:
Realizing the mysteries of the cosmos and nature in order to promote human
knowledge and experience.
Fostering the spirit of thinking, studying, searching, criticizing, innovating, and
continuous learning.
Teaching of sciences, technologies, and skills, which are required for personal
and social development.
Teaching of Persian language and script as the official language of the country,
teaching of Arabic Language in order to familiarize with Quran and Islamic
culture, and teaching of English language to communicate to other countries.
Fostering the spirit of participation and cooperation in group work.
Cultural & artistic goals:
Discovering, guiding, & developing artistic and aesthetic aptitudes.
Recognizing the beauties of the world, the Islamic art and the appropriate
national & international arts.
Fostering the spirit of conserving the cultural, artistic & historical heritage.
Recognizing Persian Literature as the glory of the artistic manifestation and
national and social unity of the country.
Recognizing the praiseworthy cultures; customs, & traditions of the Islamic
society of Iran.
Recognizing the history, culture and civilization of Islam, Iran, and other coun-
tries with emphasis upon contemporary culture.
Social goals:
Fostering the spirit of Protection of the dignity and health of family relations
based on Islamic ethics.
Actualizing the social & economic justice of Islam.
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Extending and strengthening Islamic brotherhood and cooperation as well as
strengthening national integrity, and bringing about participation in social,
religious, & cultural activities.
Fostering the spirit of calling for virtue, enjoining the good and prohibiting evil,
creating respect for the law.
Respecting other people & observing their rights in social relations.
Physical goals:
Providing suitable conditions for physical health & spiritual hygiene.
Observing public hygiene & conserving the environment.
Paying attention to physical education as a ground for the spiritual growth of man.
Economic goals:
Training students to participate in agriculture, industry, & service sections in
order to lead the country toward self-sufficiency.
Creating a spirit of contentment and avoiding lavish practices in all aspects of
the economy.
Paying attention to the importance of economic growth as a means towards the
growth of the social development.
Strengthening the value of work.
Discovering the economic resources of the country and adopting proper meth-
ods for their exploitation (Hakimi, 2005).
The Teacher Education System
There are two types of teacher training institutions in Iran. Teacher training centers
mainly train teachers for primary and junior secondary schools, and the universities
train teachers for secondary schools. The following sections provide a brief description
of these institutions (Institute of Research & Planning, 2002).
Teacher Training Centers
Teacher training centers are post-secondary institutes that select their students among
high school graduates. Those graduates who wish to continue their studies in these
centers should take part in a nationwide entrance examination.
Students in teacher training centers receive their training in boarding facilities during
their two year studies. After having completed their courses, students are awarded an
Associate Degree, and begin their careers in primary or guidance schools. The Ministry
of Education upon their entrance to either program employs students and they are offi-
cially committed to work for a certain period anywhere that is required.
At first, the purpose of establishing teacher-training centers is to provide competent
teaching staff for primary, guidance and exceptional education. But since 2001, the
centers are also responsible for in-service training courses. It should be noted that from
2003, upon the approved constitution, a board of trustee directs these centers.
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At present, 12 teacher training programs are offered in these centers, including math-
ematics, experimental sciences, physical education, social studies, primary education,
Persian language and literature, fostering affairs, Islamic teaching and Arabic language,
arts, and special needs education (mentally retarded, blind & deaf).
In the present decade, because of reduction in student enrollment at primary and
lower secondary schools, the number of teacher training centers have been reduced and
the annual admission capacity of these centers has been reduced, too. In 20022003,
there were 69 Teacher Training Centers, with a total of 9,729 students and 970 staff,
trying to meet the needs of primary and lower secondary education.
Teacher Training Programs in Universities
The teaching staff for secondary education, both in the academic and vocational streams,
are conducted by the universities and higher education institutes. In addition to the
teacher training universities, other universities & colleges also offer teacher training pro-
grams. Students who study in these programs have to take courses in pedagogy and edu-
cation psychology, along with specialized courses (Institute of Research & Planning,
2002, 2003).
About 270 students in ten fields were admitted to teacher training programs offered
by universities in 2003. The Ministry of Education employs students upon their
entrance to either program. The admitted students sign official documents related to
their employment.
According to the agreement made by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry
of Science, Research and Technology, some of the applicants who sit the nationwide
university entrance examination can also apply for special courses required by the
Ministry of Education every year. The Ministry of Education employs these students as
they start their university studies. Their teaching career starts after graduation through
the one-year course.
These students are often selected from the native high schools graduates, and are
trained for local schools. In most of the rural and deprived regions of the country, the
supply of the required teachers is maintained by this way (Institute of Research &
Planning, 2002, 2003; Public Relations Office, 2003).
Technical and Vocational Colleges
Technical and Vocational Colleges act under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Higher
Technical and Vocational Education, and are training technical teachers and techni-
cians. These colleges select their students among the graduates of secondary, technical
and vocational and Kar-Danesh schools.
In 2003, there are 142 Technical and Vocational colleges, with some of their gradu-
ates maintaining the required manpower for the secondary technical and vocational and
Kar-Danesh schools. Because of the recent development in these branches, the demand
for TVE teacher has greatly expanded. The colleges offer around 40 fields of study,
which include: Construction, Electronics, Computer, Food industries, Wood Industry,
Ceramics, Industrial design, etc.
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In 20022003, the annual admission was around 50,000 students and at present about
130,000 students are studying in these colleges. Research shows the number of techni-
cal and vocational Collages increased from 101 in 19971998 to 143 in 20022003
(Hakimi, 2005).
In-Service Training Courses
In order to update teachers knowledge and skills as well as training administrative
personnel in the Ministry of Education, the Bureau for Scientific Promotion of Human
Resources develops short-term and long-term courses for all the Ministrys personnel,
including the teaching staff. In-service training for the teaching staff are of different
length and are provided in different institutes. There are two types of in-service courses
for teachers and they are differentiated by their duration.
Long-term courses are programs that lead to higher degrees. These courses are
offered at three levels of associate, bachelor, and master degrees in the different cen-
ters and colleges. Until 2001, most of the teachers and educational staff were admitted
to Higher In-service Education Centers, which were under the jurisdiction of the
Ministry of Education. Since 2002, in-service, long-term degree programs have been
offered by other universities and higher education institutes. Teacher training centers
also provide In-Service evening and summer training courses leading to equivalent
associate and bachelor degrees.
Short-term in-service training courses aim to improve specific competencies of the
teachers and educational staff. In some cases such as pre-employment training, train-
ing for promotion and training for teaching, teaching in special courses (such as
reformed programs, because of the latest changes in textbooks) participation in these
course is compulsory. It is obligatory to have some of the certificates of short-term
in-service training courses in order to be promoted.
There are intensive courses in the summer time, regular courses during the academic
year, seminars, educational meetings, etc. The courses are held in two different ways,
being either centralized and decentralized. In 2002, a total of 10,982 courses were
offered and about one million teachers participated in these courses.
The educational content of the short-term In-service training programs is divided
into two categories: general and special courses. General courses include Islamic
Courses, Political Themes, and pedagogy, and specialized courses pertain to specific
teaching subjects.
In addition to the above-mentioned courses, there are educational seminars and
scientific conferences, which are held to increase the general and scientific knowledge
of teachers and other personnel of the Ministry (Hakimi, 2005).
Recent Educational Innovations
The following section describes three major strategies implemented by the govern-
ment to improve the effectiveness of the school system. The first strategy is the
Education for All Plan which is a major endeavor of the country trying to shift the
emphasize from an elitist to a more equitable education system. This plan attempts to
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redefine the meaning of school effectiveness by setting a vision that education is a
basic right of all citizens of the country. The second strategy is student organizations
which are statutory bodies created by the government but managed by the students
themselves. The purpose of student organizations is to encourage self-management and
participation of the students in school affairs. Self-management, or taking control of
oneself, is seen as a primary factor determining educational success. The third strategy
is information and communication technology which is a common approach employed
by many countries to build the knowledge platform for teaching and learning (Ministry
of Education, 2003c, 2003d).
Education For All (EFA) Plan
Since early 2000, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran initiated preliminary
efforts to prepare and implement the Education For All Plan. On the one hand, key
steps were taken to adapt the plan to the education system of the country, and on the
other, all respective systems and micro systems were asked to fully recognize the plan.
Continuous and goal-based efforts resulted in introducing the EFA National Plan with
the collaboration of other sectors and sub-sectors of the countrys education system, and
was coordinated by officials and organizations relevant to the plan and approved by the
Cabinet and respective authorities.
Education For All is seen as a grand educational experiment of the country. It now
stands in an exclusive place in the development plans of the country and is included as
a provision in the 4th Development Plan. Furthermore, dissemination of the plan in the
provinces and various districts of the Ministry of Education has always been regarded
as a key strategy, so as all provinces of the country have already started preparing their
own EFA document, setting their goals and organizing all their activities in line with
EFA Plan (Ministry of Education, 2005).
To implement the Dakar Framework for Action in Iran, the following actions were
taken under the supervision of the Ministry of Education:
Bringing the subject to the Cabinet for approval underscoring the need for inclu-
sion of EFA Plan in the Fourth and Fifth Economic, Social, and Cultural Plans of
the country.
Organizing the EFA National working Group in the MOE, formed by representa-
tives from relevant Ministries and organizations based on government approval.
Drawing up the EFA National Plan to be approved by the Government and to com-
municate it to the Management & Planning Organization, all ministries end adminis-
trative institutions for further coordination with MOE.
Organizing the EFA Coordination and Monitoring Department.
Allocating funds for implementation of the EFA Plan in the Budget Law, and
specifying the budget distribution system of the Plan based on certain criteria
such as under development poverty index of provinces, promotional activities for
pre-primary education, increasing enrollment rate at primary and lower secondary,
parents training, teachers training, life/citizenship skills education for children,
research, assessment and evaluation.
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Helping the EFA coordination Committee in the provinces to develop national and
provincial action plans in line with the objectives of EFA Plan, and sending related
circulars signed by Minister of Education throughout the country.
Upgrading experts capabilities for planning at provincial level through organiz-
ing training courses, technical meetings, drawing up a framework for a provincial
action plan as well as conducting activities to develop the EFA Document of the
province.
Forming technical committees for pre-school, basic, literacy, adult, special chil-
dren, our-of-school education, information and statistics, reviewing records of the
EFA Plan for provinces all over the country and submitting required feedback.
Outlining a comprehensive system of proper monitoring and assessment of the
EFA terms of budget allocation at the provincial level for academic year 2005
2006.
Organizing a 15-day training course, Decentralized Education planning In Iran,
with the collaboration of MOE, UNESCO Regional Office in Tehran and UNESCO
Office in Thailand to introduce Analysis & Projection ANPRO-model for educa-
tional planning system and to set up a technical committee to examine the model
and its mechanism for MOEs educational planning system (Hakimi, 2005; Ministry
of Education, 2005).
Student Organizations
Islamic Republic of Irans Student Organization was established in 1999 in order to
enhance the religious, moral, intellectual, emotional, scientific and social characteris-
tics of students and to pave the way for their all-around participation in ideological,
cultural, social, political, athletic areas. It operates under specific rules and regulations
established by the supervision of the Ministry of Education. The Islamic Consultative
Assembly (Iranian Parliament) officially ratified it in 2002 as a non-governmental
organization. Constituents of this organization are Board of Trustees, Planning coun-
cil, President and General Assembly (Congress). The Minister of Education appoints
the head of this organization for a four-year term. The main duties of this organization
are as follows:
Making a general call for the participation of all target groups and concerned
members in the society in order to materialize the organizations objectives.
Planning students out-of-school extracurricular activities.
Conducting research, organizing training and counseling services to improve mem-
ber students capabilities.
Adopting proper educational approaches for ideological and ethical development
of the students.
Establishing relations with cultural and scientific centers and similar grouping at
the national and international level through relevant channels in order to share
experiences and information and to promote mutual cooperation.
Organizing meetings, forums, seminars, festivals, camps, sport and cultural events,
congresses and other gatherings for the member students.
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The grouping activities accomplished through various programs including camp-
ing expeditions, artistic, cultural and sport events and the organizing of different
forums for discussion of educational matters, intellectual pursuits and social aff-
airs. All these activities are aimed at enhancing the students understanding of, and
capacity as a member of, civil society, embarking on a lifelong commitment to
improving the quality of personal commitment to the social contract that binds all
communities and nations. These efforts are essential in preparing todays students
for undertaking their responsibilities as the leaders of tomorrows world (Ministry
of Education, 2003c).
The Student Organizations headquarters is located in Tehran. It supervises and mon-
itors the activities and young scholar-centered programs run by its 29 provincial
branches. This network encompasses 400 camps and 1,200 centers nationwide. At pres-
ent, some 3,000,000 students are listed on the Student Organizations membership. The
Student Organization has planning councils at the provincial and city levels in order to
arrange the required planning coordination and support (Ministry of Education, 2003c,
2003d).
Student Parliament is a newly-established body founded in 2001. The Student Parlia-
ment consists of 270 delegates between ages 15 and 18 who represent their peers, that
is, secondary level students nationwide. When a new round of elections is to be held,
another 150 students will be voted in, due to some changes adopted on the number of
delegates.
To date, this body has set up various committees such as the Committee on
Sustainable Development and the Education Committee to attract wide-ranging partici-
pation of youth in social affairs. The Student Parliament has held two plenary meetings.
In its second session (1214 October 2002) in Tehran , the Secretary General of the
European Youth Parliament (EYP) and a representative of international Youth Parliament
Action Partner, were the distinguished guests of the Student Organization (Ministry of
Education, 2003d).
Elections are held first at the high school level for 1518-year-old students, then at
the district level. Those who are elected at the district level are eligible to compete in
elections at the city level and finally in nationwide polls to determine the sitting rep-
resentatives of the Student Parliament. Information on the student parliament can be
found at www.irsp.ir (Hakimi, 2005).
The Club of the Young Science Researcher is an educational, research and cultural
institute. This Club is affiliated to the Ministry of Education. It was established in
September 1995 with the aim of identification, absorption, development, support and
guidance of gifted students, and enhancement of their scientific knowledge. The mem-
bers of this Club are mostly the youth aged 1525 years who will be selected through
a series of competitions which are held at school, region and nationwide. The head
office of the Club is located in Tehran and the Club may establish some branches in
other parts of the country.
The Club indeed has a Board of Trustees, a Chief and a Council of the Club. The
Chief of Club is responsible for the execution of the Board of Trustees decisions
and supervises the good performance of the Club. Current activities of the Club
include:
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Selecting, training and dispatching various teams of students and their supervisors
to international competitions.
Holding scientific meetings and lectures with Iranian scholars, authorities, and
scientists who reside in Iran or abroad.
Organizing new research groups, supporting the existing groups and paying the
principal costs.
Holding different competitions throughout the country in order to identify the
talented and creative students.
Providing cultural, sports and supporting services for the members (Ministry of
Education, 2003e).
Information and Communication Technology
The development in information and communication technology enlarges the learning
opportunities of students and enables teachers to gain access to the world wide infor-
mation hub which was previously impossible using traditional methods. In addition to
the enhancement of teaching and learning, ICT also promotes effective management in
schools and in the central administration. Hence, ICT competence has been identified
as one of the priorities in Irans National Plan. In this regard, the ministry of education
decided to cooperate with the ICT companies in the private sector to expand the imple-
mentation of ICT in schools. The Bureau for Information and Communication Techno-
logy Development was organized in 2002 to supervise the procedure of these projects.
Through the effort of this Bureau, 7,000 teachers (25% of Tehran high school teachers)
received basic ICT training in the 20032004 school year, and additional training after
that (Institute of Research & Planning, 2005).
Recently, the Smart School Project is conceptualized among some pilot schools.
These schools are managed through computer and network. The majority of lessons are
taught electronically. The goals of creating this kind of school are to develop students
holistically; to improve individual competence; to train thoughtful IT men and women;
and to enhance peoples contribution to the society (Hakimi, 2005).
Challenges and Possibilities
School effectiveness, school improvement and education reform are important issues that
have engaged educators and academics in the education community for the past 40 years.
Recently, the Islamic Republic of Iran was catching up to this dialogue. What prompts
decision makers in Iran to pay attention to the effectiveness of their schools and do some-
thing about it is perhaps not because of external pressure such as global economic com-
petition or western influence, but an awareness that some parts within the system are not
working properly. Now that there are sufficient school places for the the entire school age
population, and decision makers are ready to takle the problems of effectiveness, there are
a number of challenges that they need to confront. These challenges can be summarized
in four major areas, including inadequate financial support from the government, the high
cost of education, an obsolete system, and instability within the system.
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The education system in the Islamic Republic of Iran has long been suffering from
inadequate financial resources. This problem is exhibited in the form of inadequate
and outdated school buildings and facilities, shortage of equipment and special facili-
ties, lack of facilities and equipment for technical and vocational educational institu-
tions, and inadequate provision of research facilities in the universities.
Added to the inadequacy of financial resources from the Ministry of Education, the
education system is also suffering from economy poverty, which prevents parents from
providing incidental expenses in education for their children. Some families simply
cannot afford the school fees plus other accompanying expenses, which lowers the
enrolment in high schools significantly.
Apart from financial concerns, the system is also seriously in need of rejuvenation.
In most primary and secondary schools, there is a lack of flexibility in the contents and
methods of teaching. Most of the teachers are relying on the traditional teacher-centered
approach in curriculum planning and lesson delivery. Hence, learning in classrooms
mainly becomes rote memorization, resulting in the absence of creativity, order, respon-
sibility, respect for others, and variations in instructional activity. Yet, what contributes
most to this traditional approach in teaching and learning is the shortage of incentives
within the system for teachers to improve and build competence, which causes low
motivation and morale among teachers.
The final challenge in Irans education system is instability within the system. On the
one hand, there is a large fluctuation in the demand of school places and student popu-
lation. The social demand for upper secondary education, especially in underprivileged
areas, constantly fluctuates due to regional economic and social problems. Also, many
young people migrate to large cities which makes the estimation of student populations
difficult. On the other hand, the forces of globalization compel policy makers to
frequently change education policies which create gaps in standards and quality.
Given these challenges, it is no wonder that the decision makers in Iran are not
targeting large scale plans or grand schemes to improve the system. Often, only small
steps are needed as long as one finds the right leverages. The Education for All Plan
sets a new vision of education for the country, the various student organizations are
important mechanisms to initiate student participation and self-management, and
information and communication technology can be seen as a knowledge platform for a
new generation of teaching and learning. These could all be promising levers for
enhancing school effectiveness in Iran. However, if the Islamic Republic of Iran
continues to engage in dialogues with the international community regarding school
effectiveness and education reform, perhaps they need to be able to answer the question:
what is effectiveness and in what social contexts?
References
Academic, Technical and Vocational and Kar-Danesh. (2003). Educational information and activities
(mimeograph). Iran: Deputy Ministry of Academic and Vocational Education, Bureaus of Academic &
Pre-University.
Hakimi, A. (2005). A general overview of education in the Islamic Republic of Iran (2nd ed.). Iran: Institute
for Education Research Publication.
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Institute of Research & Planning. (2002). Higher education in Iran, a national report. Iran: Institute of
Research & Planning, Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology.
Institute of Research & Planning. (2003). Annual statistics of higher education in Iran, 20022003. Iran:
Institute of Research & Planning, Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology.
Institute of Research & Planning. (2005). Information technology activities of Tehran Education Organization,
2005. Iran: Institute of Research & Planning, Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology.
Literacy Movement Organization. (2002). Educational information and statistics of literacy movement
activities (mimeograph). Iran: Literacy Movement Organization, Ministry of Education.
Literacy Movement Organization. (2003). Report of a decade of literacy movement activities (mimeograph).
Iran: Literacy Movement Organization, Ministry of Education.
Ministry of Education. (2003a). Education in the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2003. Iran: Ministry of Education.
Ministry of Education. (2003b). Educational information and activities (in Persian). Iran: Organization for
Research & Educational Planning, Ministry of Education.
Ministry of Education. (2003c). Educational information and activities: Irans student organization (in
Persian). Iran: Ministry of Education.
Ministry of Education. (2003d). Educational information and activities: Student Parliament (in Persian).
Iran: Ministry of Education.
Ministry of Education. (2003e). Educational information and activities: Development and equipments of
schools (in Persian). Iran: National Organization for Reconstruction, Ministry of Education.
Ministry of Education. (2005). Education for all: National plan of Islamic Republic of Iran, country report,
20002005. Iran: Ministry of Education.
Public Relations Office. (2003). Annual statistics of higher education in Islamic Azad University, 20022003.
Iran: Public Relations Office, Islamic Azad University.
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Section 3
RESOURCES, SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS
AND IMPROVEMENT
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OECD countries on average spend 5.6% of their GDP on education, varying between
7.1 and 4.1%. As a proportion of per capita GDP the allocation of spending to school
education varies between 31% (Denmark) and 18% (Slovakia) (OECD, 2004). This
expenditure mobilises resources which produce a wide range of educational outcomes.
The immediate outputs of schooling are the cognitive knowledge and skills acquired by
pupils and the less tangible benefits of socialisation involving the development of
behaviours and attitudes that contribute positively to social welfare. The longer term
outcomes of schooling include the additional income individuals earn as a consequence
of their education, and the various non-monetary benefits claimed for education, such
as better health, parenting, reduced crime and greater social cohesion.
The obvious questions for policy are whether the right amount of national resources
are being allocated to education. If more is spent, will educational output rise and will it
rise sufficiently for the marginal benefits to outweigh the marginal costs? Are the exist-
ing resources being spent efficiently? If the same amount were allocated differently say
to increasing class sizes and using the money saved to increase ICT provision would
school outputs increase? Or do schools generally use resources inefficiently because
they lack the incentives to be more efficient? All these questions are much easier to ask
than they are to answer. In this chapter, I will examine the methodological reasons for
these questions being challenging. I then give an overview of the state of current empir-
ical evidence for European countries on the relationship between school resources and
pupil attainment. The theoretical framework used in the research reviewed is the educa-
tion production function, in which school outputs depend on resource inputs. One of the
limitations of this research field is that it has almost exclusively focused on easily meas-
urable outputs of schools, which are tests of individuals cognitive attainment while at
school and earnings in later life.
