Submission DR127
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I am one third of the way through my PhD at Deakin University and my topic is directly related to the Productivity Commission's focus. I attach my Colloquium for your reference although I will be rewriting the literature review and methodology over the next year. I would be happy to share my research should that be of interest. My working thesis title is, "ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL: THE COMPLEXITY OF PROBLEMATISING AND ENACTING EDUCATION POLICY IN SCHOOLS TO ACHIEVE TRANSFERABILITY, SUSTAINABILITY AND SCALABILITY". In my thesis, I am tackling issues around the lack of evaluation of many education interventions and initiatives. I also tackle the issues around policy implementation as opposed to the creation of policy itself. The role of politicians and bureaucrats in enhancing or blocking education policy enactment is a major focus of my research. Ms Claire Brown 10/10/16 COLLOQUIUM PLAN Page 1. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM AND CONTEXT 3 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 7 3. RESEARCH METHODOLGY AND DESIGN 46 4. PROPOSED CHAPTERS 90 5. RESEARCH PLAN AND TIMETABLE 91 6. ETHICS CLEARANCE 91 7. BIBLIOGRAPHY 92 2 1. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM AND CONTEXT OF PRACTICE 1.1 Rationale and Significance “Inconceivable!” exclaims the character Vizzini in disbelief again and again as a series of seemingly impossible events unfold in the movie, The Princess Bride. Finally, after yet another interjection of “Inconceivable!” from Vizzini, the character of Inigo Montoya pauses, then turns to Vizzini and says thoughtfully, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means” (Brad 2014). So it is with the term, education reform. It is a term that has become so overused, misused, abused, and confused that it is hard to find agreement on what it means. School reform, system reform, curriculum reform, funding reform, teacher reform and the like dominate education commentary. Many other terms are used sometimes interchangeably for reform including: change, improvement, renewal, innovation, and restructure even though they do not mean or necessarily refer to the same thing. Reformers compromising bureaucrats, politicians, principals, teachers, unions, parents, text- book sellers, campaigners and everyone in between has an opinion on what is required to Fix Education. Typing education reform into a Google search returned about 39,100,000 results in 0.49 seconds. Millions of books and articles have been written on the topic. This PhD was initially conceived to look at education reform. The task seemed inconceivable. It quickly became apparent that the term – education reform – was problematic: too vague, and a narrower focus was required even though at times it may still be necessary to refer to aspects of education reform as it appears in the literature. I am most interested in the complex issue of policy enactment and schools. I care deeply about schools. Questions jostled in my head for attention. How do schools make sense of all the education initiatives out there being touted as The Answer to all Their Problems? Why do governments and education bureaucracies persist in trying to find one-size- fits-all solutions to improve schools, as if every school’s needs were the same? How do policy agents and agencies support or hinder schools from doing their work? How could a PhD contribute new 3 knowledge, and practical insight to make sense of some of the complexity that directs, controls, encourages or inhibits the choices around education initiatives that schools make? Sir Ken Robinson says that education should be improved from the ground-up rather than being encouraged from the top-down. He notes that Ministers of State are not teaching our children so we must refocus on the teacher and the learner to achieve lasting change from the ground up (Robinson, K. 2013, p.24). More questions vied for attention in my head. What is the connection between big picture, neoliberal imaginaries (see Appadurai 1996;Taylor 2004; Rizvi and Lingard 2010) of global education policy, and what really happens in local schools and classrooms? How can education initiatives that are working be shared with other schools in a way that is sustainable and scalable so we do not keep reinventing the education wheel? How does the enactment of education policy and the choice of education initiatives help more students learn things they need to know in order to contribute productively to the societies in which they live? Robinson says that at the heart of effective education is what happens in schools – the teacher and the learner – and that should be the focus of those who would seek to improve education. Australian Federal and State and Territory education departments, like education jurisdictions elsewhere, have long looked for silver bullets (see Eisner 1992; and Fowler 2003) to improve schools, particularly those that are known to