The Future Of Schools

Lessons From The Reform Of Public Education

Brian J. Caldwell, Don Hayward

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781135712198
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

This text provides an analysis of the efforts to establish systems of self-managing schools around the world. The core of this book is the description of the transformation of the education system in the state of Victoria, Australia, from dependence in a highly centralized and bureaucratized structure to one that values local decision making and the creation of a system of self-managing schools. The text goes on to show how these and similar programmes in other nations could lay the foundations for similar reform. The authors propose that there must be changes in the role of key stakeholders, including government, community and profession; traditional approaches must be challenged and new ways to fund schools to be canvassed.

1 The Crisis in Public Education

Public education has made a major contribution to the well-being of society and it continues to do so. Indeed, the public school and systems of public education would have to be rated among the great successes of the last century. Those nations that are at the forefront of economic and technological progress take pride in their public schools. Many of their leaders have come from humble origins along paths that could not have been negotiated were it not for the commitment of teachers and the contributions of communities that ensured schooling was possible for all, even in the most remote and often soul-searing settings. We both attended public schools, or state schools as we described them at the time.

The enduring nature of the public school is indicated by the fact that it remains one of the few institutions to survive through a century of social transformation. It has become almost a cliché to suggest that most organizations and institutions that were created before this century no longer exist and that most that will provide work for current students and their children have not yet been created. Yet the local school, often the same physical structure, remains at the centre of a community. A community that has no school or a community that loses its school seems to lack or lose a heart.

Despite these achievements, there is a sense of crisis in public education in much of the western world. It is a crisis that extends to virtually every aspect of schooling. That it is a crisis of the West is evident in study after study that shows that schools in the East are at the top of the heap. The release of the results of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study made this clear. In what is almost certainly the largest comparative study of student achievement ever conducted, in this case in forty-one nations, Singapore was top in Mathematics and Science, with Japan and Korea joining it in the top four, along with the Czech Republic in Science and Hong Kong in Mathematics. Despite this, places like Hong Kong still press for further improvement, as reflected in recommendations of the Education Commission on raising the quality of schooling (Education Commission, 1996).

Our book is concerned with this crisis and the future of public education, with particular attention being given to developments in three nations, Australia, Britain and the United States, although much of the commentary and analysis could be applied in other countries.

In Britain, the need for reform was recognized by former Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan in his famous Ruskin Speech in 1976, but more than a decade elapsed before the 1988 Education Reform Act of the Conservatives led by Margaret Thatcher resulted in national curriculum, national tests and the local management of schools with a capacity for ‘opting out’ to become grantmaintained. These reforms were triggered by allegations of politicization by the left at the local level, a faith in the mechanism of the market to stimulate parental choice and improve quality, and concern at the apparent decline in student achievement in relation to comparable nations. The outcome nearly a decade later is broad acceptance of the framework of the new arrangements, at least to the extent that the major political parties are committed to maintaining it, but with continuing and wide concern about standards and the lack of a significant or measurable impact on the achievement of students. From the perspective of the former Conservative Government, the blame lay with local education authorities, schools of education at universities, and the quality of teaching. However, schools are under-resourced in important ways, whether it be the knowledge and skills of teachers, or failure to keep pace with technology, or the decaying fabric of obsolete buildings. Teachers feel embattled in the face of apparently unrelenting criticism. The nation continues to lag in international comparisons of student achievement. The reform agenda is clearly unfinished.

The United States is a nation of more than 15,000 school districts, with constitutional power at the state level, and little leverage at the national level other than through special purpose grants and moral suasion on the part of the President. Americans speak of waves of reform but little appears to have changed in terms of broad public unease at the quality of schooling. At first sight, virtually every element in a possible reform agenda has been tried, including the adoption of national goals, state-wide testing, the creation of charter schools, private involvement in the delivery of public schooling, revenue reform to achieve a greater measure of equity across districts, and the involvement of the judiciary on a scale unknown in other places. The reform effort is fragmented, though some local or special projects have promise (as in the New American Schools projects reported by Stringfield, Ross and Smith, 1996), and there is, as in Britain, a sense there has been little impact of efforts to date.