I focus mainly on evidence concerning the effects of overall expenditure per pupil,
class size and the pupilteacher ratio on pupils attainment and earnings. If the evi-
dence shows no systematic relationship between school resources and attainment as
395
22
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STUDENT
ATTAINMENT AND SCHOOL RESOURCES
Rosalind Leva ci c
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2007 Springer.
maintained from reviews of the US literature by Hanushek (1997) then it is apparent
that schools are inefficient since spending more does not systematically result in more
output. The consequent policy inference is that the incentive systems facing schools
need to be changed so that the methods by which schools receive their resources and man-
age them encourage their efficient use. Hence, there is interest in investigating whether
decentralised systems with greater school autonomy are more efficient (produce more
output per unit of resource) than centralised systems.
The Context-Input-Process-Outcome Model of Schools
Economists and school effectiveness researchers work within the same theoretical
framework but emphasise different aspects of it. This is the context-input-process-output
model of the school, which has been developed over the last 35 years in the school effec-
tiveness and education production function literature (Glewwe, 2002; Reynolds &
Teddlie, 1999; Scheerens, 1997, 1999; Willms, 1992). In the basic model, pupil out-
comes (outputs) are determined by some combination and interaction of the contextual,
input and process variables. Contextual variables (e.g., school type, governance, local
community and social composition) are not directly under school control, especially in
the short term.
Two types of inputs are distinguished, resource inputs and pupil inputs. Resource
inputs, which have to be acquired by spending money, are subdivided into monetary and
real inputs. Monetary inputs include total school revenue and expenditure per pupil per
period of time and the allocation of the school budget between expenditure on inputs,
such as teachers, classroom support staff, administrative staff, learning resources and
the upkeep of the schools physical environment (rental value, maintenance, cleaning,
utilities). Real inputs are those measured in physical quantities, such as the pupil
teacher or pupil staff ratio, stock of learning resources, facilities and space. Pupil inputs
are the characteristics of the individual pupil that affect their learning outcomes. These
are further divided into prior attainment and pupil characteristics, in particular, age,
gender, ethnicity and family background. Aggregate pupil input variables, such as the
average initial ability of pupils in the school, are contextual variables. The pupil inputs
are particularly crucial in assessing the productivity and efficiency of a school. To meas-
ure the impact of resource inputs, the pupil input variables that affect educational attain-
ment must be controlled for.
Resource inputs are utilized through various school processes, which should con-
tribute to pupils learning. As Cohen, Raudenbush, and Ball (2003, p. 135) argue,
resources do not cause learning systems of instruction are the cause and resources the
facilitators or inhibitors of learning. School processes themselves, while being enabled
by resources or restricted by lack of them, also have their own independent effects on
learning. School processes embrace a wide range of complex constructs that relate to
school climate (or culture) and to teaching and learning. These processes operate at dif-
ferent levels, in particular school-wide influences and those that operate specifically at
the class level. A more efficient school is one, which for a given level of resources, has
processes that achieve more pupil progress in learning than the average school. School
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effectiveness researchers have endeavoured to find school process variables that are
associated with more effective schools, referring to these as school effectiveness corre-
lates. Economists have largely treated school processes as a black box.
An important issue in school effectiveness research is the division of process variables
between school and classroom level. In general, research has found that the class level
contributes more to the variance of pupil outcomes than the school level (Reynolds &
Teddlie, 1999). The classroom is where the interplay of all the key variables occurs in
interactions between pupils and between pupils and teachers. These are influenced by
pupil input variables as well as by affective variables such as pupil self-concept and atti-
tudes to learning, which can be influenced by the school. It is here that the influence of
resourcing variables on class size, teacher and support-staff quality, learning resources
and the physical environment interact with pupil input and process variables to determine
pupil outcomes.
In this framework, the effects flow from context, both as an independent influence
and via its influence on pupil and resource inputs, to processes, which are made pos-
sible by the flow of resources. Processes impact on the efficiency of resource usage,
by mediating the effects of resources on the various tangible and intangible current
and future outputs of the school. However, the causal relationships are likely to flow
in more than one direction. While the prime relationship of interest is the effect of
school resources on pupil attainment, there may well be reverse relationships from
pupil attainment to resources. This may be positive or negative. It is positive if the
parents of better motivated or more able pupils, who are consequently higher attain-
ing, select better resourced schools. Alternatively, the influence of pupil attainment
on resourcing is inverse when governments practise compensatory funding, allocat-
ing more revenue per pupil to schools with higher concentrations of socially dis-
advantaged pupils. There is also a tendency within schools when setting pupils by
ability to place less able pupils in smaller classes. If there is compensatory resourcing,
then a simple correlation between pupil attainment and resources per pupil will show
that higher expenditure per pupil is associated with lower attainment. Thus a major
problem for education production function research is estimating a causal effect of
resources on pupil attainment when there is two-way causality between attainment and
resourcing.
Methodological Issues in Estimating Education
Production Functions
For the purposes of obtaining a statistical estimate of the relationship between pupil
attainment and resources using regression analysis, the context-input-process-output
model is simplified to a single equation in which attainment is the dependent variable
and the context, input and process variables (if included) appear as independent variables
on the right side of the estimation equation. A general form of the education production
function is:
(1) Q
sijk
= f(X
jk
,V
ijk
, C
jk
, L
k
),
Student Attainment and School Resources 397
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where, Q
sijk
attainment in subject s of pupil i in school j in area k; X
jk
vector
1
of
school resources per pupil at school j in area k; V
ijk
vector of pupil characteristics of
pupil i at school j in area k; C
jk
vector of school level variables indicating school
type, age range, pupil composition etc; L
k
vector of Local Education Authority
(LEA) variables for all schools in area k.
In this model there are three levels the pupil, school and area in which the school
is located, which can include education authorities which manage schools as well as
neighbourhoods. Different functional forms of Equation 1 can be assumed linear and
log linear being the usual ones. The linear form of the equation estimated is given by:
Q
sijk
= + X
jk
+ V
ijk
+ C
jk
+
Lk
+ e
sijk
, (2)
where, is a constant and e
sijk
is the random error term at pupil level.
To estimate the size of the causal effect of resources on attainment the coeffi-
cient(s) we need to have an unbiased estimate. This requires that the error terms of
the pupil observations are not correlated with each other or with any of the independ-
ent variables. This condition is violated if there are omitted variables that affect attain-
ment and are also correlated with resources. It is also violated if resources depend
directly on attainment, as happens if schools with lower attaining pupils are funded
more per pupil or if parents of high ability children select better resourced schools. In
such cases resources are said to be endogenous. An endogenous variable is one that
depends on other variables. In contrast, an exogenous variable is completely inde-
pendent of other variables in the model. So, for a single equation, like Equation 2, to
produce unbiased estimates of the coefficients, which measure the effect of
resources on attainment, resources must be exogenous.
If lower attaining pupils mean higher resourcing per pupil, then the estimate of the
size of the resource effect will be biased downwards. Alternatively, if high abil-
ity pupils are selected into better resourced schools than is biased upwards.
There are a number of ways of trying to get round the endogeneity problem. One
way is to have random controlled experiments, where some randomly assigned schools
or pupils are allocated additional resources and others are not, so creating treatment
and control groups. The best known example of such research design is in the
Tennessee STAR experiment on reducing class size. However, production function
studies utilizing experimental data are quite rare: most studies rely on data collected
from natural settings. For such studies there are two compatible approaches to tackling
endogeneity:
(1) minimizing the problem of omitted variables by including a wide range of variables
that affect pupil attainment;
2
(2) finding one or more instrumental variables which explain school resources per
pupil but are not correlated with pupil attainment.
In essence, changes in the value of the instrumental variable cause resources to change
independently of attainment and so achieve the exogenous variation in resources needed
to obtain an unbiased estimate of the resource effect. The main difficulty is finding
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good instruments, since they have to cause significant variation in resources (or any
other independent variable of interest in a regression equation) while not being cor-
related with the dependent variable in this case attainment. A good instrument is some
policy rule or regime change that causes resources to vary independently of pupil attain-
ment. Many of the studies reported later in the chapter use instrumental variables and the
quality of the results depends on the quality of the instruments used, there being no fail-
safe test of whether an instrument is not correlated with the dependent variable. When
studies use just a single equation without any instrumental variables they are referred to
as using the method of ordinary least squares (OLS).
Economists are particularly concerned about endogeneity, whereas school effective-
ness researchers are more concerned with modelling hierarchical relationships in the data.
These arise when one set of observations pupils for example are nested in another
set classrooms, which in turn are nested in schools. When observations are nested or
clustered, the error terms of pupils in the same class or school are correlated when the
pupils experience a common effect of being in the same class or school. One way of
removing the bias to standard errors due to clustering is to apply multilevel modelling, in
which random effects are assumed at each level included in the analysis (e.g., at pupil,
class and school level). Another way is to still assume random effects only at pupil level
but to correct the standard errors for the effects of clustering.
In reviewing the evidence on the relationship between school resources and pupil
attainment, it is only worth considering studies which have addressed these method-
ological problems. Many of the older studies in particular prior to 1990 did not take
into account the endogeneity of resources and/or the hierarchical nature of the data or
used data aggregated to school or local education authority level. The quality of the data
largely determines the quality of the statistical analysis that can be done. If the data are
from natural settings then large data sets are needed, which contain many of the vari-
ables affecting attainment. A good quality study should have the following features:
use pupil level data and have an outcome measure in terms of exam results, con-
tinuing in education, or wages;
include at least one resource measure at school level such as expenditure per pupil,
teacher pupil ratio, class size;
prior attainment or family variables are included as controls;
the method of estimation is clearly identified and estimated coefficients with
standard errors/t statistics are reported.
Three groups of studies, which meet these criteria, are reviewed below. They are grouped
according to geographical area: the UK, the rest of Europe and OECD.
UK Studies
As elsewhere, the quality of UK research on the education production function is highly
dependent on the quality of the available data. Until recently the most popular dataset
for good quality UK studies was the National Child Development Study (NCDS) of a
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sample of people born in one week in March 1958. This dataset includes good family
background variables and tests of English and maths taken at 7 and 11 as well as sub-
sequent examination results. However, the studies report on education production func-
tion relationships from the-mid 1970s which is of limited use for policy purposes. More
recent work in England is able to use the new National Pupil Database (NPD). This has
extensive data on prior attainment, pupil level and school context variables to which
school resource data can be added (Jenkins, Levaci c, & Vignoles, 2006; Leva ci c,
Jenkins, & Vignoles, 2004).
National Child Development Studies
There are five studies using NCDS which include estimates of resource effects:
(Dearden, Ferri, & Meghir, 2001; Dolton & Vignoles, 2000; Dustmann, Rajah, & van
Soest, 2003; Feinstein & Symons, 1999; Iacovou, 2002). These studies use a variety of
outcome measures reading and maths scores at 7 and 11, O level English and maths,
3
post-16 participation in education and wages at 23, 33 and 42 years of age. Between
them these studies include class size, the student-teacher ratio and expenditure at LEA
level as resource variables. The NCDS studies have a relatively large number of con-
trol variables for family background, prior attainment, gender, peer group and school
type attended and largely rely on the inclusion of a large number of controls to cope
with endogeneity. It is notable that resource effects in some of the studies disappear
once the full set of controls is included. Iavocou (2002) uses the interaction between
class size and school type as an instrumental variable and finds class size significant
for reading at age 7 and 11.
Dustmann et al. (2003) found a negative effect of higher student teacher ratios (PTR)
at 16 on the decision to stay on in full time education but not a direct effect of the PTR
on wages. However, participating in full time education post 16 did have a positive
effect on wages at 33 and 42, indicating a small indirect effect of PTR on wages.
4
Dolton and Vignoles found significant effects of the PTR on maths and English O level
results and earnings, and Dearden et al. on womens wages. Iacovou (2002) reports a
positive effect of smaller class size on maths for young children.
National Pupil Database studies
In 2002 the Pupil Level Annual Census of Schools was introduced. It collects data on all
pupils in England of compulsory school age. These data are combined with the Key
Stage 1, 2 and 3 test results and GCSE examination scores of all 16 year olds in England
(apart from a very small percentage who have such severe special educational needs or
behavioural problems that they are not entered) to produce the NPD. This has enabled
great progress to be made in researching the factors affecting pupil attainment, including
resources. Two recent studies by (Jenkins et al., 2006; Leva ci c et al., 2004) have used
these data to investigate the impact of resources on pupil attainment in English second-
ary schools. Two cohorts of pupils have been studied, 13/14 year olds taking Key Stage
3 tests in English, maths and science in 2003 and 15/16 year olds results also in 2003
in the school leaving examination, the General Certificate of Secondary Education
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(GCSE). The NPD also provided data on the pupils prior attainment at Key Stage 2
(KS2) taken at age 11 at the end of primary schooling.. The dataset also includes a range
of pupil characteristics gender, special educational needs (SEN) category, ethnicity,
English as a first language, age and eligibility for free school meals. In addition, it con-
tains data on pupils home post-codes, which were linked to census so providing several
indicators of the socio-economic characteristics of each pupils neighbourhood.
The study focused on three main resource variables: expenditure per pupil, the aver-
age pupil teacher ratio in the school and the ratio of pupils to non-teaching staff.
Regional differences in input costs were adjusted for by deflating expenditure per
pupil by a measure of relative area input costs. A large number of variables describing
the context of the school (size, proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals, with
additional educational needs, boy or girl only school) was included, as was information
on school type; that is, age range, selective, denominational, and particular school
categories in receipt of additional funding, such as specialist schools, Excellence in
Cities, Leading Edge, in Special Measures etc.
5
The data were assembled for the five
years the GCSE pupils had been in secondary school, from 1998/1999 to 2002/2003
and averaged over the five years. For the KS3 pupils, variables averaged over three
years were used. The dataset contained around 3,000 secondary schools and over
4,50,000 pupils.
Both studies address the endogeneity problem by utilising instrumental variables
(IV). The two IVs selected derive from the specific features of the English school
finance system. Schools are administered by 150 local education authorities
(LEAs) which, at the time of the analysis, were still responsible for determining the
amount of funding received by schools in their jurisdiction. Three quarters of the
funding came from a central government block grant for all local services and about
a quarter raised by a local property tax. Regression analysis showed that the num-
ber of years a political party had been in control explained some of the variation in
school revenue per pupil. Another factor which affects schools revenue per pupil is
school size, with smaller schools receiving more. However, once one can include a
wide range of school context variables, including capacity utilisation, school size is
not statistically significantly related to pupil attainment. Hence political control
and school size were used as instruments for expenditure per pupil and staffing per
pupil. Separate equations were fitted for expenditure and staffing since to include
them both in the same regression equation would bias the expenditure estimate
downwards.
6
Statistically significant and positive resource effects were found for maths and sci-
ence at KS3. The coefficient on the pupil teacher ratio was negative; hence a reduc-
tion in the pupil teacher ratio had a statistically significant positive effect on maths
and science attainment. The estimated resource effects were modest. Spending 100
more per pupil per year (ceteris paribus) would raise maths and science attainment at
KS3 on average by 0.04 of a level, compared to the expected progress of half a level
a year. Reducing the pupil teacher ratio by one for the whole school would raise maths
attainment at KS3 by just under 0.1 of a level and science by 0.12 levels. Pound for
pound spending on reducing the pupil teacher ratio had more impact on maths and
science than a general increase in spending of the same amount. Similar results were
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found for GCSE. Increased expenditure per pupil and a reduction in the pupil
teacher ratio had a positive impact on the total GCSE capped score (i.e., limited to
the best eight subjects) and on science but not on mathematics, except for the least
able pupils. Again the effects were modest. An additional 100 per annum increased
capped GCSE by 0.3 grades and science by 0.05 grades whereas one pupil less per
class was estimated to raise GCSE by 0.8 grades and science by 0.25 grades.
Increasing the number of non-teaching staff per pupil had a very small positive
effect only for KS3 science and English and GCSE maths. Expenditure per pupil and
the pupil teacher ratio had no impact on English results at KS3 or at GCSE. It is
likely that attainment in English is much more influenced by home background than
attainment in maths and science. Both studies also examined whether resource
effects differed for different types of pupil. At KS3 resources had a greater effect on
pupils eligible for free school meals whereas at GCSE the impact was greater for
pupils of lower ability (as measured by their KS2 results). Whereas resources (apart
from non-teaching staff ) were not significant for mathematics overall, both expen-
diture per pupil and a reduced pupil-teacher ratio had a statistically significant pos-
itive effect for the lowest 40% by ability. There was also more impact of resources on
GCSE results (but not KS3) for pupils with milder forms of special educational
need.
7
It should be borne in mind that these are marginal effects of small changes in
resources from current levels and so do not indicate that firing all English teachers
would have no effect on results!
Some other English studies, also utilising the NPD, have evaluated the effects of
natural experiments, where a specific educational intervention has included additional
resourcing. An important intervention introduced in 1999 was Excellence in Cities
(EiC), which gave additional resources to schools in disadvantaged inner cities. These
provided learning mentors for pupils, Learning Support Centres to provide short-term
targeted teaching for pupils causing disruption in general classes and a enhanced pro-
grams for gifted and talented pupils. About one third of secondary schools were
eventually included in the program. However, there is enough variability in English
school contexts to identify schools with similar school communities but not in inner
cities and hence not part of EiC which are used as a control group. An evaluation of
EiC (Machin, McNally, & Meghir, 2004) found significant positive effect after 2 years,
with increasing impact over time, especially for pupils of middle and high ability in
disadvantaged schools.
Two nationally implemented government initiatives, which involved limited addi-
tional resources were the Literacy and Numeracy strategies for primary schools. These
brought in dedicated daily hours for literacy and maths and structured teaching pro-
grams. These have been favourably evaluated by government sponsored research (Earl
et al., 2003; OFSTED, 2003) but these evaluations were hampered by lack of controls
since the strategies were rolled out nationally. An evaluation by Machin and McNally
(2004) using data from an earlier pilot of the national literacy strategy compared the Key
Stage 2 results of pupils who had been taught in the pilot with those who had not, con-
trolling for pupil and school variables. This found the literacy strategy to be highly cost
effective in improving English at KS2 since a substantial improvement was achieved at
little extra cost.
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Other English Studies
The effects of class size on Advanced Level
8
examination results were studied by Graddy
and Stevens (2003) using data supplied by the Independent Schools Association. The
authors justify the use of OLS regression by arguing that because the sample is restricted
to well-off parents, school fee levels and hence class size were not selected by parents
according to their childs ability to succeed. Positive effects on A level results of smaller
classes in English independent schools are found but these may nevertheless be biased
due to endogeneity.
The Class Size and Pupil Adult Ratios (CASPAR) project studied the effects of class
size and adult presence in classrooms from reception (aged 5) to year 6 (aged 11) and
collected statistical data as well as data from interviews and class room observation
(Blatchford, Bassett, Browne, Marin, & Russell, 2004; Blatchford, Goldstein, Martin,
& Browne, 2002). There were over 150 schools at the last stage of the study. Both stud-
ies used multilevel modelling which corrects for bias in standard errors due to cluster-
ing but did not address endogeneity, which economists would see as a major weakness
of this research. Positive effects of smaller class size on literacy and numeracy were
found for the first year of schooling. The effect was stronger for pupils with the lowest
base line scores on entering school. No effects were found for later years. The first year
effect persisted for one year and then petered out. No effects were found for additional
adult support in the classroom. Qualitative data showed better teaching and more indi-
vidual attention to pupils in smaller classes but the studies did not succeed in identify-
ing any effect on measured pupil attainment after the first year.
Conclusions: Evidence from UK on Resource Effects
Employing large scale datasets, UK education production function studies generally
show small but statistically significant effects of additional resources, in terms of class
size, pupil-teacher ratio or expenditure per pupil. This finding is not universal, and in
particular is not supported by the two CASPAR studies, except for reception classes.
However, this study did not address the endogeneity problem and may not have suffi-
ciently extensive pupil background variables to exclude bias due to omitted variables.
How the resources are spent also matters on what subjects and on what kinds of pupils.
Less able and socially disadvantaged pupils tend to benefit more and there is some evi-
dence that resources devoted to science and maths have more effect than extra resources
allocated to English at least at secondary level.
Rest of Europe: Single Country Studies
As Wmann (2005, p. 453) notes regarding evidence on education production func-
tions: In Europe, there is nothing to match the US literature, and not even the litera-
ture for developing countries, with the possible limited exception of the UK. There
are few scattered studies focusing mainly on class size using specific national datasets.
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One identification strategy for class size, used in several studies, is a maximum class
size rule. Given that the size of pupil cohort varies randomly due to demographic fac-
tors, when the maximum class size has been reached, the extra pupil causes the class
to be split in two. Thus there are class size discontinuities at particular numbers of
pupils in the cohort. This class size variation is unlikely to be related to parental choice
of school, unless parents can predict at which school class size will be smaller. Another
popular instrumental variable is average class size for the cohort (year group) given
that the school has two or more classes per cohort. The actual class, which is endoge-
nous due to within or between school selection, is regressed on average class size,
which is determined by the size of the pupil cohort and the availability of teachers. The
predicted class size is then entered as the independent variable in the regression of
pupil attainment on its determinants.
Bonesronning (2003) uses the maximum class size rule and finds small negative
class size effects (i.e., smaller classes have a positive impact) in Norway. Another
Norwegian study (Haegeand, Raaum, & Salvanes, 2004) also finds positive but modest
effects of teacher hours per pupil on pupil performance at age 16 in 11 subjects. This
relies on a rich data set of family background variables to identify resource effects.
Teacher intensity coefficients change from negative to positive when the family back-
ground variables are included, indicating compensatory resourcing bias when these
variables are omitted. Lindahl (2005) finds significant class size effects for 16 schools
in Stockholm using differences between school time and summer learning to cause
exogenous variation in class size. Converse results are found for the Netherlands.
Dobbelsteen, Levin, and Oosterbeek (2002), using teacher allocation rules to schools
based on enrolment, reported a significant counter-intuitive positive effect of larger
class size on attainment. Another identification method tried by Hakkinen, Kirjavainen,
and Uusitalo (2003) is to use panel data for Finnish upper secondary schools over a
number of years to difference out school and district effects. They find no effect on
exam scores from changes in per pupil spending in the 1990s.
In summary, the European single country studies are patchy and produce contrast-
ing findings, suggesting that resource effects are country specific.
