What Works in Education Reform: A Complex and Loosely Coupled Systems approach

1
What Works in Education Reform A Complex and
Loosely Coupled Systems approach ?

• Dr Chris Goldspink
• Australian New Zealand Systems Conference,
  Christchurch 2005

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How I got here

• I dont need to be convinced that education needs
  improving!
• I regard myself as at best a survivor and
  advocate more comprehensive change
• Involved with Administrative reform for 20 years
• Involved as a manager in government and am a
  researcher/educator in management and
  organisation theory public and private

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Some starting points

• Education as a policy issue is a wicked problem
• many/most of the dynamics of organisations are
  not the product of or subject to rational control.

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My argument

• NPM as a basis for improving education has passed
  its best by date.
• We have gained what advantages it offered
• The downside and unintended consequences are
  accumulating
• The theory upon which it sits (to the extent that
  there is one) is being increasingly challenged.

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NPM?

• An amalgamation of ideas drawn from management
  (managerialism) and institutional economics.

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NPM is quintessentially

• Functionalist - it rests on regulatory and
  objectivist assumptions and is ...usually
  committed to a philosophy of social engineering
  as a basis for social change and emphasises the
  importance of understanding order, equilibrium
  and stability... (Burrell and Morgan1994, p.
  26).
• Positivist. The social world is viewed as
  comprising concrete entities and relations that
  can be studied using reductionist approaches in
  order to identify underlying cause-effect
  relations and derive laws governing behaviour.
• Note neither sit well with constructivist theory
  of learning

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Managerialism

• Christopher Pollitt (1990 60), has argued, that
  managerial theory represents ...a concentration
  on the immediate, concrete, controllable things
  which go on within one's own organisation and an
  avoidance of entanglement with widervalue
  questions.

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Institutional Economics

• Public choice theory economic theory of
  politics
• Agency Theory
• Both inherit the neo-classical assumption of
  economic agents acting for self-interest
• Are individualist/reductionist

The reason for this movement of economists into
neighbouring fields is certainly not that we have
solved the problems of the economic system it
would perhaps be more plausible to argue that
economists are looking for fields in which they
can have some success (Coase 199537).
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Agency Theory

• Assumes self/interest and hence opportunism.
• Advocates support recasting public institutions
  using arms length exchange regulated by
  contracts.
• They argue the need for tight accountability
  around readily measured (i.e. quantified)
  achievements as a means of ensuring that
  opportunism does not have the chance to distort
  policy priorities.

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Reflection point

• Managerialism leads to systems designed for
  conformance not a felt sense of obligation and
  agency
• What would it be like to live in a family where
  it was assumed that given an inch you would take
  a mile where there was a deep assumption of ill
  intent. If we embrace public choice and agency
  conceptions of institutions that is what we will
  create in organisational life - Can a child
  learn to be responsible if always assumed guilty
  or at least suspect can an employee?
• We seem increasingly to be managing our
  organisations by focusing on deficit.

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Social systems are NOT of this type

• They are complex (non-linear)
• Behaviour is emergent
• Can be influenced but not controlled

Emergent behaviour
Macro pattern
Micro level interaction
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The problem?

• The practices of NPM undermine a sense of felt
  obligation to do the right thing and the system
  loses energy and capacity as a result.
• The focus is on formalisms and regulation as a
  basis for control creativity and human agency is
  diminished.
• Conformance reduces variety and hence
  responsiveness, relevance and viability.
• Contractualism leads to a focus on tangible
  outputs (rather than outcomes) and reintroduced
  goal displacement.
• Loss of a sense of felt obligation leads to a
  need for more formal control vicious cycle
• Note many of these are the very things reform
  was meant to fix

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Managerialism has frustrated the central aims of
reform

• Gewitz and Ball (2000) observe that within
  education the influence of managerialism has
  been to shift the focus away from a learner
  needs perspective to an institutional needs
  perspective
• In short, a discourse on and about education and
  its concern with social purpose is displaced with
  a much narrower debate about instrumental means.
  Given that managerialists had a desire to move a
  process orientated bureaucracy towards an outcome
  focus, this is an unintended consequence of some
  significance.

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Learning to Learn

• Change initiative with the aim of transformation
  rather than improvement school based education.
• In seventh year
• Drew on constructivist learning theory and
  systems thinking rather than managerialist
  thinking

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Methodology

• Grounded theory using empty systems model as
  container.
• Methods
• Interviews
• Narrative
• Case studies
• Analysis fedback and revised

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Findings From the South Australian Learning to
Learn Innitiative

• With Learning to Learn, appealing to teachers and
  administrators intrinsic motivation was
  fundamental to both preventing resistance and
  ameliorating de-motivating factors present in the
  general environment.
• Motivated teachers were prepared to self-organise
  to bring about substantial change in practice.
• The fact that Learning to Learn focused on doing
  better for kids resonated strongly with teachers.

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Finding

• Pursuing change with high levels of flexibility
  and a learning and risk tolerant approach to
  accountability lead to rigorous approaches to
  change and a focus on results.

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Finding

• Maintaining a high level of congruence to the
  principles and values informing the change was
  vital.
• This included the need to establish and maintain
  trust as the basis for the relationships.
  Provided this was established both between the
  school and the policy area and within the school
  substantial benefit in terms of teacher
  commitment to change was realised.

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Finding

• A non-deficit approach to reform (i.e. avoiding
  the assumption that the current system is
  dysfunctional because of the individuals within
  it) opened up possibilities for institution wide
  learning and such learning grew from the local
  area out.

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Finding

• Evaluation pursued as an opportunity for learning
  rather than to attribute fault or blame,
  maintained a focus on outcomes and added
  substantial value to the policy development
  process, ensuring practice could be improved in
  complex and unpredictable environments.

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Finding

• Within Learning to Learn, tight
  hierarchical/administrative control was not
  necessary to achieve a very high level of
  strategic coherence. Indeed emergent insights
  into possibilities for strategic improvement
  arose where diversity and pluralism of
  perspective was encouraged and supported.

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Finding

• Reciprocal obligations based around trust were
  effective in maintaining a high level of
  compliance to principles and in protecting and
  balancing stakeholder interests.

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Summarising the insights

• Build incentive from within - find, build and
  work with the passion.
• Evaluate and Reward learning toward outcomes not
  delivery of outputs and
• Loosen administrative structure and build trust
  to catalyse innovation and learning around a
  principles based framework.