In Australia, where constitutional arrangements are more like the United States than in Britain, though there are no districts as far as governance is concerned, reform has not engaged the public to the same extent. Efforts to secure agreement among states on a national curriculum have not succeeded, although most states have now established their own curriculum frameworks. There has been some decentralization of responsibility to the school level and increasing concern about outcomes and accountability. Resourcing is an issue but from different perspectives, being seen as inadequate by some and inefficiently deployed by others. National and international comparisons do not attract the same attention as in other countries, although there seems to be a consensus emerging about the importance of literacy and the introduction of technology. Reform has been dramatic in Victoria, where a government elected in 1992 with sweeping parliamentary majorities has introduced a series of measures that have some things in common with Britain but have a higher level of coherence. These are attracting attention in the international arena. This book examines the origins and agenda for reform in Victoria in the first instance, but is concerned in the main with the outcomes and the future of reform on a broader scale.

The program of reform in Victoria, known as Schools of the Future, was implemented at the same time that the government took measures to balance a budget and reduce state debt, both of which were seen to be out of control. It was in this climate that all public schools were chartered, a curriculum and standards framework was adopted, most of the state education budget was decentralized to schools, local selection of teachers was introduced, and a new framework of accountability was established. While there was no provision for schools to ‘opt out’ as in Britain, and ‘league tables’ of tests were ruled out, the revolution was just as dramatic as that in Britain, and in many ways was completed in shorter time. The stage is set, as it is in Britain and the United States, for further change that has its focus in the improvement of learning, that is, the agenda for reform is likely to shift from the system and school to the classroom.

However, these reforms in three nations, even if they penetrate the classroom, are likely to be insufficient to address the larger issues of the control and resourcing of public schooling, and most importantly the quality of schooling that is necessary for the individual and for society in the third millennium. While the first part of this book gives an account of recent efforts in school reform, it is primarily dedicated to the future of public education and the lessons that may be drawn from those endeavours.

The Achievements of Public Education

We return again to the opening lines of the chapter and reiterate our respect for the achievements of public education. At a strictly personal level, the authors came from families of modest means and undertook all their schooling and higher education in the public sector. Our subsequent work, where it took us into the school education field, either political or professional, has been largely concerned with public education. This book reflects a commitment to its future. It is thus appropriate to commence with acknowledgment of its achievements.

Source of National Pride and Success

Public schools have been the primary source of education for the majority of students in all nations, especially in those that have been the most successful, no matter what indicator for national success is adopted, whether it be economic strength, cultural sensitivity and tolerance, or enduring peace and civilization. Even where public education is the subject of debate or even crisis, the protagonists invariably and properly acknowledge the contribution of the public school.

Contribution to the Economy

While this achievement is often denied, the link between education and the economy has been strong over the last century, and the fact that the link is not now as strong as it was is the source of concern to many. The great systems of public education had their origins in the late nineteenth century as momentum was building for what we now call the industrial revolution. In addition to their traditional roles as sources of education and civilization, schools had the new role of preparing young people for work in the factories and the public service, both rapidly expanding as the century drew to a close.

Centre of Culture and Civilization

Public schools have helped build a sense of cohesion in the community, not only through their transmission of knowledge of history and of societal values that are enduring, but also through their success in bringing together students of many different origins and cultures. It is not uncommon in some cities for students to come from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds, with scores of languages other than the majority language spoken in the home. No other organization or institution has had to meld a community with a common purpose, but with such diversity, for such a significant part of the day for so many years.

Focus for Community

Also, from a community perspective, the school has been an important institution. For much of the last century the public school has been a source of pride in every hamlet, village, town or city. Though there were other sites for community gatherings, the school was always such, with its facilities used for a wide range of sporting, cultural, educational and social occasions. This achievement has been highlighted when a public school has been threatened with closure, even when enrolments have dwindled to a handful.