International Assessment Studies
Two international assessment datasets have been used for estimating education production
functions, TIMSS and PISA. Both studies collected extensive data on family background,
school context and school resources the latter being class size, teacher experience and
qualifications, and perceptions of resource adequacy. These studies also included survey
questions on schools institutional characteristics. TIMSS has features that enable class
size effects to be identified which PISA does not possess data on pupils in adjacent
grades and testing whole classes.
In the main only cross country studies can test the effects of different governance
arrangements, such as the degree of school autonomy. This is because institutional
arrangements are mostly determined by national policies so there is little variation
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within state schools in any given country. Private schools clearly have more auton-
omy than state schools but this is difficult to separate out from other private school
effects.
Wmann (2005) analysed TIMSS data collected in 1995 for 17 European countries
and fitted separate education production functions for each country. The pupil back-
ground measures were parents education, numbers of books and bookcases at home,
living with both parents, born in the country, gender and age. The number of pupils per
country ranged from 3,600 to 11,700 and the number of schools from 95 to 613. In
most countries there were around twice as many classes as schools in the sample. The
paper focuses mainly on class size since the researchers found instrumental variables
for this. Other resource effects are only tested in ordinary least squares regressions.
Principals reports of shortage of materials had statistically significant negative effects
9
on maths scores in 7 out of 17 countries, instruction time was significantly positive only
in Sweden. Teachers experience was statistically significant in 9 countries and teach-
ers education level was significant and positive in 2 countries. Class size effects in the
OLS specification were largely positive indicating that more able pupils were taught in
larger classes. In all countries pupil background had by far the strongest effect on pupil
attainment.
Wmann (2005) implemented two methods for identifying exogenous class size
effects. One was to instrument on average class size in the school for the cohort and
the other was to instrument on maximum class size, but the rule had to be inferred
from the data, rather than from regulations on class size. Both models are referred to
as quasi-experimental. Because pupils were in two adjacent grades, it was possible
to include fixed effects for each school by using a school dummy to control for time
invariant school effects.
10
This meant that the only source of exogenous variation is
class size differences between grades. In 6 of the 17 countries the sign on class size
became negative in the quasi-experimental models, indicating compensatory
resourcing but in only one Iceland was the coefficient statistically significant.
In assessing these findings it should be borne in mind that the identification strategy
is data demanding. Due to missing responses some values were inputed, using
results from multiple regression and so are not random. Another problem is that
cohort size is measured at the end of the school year, not the beginning when class
sizes are determined.
Another study (Ammermuller, Heijke, & Wmann, 2005) used the same dataset
and statistical method for seven East European countries. However, only two of the
countries had sufficient data to implement the instrumental variable of cohort average
class size. The class size coefficients for the Czech Republic and Romania turn from
positive in the OLS regression to negative in the IV model with fixed school effects but
are not statistically significant. This may be due to sample size, which at around 6,000
is much smaller than that of the NPD in England. In the other five countries only the
fixed effects model can be run and the class size coefficients are not statistically
significant, though two are negative. For the other resource variables, great shortage of
materials is negative and significant in three countries. There are no consistent findings
for the effects of teacher experience or qualifications.
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An OECD study on school quality and equity (OECD, 2005) using PISA 2000 data
included resource variables but the researchers, being educationists, used a multilevel
model and did not attempt any corrections for endogeneity other than relying on a rich
array of variables to minimise omitted variables bias. They find small effects in the
correct direction for the percentage of teachers with university degrees, perceived
quality of schools resources and teacher shortages.
Institutional Arrangements
There has been considerable advocacy of devolution of responsibilities for decision-mak-
ing to the school level and a general international trend to implement such institutional
arrangements. In Europe these developments have been particularly marked in the UK,
the Netherlands, Sweden, Hungary and Czech Republic. Such devolution involved vari-
ous and differing combinations of school level and central authority level responsibility
for resource management, staff appointments and conditions of service, the curriculum,
assessment and school evaluation. Making schools responsible for resource management
and funding them according to the number of pupils enrolled while holding them account-
able for pupil performance is widely advocated (and criticised) as a way of giving princi-
pals and teachers efficiency incentives. Identifying whether such policies actually have a
causal impact on pupil performance requires either internationally comparable data or
considerable variation in school autonomy within a country. The latter by and large does
not exist as devolution policies are generally rolled out nationally, so there are no treat-
ment and control schools within a given country.
A few studies have attempted to test the effects of differing degrees of school
autonomy and other institutional arrangements using evidence from surveys of
school principals in the TIMSS and PISA datasets. These collected data on school
principals assessment of the extent of principal and teacher decision making powers
over a range of functions. Ammermuller et al. (2005) found too little institutional
variation within seven Eastern European countries to identify institutional effects.
The PISA study (OECD, 2005), which included institutional variables, was similarly
hampered by analysing the data at country level a strategy dictated by the need to
allow for differentially sized country effects of pupil background, school context etc.
on attainment.
Wmann (2003b) used TIMSS pooled data for 17 west European countries to test
for the effects of institutional arrangements on pupil performance. Regression equa-
tions were fitted for all countries pooled so as to have sufficient institutional variation.
The main finding was that school autonomy in personnel, budgetary and process deci-
sions had positive impacts provided that there was a centralised examination system for
evaluating school performance. This result was replicated in a further study Wmann
(2003a) using TIMMS repeat data and by Fuchs and Wmann (2004) using PIRLS
data on reading scores of primary children in 35 countries. This found that emphasis on
teachers monitoring pupil progress, school autonomy in deciding instructional material
and teacher appointments if accompanied by external examinations, had positive effects
on reading scores.
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Conclusion
The endogeneity of school resources, in the absence of social experiments which ran-
domly assign additional resources to schools, makes it difficult to measure the causal
impact of resources on pupil outcomes. In almost all European studies data are from nat-
ural settings so that identifying a causal impact of resources requires one or more instru-
mental variables. The available evidence indicates that additional marginal resources
allocated to a general reduction in class sizes or pupil-teacher ratios has at best a small
positive effect in some countries. However, additional resources targeted at particular
subjects, such as maths and science, and particularly at less able or more socially disad-
vantaged pupils are likely to be more effective than a general increase in spending from
current levels. While teachers differ in their effectiveness this is not necessarily related to
teacher experience or level of qualification. Hence there is no simple way of identifying
the characteristics of people who should be drawn into teaching and induced to remain
in it through specific financial incentives. There is some limited evidence that school
autonomy if combined with external examinations has a favourable impact on pupil
attainment.
In economically advanced countries, where state education is by and large adequately
funded, the positive impact of a general increase in spending per pupil is at best small.
To get most impact from a given increase in educational spending requires both institu-
tional arrangements that encourage schools to use resources efficiency and careful
targeting by both schools and government agencies on curriculum areas and groups of
students who will benefit most.
Notes
1. A vector is just a list of variables.
2. The more omitted variables there are the more likely it is that changes in these cause changes in attain-
ment which in turn affect resources, so that the error term is correlated with resources (since the error
term picks up the effects of the omitted variables).
3. Ordinary level General Certificate of Education was the national school leaving examination until it
was replaced in 1988 by the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE).
4. However, Dustmann et al.s rough estimates of the impact of 1 less pupil per teacher on the subse-
quent increase in the present value of life time income suggest that the additional cost in teac-
her salaries would exceed the benefit. This of course assumes that wages are the only benefit of
lower PTRs.
5. The Department for Education and Skills has a number of programs targeted at different forms of
school improvement for which school receive additional funding. For example, Excellence in Cities is
targeted at schools in socially deprived inner cities, Leading Edge is for effective schools to dissemi-
nate good practice and Special Measures schools are those which have failed an inspection and receive
additional resources and monitoring in order to improve.
6. Todd, P. and Wolpin, K. (2003) On the specification and estimation of the production function for cog-
nitive achievement. The Economic Journal, 113, (February) points out that if expenditure per pupil is
included with the pupilteacher ratio then the coefficient on expenditure is biased downwards since for
any given expenditure, the higher the PTR the less expenditure is available for other resources.
7. In English schools and in the PLASC these are pupils who are on the special educational needs regis-
ter as school action and school action plus but who do not have statements of SEN.
8. An examination taken after 2 years study which qualifies successful candidates for university entrance.
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9. Statistical significance is reported at 1, 5, and 10%: the results reported in the text refer to 10% confidence.
10. Fixed effects (using school dummies) is economists preferred method of controlling for school
effects unlike school effectiveness researchers in the education community who use random effects
multilevel models. Economists correct for bias in standard errors due to clustering by using a cor-
rection known as robust clustered standard errors. The draw back of multilevel models such as MLwiN
for economists is that it has no standard procedure for estimations with instrumental variables.
Levaci c, R. et al. (2004) Estimating the relationships between school resources and pupil attainment
at Key Stage 3. DfES Research Report 679 use both methods. MLwiN random effects models are
applied by regressing two simultaneous equations one for attainment and one for resources. The
results for resource effects are very similar, with the resource coefficients in the multilevel model
being slightly smaller.
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Scheerens, J. (1999). Concepts and theories of school effectiveness. In A. J. Visscher (Ed.), Managing
schools towards high performance (pp. 3770). Lisse: Swets and Zeitlinger.
Todd, P., & Wolpin, K. (2003). On the specification and estimation of the production function for cognitive
achievement. The Economic Journal, 113.
Willms, J. D. (1992). Monitoring school performance: A guide for educators. London: Falmer.
Wmann, L. (2003a). Central exit exams and student achievement: International evidence. In P. E. Peterson,
& M. R. West (Eds.), No child left behind: The policy and practice of school accountability. Washington,
DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Wmann, L. (2003b). Schooling resources, educational institutions and student performance: The inter-
national evidence. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics.
Wmann, L. (2005). Educational production in Europe (pp. 445504). Economic Policy: CEPR, CES, MSH.
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Wmann,
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This chapter presents an account of the quest for school effectiveness and school
improvement in Canada with a particular focus on accountability and funding. Canada
has been part of the western post-war consensus on the importance of public education
for many years. Even after the oil price shock, inflation, and growing government
deficits of the mid 1970s, support for public education in Canada remained strong.
Gradually, however, in the 1980s, education emerged from its long period of growth and
relative insularity from competition for scarce public resources to be engulfed by
demands for accountability and increased attention to educational outcomes. From the
mid 1980s through the mid to late 1990s, most provinces exercised their jurisdictional
prerogatives to set policy agendas. In addition to limiting or reducing funding, they
revised curricula and curriculum requirements, increased regulations affecting teaching,
required more public reporting of system and student performance, increased parental
choice and inter-school competition, and pursued a variety of other measures with the
professed intention of producing better results with the same or fewer resources. These
efforts were not typically guided by a workable theory of school improvement and led to
considerable conflict. Although the pressures for accountability and outcomes have, if any-
thing, increased in the last few years, there has also been a trend for provinces to adopt a
more nuanced approach with greater attention to building capacity in the school system to
achieve better results.
Context Matters
Although the trends we identify in Canada may appear similar to those in other juris-
dictions, we believe that Canadas education policy is closely tied to unique historical
and socio-political circumstances. For instance, despite the superficial similarities
between elementary and secondary schooling in Canada and the United States, struc-
tural and values differences between the two countries propel educational policies
411
23
ACCOUNTABILITY, FUNDING AND SCHOOL
IMPROVEMENT IN CANADA
Charles Ungerleider and Ben Levin
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2007 Springer.
along divergent pathways. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to document
in detail the differences, Table 1 provides a comparison of selected features of ele-
mentary and secondary schooling in the United States and Canada. The differences
between the two countries should serve as a caution against applying generalizations
from one context to the other.
We also caution against generalizing across Canadian jurisdictions. Because educa-
tion in Canada is a matter of provincial jurisdiction, with no federal department or
office of education, making sweeping statements about educational policy is dangerous.
Whatever trend or tendency is evident in Canadas ten provinces and three territories, it
is almost certain to be contradicted in at least one jurisdiction.
412 Ungerleider and Levin
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Table 1. A comparison of selected features of elementary and secondary schooling in the United States
and Canada
Basis of comparison United States Canada
Jurisdiction for Education is a residual power Provincial legislatures have
education of the states exclusive law-making power
Influence of Moderate Strong
state/provincial
departments of education
Federal presence in Federal department of No federal department of
education education; direct funding; education; little funding and
federal laws affecting indirect influence; no
education federal law
Governmental form Representative democracy Parliamentary democracy
Status of faith-based No state support for Provincial support for
schools faith-based schools confessional,
denominational, and
dissentient schooling
Status of private No state support of private Support from 5 provinces for
schools schools private schools
Dominant pattern of Locally determined property Provincial revenues; some
school board funding taxation; some state funding; relatively modest locally
some federal funding generated revenue in some
jurisdictions
Funding equality Significant state, school Relatively modest
board, and school inequalities among
inequalities provinces, school boards,
and schools
School board autonomy Relatively autonomous Relatively dependent; school
boards diminishing in
number and influence
Status of teacher unions Only 33/50 states permit All provinces permit teacher
teacher union and employer collective bargaining; only
collective bargaining over 2/10 provinces prohibit right
wages and terms of to strike
employment; only 10/33
grant limited right to strike
Source: Ungerleider (2005b).
Developments in education also need to be seen in the context of broader social pol-
icy issues and trends in Canada and beyond. The demands for greater accountability,
improved student success, and more choice over the last 25 years were fuelled by a
variety of demographic, financial, political, ideological, and programmatic factors.
Population increase and greater emphasis on the cultivation of human capital meant
more students were entering school and staying in school longer in the post-war period.
Virtually all jurisdictions were struggling to build more schools and hire more teachers.
At the same time, the demand for more teachers helped support their claims for better
compensation and benefits.
The result was a dramatic increase in spending for education at all levels. For exam-
ple, in 1950 in Ontario, the province paid approximately 36% of school operating costs;
by 1970, the percentage had reached 60%. During the same period, the proportion of
property taxes devoted to education also doubled (Gidney, 1999). By the mid to late
1970s, the fiscal pressures on provincial governments were of sufficient magnitude that
most jurisdictions were beginning to look for ways to control education spending.
Figure 1 depicts expenditures on elementary and secondary education in Canada for the
period 19541995.
Finance and Governance
Traditionally, most Canadian provinces funded education through a combination of
provincial and local funds. Over the last several decades, however, the balance between
the two has gradually shifted toward more provincial funding. In fact, as early as the
end of the 1970s, a few provinces, most notably Quebec, were already providing the
bulk of the funds.
School Improvement in Canada 413
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Figure 1. Elementary and secondary school expenditures in Canada, 19541955 to 19941995
Source: Acquired through the data liberation initiative from the Education, culture, and tourism division,
Education finance section. Decade of education finance; Catalogue 81560. Financial Statistics of
Education; Catalogue 81208. Advance statistics of education; Catalogue 81220 Annual.
As stated earlier, the cost of education rose dramatically in the post-war period
because of the dramatic growth in the school-age population, school construction, and
the need for qualified teachers. By the early 1980s, Canadian provinces found them-
selves in a situation in which the need for funds was growing much more rapidly than
revenue. In part, this was a consequence of growing pressure for more services and
especially as a result of escalating interest rates that increased the cost of debt. At the
same time, public resistance toward further tax increases was growing stronger.
Beginning in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the issue of government spending began
to dominate the public policy agenda across Canada. Growth in government spending
helped advance the cause of those who, on ideological grounds, wished to see the role
of government in the lives of citizens diminished. In a speech to the Economic Club of
New York in 1984, Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney stated what would
become a recurrent theme for Canadians. He revealed that, as of Canadas centennial in
1967, the public debt was $4,000 for every Canadian family; by 1984, it had reached
$24,000 per family and, if unchecked, would reach $54,000 by 1990.
Although not as high as tax rates in many European countries, Canadian taxes were
higher than those in the United States in direct terms (i.e., not accounting for the cost
of non-public services such as health care in the United States) and comparisons were
unavoidable. Provincial governments saw themselves as having little room to increase
revenues, so they began to take measures to move towards balanced budgets. Such
measures grew increasingly harsh over the 1980s.
Education was one of the largest budget items in all provinces. To control their
finances, provinces believed they had to control education costs; however, under a
system that permitted school boards to raise property taxes for school purposes, con-
trolling education spending that proved difficult. Because the provinces and local
school boards shared responsibility for funding schools, school boards would increase
local taxes and blame the increases on inadequate provincial funding.
Under such circumstances, it was inevitable that the provinces would begin to assume
greater responsibility for, and control of, education funding. The changes were complex
and difficult in almost every case. New financing systems were required that took into
account differing local needs were required. In some provinces, the changes engendered
complex questions about the educational rights of religious and linguistic minorities
protected under Canadas constitution (e.g., Adler vs. Ontario, 1996). By 1997, 8 of 10
provinces and all three territories were providing essentially 100% of funding for
schools. This was accompanied in most cases by strict limits on spending levels, if not
actual reductions. Alberta cut spending on schools by some 10% when it assumed com-
plete responsibility for funding in 1994; Ontario also made significant reductions when
it moved to 100% provincial funding in 1997. By the year 2000, real per-pupil spending
on education had declined across Canada for the first time in 50 years.
As might be expected, school systems had great difficulty responding to these
reductions. In most school jurisdictions, the numbers of students identified as special
needs had been steadily increasing. School boards in Canadas major cities were strug-
gling to address the needs of growing numbers of students whose home languages
were neither English nor French. Education remained a labor-intensive enterprise with
individual teachers working with groups of students based on age and subject area.
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Many school governors, whether provinces or local school boards, saw their options for
reduced spending as being quite limited: reduce spending on central functions such as
instructional support, eliminate extra or alternative programs such as parent involvement,
reduce maintenance of facilities, and/or increase the numbers of students in classes.
Various combinations of these options were adopted depending on local priorities and cir-
cumstances. In all cases, the changes were difficult to make and badly received by teach-
ers and many parents.
Whether intended or not, changes in the source of funding brought other changes.
Because the single biggest component of education spending is salaries, and especially
teacher salaries, controlling spending meant restricting either the number of teachers or
their pay levels. Most provinces tried to do both. Some provinces passed legislation to
make unilateral cuts in teachers pay or working conditions. The number of professional
development days was reduced in some provinces, while others forced teachers to take
some days off without pay or specifically increased teaching assignments or class sizes.
British Columbia (B.C.) and Ontario both passed legislation to remove principals from
the teachers unions so that they could take a more directly managerial role. B.C. and
Ontario were also the two provinces that established Colleges of Teachers to regulate the
profession and, not incidentally, to transfer the costs of such regulation from the provin-
cial government to teachers themselves through fees to the colleges. Nonetheless, the
basic components of compulsory certification and universal teacher unionization were
not altered in any province.
Once provinces controlled all the money, they could also exercise much more
control over priorities. Many introduced changes that altered the roles and responsibil-
ities of the various agencies and organizations involved in elementary and secondary
education. These included the amalgamation of school boards, the introduction of per-
formance planning and performance agreements, the use of results-based incen-
tives for increased pupil performance, the provision of data to outside agencies that
used the information to rank schools, and the introduction of school and district parent
councils.
The reduction in the number of school boards was significant. At one time, Canada
had thousands of very small local school districts. By the 1980s, these numbers had been
drastically reduced through waves of amalgamations, but many Canadian school districts
remained quite small in terms of enrolment if not area. In the last 10 years, most
provinces have dramatically reduced still further the number of school boards: Ontario
from 166 to 72; British Columbia from 75 to 60; Alberta, from 181 to 64; Quebec from
158 to 72; Nova Scotia from 22 to 7; Prince Edward Island from 5 to 3; and Newfound-
land from 27 to 11. New Brunswick eliminated school boards entirely in 1996 but rein-
troduced them as District Education Councils in 2000. Only Saskatchewan still has
approximately the same number of school boards as it had 20 years ago, but it is
currently taking steps to change that situation. Canada now has a total of about 500
school districts, about one-third the number of districts compared to population as in the
United States.
Faced with the loss of their ability to tax and with a substantial reduction in their
numbers and consequent increase in the size of their jurisdictions school boards
struggled to redefine their role. With much less autonomy fiscally and often more
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provincial policy direction, school boards still faced much of the local pressure regard-
ing programs and other educational issues. Ontario took the further step of limiting the
amount school trustees could be paid to a maximum of $5,000, a particularly negative
message to elected representatives who were responsible for organizations with budg-
ets in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually. Provinces have intervened in the
decisions of school boards; at least five provinces have taken steps in the last decade
or so to remove elected school trustees from office or to place them under direct
provincial supervision.
The fiscal picture for Canadian provinces has changed in recent years. By the end
of the 1990s, all provinces had significantly reduced or eliminated their deficits.
Economic growth meant that provinces were in a financial position to increase educa-
tion spending without increasing taxes. Both absolute and per-pupil spending began to
increase again around 2000. By that year, school boards across Canada spent 3.5%
more than they had in 1999, the largest annual increase since 1991 (Statistics Canada,
2004). Alberta, which had cut spending significantly in 1994, made significant increa-
ses in spending after 2000. Ontario began to increase spending again in 2001 and,
between 2003 and 2005, the provincial government reversed many of the reductions of
the previous regime.
Confidence, Choice, and Competition
Finance and governance were not the only arenas in which educational change occurred.
During this time, Canadian education faced declining public confidence and declining
respect for authority (Nevitte, 1996). A better educated and informed citizenry had
become increasingly disenchanted with hierarchical institutions and were demanding
that school systems be streamlined and made more responsive. Some critics sought
greater direct involvement in public education. Others questioned the options available
and sought other routes to secure positional advantage for themselves and their children.
Individuals and groups began to raise questions about the opportunities available to their
children, about the role of teachers in fostering achievement, and even about the part that
schools played as sites for learning.
School systems were not alone in facing a more difficult climate of public opinion.
Canadian polling evidence shows a decline in confidence for all institutions perhaps,
ironically, a result of a better educated and therefore more challenging citizenry,
although there is some debate about how serious the decline in public confidence in
education has been (Davies & Guppy, 1997; Livingstone & Hart, 1998). Nonetheless,
it is clear that public education can no longer depend on a citizenry that will accept its
approach and actions without question.
The reasons for such shifts in opinion and policy are rarely simple. One can reason-
ably surmise that a combination of economic change, its effect on the public mood, and
deliberate efforts by political actors to reshape policy all were part of the move toward
what has often been called neo-conservative (or sometimes, just to illustrate the com-
plexities of political positioning, neo-liberal) policy (Levin, 2001). Regardless of its
label, the principal tenets of this viewpoint are:
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The economic interests of individuals should not be fettered by considerations of
social equity.