be chronically underachieving often attributed to their low socio- economic status and what has been described as disadvantaged backgrounds. As Hargreaves, Lieberman, Fullan and Hopkins (2010) suggest, this was especially true in the decades of large-scale reform initiatives that started in the 1990s and carried on in to the early 21st century. Multitudes of opinions conflict on the questions of how much should be spent to achieve effective, sustained (sometimes questionable) education reform versus on what, for whom and by whom (see also Fullan 2001; Slee, Weiner & Tomlinson 1998). Meanwhile, as education policies have been increasingly shaped globally and nationally, local classroom teachers carry on as best they can trying to focus on responsibly, creatively and fairly shaping and inspiring the young minds before them. At the same time, they try to satisfy the growing political and policy demands from increasing layers of 4 accountability that incorporate the latest policy reform/s that are most often imposed upon them. As Fullan notes, for schools, “the main problem is not one of the absence of innovations but the presence of too many disconnected, episodic, piecemeal, superficially adorned projects” (Fullan 2001, p.109). Similarly, Ball, Maguire, Braun and Hoskins (2011b) note the “sheer number and diversity of policies, set in relation to the routine demands of the working day” make it almost impossible for teachers to give considered thought to policy enactment as they are “frequently preoccupied with the short-term goals and the immediacy of the next lesson” (Ball, S. et al. 2011b, p.617). 1.2 Aim of the Research Schools need to be responsive in adapting their curricula, pedagogies and cultures to the social, political, economic and community contexts in which they are situated. Even so, the nature of and processes for the creation of education policies to guide how schools should function must be implemented thoughtfully, responsibly and effectively, and they must be measured and evaluated to ensure they do achieve what they have promised. The quest for silver bullets driven by neoliberal imaginaries in the globalised context of the late 1990s and early 21st century to Fix Schools with one- size-fits-all policies now appears to be folly (see Hargreaves, Lieberman, Fullan & Hopkins 2010; Rizvi & Lingard 2010). Webb (2014) challenges education policy researchers to explore contingencies and indeterminacies through policy problematisation in order to think differently about education, rather than make copious and he would argue, often ineffective recommendations for even more policies. It is necessary to embrace the complexity around schools, their communities and the role that policy enactment can play in supporting them to improve as they look to choose and implement education initiatives from the tens of thousands on offer. We must look for more sophisticated, nuanced ways of thinking about education that better account for each school community’s individual contexts and unique circumstances. 1.3 A Conceptual Diagram of the Research Proposal 5 1.4 Research Questions Essential Question: How does the (collision?), enactment and problematisation of education policy ensure education initiatives selected by schools are sustainable, transferable and scalable? Sub-questions: Within a socio-cultural, historical and contextual frame, the following sub-questions will be explored: 1. Who are the boundary spanners, game changers, enablers, blockers, power brokers and others who interpret, translate and enact education policy in Australia? 2. How are decisions to choose education initiatives that are made by schools influenced by power, politics and policy, practices locally, nationally and globally? 3. What is the effect of the similarities and differences in policy enactment and policy problematisation exemplified in the case studies of New Basics and AVID? 4. What are the factors of policy enactment that enable, help, hinder or block the implementation of education initiatives, which could be sustained, transferred and scaled up to other schools? 6 2. LITERATURE REVIEW The West Wing - Sam Seaborn: Mallory, education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes; we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defence. That's my position. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet (Johnson 2000, Season 1, Episode 18). The purpose of schooling An obvious question to contextualise this research is “What is the purpose of schools?” It is a question that has been asked throughout history, but as societies, cultures, people and contexts change, rightly, so too have the responses to this question. There will never be a correct answer to this question. From early records of civilisation, debate over the purpose of schooling, how to ensure access to high quality education, and for whom, has long preoccupied philosophers, politicians, educators, sociologists, bureaucrats, parents, students and others in order to build a civil society.