Choice, as a manifestation of freedom, is a virtue in its own right and the means
by which individuals are able to express approval or disapproval in the market.
People are better served through private entrepreneurialism than by public regula-
tion or provision of services.
Productive efficiency is the primary perhaps singular criterion by which any
public policy should be judged (Ungerleider, 2006).
The demand for alternatives within and among schools paralleled the transition from the
mass production of the immediate post-war period to the production of customized or
niche models and brands. The public came to expect that, like the products they used at
home, schooling could be tailored to their needs. Although uneven across jurisdictions,
there was discernible growth in public and private educational alternatives, including
growth across the country in public funding for private schools of various kinds. During
the turbulence of the late 1990s, private school enrolment in Ontario grew rapidly,
although across Canada as a whole, even with increased public funding, private school
enrolments increased fairly slowly. Figure 2 depicts enrolments in private elementary and
secondary schools during the period 19901999.
Within the public education system, individual schools began to promote their advan-
tages to parents and to develop specialized programs to attract more and more aca-
demically capable students. Reluctant to accept existing public programs, the public
demand for educational choice increased.
Canadian provinces and territories have exercised significant control over the
growth and conduct of alternatives. Where choice in the United States is often seen as
an expression of individual rights, the Canadian view albeit influenced by views
prevalent in the United States is that choice ought to be accommodated within a
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9091 9192 9293 9394 9495 9596 9697 9798 9899
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NB
Figure 2. Enrolment in private elementary and secondary schools in Canada from 19901991 to
19981999
Source: Acquired from statistics Canada through the data liberation initiative from Advance statistics of
education; Catalogue 81220 Annual.
framework of regulatory and financial control designed primarily to ensure equality
among alternatives (Ungerleider, 2005a).
In 1985, Canada already had a substantial degree of diversity in the public education
system. Several provinces, including the largest ones, supported more than one public
school system. For example, Quebec had separate systems of English and French lan-
guage school boards across the province, while Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan
supported both public and Roman Catholic school systems. During the 1990s, in
response to a series of decisions by the Supreme Court, all provinces also created self-
governing Francophone school systems for minority language pupils; Ontario has both
public and Catholic francophone systems, giving it four public education systems.
Further, many local school boards have long supported a range of alternative schools
(Riffel, Levin, & Young, 1996). Many Canadian school districts have a variety of pro-
grams such as multi-graded alternative elementary schools, French Immersion (in
which non-francophone children are taught in French), International Baccalaureate, and
others. In response to a growing recognition of ethnic diversity in the 1970s and 1980s,
schools across Canada began to teach or even specialize in a range of languages includ-
ing German, Chinese, Hebrew, and others. Schools with a focus on Aboriginal culture
and heritage, or on black culture and heritage, were created. The Edmonton Public
School District was one of the most aggressive in creating a wide range of alternative
schools, with extensive parental choice, within the ambit of the public school system.
Most provinces also made official efforts to increase parental choice of schools, and
parental involvement in education generally. Legislation was changed in most provinces
to provide parents with the right to choose schools, although typically with limitations that
effectively gave schools as much choice over students as vice versa. As a further step to
increase the role of parents often seen as consumers parent advisory bodies or other
forms of school councils were mandated in all provinces, but with advisory powers only.
For various reasons, neither choice nor parental involvement had very much impact
on schools. In urban areas, where school districts tend to be larger, there had already
been competition for some time among high schools, and even, to some extent, among
elementary schools. Alberta introduced charter schools in 1994 the only Canadian
province to do so but a decade later there were still only a handful of those schools
in the province. The legislative introduction of choice did not seem to have very much
effect on patterns of attendance (Bosetti, 2004). Nor have parent advisory bodies
exerted very much influence on the nature of schools across the country.
School Improvement and Student Success
Concern about access to educational opportunities characterized the 1950s and 1960s.
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, concern about increased accountability for results
along with fiscal controls and school choice had become dominant themes associated
with public schooling (Stein, 2002). The same growing scrutiny was also being expe-
rienced by groups like doctors and police officers (Bottery, 1998). Nonetheless, for an
institution that had been used to broad public support without much formal accounta-
bility, the change to public education was wrenching.
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Worries about the outcomes of schooling were part of, and even substantially
inspired by, a broader discussion of the importance of educational outcomes for eco-
nomic competitiveness, as well as for a range of other important outcomes like employ-
ment, health, and proactive social behavior. The growing importance accorded to
formal education, often at the behest of the profession, inevitably had the result of
increasing the demand for outcomes. It was also an inevitable consequence of the sig-
nificant increase in public expenditures for education. The prospect of unbridled eco-
nomic growth to stimulate the transition from a wartime to peacetime economy that was
touted in the aftermath of World War II was diminished by economic realities. Parents
who had heeded the advice of their forebears to stay in school in order to get a good
job were now seeking positional advantage for their own children and demanding
that schools comply with their promise to produce numerate, literate, and above all
employable graduates.
It is, of course, legitimate for the public to want to know what benefits it derives for
its significant investment in education. The growing interest in the outcomes of
schooling was propitious for politicians trying to slow the growth in expenditures.
Some politicians used concern among the general public about outcomes as a shield
against the charges from parents, teachers, and others that governments were being
miserly in their support for education.
Finding ways to provide accountability for educational outcomes has proved diffi-
cult. This is in large part because education is not a production enterprise in the
usual sense (Levin, 1994). Childrens learning and skill development are greatly even
primarily affected by factors over which schools have little or no control, such as
family background. Canadas high level of poverty among families with young chil-
dren likely has more influence on educational outcomes than any single educational
policy (for a striking illustration, see Brownell et al., 2004). So the seemingly simple
step of comparing schools in terms of students achievement levels is of doubtful valid-
ity. On the other hand, attempts to adjust school outcome measures to take into account
the very different starting points children bring to school turn into complex procedures
that are very difficult to explain to the public. All of this is further complicated because,
although almost all reports on school outcomes rely on relatively narrow and short-term
academic measures such as test scores or marks, people actually expect and want a
much broader set of outcomes from schools, and value equally highly several quite dif-
ferent kinds of outcomes such as the ability to work independently as well as in teams,
or the desire to continue to learn.
There are regular attempts to rank schools on performance by some external lobby
groups, but these have less currency than do similar efforts in the United States or the
United Kingdom. Some provinces have required schools and districts to report publicly on
outcomes on a regular basis, but this is still a relatively unusual procedure. Even national
reporting of outcomes remains difficult in Canada because each province has different
requirements for a common event such as high school graduation. Canada has conducted,
through the Council of Ministers of Education (a collaborative of the provincial education
ministers) a national assessment of student outcomes in some key curriculum areas, but
this program (which was funded for years by the federal government) has not been given
much public salience. Canada has also participated in international assessments such as
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the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Third International
Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), with results that are quite good.
The development of performance reporting by schools and school districts has not
progressed very far in Canada, and it is here that we might expect to see some further
development in the next few years as provinces press schools and boards to report
more clearly to their constituencies on outcomes. An analogous process is taking place
at the national level in Canada as part of federal-provincial agreements in areas like
health and early childhood development. These agreements require provinces to report
locally on their use of funds and the outcomes obtained. In education, the equivalent
would be for schools and districts to report regularly on a series of outcomes, some of
which would be common across the province and set in response to local priorities.
This model preserves some local autonomy as to what is reported, but also takes more
seriously each jurisdictions responsibility to engage in some dialogue with its citizens
about its achievements and challenges.
Curriculum and Testing
Another common element of change during the 1980s and 1990s was the tendency to
standardize curriculum requirements and increase provincial testing. Most provinces
conducted major revisions of curricula aimed at more stringent standards, especially in
secondary schools. Mathematics was a particular area of emphasis, with a general
move to teach more advanced mathematics in earlier grades. Several collaborative
efforts saw groups of provinces developing common curricula, or at least common
frameworks for local development.
In regard to testing, most Canadian provinces had moved away from provincial certi-
fication examinations toward the end of the 1960s toward curriculum assessments tests
to determine whether the curriculum was being mastered as intended. But in the 1970s
and 1980s, several provinces introduced testing of all students at various grade levels and
subjects and, in those provinces where they had been eliminated, high school certifica-
tion examinations were re-introduced. Provincial examinations for younger students
were also introduced. Such assessments were typically administered in at least one grade
in elementary school and another in the middle grades. The assessments emphasized lan-
guage arts (English or French) and mathematics, but no two provinces had the same test-
ing scheme (Taylor & Tubianosa, 2001). By 2005, the degree of jurisdiction-wide testing
in Canada was extensive compared to Europe, but relatively modest compared to the
United States.
Provincial testing has been controversial in Canada, as elsewhere. Teachers are
strongly opposed. Parents have mixed views. However, on the whole, the Canadian
public supports some degree of large-scale testing (Guppy, Crocker, Davies, LaPointe,
& Sackney, 2005) which is why the practice has remained firmly in place.
Although testing increased, there was no direct movement from more testing to
more accountability and choice. Testing did not immediately translate into good
information for schools on the challenges they faced, and even less into support for
using data to guide school improvement. With the exception of British Columbia,
which began to use assessment data to shape instruction in 1998, it is only in the last 5
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years or so, as part of a broader effort to change teaching practice and in keeping with
wider trends in education to more use of data, that most provinces have begun to work
on this issue. Indeed, most provinces lack the kinds of information systems that would
provide high-quality data on student outcomes. Still, the increasing emphasis on using
data to guide both instructional and policy decisions at all levels of education is a
welcome development that has the potential to improve performance.
Impacts on School Improvement
Two things can be said about the policy changes of the 1980s and 1990s and about the
political parties that implemented them. First, similar changes were implemented by
parties of quite different political stripes, indicating that no political party can go
entirely against the grain of prevailing public opinion. All provinces, no matter which
party had formed the government, restrained spending on education in the 1990s.
Similarly, stricter curricula and more testing were introduced in provinces with quite
ideologically divergent governments at more or less the same time.
Second, judging by the extent of education policy and funding changes, it seems that
who is in power does count. The deepest cuts in spending were made by conservative
governments (though not all of them use that title officially) in several provinces, as
were the strictest changes in curriculum and graduation requirements. Liberal and
New Democratic governments tended to be less oppositional toward teachers and less
willing to make substantial reductions in funding.
In many provinces, governments were publicly hostile to schools and teachers. This
public criticism, coupled with very difficult collective bargaining relationships due to
reduced funding, created significant acrimony in many systems with negative conse-
quences for students, not just through strikes but also through reduced teacher partici-
pation in extracurricular activities. Education, like other human services, depends on
the skill and commitment of its practitioners; it is not a system in which improvement
can be commanded from above.
Although provincial governments in the 1990s framed their policy changes in terms
of school quality, very little of what was done translated into better outcomes for stu-
dents or could be linked in any meaningful way to a strategy of school improvement
(Hopkins & Levin, 2000). Much of the focus of governments was really on reducing
or controlling expenditures, which is an entirely different objective from improving
outcomes. The inevitable pressure on political actors to propose quick (short-term)
solutions to complex (long-term) problems runs against our understanding of what is
actually required to improve public services.
Recent Developments
In the last few years, some Canadian provinces have adopted a softer approach and
given greater attention to factors that might lead to real changes in school policies and
instructional practices. Although the emphasis on student outcomes has, if anything,
increased, more provinces appear willing to see this task as requiring substantial direct
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effort and investment rather than being a matter of just having to put the right incen-
tives in place.
A growing body of knowledge about school reform and school improvement (e.g.,
Fullan, 2004) has pointed to the steps that are necessary for improving instruction and
student outcomes, including: strong leadership, clear goals and plans to achieve them,
support for teachers to learn and use better practices; the use of evidence and data to
guide improvement, and effective outreach to parents and communities. Ungerleider
(2003) drew on his experience as deputy minister in an article in the International
Journal of Testing in which he provides suggestions for ensuring that the benefits of
using large-scale student assessments are achieved in the face of a number of challenges
to their effective use.
A number of Canadian researchers have contributed to this area in significant ways.
Michael Fullans work (2001, 2004) has already been mentioned. Fullan and Andy
Hargreaves wrote a series of books together (the most recent is Hargreaves & Fullan,
1998) that have influenced thinking across Canada, and Hargreaves has made important
independent contributions (e.g., Hargreaves, 2003). Several writers, such as Leithwood
(e.g., Leithwood & Duke, 1999) and Fink (2000) have been influential in the area of
leadership. Another team (Mitchell & Sackney, 2000) has written about professional
learning communities. Lorna Earl (2003) has been an influential commentator on
assessment for learning. Another group of writers (e.g., Joshee, 2004; Ryan, 2003) has
addressed the challenges of creating school improvement for Canadas very diverse
population.
Several of these elements have been established as policy objectives. British
Columbia, as noted, is working on data-based improvement strategies. Alberta has sup-
ported a program of school- and district-based instructional change with careful eval-
uation of impact. Saskatchewans School
PLUS
model emphasizes helping schools work
more closely with their local communities. Ontario has implemented large-scale
change programs in both elementary and secondary schools that involve very signifi-
cant amounts of training and support for teachers and principals. These are all, in our
view, promising developments that are much closer to what we know about creating
real and lasting improvement. However implementation of these programs remains
uneven, and it is not clear that governments are willing or able to provide the scale of
support for improvement in terms of technical assistance that may be required.
Conclusion
Although we recognize the limitations and contradictions of policies at any given time,
as well as the real potential for negative developments, we are somewhat more opti-
mistic about the future of Canadian public education than we were even 3 or 4 years
ago. Canada continues to enjoy a system of public schools that performs well. The
most recent results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)
confirm Canadas place among the top-performing nations in reading, science, and
mathematics. The number of students who leave secondary school prior to graduation
has diminished significantly over the course of the past 10 years, and the number of
students who return to complete unfinished programs continues to be significant.
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To realize fully the promise of public schooling, Canada will need to address some
problems. Canadas schools are struggling to respond to an increasingly individualis-
tic and instrumental approach to schooling that threatens what is already a fragile
social structure. Significant gaps in school outcomes between groups identifiable on
the basis of culture and language compound the problems of individualism and social
fragmentation. Closing the gaps in student outcomes should be as important a goal as
raising the overall level of achievement.
If the more recent trends respectful treatment of teachers, better attention to their
continuing professional education, more thoughtful use of information to inform deci-
sions and more resources continue, Canadas public school are likely to improve, pro-
viding a strong foundation for personal and social well-being. If they do not, Canadas
public schools are likely to falter, threatening the well-being of individual Canadians
and Canada as a whole.
Note
Neither author approaches these issues entirely from an academic perspective. Although
both of us held professorial positions for most of the period under discussion, each of us
also held senior government positions for part of this time. As such, we were directly
involved in a number of the events and issues described in this chapter. Charles
Ungerleider served as deputy minister (chief civil servant) for the British Columbia
Ministry of Education, and Ben Levin was deputy minister of education in Manitoba
and, more recently, in Ontario. Each of us has written a book on education policy (Levin,
2005; Ungerleider, 2003) drawing in large part though with quite different intentions
on those experiences. Our purpose is to describe, with as much objectivity as we can
muster, Canadian educational policy devoted to school improvement.
References
Bosetti, L. (2004). Determinants of school choice: Understanding how parents choose elementary schools
in Alberta. Journal of Educational Policy, 19(4), 387405.
Bottery, M. (1998). Professionals and policy: Management strategy in a competitive world. London: Cassell.
Brownell, M., Roos, N., Fransoo, R., Guevremont, A., MacWilliam, L., Derksen, S., et al. (2004, June). How
do educational outcomes vary with socioeconomic status? Key findings from the Manitoba Child Health
Atlas 2004. Winnipeg: Manitoba Centre for Health Policy. Accessed on April 17, 2006, Retrieved from
http://www.umanitoba.ca/centres/mchp/reports/reports_04/child.ed.htm
Davies, S., & Guppy, N. (1997). Globalization and educational reforms in Anglo-American democracies.
Comparative Education Review, 41(4), 435459.
Earl, L. (2003). Assessment as learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Fink, D. (2000). Good schools/real schools: Why school reform doesnt last. New York: Teachers College
Press.
Fullan, M. (2001). The new meaning of educational change (3rd ed.). New York: Teachers College.
Fullan, M. (2004). Leadership and sustainability: System thinkers in action. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Gidney, R. D. (1999). From hope to Harris: The reshaping of Ontarios schools. Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, Inc.
Guppy, N., Crocker, R., Davies, S., LaPointe, C., & Sackney, L. (2005). Parent and teacher views on educa-
tion: A policymakers guide. Kelowna, BC: Society for the Advancement of Excellence in Education.
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Hargreaves, A. (2003). Teaching in the knowledge society. New York: Teachers College.
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Hopkins, D., & Levin, B. (2000). Government policy and school improvement. School Leadership and
Management, 20(1), 1530.
Joshee, R. (2004). Citizenship and multicultural education in Canada: From assimilation to social cohesion.
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Levin, B. (2001). Reforming education: From origins to outcomes. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
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Mitchell, C., & Sackney, L. (2000). Profound improvement: Building capacity for a learning community.
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Toronto: Broadview Press.
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Ryan, J. (2003). Leading diverse schools. Dordrecht, NL: Kluwer.
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of Excellence in Education. Accessed on April 17, 2006, Retrieved from http://wwwhttp://www.saee.ca/
publications/A_007_CCC_MID.php
Ungerleider, C. (2003a). Failing our kids: How we are ruining our public schools. Toronto: McClelland &
Stewart LTD.
Ungerleider, C. (2003b). Large-scale student assessment: Guidelines for policymakers. International
Journal of Testing, 3(2), 119128.
Ungerleider, C. (2005a, April). Market-based initiatives in elementary and secondary education: Why
Canada is different. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research
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Education, 29(1), 121.
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Please clarify
whether the
year of publica-
tion for
Ungerleider
(2003) corre-
sponds to
2003a or 2003b
in all citations
to this refer-
ence in the text.
Introduction
In education, two very popular (but not necessarily true) statements are (1) if you
think that education is expensive, try ignorance, and (2) people say that money is the
problem, while in fact it is the solution. We will not examine right away the validity
of these statements; however, right, dangerous or wrong they may be. However, they
manifest that the amount of financial resources a system of education can mobilize is
a crucial element of any education policy. Sometimes the relationship starts from the
policies that have been identified as desirable but they also need to pass the test of their
financing; but more often, the relationship goes the other way round with the identifi-
cation of the best tradeoffs that need to made between desirable objectives and
inputs within a given and exogenous financial constraint.
In this chapter, we take mostly an international comparative perspective limited to
Sub-Saharan African countries. First, we analyze first the macro picture and the public
finance dimension, analyzing the systemic choices made in the distribution of public
resources across levels and types of education. Second, we move to unit cost estimates
and the factors accounting for their level in a given country and to their variation across
the different countries of the region. Finally, we examine the implication of the choices
made in the financial dimension upon outcomes (coverage and quality of educational
services), bringing issues of efficiency and equity into the analysis.
1
The Macro Picture
The resources that can be mobilized for a system of schooling in these countries come
generally from three sources: domestic resources that are split between public and pri-
vate origins, and external aid resources, as loans (generally soft loans for low income
IDA countries) and grants. Information is generally available for both domestic public
425
24
COST AND FINANCING OF EDUCATION AND ITS
IMPACT ON COVERAGE AND QUALITY OF
SERVICES AND EFFICIENCY AND EQUITY IN
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN COUNTRIES
Alain Mingat
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2007 Springer.
resources and external aid,
2
but private spending (households contribution to the
financing of educational services) is less well documented. We analyze mostly the
domestic public resources which in all cases represent a large share of total resources
for the sector, but we will also touch on briefly the other two sources of funding.
Domestic Public Resources for Education
It is clear that all domestic resources for the sector come from the national product
(GNP) of the country. The route goes (1) from the GNP to the amount of resources
appropriated by the State to finance public action through various types of taxes
(TPRES) and (2) from that global amount of public resources to those that are allo-
cated to the sector as a whole (EDRES) (to finance, or to contribute to the financing
of, recurrent and capital expenditure at all levels of schooling during a given year).
Therefore, the larger the GDP of a country, the larger its capacity to levy taxes and the
larger the public finance priority given to the sector within its different claims, and the
larger are the public resources that can be used to finance educational services. This
pattern can be represented as follows
3
:
TPRES = . GDP
EDRES = . TPRES [EDRES = . . GDP].
We focus first on the amount of public spending on education as a share of GDP.
According to the most recent UNESCO data, this is on average 3.7% in low income
Sub-Saharan African countries, a figure very close to that observed in low income
countries elsewhere in the world. This figure is considerably smaller than that reported
average for middle income countries which stands at 4.8% (5.0% for such countries in
Sub-Saharan Africa), and even smaller than that for OECD countries (5.7%).
This statistic (EDRES) is sometimes named the national public effort of a coun-
try for education. The name is in fact inappropriate, or misleading, since it conveys the
idea that its numerical value is essentially a matter of choice; with the possible judg-
ment that countries that are lagging behind on this count are possibly making less
effort for the education of their youth. The reason why the term is inappropriate lies in
the fact that if (in the relationship above) is effectively a matter of choice (describ-
ing a public finance priority of the country for the sector), this is much less the case for
which describes mostly an economic constraint.
The reason, why low income countries spend on average a proportion of their
GDP on education which is less than that of countries at a higher level of economic
development is not because they give a lesser priority to the sector; it is because their
fiscal capacity is on average much lower.
4
In fact low income countries allocate
about 18.5% of their national public resources to education, a figure higher than that
observed in middle income countries (17.1%) while the figure for OECD countries
is on average only 13.5%.
5
In this context low income countries of the region give an
even larger priority to education than their counterparts elsewhere in the world.
To sum up, it can be said that low income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa give on
average a high priority to education, but that the narrowness of the fiscal basis
426 Mingat
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constrains them to reach relatively low levels of public financing of their system of
education.
The picture using regional averages is useful to bring a global perspective; but this
regional perspective is inadequate to describe the case of the countries of the region
given the wide variance that exists among them on these counts.
This is true of the fiscal capacity of Sub-Saharan African countries (excluding those
in specific circumstances such as conflict or post-conflict countries) since the amount
of resources collected with the various instruments at hand (fiscal and others) varies
across countries from 7 to 26% of the Gross Domestic Product. Generally speaking,
there is some tendency for countries with a higher level of economic development to be
able to collect a larger amount of taxes (because they both have a more developed mod-
ern sector of their economy and better administrative structures), but the country spe-
cific conditions, in particular the availability of natural resources (oil, iron, diamonds,
fish) and the existence of an agricultural export sector, is an important aspect of the
variability across Sub-Saharan African countries. However, beyond the level of eco-
nomic development and endowment in natural resources, there remains a variability in
the capacity of the countries to effectively collect (the issue may be of administrative
structures and often times of governance). Obviously, the consequence of this relatively
wide variability in macro conditions puts the individual countries of the region in rela-
tively easy or difficult circumstances vis-` a-vis the mobilization of public resources in
general, and of those for education in particular.
But this is also true of the degree of public finance priority given to the sector. With
no surprise, the governments of all countries declare unambiguously that education is
one of their first priorities. But beyond the words, the reality may still be quite at vari-
ance from one country to another. The average figure for the region is 18.9% (19.3 for
the low income countries) but, again without taking into account the countries under
specific circumstances, the range remains from about 9% to about 30%, implying that
similar public statements may results in quite different concrete actions. No specific
patterns are identified to account for this wide variability, with the exception that coun-
tries that do not succeed to collect a large amount of taxes (the value of is on the low
side) tend (somehow as a compensation mechanism) to allocate a larger proportion of
their public resources to education.
Compounding the influence of these two aspects, the share of public spending on edu-
cation in GDP differs quite substantially across countries on both sides of the regional
average of 4.0% (3.7% in low income countries and 5.0% in middle income countries of
the region). This statistic varies from 1.6 to 9% in low income countries and from 2.2 to
7.2% in the middle income group. These variations are quite substantial (much larger that
what is observed in other regions of the world), making it difficult to make generic state-
ments on the financing of education in Africa. The amount of public resources (in relative
terms, as a ratio to GDP) mobilized in Sub-Saharan Africa is on average of the same order
of magnitude as that observed in other regions of the world, but the circumstances of indi-
vidual countries of the region on this count vary considerably. While UNESCO suggested
some years ago that public spending on education should amount to about 6% of GDP to
enable countries to build a decent system of education, most of the low income countries
of the region are well below this normative yardstick.
Cost and Financing of Education 427
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The Magnitude and Pattern of Distribution of External Funding for Education
From the preceding point, it follows that, for many countries of the region, the mobi-
lization of external funding is not an option. Based on DAC-OECD data, it appears that
the total annual amount of external aid to Sub-Saharan countries, in constant terms, has
remained more or less the same between 1990 and 2003 at a bit less than USD 20 billion
in 2003 equivalent dollars. An analysis of these data shows that the larger the population
of a country, the larger the amount of ODA resources it gets, and that countries that are
able to exports goods and services receive, on average, less ODA resources. But coun-
tries with higher prevalence of poverty do not get more ODA allocations than countries
that are in better circumstances. When the analysis is based on a per population basis,
the analysis shows that small countries get much more than larger ones; for example a
country with a population of 5 million gets on average USD 63 per inhabitant per year
while this figure declines to USD 36 per capita if the size of population is 10 million
and to USD 22 for a 20 million population. Globally in 2003, ODA allocations to all
low income countries of the region represent about 10% of their GDP.
But an aspect very important to note is that beyond the factors identified to account
for the variability in ODA allocations to Sub-Saharan African countries, there exists a
wide variability across individual countries, controlling for population, export capacity
and poverty incidence. For example, based on these criteria, it is estimated that coun-
tries like Mozambique, Niger and Zambia should have relatively similar levels of ODA
allocation; the reality shows that Niger gets about USD 341 billion, while Zambia gets
669 billion and Mozambique 1.4 billion. This suggests that other criteria are used by
individual donors that result in a concentration of external aid in some countries, while
others are de facto left behind. It suggests also the low level of coordination among the
different agencies.
When it comes to education, data show that the sector has gained recognition over
the last 15 years since we observe a significant increase in the ODA allocation for edu-
cation in real terms (USD of 2003) from USD 805 million on average over the years
19901993, to USD 1.4 billion on average over the years 20002003. While education
represented about 4% of total ODA allocations in the early 90s, it represented almost
8% in the early 2000s. As an aggregate figure for low income countries of the region,
it is estimated that ODA allocations for the sector represent a bit less than 20% of the
amount of public resources mobilized for it at the national level.
When dividing total ODA allocation for education by the number of primary educa-
tion age children, we get a regional average of about 12 USD in 2003; but the wide
variability identified above for general ODA allocations still holds for education. For
example, Mauritania receives about six times more than the Central African Republic.
Similarly, countries such as Mali, Mozambique, Zambia or Malawi receive between
three and four times more than that of Chad, Burundi or Zimbabwe. This variability is
also accounted by the fact that some countries benefit from the assistance of 16 donors
(with obvious problems of coordination and of competition) while other countries are
donor orphans.
It is also to be noted that external aid was traditionally focused on the financing of cap-
ital expenditure (in particular classroom construction) and capacity building activities;
428 Mingat
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this has evolved over the last 10 years with increasing financing of recurrent expendi-
ture, mostly in primary education. This evolution has taken place in a context where a
stronger priority has been given by donors to primary education towards attainment of
the Education For All objectives and the Millennium Development Goals (in particular
that of universal completion of primary education). This evolution is also accompanied
by a change in the instruments used to transfer external aid (more budget support and
fewer projects).
Private Resources for Education
Direct private contributions from parents are also a major source of financing of
education in the Africa region. This source is often neglected, probably because it is
less well documented than public or donor financing, and because the funding is not
centralized in books, but spread in small amounts over large numbers of individuals.
A household survey is the main instrument by which private financing can be esti-
mated; but most household surveys do not have a module of expenditure.
Another difficulty with private financing of education is to identify which expendi-
ture is to be taken into account. Some items such as school fees, parents associations,
textbooks or school uniforms, seem to belong clearly to school expenditure because
they are both directly connected to schooling and mandatory. But the case is less clear
with spending on school meals (since it is not an option for the child to be fed should
he or she be in school or not) or private tuition (since this is not mandatory). For these
reasons, there is inconsistency across different analyses of private spending on school-
ing, making their comparability unreliable. Despite these difficulties, it would be
unwise to neglect the private contribution of parents to the schooling of their children.
Table 1, below, provides examples of what has been found in recent World Bank
publications (Country Status Reports) in selected countries of the region.
It should be borne in mind that, although this sample of countries is not representa-
tive of the region, this does not mean that these data have no interest. A first observa-
tion is that (in spite of the uncertain degree of comparability of the data) the amount of
private financing on education is both always substantial (representing 10% or more of
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Table 1. Amount of private financing of education in selected SSA countries
Spending for the sector Spending for primary
Countries (billion LCU) education (billion LCU)
Private Public Private/ Private Public Private/
total (%) total (%)
Mauritania, 2004 3.9 12.4 24 2.2 6.3 26
Mali, 2003 9.2 82.0 10 6.1 29.0 17
Cameroon, 2002 185 207 47 49.0 66.0 43
Togo, 1999 10.7 26.4 29 8.4 16.0 34
LCU Local Currency Units.
Source: World Bank Education Country Status Report for the four countries.
domestic financing) and variable across countries; in Cameroon, private financing
reaches 47% of total domestic financing of the sector, a very high figure. A second
observation is that private financing is quite substantial in primary education.
Furthermore, private financing tends to be larger for better off parents, in particular
for children whose parents reside in urban settings and belong to the highest income
quintiles. However, private spending is often substantial (both in absolute and relative
terms) for poor parents residing in rural areas when they need to finance community
schools or teachers, in an attempt to make up for the failure of the State to provide an
adequate supply of public educational services.
The Tradeoffs Both Across and Within Levels of Education
In the previous section, we pointed out that education financing was subject to a trade-
off across sectors in the competition for public financing. Once the budget (recurrent
and capital) for the sector has been identified, a new tradeoff has to be made. It con-
cerns the distribution of that budget across the different levels of education.
6
The Distribution of Resources Across Levels of Schooling
Within the global budget allocated to the sector, there is competition for public
resources between levels of education. Given the general context of financial scarcity,
each level of education has reasonable arguments to put forward to get more resources,
but in face of the global scarcity of resources choices have to be made. In principle,
these are dealt at the margin and the policy maker has to compare across levels of
schooling the respective benefits (in social and economic terms) associated to a one
dollar variation in the funding of each these levels; the structure of the allocation of
resources is then modified up to the point were marginal benefits for the different
levels of education are the same. This is essentially a theoretical exercise both because
of the paucity of empirical documentation, and because political considerations and
pressures tend to play a significant role in this process. However, whatever the process
and its validity, a decision is made (at least implicit) and the budget is distributed
across levels of schooling.
This is essentially a national process and it is therefore likely that the outcome dif-
fers across the different countries of the region. Thus, it is not easy to conduct an inter-
national comparative analysis on this aspect given the wide variations in the structure
of the systems across the different countries. In particular, the use of common labels,
such as primary education or lower secondary education may not be comparable across
different countries.
For example, if primary education gets 40% of total spending in country A and
55% in country B, it may not be valid to conclude that country B gives a higher degree
of priority than country A to primary education. If we assume now that the duration of
the primary cycle is 5 years in country A and 7 years in country B, it follows that the
straightforward comparison of 40 and 55 is not appropriate. A better idea could be to
divide the share of budget for primary education by the corresponding duration of the
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cycle in the two countries; the result of this calculation gives 8% in country A and
7.9% in country B. We are then led to conclude that in fact the two countries grant
more or less the same degree of priority to primary education, since they give approx-
imately the same share of their budget per year of primary education; but here again,
this conclusion may not be perfect since the Grades 6 and 7 in country B are located in
lower secondary education in country A, possibly characterized by much higher unit
costs than primary education. The point is that comparing the pattern of allocation of
resources across levels of schooling in countries with different patterns of enrolments
cannot be robust and conclusive.
Given this discussion, three postures can be taken: (1) this is too complex and not
really amenable to international comparative analysis; (2) it is safe to limit the analy-
sis to countries that share the same pattern of enrolments and (3) it is nevertheless
possible to carry a large international comparison provided that all allocations by level
of schooling are controlled for the length of studies of each cycle in each country (that
is evaluating the allocation per year of education in each cycle). We take in sequence
the third and second perspectives.
When estimating the distribution of spending for the sector across the different lev-
els of schooling, strong differences emerge across the different categories of country
(see Table 2). On average, the lower the level of development, the larger the proportion
of resources allocated to primary education; close to 50% in low income countries
(with no difference whether it they are in Africa or elsewhere), but only close to 40%
in middle income countries, the figure being slightly below 30% in OECD countries.
This pattern is in line with the level of development of the systems of education and the
distribution of enrolments across levels of schooling. Primary education is first to be
expanded and given priority in low income countries; and, as coverage and quality of
primary schooling progress, additional resources flow naturally towards secondary edu-
cation both because the number of primary education graduates is large (demand side)
and because it is reasonable to expand secondary education to respond to the growing
demand of graduates in the labor markets with economic expansion (supply side).
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Table 2. Estimated distribution of the budget of the sector by level of schooling for a similar (average)
pattern of enrolments across levels of education
Primary education Secondary education Higher education
% of budget % of budget % of budget % of budget % of budget
per year for a 6.2 year per year for a 6.2 year
cycle cycle
Low income
countries 7.8 48.0 4.5 27.9 21.1
African 7.7 47.4 4.3 26.6 23.0
Middle income
countries 6.2 38.2 5.5 34.0 23.3
African 6.3 38.8 5.7 34.9 20.8
OECD countries 4.7 29.0 6.2 38.3 25.8
Source: UIS and World Bank and calculations by the author.
This pattern is consistent with the fact that secondary education, and later higher edu-
cation, is gradually given more importance in budget allocations, the higher the level
of economic development; while secondary education gets on average about 28% of
budget in low income countries, the figure rising to 34% in middle income countries
and to 38% is OECD countries.
The average regional pattern of the allocation of resources by levels of education
seems therefore to be consistent with a basic economic argument. It is however to be
stressed that regional averages hide a very wide variance across individual countries; this
variance is larger in low income countries, in particular within those in Sub-Saharan
Africa, while OECD countries are rather uniform on this count.
When it comes to the allocation of resources and after controlling for the duration
of cycles of study (putting it at 6.2 years for all countries in both primary and second-
ary education), striking differences appear across countries. Focusing on low income
countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, the range for the allocation to primary education is
from less than 30% to almost 60% in 2003. Countries such as Cameroon, Congo,
Eritrea, the Gambia, Ghana, Malawi and Senegal being those that give the lowest level
of priority for primary education while countries such as Benin, Chad, Sierra Leone,
Uganda and Zambia being at the other side of the spectrum with a relatively large
share (more than 50%) of their budget given to primary education. All the countries
in the first group are well below the value suggested by the indicative framework of
the Fast-Track Initiative (50%) while those in the second group are above this refer-
ence benchmark.
The observations made above should not be taken as normative judgments since it
is a priori expected that countries that exhibit high levels of primary completion spend
more on secondary education, while countries with low rates of primary completion
give higher financial priority to primary schooling. To test the validity of this assump-
tion, we contrast the allocation of resources given to primary schooling with the
numerical value of the Primary Completion Rate in 2003. The result is the absence of
statistical relationship between the two figures; the reason is probably that there are
two conflicting patterns at work, compounding a stock (static) and a flow (dynamic)
dimension: (1) according to the dynamic aspect, countries far below universal com-
pletion of primary education could give a stronger priority to the first cycle of studies,
but (2) according to the static aspect, countries that are far below universal probably
have a lighter burden to finance the services offered (and it is probably also because
they give a lesser priority to primary education and, other things being equal, they
achieve less in terms of primary completion).
If we limit the comparison of the pattern of allocation of public resources to coun-
tries sharing a similar structure of enrolments (6 years for primary and 7 years for sec-
ondary education), the same relatively wide variability across countries is observed, as
Table 3 shows.
The average allocations for the 14 countries of the sample are: 49% of total recur-
rent spending is given to primary education, 31% is allocated to secondary education
and 20% to higher education. The figures exhibit a range from 40 to 60% in primary
education, suggesting significant variations in the priority given to that level of educa-
tion. In secondary and higher education, the respective ranges are much wider, from
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19 to 43% at the secondary level, and from 12 to 33% of total recurrent spending at the
higher level.
The above discussion indicates that, even though individual countries find it diffi-
cult to modify the distribution of public resources across levels of education, the inter-
national comparative approach suggests that it is de facto possible, even though
significant change may take a few years to be implemented.
The Use of Resources Within Levels of Schooling
Once the distribution of public resources by level of education has been set, many
decisions are still to be made, implying at least two levels of tradeoffs: (1) the first
tradeoff is between the number of children enrolled (i.e., coverage of the system) and
the unit cost of the services offered; (2) the second is between the different inputs that
can be purchased for a given level of per pupil spending. We examine these two aspects
in turn.
The tradeoff between coverage and per pupil spending
Generally speaking, at a given level of education, policy makers are willing both
(1) to be able to offer the best conditions of schooling to each student, implying a high
level of unit cost (UC) of the services offered, and (2) to be able to provide these qual-
ity services to the largest number of children (NC). However, it is obviously difficult
for a country to pursue the two objectives at the same time given the budgetary
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Table 3. Distribution of public resources by level of education in a sample of countries sharing the same
structure for their system of schooling, early 2000s
Countries % Primary % Secondary % Higher
education education education
Benin 55 27 17
Burkina Faso 60 21 19
Burundi 56 28 17
Cameroon* 45 43 12
Chad 51 29 20
C ote dIvoire 43 34 22
Guinea 44 31 25
Mali* 40 45 15
Mauritania* 52 35 13
Niger 58 27 14
Rwanda* 48 19 33
Senegal 42 29 28
Sierra Leone 50 27 22
Togo 45 36 19
Sample average 49.2 30.8 19.7
*Data have been adjusted to take into account the duration of studies in secondary education.
Source: World Bank Education Country Status Reports for the various countries of the sample.
constraint (B) every country has to cope with. This tradeoff is well described by the
following identity:
B = NC * UC or NC = B/UC
Therefore, B being exogenous, the larger (smaller) is UC, the smaller (larger) is the
number of children that can be enrolled. Each country is consequently led to find some
balance between the two objectives, some countries placing probably more emphasis on
coverage while some other may put a greater emphasis on the conditions of schooling
and per pupil spending.
Figure 1 below illustrates the tradeoff involved. Let us assume that the school age
population of our hypothetical country at that level of schooling is 80,000 and that the
resources have been set at one million LCU (local currency units). If the country puts
the emphasis on the conditions of schooling and targets 70 LCU per student, only
14,285 children can be enrolled. However, if it is thought that reducing unit spending
to 30 LCU remains acceptable, it is now 33,333 children that can be accommodated.
If a strong emphasis is placed on coverage and if the country wants all children of the
relevant school age to be enrolled, per pupil spending would need to be brought down
to LCU 12.5.
The pattern described above for a hypothetical country has been established while
keeping constant the amount of public resources mobilized for the level of education
under consideration (B B*). Every individual country is exposed to this type of
tradeoff and, as suggested above, it is likely that the countries do not make identical
choices on this count.
It follows that countries, at a given level of schooling, may differ both on the amount
of resources mobilized and on the choice they make between per pupil spending and
coverage.
First they effectively make quite different choices in terms of unit costs of educa-
tional services with figures that range from 5 to 20% of per capita GDP at the primary
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Figure 1. Number of children enrolled according to the level of per pupil spending within a budget
constraint
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
70,000
80,000
90,000
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Per pupil spending (LCU)
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Graph 1: Number of children enrolled according to the
level of per pupil spending within a budget constraint
level among African countries, in 2003 (for a regional average standing around 12% of
per capita GDP). In lower secondary education, per pupil spending ranges between 13 and
64% of per capita GDP (with a regional average of 31% of a countrys per capita GDP),
while at the upper secondary level, the range is from 22 to 150% of per capita GDP (the
average standing at 63 per of per capita GDP).
Second, the countries that choose (it may be an implicit choice) a relatively high
level of public spending per pupil (probably on the argument that it helps to provide
better conditions of schooling and later on better level of student learning) offer fewer
places in schools (lower coverage) to their population, as Figure 2, below, shows.
With a unit cost of primary education representing 20% of a countrys GDP per
capita, countries achieve on average in 2003 a gross enrolment rate of about 60%,
while those that have opted for a level of unit cost representing only 10% of their per
capita GDP, succeed on average to reach a GER of about 95%.
The tradeoff between school inputs for a given level of per pupil spending
Once countries have made their tradeoff between per unit cost and coverage and cho-
sen a given level of per pupil spending at a given level of schooling, there remains a
large variety of ways in which these resources can be used. According to the micro
perspective, the unit cost is an aggregate figure for the cost of the mix of school inputs
that are purchased to organize the provision of the educational services.
7
To examine
how the different elements of the schooling context affect the unit cost, it may be use-
ful to go through some decomposition of the recurrent budget allocated to a given level
of schooling.
(1) B SB NSB
(2) B TSB NTSB GSS SS
(3) B NT ATS NNT ANTS GSS SS
(4) B/NS (NT/NS) ATS (NNT/NS) ANTS GSS/NS SS/NS
(5) UC ATS/PTR ANTS/PNTR UGSS USS
(6) UC [(ATS/CS) (ST/TT)] ANTS/PNTR UGSS PSSS ASSES
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Figure 2. Unit spending and GER at the primary level in low income African countries
Source: UIS and World Bank ECSR.
y = 287.54x
0.492
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= 0.38
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5 10 15 20
Per pupil spending (% pc GDP)
G
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(
%
)
Graph 2: Unit spending and GER at the primary
level in low income African countries
In which, B is the recurrent budget for the level of schooling under consideration;
SB is the salary bill; NSB is the non-salary bill; TSB is the teacher salary bill; NTSB
is the non-teacher salary bill; GSS is the spending on goods and services (textbooks,
maintenance, in-service training, pedagogical support, ..); SS is the spending on social
activities; NT is the number of teachers; ATS is the average salary of teachers; NNT is
the number of non-teaching personnel; ANTS is the average salary of non-teaching
staff; NS is the number of students enrolled at that level of schooling; UC is the aver-
age recurrent unit cost; PTR is the pupil teacher ratio; PNTR is the pupil non-teaching
staff ratio; UGSS is the spending per student on goods and services; USS is average
spending per student for social activities (school meals, scholarships, ..); CS is the class
size (average number of students per class); ST is the time of instruction of students
(hours per week); TT is the average effective teaching time of teachers (hours per
week); PSSS is the percentage of students that are eligible to the social subsidies;
ASSES is the amount of social subsidy obtained per eligible student. The idea behind
this type of decomposition is to help identify the impact on the unit cost of the various
characteristics of the schooling context which are the instruments of the educational pol-
icy of a country. In the final decomposition of the example above, it is seen that unit costs
are higher if teachers are better paid, teach smaller classes during a limited number of
hours and if students are offered longer hours of instruction; similarly unit cost will
be higher if the process uses a large number of well paid non-teaching staff, provides
large amounts of goods and services per student, provides large subsidies for social pur-
pose and provides these subsidies to a large proportion of the population in schools.
The expression above helps to evaluate the unit cost associated with any mix of the
different variables that characterize the provision of the service. It also helps to docu-
ment the tradeoffs to be considered across school inputs, in a context where the unit cost
would have been exogenously fixed at a previous step of policy formulation. To illus-
trate the point, consider a simplified unit cost function in which the number of hours of
instruction of teachers is the same as the teaching duty of the teacher (common case in
primary education) and in which there is neither non-teaching staff nor social subsidy.
In such circumstances, the unit cost function is simplified as follows:
UC = ATS/PTR + UGSS.
We assume then that the expenditure per pupil is set at 500 Monetary Units (MU);
within this unit expenditure, schooling can be organized in many very different ways
by combing the use of more or less well-trained teachers, bigger or smaller class sizes
and a larger or smaller amount allocated to goods and services per student. Table 4
below suggests a small number of these possible combinations. The factors analyzed
here are the teachers [3 categories, A, B and C with respective annual compensation of
12,000, 16,000 and 24,000 MU], the expenses for goods and services varying between
50 and 300 MU; the class size is determined once the two other parameters are defined
and the unit expenditure has been set.
These choices can vary: in case (1), the class size is at an attractive level (26.7 pupils)
but the teachers are from the least-qualified category (A) and the amount of goods and
services is minimal. If it were to be decided to use better qualified teachers (category C)
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it must be accepted (situation 2 in the table) that class size increases to 53 pupils while
expenditure on goods and services remains low (50 MU per pupil). Situation (3), where
the teachers are well qualified and the operational resources are adequate can then
be considered, but in that case there would be an average of 80 pupils per class. If it is
decided that this figure is too high, an option would be using category B rather than
category C teachers, which leads to case (4), where class size is reduced to 53 pupils.
It should be stressed that the possible options do not stop there, as the goods and
services item also has to be broken down into several components: text books, peda-
gogical material, in-service training for teachers, assessment of pupils and pedagogi-
cal support for teachers and administration. If it is assumed that 100 MU will be
allocated to the goods and services heading, this figure can be reached by allocating
very little to text books and pedagogical support, none to in-service training or assess-
ment of pupils and a lot to administration; but obviously, this amount can also be
distributed in a completely different way.
The calculations presented above are indeed made from a theoretical perspective;
they represent the tradeoffs which each country has to make in the formulation of its
educational policy. In reality, countries do not make similar choices as far as the mix
of school inputs is concerned. School inputs are indeed quite different at any level of
schooling across African countries: this derives both from the fact that the amount of
public resources per student varies quite substantially and from the fact that for a given
level of unit cost they also distribute the resources in quite different ways.
To separate out the two components and to illustrate the magnitude of the second
one, we focus on a subset of countries sharing a similar level of per pupil spending.
For example, countries like Eritrea, Mali, Mozambique Sudan and Swaziland share
a unit cost of primary education standing at about 12% of their GDP per capita but
Mozambique has a pupil teacher ratio of 67 while it is only 29 in Sudan and 47 in
Eritrea. However, Sudan has opted for a low level of remuneration of their teachers
(2.2 times the per capita GDP of the country), contrasting with Mozambique and
Eritrea in which the remuneration of teachers exceeds five times the per capita GDP.
Also Mali or Eritrea allocates more than 30% of total spending to non-teachers
salary costs, while Chad or Mozambique allocate only 20% of total recurrent spend-
ing to these items. The same type of observations can be made in either secondary or
higher education.
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Table 4. Teacher category, current resources on goods and services and class size for expenditure per
pupil of 500 MU (hypothetical country)
Average expenditure per pupil (MU) 500
Teacher category A B C
Teachers annual salary (MU) 12,000 16,000 24,000
50 26.7 (1) 35.6 53.3 (2)
Expenditure per pupil for 100 30.0 40.0 60.0
goods and services (MU) 200 40.0 53.3 (4) 80.00 (3)
300 60.0 80.0 120.0
These figures are national averages and suggest that countries with a similar level of
unit cost do not necessarily buy similar mixes of school inputs with the resources they
allocate on average to a pupil. In addition, substantial variations in the mix of school
inputs exist within countries, that is across the different schools that constitute the
national system of education. For example, in Chad or Malawi (but also in most coun-
tries of the region), resources, in particular teachers and textbooks, are not deployed in
a consistent way to individual schools, with some schools being well endowed (rela-
tively low pupil teacher ratio and good availability of textbooks) while some other are
lacking the most basic inputs to operate (very large classes with virtually no text-
books). While the variations across countries may correspond to different educational
policies, the variations within countries are the outcome of bad performance in the
internal management and deployment of resources.
To sum up, the analyses conducted so far lead to the conclusion that a wide diversity
exists in the choices made by the different countries of the region at the different steps
of the process going from the overall mobilization of resources to the sector to the buy-
ing of school inputs at the individual school level. This denotes both (1) that in fact
wide spaces do exist for educational policies in these various components and (2) that
countries, positively or by default, do use these spaces in quite different ways leading
to a very diverse picture of education in Sub-Saharan Africa. This in turn suggests that
a certain caution should be used when making statements along generic lines for the
region; but this variability is also a kind of natural experiment creating favorable con-
ditions for assessing the consequences of the choices made in the cost and financing
sphere upon efficiency and equity or more tangible outcomes such as coverage and the
quality of the services offered.
The Impact on Coverage and Quality of Service as Well as on
Efficiency and Equity
We will focus on three main dimensions: coverage, quality of services and equity, the
question being to determine on a factual basis to what extent global funding and the
choices made in using it impact on these three dimensions. The question is indeed of
some importance since resources are often seen as the main constraint to achieving
better educational outcomes and since it is the main vehicle through which external
assistance can play a part.
Quantitative Coverage of the System
We start by contrasting the amount of recurrent resources mobilized with the coverage
that is achieved. This analysis can be conducted either for the sector as a whole or for
any particular level of education (with the restriction that the duration of the cycle has
to be controlled for as discussed above).
Concerning the sector as a whole we compare an estimate of the amount of resources
mobilized as a percentage of GDP with an estimate of the global coverage of the young
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population by the system, through the school life expectancy statistics (the average num-
ber of years of schooling of a cohort). The documentation is available for a large number
of countries of the region. Figure 3 illustrates the relationship between the two statistics
for the year 2003.
The graph is very explicit: (1) there is a relatively wide variance in both dimensions
(countries differ widely in terms of the share of their GDP allocated to the sector (from
2 to 9% of GDP) as well as in terms of the overall coverage of the system (SLE rang-
ing from 3 to 12 years); (2) on average, a positive trend does exist between the two
statistics (more resources on average imply better coverage); but (3) the points repre-
senting the different countries of the region are widely scattered and the overall rela-
tionship is relative weak with an R
2
of only 0.27. For example, we find that school life
expectancy can range from 3 to 8 years across the different countries sharing a similar
amount of public resources of about 3% of GDP. Similarly countries with a school life
expectancy of 6 years can mobilize between 25% of their GDP for the sector. This
pattern suggests that if resources do play a role to facilitate a good coverage of educa-
tion to a countrys young population, the way these resources are used makes very
substantial differences. Countries like the Gambia, Togo or Zambia, that are closer to
the pseudo frontier of efficiency (represented by the dotted curve in Figure 3), are
clearly more efficient than countries like Burkina Faso, Burundi or Lesotho standing
well inside the frontier.
If we focus now on primary education, the pattern is essentially the same with (1) the
resources ranging from less than 1% of GDP (Guinea, the Gambia) to more than 3% of
GDP (Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique), (2) while GER ranges from 50% to over 100%; but
(3) a relationship between the two dimensions characterized by a R
2
below 30%. The
results suggest that the parameters of service delivery are elements that enter the discus-
sion when a country envisages increasing coverage and that the resources are not the sin-
gle lever that can be activated.
8
Obviously, this would require further analysis in particular
since coverage is not the single objective of an education policy.
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Figure 3. School life expectancy and public resources for the sector
Source: UIS and World Bank ECSRs.
y = 0.68 x + 3.88
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Public resources (% GDP)
Graph 3 : School life expectancy and public resources for the sector
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The Quality of Educational Services
The quality of educational services can be approached in different ways, one of which
is to investigate the relationship between inputs and outputs. Concerning the output
side, two complementary perspectives can be used depending on the unit of observa-
tion we use to conduct the analysis: (1) if we take a macro perspective, international
comparisons can require that we have in hand some common measure of student learn-
ing in a sample of countries; (2) a more micro perspective can also be used with data
on student achievement in a number of schools within a given country. In this context,
student achievement can take the form of standardized test scores or of marks given in
national exams. In principle, standardized test scores in well designed and well imple-
mented studies (control over the conditions of administration of the instruments,
objectivity in marking) are probably preferred. The comparability of marks and pass
rates may not be as good as that of test scores, but since they carry both a better legit-
imacy
9
and concern the whole system of schooling
10
; they cannot therefore be ignored.
At the end, we are somehow supply driven and led to use what is available, keeping in
mind the limitation of the different instruments.
For the international comparative perspective, it may be noted that quite a num-
ber of student learning assessment surveys have been conducted in the region at the
primary level of education by three agencies.
11
The results however are not directly
comparable since these three agencies use different instruments. Nonetheless, since
there are some countries with both an MLA score and either a PASEC or a SACMEQ
assessment, all the existing assessments can be adjusted to fit onto a single scale (that
of MLA). As a consequence a reasonable comparison between the average scores of
pupils in a fairly large number (22) of countries of the region can be obtained.
From a descriptive point of view, two pieces of information emerge from that exercise.
The score interpreted as the percentage of the target content effectively showed: (1) there
is a wide dispersion in the national average score, from about 40 (in countries like Mali
or Zanzibar) to more than 65 (in countries like Mauritius or Kenya), and (2) the average
figure is only 50.6 indicating that only half of the targeted content is effectively acquired
in a typical country of Sub-Saharan Africa.
12
For our purpose, we focus more on the variability of the score across countries than
on their absolute level. We have seen above that African countries spend very different
amounts per pupil in primary education, and it is tempting to contrast the variability in
per pupil spending across countries with that in the student learning score. A graph
plotting the case of the 22 countries in the two dimensions depicts a very scattered
picture: some countries with a relatively low (high) unit cost have also relatively low
(high) learning score (this is the case of Zambia and Kenya) but countries like Niger
have both a high unit cost and a low level of student learning, while the contrary is
observed in Guinea. A regression between the two dimensions gives a coefficient that
is positive but not statistically different from zero (the R
2
is only 0.018). This result is
obviously not encouraging for those who want to use financial resources to boost
educational quality.
We now move to analyzing student achievement data in individual countries.
Concerning national exams, the data are available in about 20 countries. For student
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assessments based on test scores, the sample of countries for which the design is
appropriate to conduct such analysis and for which the data are available (PASEC data
for Francophone countries) is limited to ten countries.
We can first duplicate the approach used in the international comparison above
using the school as the unit of observation. For the national exams, we contrast the pass
rate at the school level with an estimate of the recurrent spending per pupil based on
the costing of the conditions of schooling prevailing in each school. For the test scores,
we use a more sophisticated measure of student learning, estimating the average test
score at the end of the school year in Grades 2 and 5, controlling for both the score of
students at the beginning of the same school year and the social characteristics of the
students. This procedure effectively evaluates, within each school, the progress made
over the school year by students of similar social and academic characteristics. This
measure is then compared with the unit cost corresponding to the detailed conditions
of schooling in Grades 2 and 5 in the schools of the sample.
For both the pass rate at a national exam and the score reflecting the progress of stu-
dents of similar (average) social and academic characteristics, we find a wide variance
across the schools of any given country. We find also that the schooling conditions (and
the unit cost) tend to vary widely across the different schools within countries given the
low degree of consistency in resource allocation to individual schools in most African
countries. When plotting individual schools in a graph crossing the two dimensions, we
get exactly the same result as that found at the international level: the points are essen-
tially scattered and there is virtually no statistical relationship between resources and
learning outcomes.
But there is a possibility that resources globally do not matter because the input mix
purchased with these resources is inadequate. To address this point, the analysis of the
PASEC data has been placed at the individual student level; and regressions have been
estimated of the year-end score against (1) the score at the beginning of the school
year, (2) a vector of student characteristics and (3) a vector of school and class charac-
teristics, allowing (4) for students to learn differently according to the particular class
they are in or the particular teacher by whom they were taught during that year. This
type of analysis, replicated in all of the ten countries for which the data are available,
provides results that are quite similar in the different countries. The results are useful
in that they help identify the impact of individual inputs upon student learning.
13
But
in our perspective, they are all the more useful as they help to sort out the impact of the
different groups of factors upon learning outcomes. Table 5 presents the average
pattern for the ten countries of the sample.
According to the figures in Table 5, individual and logistic factors characterizing the
schooling context together account for 45.1% of the variance of the dependant variable
(year-end test score), implying that what is not accounted for by these factors repre-
sents 54.9% of that variance. Within this residual, two components can be distin-
guished: (1) one which is systematically linked to the fact that students taught in a
given class (by a given teacher) tend to look alike in terms of learning at the end of the
school year; (2) the second component is distributed randomly both across and within
classes. Econometric estimates show that the first component accounts for 24.2% of
total variance, while the second accounts for 34.9%. Leaving aside the latter component
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to focus on what is explained by individual and contextual factors (both logistical and
class/teacher effects), the last column in Table 5 provides a useful decomposition in
particular between (1) the individual pupil characteristics, (2) the logistical and formal
aspects of the schooling context and (3) the class/teacher systematic component.
The pupil-level factor is by far the most important since they account for as much as
55.7% of accounted variance; the descriptive dimensions such as gender, socio-economic
status of parents, number of siblings or geographical location, altogether account for only
3.6%, the component with the largest impact (52% of accounted variance) being the score
at the beginning of the school year. This score is assumed to embody the personal and cog-
nitive dimensions of the individual pupil that are not directly observable, as well as the
outcome of previous school and social experiences. For the schooling process under con-
sideration, these aspects are largely exogenous. It is therefore on the 44.3% of the variance
that education policies can play a role (this remains however substantial).
The decomposition of the variance helps to separate out (1) the impact of the vari-
ability in the formal inputs
14
(teachers academic credentials and training, class size,
modality of student grouping, characteristics of the school building, availability of text-
books and pedagogical materials) that together constitute the logistic schooling context,
from (2) the impact of the variability across classes and schools that arises from the
capacity of the actors to use the resources and transform them into student outcomes.
This latter capacity is not directly observed but its existence and impact are inferred
from the variability in student learning, after controlling for the formal characteristics
of the schooling context.
Empirical results show that the impact of the capacity of the actors to use the inputs
exceeds by far that of the inputs themselves. The variability in the amount and mix of
inputs across classes accounts for only 9% of total accounted variance,
15
while that of
teachers capacity and behaviors accounts for as much as 35% (about four times that
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Table 5. Decomposition of the variance of learning score, PASEC Average of 10
countries
% Variance
Pupils 38.6 55.7
Initial score 36.1 52.1
Personal and social characteristics 2.5 3.6
Schools inputs and
characteristics 6.5 9.4
Classes 1.7 2.5
Schools 1.6 2.3
Teachers 3.2 4.6
Total individual and logistic
factors 45.1 65.1
Teacher/Class Effect 24.2 34.9
Total accounted 67.3 100.0
Residual 32.7 -
Total 100.0 -
Source: From PASEC data and calculations by the author.
of inputs). Errors in measurement in the school inputs variables may produce an under-
estimation of their statistical impact and inflate that of the capacity variable (since the
latter is not directly observed and absorbs all factors at the class level that are not
accounted in the inputs variable) but these errors in measurements are probably limited
in size and unlikely to alter substantially the estimated pattern. In the current circum-
stances prevailing in the systems of primary education in low income African coun-
tries, the use of resources clearly carries a much stronger impact than that of formal
inputs and resources per se. Inputs make the budget but they are relatively weak in
producing student learning.
The transformation of resources into student learning, which proves to be so impor-
tant, refers probably to a large number of aspects that interplay at the local level; they
can be grouped under the generic umbrella of pedagogic management. We have neither
the space nor enough empirical results to identify and discuss the factors that play a
role in the transformation of formal inputs into student learning and outcomes; let us
just suggest that it might be useful to distinguish (1) the amount of time provided for
effective contact between the teacher and his (her) students over a given school year
16
and (2) how the time available is used, implying both global pedagogic style and day-
to-day interactive behaviors of teachers and students.
Equity in the Provision of Educational Services
The relationships between financing patterns and equity can be approached along two
complementary perspectives. The argument starts on the cost side and suggests that a
high cost of services may lead (1) to lower coverage of the population (this point has
been documented above) with the possibility that this may be associated with larger
social inequalities, or (2) to a larger recourse to private financing that may itself result
in social inequities.
Negative impact of private financing on school participation, especially
for the poor
The impact of private financing upon access to schooling in Africa has not been stud-
ied in any detail, but all estimates indicate that it is substantial and generally much
larger than initially thought. Natural experiments involving the abolition of school
fees (representing often small amounts e.g., 4 dollars a year or less than 10% of unit
cost to the government) show that such decisions may entail a huge increase in school
participation.
The case of Cameroon is instructive in this regard: in 2000 fees were abolished and
enrolment increased by as much as 57% in primary Grade 1, bringing to school most of
the 6 year old children but also most of those 7 or 8 years of age that did not get enrolled
in previous years. In Mali, for the community schools it has been estimated that as much
as 50% of the children of families in the lowest two quintiles of income did not have
access to a school even though it was located less than 1 km from home, this proportion
being reduced to less than 20% for children from families in the highest 2 quintiles of
income. Similar results have been found in Mozambique.
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Negative impact of high cost of schooling upon social disparities
Education systems, as is the case with other social services, tend to expand outward
from the centre, starting with what is easiest to do, and moving progressively towards
what is more difficult. This means that urban areas (and in particular the capital city)
are served first, where the high density of population, political pressure and a strong
demand for education motivate for the production of services. Then, when these pop-
ulations have been served, the expansion of the system concerns smaller locations and
the rural areas that are relatively easy to reach. It is only then that the process of expan-
sion includes the populations difficult to reach. To add to the difficulty, teachers are
often times reluctant to be deployed in these zones. Even in countries with a very low
global coverage, enrolment rates in urban areas are usually very high.
17
Under these circumstances, one should anticipate that social disparities are likely to
be large in systems offering a low coverage and tend to diminish as coverage increases.
To illustrate, we focus on gender disparities existing at the end of the primary cycle of
education. On the basis on the argument above, it could be expected that the differ-
ences in gender disparities reported across countries may be linked to differences in
coverage; but they may also be associated with other factors. Figure 4 below shows the
case of the different countries of the region both in terms of the proportion of the age
group that completes primary education and the magnitude of gender disparities at this
point in the system.
The pattern that emerges from the graph is relatively clear. On the one hand, there
exists a trend according to which gender disparities are more intense when coverage is
lower (as shown by the curve in the graph) and on the other hand, we identify strong dif-
ferences in gender disparities between countries standing at similar levels of coverage.
18
One can therefore identify the existence of a general factor relating lower coverage to
larger gender disparities (and probably other disparities, compounded by the existence
of country specific factors.
Since coverage is significantly (negatively) linked to the level of unit cost of the serv-
ices, it follows that the higher the unit cost of services, the lower the coverage offered to
the population and therefore the larger the social disparities in school participation.
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Figure 4. Gender equity vs. global coverage at the end of primary education, 2002
Source: UIS and World Bank ECSRs.
y = 28.08Ln(x) 25.22
R
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= 0.39
20
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0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Primary completion rate (%)
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(
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Conclusion and Directions for Further Research and Action
Larger Room for Maneuver than Spontaneously Anticipated
In this text, we have described (1) a wide variance in the amount of public resources
mobilized by the different countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, but also (2) a substantial
addition both from private domestic sources and from external sources. We have also
observed that countries are free to make choices and tradeoffs in (3) the distribution of
these resources across the different levels of education, in the relative weight given (4) to
coverage and per-pupil spending at each level of schooling and (5) in the mix of school
inputs when per-pupil spending has been identified. For each of these five dimensions,
factual data show a wide variability across and within the different countries of the
region. Many constraints do exist but, beyond the fiscal capacity of country that to a
large extent constitutes a real constraint, a number of aspects labeled as constraints are
de facto a matter a choice.
The Financial Dimension Constitutes an Important Aspect of an Educational
Policy but Other Considerations Play a Significant Role
Resources are to be considered as means to reach goals. In education, some of main
goals can be described in terms of coverage, quality of services and equity. Policy
makers aim at producing a system of schooling that (1) imparts individuals with learn-
ing in the short term and capacities to contribute to the social and economic develop-
ment of the country in the medium term, (2) provides these services to a large
proportion of each cohort, and (3) distributes the services as equitably as possible. It is
therefore of crucial importance to assess the extent to which money is the effective
currency to buy these outcomes. Empirical analysis shows that the answer is much less
clear cut than expected.
Impact of resources on coverage
There is a general assumption that the expansion of services can only be achieved
through the allocation of additional resources. However, this is only true where current
service delivery is optimal and that the country is close to efficiency in resource use.
Reality tells that it is not the case for most countries and that coverage can be expanded
through efficiency gains within the sector. A careful assessment is required to deter-
mine how to make service delivery more efficient (is it that repetitions are too frequent,
classrooms too costly, teacher salaries too high or non-teaching staff in excessive num-
bers . . . ?). It is simply not acceptable that the mobilization of additional resources
(should they be from domestic or external sources
19
) be a substitute for inefficiency in
resource use.
Impact of resources on student learning
Concerning student learning, the conclusions of our empirical analysis basically mir-
rors those obtained for coverage. If we take the general conditions as they currently
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exist in the systems of education in most countries of the region, there is virtually no
relationship between the amount of resources mobilized per student and the level of
student learning; this statement holds when comparing between countries or between
individual schools within countries. What is purchased with the resources matters mar-
ginally more and some mixes of inputs are clearly better than others in boosting
student learning for a given level of per pupil spending. However, when analyzing the
variability in student outcomes, it is unambiguously clear that the use of resources at
the school level matters much more that the amount and mix of inputs. The transfor-
mation of inputs into student outcomes is a process that is in fact left to the local actors
to perform. Actors are in a principal-agent type of relationship with a distant govern-
ment in which (1) the contract is fuzzy, (2) what local actors do is crucial for the pro-
duction of the outcomes, but (3) actors know that no sanction is likely to be taken if the
outcome is not good, since the latter is often not measured. In virtually all systems of
education in the countries of the region,
20
this relationship is either not adequately
managed, or not managed at all.
Impact of resources on equity
The impact of the choices made in the cost and financing of educational services are
twofold. First, it has been estimated that the choice of good schooling conditions char-
acterized by a high unit cost have a negative impact on equity through (1) the negative
impact of per pupil spending on coverage and (2) the negative impact of a low cover-
age on social disparities. Second, since high unit costs of services carry a negative
impact on coverage, this tends to lead to a larger private contribution to the financing
of education. And private financing, obviously a good idea if it concerns the children
of parents who have the ability to pay, thus freeing up public funding to target the
schooling of those who cannot pay, hurts equity in particular when the rich urban chil-
dren have access to public services while poor urban would have to pay to get access
to the service. Unfortunately, in most countries of the region, it is more the second
scenario that prevails.
In the final analysis, cost and financing issues are effectively at the heart of educa-
tional policy but our analysis shows that the issues are clearly not as simple as they
may appear. Money is at best a necessary but not sufficient condition: (1) for cover-
age, it becomes a necessary condition only when the delivery of services is efficient,
and most countries currently are far away from this state of affairs; (2) for student
learning, experience indicates that there is a minimum threshold below which it not
possible to get to a decent level of learning, but beyond which there is not much to
gain by simply increasing resources; managing the transformation of school inputs
into student outcomes (pedagogical management and incentives of actors) is what
really matters.
Directions for Further Research and Action
The above results bring questions for the research community and call as well for new
reflections to guide action towards better efficiency.
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On the research side, it is clear that it would be important on the one hand to better
identify the formal parameters characterizing what are efficient services vis-` a-vis
coverage, and to understand better the process of transformation of inputs into
student outcomes at the classroom level.
On the action side, one could think that our results are disappointing from a
Ministry of Finance or donor point of view. In short, what they want is to help the
countries to get better results (coverage, student learning and equity) and what they
have to contribute is money; but money alone has relatively limited impact on
outcomes. Two types of behavior from the supplier of resources are to be avoided:
Since money does not have the expected impact on outcomes, there is no
justification to mobilize additional amounts from a tax payers point of view
(should it be from the South or from the North);
Money is what we have (even in restricted amounts) and education cannot
be ignored; but education is a difficult business and there is not much to be
done to improve the situation.
The first behavior is totally unrealistic and inappropriate, and the second corresponds
more or less to what is currently done. A third type of behavior is obviously to be pre-
ferred. It would amount first to get the domestic and external financing actors to better
understand the nature of the issues at stake; and second, to work with the ministry of
education to improve efficiency of resource use both through better policies vis-` a-vis
coverage and better management of the transformation of resources into student out-
comes at the local level. Ministries of education are in general keener to get more
resources than to introduce measures that would boost efficiency in their use. They are
probably geared by short term objectives and easy gains while improvements in effi-
ciency is both difficult (it implies often times a cultural change) and takes time. It is
unlikely that this move it will come spontaneously from the ministries of education.
The financing partners have a responsibility to push the necessary agenda; but for that,
they need both a better analytical capacity and even more the courage to become devel-
opment agencies and not merely a Bank or political institution.
Notes
1. The analyses reported in this paper are based on two major sources (often adapted) of data : (1) UNESCO
Institute of Statistics, administrative data and (2) World Education Country Status Reports conducted in
more than 20 countries of the region since 2000.
2. It is not necessarily easy to sort out domestic public resources and external funding since many coun-
tries get general budget support either as adjustment or poverty reduction funding.
3. In the expressions, GDP is for Gross Domestic Product; TPRES for Total Public Resources; and
EDRES for Public Resources on Education.
4. It is often much lower given the structure of their economy in which the non-formal sector and self
consumption is predominant and difficult to tax.
5. There is no value judgement behind this quantitative statement; the context of the different countries
is obviously different both on the side of resource mobilization and on that of public claims.
6. This sequence assumes a single Ministry for the sector. When there is more than one ministry (e.g.,
one for primary or basic education, another for secondary education and for higher education), some
of these tradeoffs between levels of schooling are dealt at the global budget level.
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7. According to the macro perspective, the unit cost for a given level of education is simply the ratio of
total recurrent spending for that cycle of study and of the number of students enrolled in that cycle
during a given year.
8. External agencies are obviously concerned since if they have resources to offer, it is assumed that they are
also interested in the efficiency with which the resources (theirs and those of the country as well) are used.
9. They are what teachers are supposed to prepare the students for, and it is what parents are expecting
the teachers to do.
10. With test scores, we have to rely on relatively small samples of schools. This may not have negative
consequences if we want to get an assessment of the system; but it is a limitation for the system if the
measure of outcomes is to be used as a management instrument.
11. Assessments have been conducted in the context of (1) MLA (Measurement or Learning Achievement)
by UNESCO, (2) PASEC (Program dAnalyse des Syst ` emes Educatifs de la CONFEMEN) and
(3) SACMEQ (Southern African Consortium for the Measurement of Educational Quality).
12. In the same scale, countries like Morocco or Tunisia get relatively high scores (respectively 63 and 71).
However by comparison with OECD countries, the score of these two countries is relatively low, suggest-
ing that student learning in Sub-Saharan Africa is on average probably well below that of OECD countries.
13. For example, the quality of the school building matters little but textbooks do; or grade repeat does not
help the student to progress; or teachers academic credentials matter if they are low, but do not carry
much better learning in their students beyond 1011 years of initial general education.
14. Schooling conditions currently vary widely across individual schools in most African countries, due to
low levels of efficiency in resource management.
15. We do not enter here into the discussion between what works and what does not; but it may be of
interest to note that the characteristics of the school building have no impact, while they may carry a
high cost, or that teachers academic credentials have virtually no impact (but a high cost) after 12
years of general education.
16. There is descriptive data which suggests that both across and within countries, there is a wide variance
in the effective time of contact between teachers and students due to the fact that the official number
of hours of instruction may vary from one country to another, the use of double shifting or inadequate
implementation of multigrade teaching, a late start and/or early ending of the school year, and absen-
teeism and lack of punctuality of teachers and students.
17. For example, in Niger in 1998, the gross enrolment ratio of primary education was about 30%; but it
was 75% in urban setting (100% in Niamey) and only 20% in rural areas as a whole, and much less in
rural deprived zones.
18. This suggests the existence of country specificities given the analysis conducted. For example, countries
such as Ethiopia, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali and Rwanda have all completion rates around 40% in 2002,
but they differ strongly on the magnitude of gender disparities: for example, while Ethiopia, Guinea and
Mali have a gender ratio around 60%, it stands at almost 100% in Madagascar and Rwanda.
19. Sometimes, external financing agencies are so keen to make projects, and thereafter to disburse, that
they tend to bypass this necessary step of efficiency improvement. In fact, external funding is often
warranted, but it should pursue the two complementary objectives (1) of being catalytic to promote
efficiency in resource use, and (2) of easing the constraint to help the country achieve more of its social
goals. The second aspect based on a short term perspective, generally prevails, while the first, which
holds the potential of medium term, sustainable gains, is often not taken seriously.
20. This does not mean that the management of this type of relationship could not be improved in other
countries.
References
Bernard, J. M., Kouak, B. T., & Vianou, K. (2004). Profils enseignants et qualit de lducation primaire en
Afrique subsaharienne francophone: Bilan et perspectives de dix annes de recherche du PASEC;
PASEC/CONFEMEN.
Bruns, B., Mingat, A., & Rakotomalala, R. (2003). A chance for every child; achieving universal primary
education by 2015. The World Bank.
448 Mingat
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None of the
references are
cited in the
text. Please
could you
insert intext
citation for the
same or mark
the references
to be deleted.
An alternative
would be to
rename the
section as
Bibliography.
Please pro-
vide pub-
lishers
location for
reference
Bruns
(2003).
Burtless, G. (Ed.). (1996). Does money matter? The link between schools, student achievement, and adult
success, Brookings.
Dakar 5. (2005); EFA: Paving the way for action. UNESCO-BREDA.
Jarousse, J. P., Rasera, J. B., & Noumon, C.R. (2005). Le Financement dans les syst ` emes ducatifs dAfrique
Sub-Saharienne. Paris: ADEA.
Lassibille, G., & Rasera, J. B. (1998). Statistical information systems on education expenditure. UNESCO.
Mingat, A. (2004). Teacher Salary Issues in African Countries. World Bank, AFTHD, Processed.
Mingat, A., & Suchaut, B. (2000). Les Syst` emes Educatifs Africains, une Analyse Comparative. Bruxelles:
De Boeck Universit.
Mingat, A., Tan J. P., & Sosale, S. (2003). Tools for education policy analysis. The World Bank.
Verspoor, A. (Ed.). (2006). The challenge of learning: Improving the quality of basic education in Sub-
Saharan Africa, LHarmattan, Paris for ADEA.
World Bank. (2006). Education country status report for Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad,
Congo Democratic Republic, C ote-dIvoire, Ethiopia, Guinea, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali,
Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Togo, Zambia; 20002006, the World
Bank.
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Please provide
publishers
location for
reference
Lassibille
(1998), &
Mingat &
Sosale (2003)
Please provide
publishers
location for
Ref. Burtless,
(1966).
Please pro-
vide pub-
lishers
location for
reference
Mingat, A. &
Suchaut, B.
(2000), &
World Bank
(2006).
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A major educational reform of this first decade of the twenty-first century has been to
recognise and acknowledge the moral, social and economic imperatives to ensure that
all students optimise learning potential and that no students fail to achieve the minimum
standards required for successful and positive participation in society.
Unlike many drivers for change, this focus on outcomes continues to intensify and will
also be the key driver for reform for the next decade and beyond. The pre-eminence of
learning outcomes is in the best interests of both the individual student and the nation.
Research continues to highlight the increased life chances for students successfully com-
pleting Year 12 of secondary education in comparison with their peers who either disen-
gage from secondary education prior to Year 12 or who fail to gain an acknowledged
standard of outcomes.
In the Australian states of Victoria and South Australia, the unrelenting pursuit of
learning outcomes is encapsulated in a statement that 90% of students will success-
fully complete Year 12 or its equivalent. In Victoria this target was established by the
Bracks Labor government on winning office in 2000 and is strongly reiterated in The
Blueprint for Government Schools (2003). Subsequently this target statement has been
expanded to encompass all students achieving improved outcomes and the diminu-
tion of the disparity in achievement between students. In essence this expansion
introduces the concept that it is unacceptable for a significant proportion of students to
fail. The targeting of reduction of disparity between student achievement has signifi-
cant consequences for educational reform in Victoria and perhaps elsewhere.
The Statement of Directions 20052010 developed by the Department of Education
and Childrens Services for the Government of South Australia highlights the many
outcome targets expected to be achieved. Not only is there an expectation to increase
the percentage of students completing Year 12 to 90% but also to significantly and
sustainably lift the learning outcomes for disadvantaged groups.
In England education reform is driven by the need for all pupils to perform to
the maximum of their potential. Initially this has resulted in a tendency to focus
451
25
RESOURCES AND SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS
AND IMPROVEMENT
Jim Spinks
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2007 Springer.
Please pro-
vide com-
plete details
for the ref.
The
Blueprint
for
Government
Schools
(2003) in
ref. list.
improvement on those students predicted to perform just below the 5 GSCE A*C
level. However, increasing attention is now being given to those pupils most at risk. In
a speech about Education Improvement Partnerships on November 3, 2005, Jacqui
Smith, Minister of State for Schools, emphasised that one of our most ambitious tar-
gets over the next 10 years is to increase the number of sixteen year olds participating
in learning from 75 to 90%.
In essence, leading-edge education reform in the UK and Australia seeks not only to
improve the learning outcomes for all students but also to ensure that our most vulner-
able children receive appropriate provision through education and can take their place
as successful participants in society to the common good.
As illustrated by the The Blueprint for Government Schools (2003) in Victoria, the
Statement of Directions 20052010 in South Australia and the Department for Education
and Skills : Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners in England, the educational
reform agenda is a high priority and is being vigorously pursued through comprehensive
sets of strategies encompassing all factors known to affect school improvement. These
include:
Leadership
Quality teaching
Relevant curriculum
Flexible pedagogies
Quality infrastructure
High levels of public trust
Resources
Within these factors there is a strong realisation that the transformation of education
sought requires a personalisation of learning to a degree never before attempted, if all
students are to remain effectively and successfully engaged until at least the end of
Year 12. This personalisation of target setting, curriculum and modes of learning is
especially important for those students who are currently being failed by their respec-
tive educational systems.
Relationships Between Educational Resource Models and the
Pursuit of Best Possible Learning Outcomes for all Students
The future universally envisaged by political leaders, educators and the public in gen-
eral, is focused on improving learning outcomes for all students and diminishing the
disparity of outcomes between students. This future is also described as encompass-
ing high excellence and high equity. High excellence is achieved by an educa-
tional system when all students maximise their potential to learn and high equity is
achieved when the environmental circumstances of any child do not detract in any
way from all children maximising their potential for learning, backed by the belief
that all children have the capacity for learning. That both high excellence and high
equity can be achieved is well illustrated by Finland in the OECD PISA studies
(2000, 2003).
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Seeking to align future school resourcing with these changing expectations means
that alignment must be sought not only with number and nature of students (stages of
learning) but also importantly with the learning needs of students, particularly with
those needs that act as impediments to learning. In past development of funding models
for self-managing schools, learning needs were not ignored. Major attention has been
particularly given to the needs of children with impairments and disabilities. As well,
funding has been directed on the basis of socio-economic circumstances, language
background, indigenous culture and isolated location. However, children from these
environments, particularly when they occur in combinations, still predominate among
those disengaging too early from schooling and/or failing to attain sufficient standards
prior to exiting school.
The relationship between these issues is illustrated by reference to Figure 1 showing
current student outcome achievement with respect to increasing student affluence in
family socio-economic circumstances, or diminishing student need. Lamb (2004) iden-
tifies that it is family circumstances, as expressed by the occupation of the main income
earner, that are becoming recognised as the best predictor of students most at risk of fail-
ing to benefit from educational opportunity and thus failing to maximise their learning
potential.
The red line typically illustrates the learning needoutcome relation for Year 12 out-
comes in educational jurisdictions not only throughout Australia but also in like coun-
tries. The blue line represents the relation required if the commonly expressed target of
90% of students to successfully complete Year 12 is to be achieved. Asimilar pattern
emerges from the recent PISA studies of outcomes and the relation to student socio-
economic circumstances.
Improving outcomes for all students and decreasing (removing) disparity will
require an incredible effort not only in curriculum, pedagogy and leadership but also
in system-level approaches to resourcing. It is readily apparent that the major endeav-
our will have to be with respect to the first three quintiles. It is also recognised that the
Resources Effectiveness and Improvement 453
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Current outcomes Expected outcomes
OutcomesNeeds relation
effort and endeavour required increase exponentially as need increases. This relation-
ship is illustrated in Figure 2. The current and expected outcome lines have been
retained in Figure 2 as illustrative only.
A further dimension currently being explored in several jurisdictions is to address
the issue of alignment of resourcing with student aspirations. Planning is now under-
way in Victoria for research into this area. The view held there is that student aspira-
tion encompasses what is to be learnt and how learning is to occur. It is closely allied
with the concepts of personalising learning and school specialisation where it is
envisaged that new curriculum as well as changed pedagogy could be the outcome.
This differs in some ways from personalising learning and specialisation in England
where the emphasis is more strongly on establishing personal learning targets and
changing pedagogy but within the confines of existing curriculum structure. Both
approaches have strengths and it is very likely that next practice will reflect the best
features of each.
This paper proposes a strategy for educational systems to review the allocation of
resources to schools in order to enable the maximisation of student potential to achieve
expectations for learning. A key feature of the proposed strategy is that evidence is gath-
ered from those schools that are not only highly effective and efficient in significantly,
systematically and sustainably adding value to student learning outcomes, but which
also exhibit the characteristics of the future. For instance, selection seeks to involve iden-
tification of schools that exhibit the characteristics of emerging best practices in teaching
and learning and in the nature of schooling as well as a culture of continually and avidly
seeking even better practices. It is proposed that patterns of resource deployment in these
schools provide the exemplars on which to design resource allocation models for other
schools within the same system.
The proposal is based on recent developments in Victoria (2004) and South Australia
(2005) to review school funding practices and to develop new models that are supported
by evidence and guided by agreed principles. This review and redesign of school
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Please pro-
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plete details
for the ref.
Victoria
(2004) &
South
Australia
(2005)
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R
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Additional Resource Relation Current Outcomes Expected Outcomes
ResourceNeed relation
resource allocation practices is in both cases part of a broad agenda of reform to achieve
improved learning outcomes for all students. At the onset it was acknowledged that past
allocation practices were mostly historically based with many embedded unfair and
unsustainable practices. Even with the development of systems of self-managing
schools and related approaches to school global budgets, history had been a major fac-
tor in deriving allocation formulae. For instance, mythology had insisted that the age of
the student should be a major driver of resourcing and that resource provision needed to
increase with age. Although to some degree this myth had been busted in relation to the
early years of learning through research and emerging best practice, it persists in the
middle years and governs differentiation within the senior years. In the UK context, a
quick perusal of the AWPUs of most LEAs reveals parallels with this historical occur-
rence, with early years typically around 1.3 decreasing to 1.0 in late primary but accel-
erating from 1.3 up to 1.6 or more in senior secondary. The question needs to be asked
whether this pattern reflects best practice in the expenditure of resources in schools
achieving high excellence.
Of course some would ask, does it matter? if the school is free to deploy resources
as it interprets the best interests of students. The answer is yes, especially if there is a
significant funding differential across the stages of learning or age-grades and the pro-
portional mix of students across these categories differs from school to school. This was
very evident in Victoria where historically Years 1112 students were funded at a higher
level but schools spread this resource across all secondary year groups. This meant that
schools with higher proportions of students in Years 1112 were advantaged and yet it
was the schools with the lower proportions of students in Years 1112 that desperately
needed more resources to address the root causes of students disengaging and not con-
tinuing to the final years. It was evident that disengagement did not just occur at the end
of Year 10 but over the period in Years 910. A similar situation was evident in South
Australia where again funding favoured the more senior years and yet research demon-
strated that school expenditure was relatively flat across secondary classes and in some
large high schools with high proportions of students in Years 1112, expenditure on
Year 12 was the lowest on a per student basis.
These examples illustrate the desirability of reviewing funding models and redesign-
ing on the basis of evidence. In the past it has been difficult to obtain evidence on the
relative costs of education across year groups. This problem has been solved by analy-
sis of expenditure patterns in representative samples of leading-edge schools known to
add value to student learning. Central to this analysis has been a consideration of how
learning and teaching is delivered and supported as the start point, rather than a focus
on financial analysis. In essence, data is obtained about learning and teaching which can
then be translated into time proportions and costs. The outcome is the cost per student in
relation to year groups (or other groups of choice) that accurately expresses how the
school has chosen to deploy the resources available to it.
Any educational system with self-managing schools tends to allocate resources to
schools in the categories shown in Figure 3. This figure also acknowledges that an
increasingly important source of funding for schools, even those within government sys-
tems, is sponsorship by business and philanthropic organisations and parental contribu-
tions. The former is perhaps more prevalent in England while the latter is a significant
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factor in Victoria. These developments are not without controversies, particularly in rela-
tion to fairness between students and between schools which need to be addressed.
The following key points are given in explanation of the table content and the vari-
ations in proportions of the overall school allocation.
The majority of resources are allocated by governments but with a growing impor-
tance for revenue streams from business, philanthropic organisations and parents.
Student Focused Funding relates to the achievement of high excellence and high
equity on an ongoing basis. It is about the design, delivery and support of high
quality learning and teaching programs.
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Core student
learning
Can include:
The stages of learning and relativities between
them.
Translation into per student funding.
A base amount relating to diseconomies of scale.
Can
represent
7590%
S
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Equity
Can include:
Disabilities & impairments
Socio-economic status
Language background
Isolated location
Mobility
Indigenous
510%
Targeted
Initiatives
Targeted to specific schools or programs usually
for specified periods of time.
Often awarded through bids or submissions.
Can be closely related to political agendas.
210%
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Infrastructure
operation &
maintenance.
Can include:
Utilities
Maintenance
Minor development
35%
Infrastructure
ownership.
Buildings and grounds major development. 0??%
T
O
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A
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Specific
initiatives or
provisions
Often targeted to specific initiatives.
Can be supplied as cash or in kind.
An increasingly important source of funding.
Parent contributions.
08?%
Figure 3. Possible school budget allocation categories and sources
Core Student Learning relates to the number and nature of the students (stages of
learning) to ensure the achievement of high excellence. It should enable all students
from supportive environments to maximise their learning potential.
Equity relates to the extraordinary needs of the students, that is, those factors that
can impede students in maximising their learning potential. Its allocation is usually
linked to overcoming the identified impediments and derived from the degree and
density of occurrence of the impeding factor. Allocation is usually formulae driven
as practice demonstrates that allocation through bids or submissions is no guaran-
tee that the resource will end up in the schools with the students of greatest need.
In fact the opposite can be observed.
School Based Funding relates to the provision of buildings and grounds and tar-
geted funding that is not specific to all schools and/or may be allocated for a
limited time only. Sources of school based funding include governments, parents,
sponsorship by business, philanthropic organisations. The latter two sources are
increasing in importance particularly in England with the growing development
of partnerships between schools and other entities.
For some systems, infrastructure operation and maintenance are included in the
per student rates. This is not favoured in Australia with huge variations in climate
and geography within any one state or territory.
Infrastructure may also extend to building and grounds ownership through trusts
and partnerships with an increased requirement for consideration of longer term
maintenance and development. This is particularly an increasing development in
England, and there is a growing interest in its possibilities in some Australian states.
Targeted Initiatives through government resourcing are usually accessed through
bids or submissions. They may be related to equity issues or innovation. There is a
concern when related to equity issues as in these instances ongoing funding should
be guaranteed, with funding related to the degree and density of the occurrence of
the need in question. Innovation to identify better practices including overcoming
an equity issue may well be resourced as a targeted initiative with funding allocated
through bidding.
Systems often endeavour to transfer government funds from Targeted Initiatives to
Equity although the retention of Targeted Initiatives can be politically attractive.
Non-government revenue streams are becoming increasingly important in the trans-
formation of education. They not only include parent contributions but very impor-
tantly, sponsorship from business and philanthropic organisations in cash and in
kind to support specific initiatives for improved learning outcomes.
It is also recognised that groupings of schools are a developing phenomenon
with varying degrees of sharing of resource pools to the mutual benefit of all.
Similarly groups of schools are benefiting from shared leadership and operation
through an executive head. These developments may enhance the educational
value of resources.
The possible redesign of any school resource allocation system does raise the spectre of
resource redistribution between schools, particularly as resource reform invariably pro-
ceeds in a cost neutral environment. It is interesting that it is easy to gain unanimous
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agreement from stakeholders that reform is necessary due to inherent problems and
unfairness in the current system but the unanimity of agreement then disappears if an
outcome is adjustment both upwards and downwards. Some systems have addressed the
problem by a guarantee that no school will be worse off but this invariably produces
unacceptable cost escalations. The current reforms in Victoria have demonstrated that
redistribution is possible with acceptance by the vast majority of stakeholders by careful
attention to the design and management of the project. Potential redistribution is only
possible if an agreed set of principles are developed at the onset, including giving pre-
eminence to educational considerations. A typical set of guiding principles is detailed in
Figure 4.
Particular attention is drawn to the principles of fairness and equity as being the key to
acceptance of possible resource redistribution. It is difficult to promote rational opposi-
tion to them in a government funded educational system based on current values. As an
outcome, when research identifies instances of unfairness or inequity, then acceptance of
the necessary change is more readily gained. Impeccable leadership was exercised by the
Victorian Minister for Education and Training, Lynne Kosky MP, in gaining acceptance
of recent school funding reforms. Her consistency and persistence in applying the prin-
ciples of equity and fairness to remove historical anomalies from school funding gained
her universal admiration.
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Principle Description
Learning Within the purposes of researching and redesigning a school resource
allocation model, pre-eminence will be given to educational
considerations for students.
Fairness Students with the same level of need will attract the same level of
resourcing.
Equity Students with higher levels of learning need will attract higher levels of
resourcing.
Effectiveness Resourcing levels will allow and encourage the systems goals and
targets for education.
Efficiency Resourcing levels will promote cost effective use of scarce public
funding.
Flexibility The capacity to reflect local needs and changes and to encourage
innovation and initiative will be included.
Simplicity Any model will be simple and easily understood by all stakeholders.
Predictability Schools will have the capacity to plan long term with assurance and
confidence.
Transparency Information will be available to all interested parties, open to evaluation
and difficult to manipulate.
Accountability Reconciliation of resource allocation and deployment will be possible in
relation to student learning outcomes.
Sustainability Resource levels will be designed to be sustainable in the longer term.
Subsidiarity Resources provided in school budgets in relation to activities where
schools have a significant influence and management responsibility.
Figure 4. A set of possible principles to guide the research and development of a school resource
allocation model
Student focused funding reform in Victoria during the period 20032006 is gaining
considerable national and international attention not only in relation to the underpinning
research but also to the associated strategies for successful model development and imple-
mentation. Throughout the process, consideration of the issues discussed in this paper,
among others, has enabled the derivation of a set of guidelines to describe the overall strat-
egy to align the allocation of core student learning resources in a student focused funding
model with the number and nature of students, using evidence gained from leading-edge
schools which are systematically and sustainably adding significant value to student
learning. The ongoing development of funding models that address student needs equi-
tably, and the next practice challenge of addressing the resourcing of student aspiration
through personalised approaches to resourcing and planning, are exciting developments
that can also be pursued within the strategy guidelines suggested below.
Strategy Guidelines for Funding Model Development and Implementation
Design to be based on evidence from schools as it is at the school level that the
impact of the evolving educational and socio-political environments expressed
through ever increasing expectations has implications for student funding.
School principals are the critical participants in gaining data and evidence as they
are best positioned to be knowledgeable about the implications of changing
expectations for student funding. (The pre-eminent leadership position in educa-
tion is the principalship).
Evidence of resource deployment should be sought through a focus on how people/
programs contribute to learning and teaching or the support of learning and teach-
ing, and not through restricted financial analysis.
Schools included should be representative of type, size, location and socio-
economic circumstance and be known to significantly, systematically and sus-
tainably add value to student learning outcomes.
Schools included should exhibit best practice in learning and teaching strategies
and in those characteristics related to the nature of schooling identified as exem-
plary responses to student learning for the future.
Schools included should exhibit a culture of continually and avidly seeking better
practices.
Evidence sought should include analysis of all activities that enhance or support
learning irrespective of the source of the related funding.
There may be a need to consider compensation for diseconomies of scale for some
schools through the application of variable base allocations.
Parallel evidence should be sought from a random sample of schools to ascertain
whether there is a relationship between school nature, student performance and
school resource deployment patterns.
Resource provision should be driven by the recipients of schooling and this should
be reflected in allocation models.
Models should maintain maximum flexibility for schools to deploy resources as
expectations and the educational environment change.
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Any resource allocation model can only reflect the expectations and environment
of the near future. There is a need to update data and refine models on at least a
triennial basis.
We cannot ignore also that while increasing expectations may be the key driver for edu-
cational change, they work in unison with other change factors within the overall edu-
cation environment, including emerging better practices in teaching and learning, the
nature of schooling, and technology. As well, this evolving educational environment is
itself just part of the similarly evolving social, political and economic environment.
These environments are not separate but relate together through symbiotic evolution as
a highly complex organism as depicted in Figure 5.
It is within this organism, driven by expectations for learning, that systems must
continually seek to correctly align the resourcing of student learning with the aspira-
tions, needs, nature and numbers of students. Failure to do so will diminish the achieve-
ment of expectations and perpetuate a climate in which failure for some students is an
acceptable inevitability.
Resource Deployment at School Level: A Model
for Student-Focused Planning
It is acknowledged that resourcing is but one of the factors affecting school improve-
ment and does not alone guarantee improved outcomes. However, in the improvement
matrix, it is a critical element, particularly in underpinning change to achieve ever
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b
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p
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o
f

s
c
h
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l
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P
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C
T
A
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I
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N
S
T
e
c
h
n
o
l
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g
y
Figure 5. The social/political/economic context of educational expectations
increasing expectations for all students. Most importantly, it is the ways in which
schools deploy their resources of knowledge, time, technology and finances in the best
interests of student learning that make the difference.
Planning and management models of the past as detailed by Caldwell and Spinks
(1988, 1992, & 1998) have served us well but were too focused on the school and insuf-
ficiently on the student. The student and his/her learning should be the key focus
both the start point for planning and the basis on which to evaluate and review. The
re-imagined self-managing school places this critical focus at the top of any set of
parameters for identifying the nature of the model sought.
In essence, a model for school planning and management identifies the key activi-
ties within a school and the relationships between them. These activities range from
setting individual learning targets for students, to monitoring target achievement and
student wellbeing, to creating strategic alliances, to designing and delivering curricu-
lum, to creating school budgets, to celebrating success and everything in between.
The design parameters and the range of probable major activities have been brought
together in a possible model in Figure 6 below. This model for the student focused school
is the outcome of many endeavours to re-imagine the self-managing school, as we
have been challenged to do by Caldwell (2004a, 2004b), with the student at the centre.
Perhaps this re-imagining is the student focused school where curriculum, pedagogy,
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Implementation
Implementation
Implementation
THE
STUDENT
Values
and
purposes
Expectations
for
learning
THE
STUDENTS
OUTCOMES
Support programs
School specialisation
Interdisciplinary
learning
Discipline-based
learning
Physical, personal
and social learning
LEARNING
STRANDS and
DOMAINS
plus
SUPPORT
PROGRAMS
DESIGN
and
ACCESS
STUDENT
PERSONALISED
PLANNING
SCHOOL
STRATEGIC
PLANNING
A student-focused planning model for the future
Figure 6. A student-focused planning model for the future
Please pro-
vide com-
plete details
for the ref.
Caldwell
and Spinks
(1988,
1992) in list
Is the
change
from
2004 to
2004a,
2004b ok?
learning targets and outcomes are personalised to the needs and aspirations of each
individual student.
The student, as an individual, is the focus of the model both at the beginning of the
planning and management processes and the point at which the students outcomes are
reviewed and used as the basis for learning and teaching and support program evalua-
tion. The student and his/her characteristics are also considered in relation to the
school and governing body statements of values, purposes and expectations for learn-
ing. This relation is desirably one of congruence but if there are divergences, then at
least they need to be known, understood and accepted by all parties.
The student is then viewed as central to not only school strategic planning but more
importantly to a process of student personalised planning to ensure relevance of cur-
riculum and pedagogy to the characteristics and expectations for learning of the
student and including planned monitoring and possible related actions. School strate-
gic planning remains a necessary major activity to effectively plan future changes and
solve long term problems. This planning needs to be strongly related to trends identi-
fied in relation to developing patterns of student expectations for learning and student
performance in relation to those expectations.
Student personalised planning and school strategic planning provide the basis for
designing curriculum and planning for student access to curriculum of relevance to
their learning targets. This may well involve the construction of new curriculum in the
school to meet the specific requirements for learning for a specific student. Perhaps this
could be interpreted as a test for whether a school considers student personal learning
as being at the highest priority level. The model illustrated in Figure 6 divides the cur-
riculum design and access planning into three learning strands with the possibility of
further division into sub-categories or domains. This example is drawn from Victoria
where the VELs (Victorian Essential Learnings) describe an innovative approach to
reconstructing the curriculum to remove over-crowding and ensure relevance. For
England, these would currently be replaced with the ten KLAs from the national cur-
riculum. The model also includes a program of specialisation and a group of support
programs which could include ICT, library, administration, buildings and grounds,
etc. Planning for each program would include targets, content, delivery, resources and
performance evaluation.
The students outcomes provide the basis for monitoring progress and performance
of the individual students and collectively, the basis for the review and evaluation of
learning and teaching programs and programs to support these processes. These
processes provide the data to refine or redevelop all programs and processes to ensure
effectiveness, efficiency and relevance.
It should be noted that student personalised planning, school strategic planning,
and the students outcomes are backed by implementation indicators. Similarly,
implementation becomes a key aspect for the programs identified in learning and
support planning. The requirement for resources to implement each program includes
consideration of student learning time, learning space and the financial implications
for human resources and material support. Planning would emphasise the relation-
ship of the resource requirements to learning targets and priorities. The sum of the
program implementation plans would form the proposed school budget. If the sum
462 Spinks
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exceeds availability, then the relationships to targets and priorities inform the balanc-
ing process.
This overview of the illustrated model is intentionally brief to develop understanding
of the concept of the model as student-focused and different from past models with their
focus on the school as a group of students rather than as individual students. Further
papers by the author outline in detail the underpinning layers which deconstruct the
models full content and methodology for implementation.
A set of possible strategic intentions to guide planning for student-focused learning
is discussed in the following section of this paper, referenced to an example of student
focused planning and management in action. This set is not intended to be exhaustive.
Schools will certainly want to add their own relating to background and vision for a
preferred future.
The Model in Action: Putting the Jigsaw Together
Bringing together the processes outlined in this paper, in pursuit of best possible outcomes
for all students through personalising their learning, can be likened to constructing a com-
plex and multi-dimensional jigsaw puzzle.
The benefit of undertaking such a challenge is that the completed jigsaw, the individual
students learning plan, has the potential to become greater than the sum of its parts in
terms of the value it adds to an individual students learning. As a brief example, consider
the planning undertaken by a hypothetical Victorian school for Kyle, seen through the
lens of 12 Strategic Intentions related to developing the student-focused planning model
which has been explored in this paper.
Strategic Intention 1
The nature, needs, attainments and aspirations of the student together
provide the basis for setting outcome targets that are realistic and achiev-
able and ensure the optimisation of learning, growth and development
potential.
Kyle entered Year 7 in April, 2004 when he was 13 and is now about to commence
Year 9. Most of his life has been spent in care with a multiplicity of care homes. His
fathers whereabouts are unknown and his mother is frequently incarcerated for sub-
stance abuse and related offences. Prior to high school, Kyle had a very poor record of
school attendance and a history of substance abuse and petty crime. He suffers from
poor health and low self-esteem. Surprisingly, Kyle has a positive outlook on life and
sees his future as possibly related to the automotive industry.
Kyles attainment levels at the end of Year 6 were well below benchmarks. His high-
est rating was C (at the expected standard) for ICT but in every other area of learning
he was rated at either D or E (below or well below expected standards).
Setting of Kyles Learning Targets is a cooperative exercise involving Kyle, his Year 78
Essential Learnings Coordinator, Sub-school Coordinator and home group teacher, his car-
ers, and representatives from the Department of Childrens Welfare as his legal guardians.
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It is an expectation that all students will achieve a minimum standard of outcomes suf-
ficient to ensure their positive and successful participation in society.
Based on predictions at the end of Year 6, Kyles learning targets would not have
included any C level awards at the end of Year 10. However, to meet his aspirations of
an automotive industry apprenticeship these must be gained, with a consequent inten-
sification of resource deployment (particularly time spent on learning, support in the
form of rigorous and regular monitoring of his progress, and mentoring support). Thus
Kyles targets were set as follows:
Fortnightly attendance target of 90%.
Nil suspensions.
100% participation in monitoring.
Five subject awards at D level (below benchmark standard) by the end of Year 7
including English, Maths, Science and ICT.
Five subject awards at C level (benchmark standard) by the end of Year 8 includ-
ing English, Maths, Science and ICT.
Five subject awards at C level (benchmark standard) by the end of Year 10 includ-
ing English, Maths, Science and ICT.
The school is undertaking to add value to Kyles learning to a very high degree. Kyle
is undertaking to modify his behaviour and value base and aim to achieve the higher
set of expectations placed upon him.
Although the students outcomes are central to the operation of the school, there still
needs to be an agreed set of values, purposes and expectations with application to all
students and ensuring harmony and respect.
Kyles school has a very high density of high need students, and its expressed values,
purposes and expectations acknowledge the impediments these students have faced. The
education systems resource modelling ensures that the school is supported by a funding
model which allows for the development of creative strategies to address student needs
and to maximise attainment of learning outcomes for all students and particularly for
those at risk of disengaging from school.
The setting of outcome targets for each student should be paralleled by capacities to con-
tinually monitor progress and provide supportive counselling, mentoring and coaching.
Kyles progress in all learning areas was closely monitored on a weekly basis by the
Essential Learning Coordinator for Years 78. The initial emphasis was on encourag-
ing and rewarding any measurable progress, including gains from his before school
acceleration program. Reports were provided at fortnightly intervals.
Personal growth and development progress was closely monitored by Kyles home
group teacher and his Sub-School Coordinator. Counselling occurred on at least a
464 Spinks
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weekly basis. Close contact was maintained with Kyles mentor to gain further insights
that might assist his development and to alert school staff to any known out of school
factors that might impede his development.
The fortnightly progress report finalisation was the responsibility of the Sub-School
Coordinator assisted by the Year 78 Essential Learning Coordinator. If progress did
not occur or dropped unexpectedly, then immediate action was initiated to identify
problems and provide Kyle with care and support.
Carers and legal guardians (DCW) received fortnightly reports on Kyles progress.
Although the student as an individual is central to school planning and management,
there is a need to strategically plan for overall school development, particularly in rela-
tion to where significant gaps are identified between outcome targets and achievement
and where new trends are identified in desired targets.
Kyles school has developed a flexible approach to the way in which curriculum is
delivered. For instance, the school day may be lengthened, as it is in Kyles case by a one
hour per day small group breakfast program focusing on nutrition, personal presenta-
tion, literacy and numeracy.
The school has also developed effective networks with industry and Kyle was pro-
vided with a place in an automotive industry outreach program which gives him three
hours per week of after school mentoring support.
School priorities should be set to close unacceptable gaps between student outcome
targets and achievement in specific areas of study.
Kyles schools strategic planning processes take account of the broader picture of
national expectations and benchmarks, and ensure congruence between these and the
achievement targets that are set for individual students. An inclusive ethos prevails
within the school, with acceptance of collective responsibility for best possible learning
outcomes for all students.
Curriculum and pedagogy need to be designed and planned to ensure that the outcome tar-
gets for each student are matched by relevant learning activities and processes. Although
this provision may be made through a number of elements, they should jig-saw together
with the whole possibly exceeding the sum of its parts in relation to essential learnings for
the future.
A school may need to design new curriculum to optimise the learning potential of
specific students. Sharing the overall provision for a student with other learning and
teaching entities may be an option.
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Meeting the future outcome targets for students requires schools to avidly seek to iden-
tify and encompass emerging better practices. Forming strategic alliances or networks
with other schools or entities may assist in these processes by sharing expertise, expe-
rience and cost.
Kyles Personalised Curriculum enhances the Essential Learnings framework with
support programs that address his needs and aspirations (Figure 7).
The deployment of resources (learning time, student focused funding and learning
space) in the best interests of students achieving their outcome targets is central to creat-
ing school budgets. Budget planning should include demonstration of the links between
planned student learning and the deployment of all resources.
The student-focused funding model provides $11,050 AUD per annum to support
Kyles learning.
Core student learning (Years 78) $5,800
Student in a high needs school $500
Year 79 student in a very high needs school $1,750
Year 78 student identified at exceptional risk $3,000
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Interdisciplinary
learning
Physical, personal
and social learning
Discipline-based
learning
Support programs
Health & PE
Interpersonal development
Personal learning
management
Civics & Citizenship
The Arts
English
Mathematics
Science
Society & the Environment
Communication
Design, Creativity &
Technology
ICT
Thinking
Breakfast Program:
nutrition, presentation,
literacy and numeracy
Mentor Program:
Linking personal
aspiration to real life
experience and support
Figure 7. A personalised curriculum for Kyle
Please con-
firm
whether the
citation for
Figure 7
inserted is
appropriate.
Although his learning acceleration to date has been superb it was successfully
argued at the end of Year 8 that he is still a student at high risk. He qualifies for con-
tinued funding to retain his participation in the mentoring program with expansion to
include onsite workplace experience in an automotive plant for the Friday of each
school week.
Flexibility in diminishing learning time for Kyle in some areas to accommodate this
variation was demonstrated in the planning processes.
The capacity of the school to value-add to student learning is the measure of the degree
to which each student exceeds his/her predicted outcomes in relation to nature, needs
attainments and aspirations.
Kyles school analysed his attainments at the end of primary school. According to
norms his predicted outcomes were well below average. The school set out to significantly
raise the expectations in line with his potential and aspirations and, most importantly, put
in place significantly higher than average levels of support to help close the gaps.
His achievement at Year 8 of the targets set (as outlined under Strategic Intention 2)
reflects the incredible value that was added to learning in his case.
The monitoring, evaluation and review of all school programs and processes should be
focused on the degree of achievement of related student outcome targets.
There was a continual process of adjustment as Kyles progress towards outcome
targets was monitored. Review, evaluation, re-design of personalised programs where
necessary, and celebration of success were all part of this component of the student-
focused planning model
Kyle is now ready to proceed to Year 9 with his end of Year 10 targets well in sight.
Monitoring and progress reporting is being retained at previous levels, with provision
for a return to before school tutoring should Kyle begin to falter on the way to achiev-
ing his subject target levels.
His personalised learning plan has succeeded in adding value to the learning out-
comes of a highly at risk student. The possibility of Kyle proceeding to positively
participate in society is greatly increased.
References
Caldwell, B. (2003). School-based management and its potential to enhance decentralisation in education.
Paper presented as an invited Inaugural Keynote address at the Third International Forum on Education
Reform hosted by the National Education Council of Thailand.
Caldwell, B. (2004a). Re-imagining the Self-Managing School. England: Specialist School Trust.
Caldwell, B. (2004b). The transformation of education through networking. Paper presented in Hong Kong
in association with the Education and Manpower Bureau, Education Technology Connection (HK) Ltd.
and Hong Kong Education City. Available: http://www.educationaltransformations.com.au
1X
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3X
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5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
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Please pro-
vide the
date of
paper pres-
entation for
Caldwell, B.
(2003,
2004b).
Caldwell, B., & Spinks, J. (1998). Beyond the self-managing school. London: Falmer Press.
DECS Statement of Directions 20052010. Department of education and childrens services, South
Australia. Available: http://www.decs.sa.gov.au
Department of Education & Training. (2003). The blueprint for government schools. Melbourne: DE & T,
Victoria. Available: http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/blueprint
Department of Education, Tasmania. (2002). Essential learnings, DoE, Tasmania. Available: http://www.
education.tas.gov.au/ocll/publications
DfES (Department for Education and Skills) (England). (2004). Five year strategy for children and learners.
Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, July 2004. London: DfES.
Guide to the 2005 Indicative student resource package, Department of Education and Training, Victoria.
Available: http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/sgb/pdfs/2005IndicativeGuide.pdf
Guide to the 2006 Indicative Student Resource Package, Department of Education and Training, Victoria,
Australia. Available: http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/srp
Hargreaves, D. (2004a). Personalised learning: Next steps in working laterally. England: Specialist
School Trust.
Hargreaves, D. (2004b). Personalised learning 2 : Student voice and assessment for learning. England:
Specialist School Trust.
Hopkins, D. (2005). System Leadership and School Transformation. Keynote presentation to the Specialist
Schools and Academies Trust 13th National Conference, Birmingham.
Lamb, S. (2004). Student and school characteristics: Equity funding for RAM. Research report prepared for
the Department of Education and Training, Victoria. (unpublished)
Lamb, S., Walstab, A., Teese, R., Vickers, M., & Rumberger, R. (2004) Staying on at school: Improving stu-
dent retention in Australia. Prepared for MCEETYA. Available: http://www.education. qld.au/publication
New Student Report Cards. (2005). Pamphlet published by the Department of Education and Training,
Victoria.
Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Available: http://www.pisa.oecd.org
Spinks, J. (2004). The Pursuit of Equity through Schooling. Paper presented in Ontario, Canada at the
Small High School Summit of the Upper Canada District School Board.
Spinks, J. (2005a). Resourcing Student Learning for the Future. Paper presented at the British Specialist
Schools Trust International Conference. Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Spinks, J. (2005b). Resourcing Student Learning for the Future. Research report prepared for the South
Australian Secondary Schools Principals Association.
Taylor, C., & Ryan, C. (2005). Excellence in Education: The making of great schools. London: David Fulton
Publishers.
Teese, R. (2003). Ending failure in our schools: the challenges for public sector management and higher
education. Paper presented as an Inaugural Professorial Lecture, Faculty of Education, University of
Melbourne.
TIMSS, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. Available: http://isc.bc.edu/timss2003.html
Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS). (2005). Introduction to the Standards. Available:
http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/about/
468 Spinks
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Please provide
citations for the
refs. Caldwell
(2003);
Department of
Education &
Training (2003);
Department of
Education,
Tasmania
(2002); Guide to
the 2005, 2006;
DfES (2004);
Hargreaves
(2004a, 2004b);
Hopkins (2005);
Lamb et al.
(2004); New
Students Report
Cards (2004);
Spinks (2004,
2005a, 2005b);
Taylor & Ryan
(2005) in text.
Please pro-
vide the date
of Confer-
ence for
Hopkins, D.
(2005)
Please pro-
vide the date
of paper
presentation
for Spinks, J.
(2004 &
2005)
Please pro-
vide the date
of presenta-
tion for
Teese, R.
(2003)
About 15 refer-
ences listed
here are not
cited in the
text. Please
could you
insert intext
citation for the
same or mark
the references
to be deleted.
An alternative
would be to
rename the sec-
tion as
Bibliography.
Please
update ref.
Lamb
(2004) if
it has now
been pub-
lished.

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