Building a Profession

The public school is associated with the rise of teaching as a profession. The school teacher has always been a person of respect in every community. Now there are millions of teachers in public schools around the world, with most in developed nations holding a university degree, including a substantial component that draws on an increasingly sophisticated body of knowledge about learning and teaching. Levels of remuneration and working conditions are high in many though not all countries. Teacher unions and professional associations have played an important role in these advances.

These achievements are, of course, not unique to public education. So far we have not referred to private schooling, which remains the choice or feasible option for a minority of parents in most nations and the majority in some. Each of the achievements can also be ascribed to private schools. We shall return to private schools in the second half of the book.

The Crisis in Public Schooling

Despite these achievements, there is a sense of crisis in public schooling in many nations. While there is no consistent view among protagonists as to the source and scope of the crisis, it is real nonetheless. Some views stem from a belief that momentum has been lost in the areas of achievement; others from the emergence of new conditions in the late twentieth century, more than one hundred years after the formation of most systems of public schooling, that suggest that a new approach may be needed.

Contribution to a Global Economy

Links between public education and the economy remained strong for most of the century. There is widespread concern in some nations that the link is now weak, and many proposals for change have been energized by the need to make it strong again, in what we now call the post-industrial age or the information revolution.

While there was some measure of disbelief as recently as the start of the 1990s, there is now almost universal acceptance that there is a global economy, and that a nation that fails to ensure its children, indeed all of its citizens, have the knowledge and skill to successfully participate in such an economy, will surely suffer a decline in standard of living and quality of life. There is such a sense in many western nations, as evidenced in projects such as the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, and the now almost continuous stream of comparisons between approaches to schooling in different countries.

Standards of Achievement

Reform has been marked in some nations by a breakdown in consensus on what ought to be taught or learned in schools, as might be reflected in a curriculum for all schools, and the abandonment of efforts to monitor the quality of schooling, either by public examination or inspection or both. One course of action, in response to these sources of concern, has been to establish a curriculum and standards framework and to monitor the level of student achievement, especially against state, national and international benchmarks.

More specifically, there is profound concern at levels of literacy in the primary or elementary school, with estimates in some countries of about 20 per cent for the number of children who complete this stage without adequate achievement. The consequences are very serious indeed, not only for the next stage of schooling, where students may experience alienation and become highly disruptive, but later in life, when no worthwhile employment can be gained. A view that the basics are not as important now, with advances in technology and reliance on calculators and computers, is quickly dispelled when one realizes that students without adequate levels of literacy are more disempowered than ever.

Cultural Cohesiveness

There is a sense that schools are losing their effectiveness in the civic or community domain. To blame social ills on the school is unfair, but some critics have a case when a loss of pride or commitment to key values is sheeted home to the absence of studies in history or the inclusion of subjects that seem to promote or tolerate or encourage a smorgasbord of values.

Keeping Pace with Technology

It seems that most schools around the world have simply failed to keep pace with the revolution in technology. Seymour Papert’s graphic invitation to imagine time travellers from the 1890s visiting schools and hospitals of the 1990s and observe the great discrepancy between the two settings in terms of use of technology will immediately grasp the point (Papert 1993, p. 1). The concern here is not technology for the sake of technology. Technology empowers the learner and the teacher and other professionals in a host of ways. For the student, it means being able to access almost unlimited sources of information without spending time in limited searches in traditional sources, and in being able to manage that information in highly creative ways, including advanced problemsolving. For the teacher, it means freedom from a mountain of boring administrative chores, allowing the easy management of complex information to support their work; and freedom from standard and often out-of-date lesson plans and learning designs, allowing access to teaching and learning resources that are the world’s best. These benefits are evident now in many schools; why can they not be enjoyed by all?

The Fabric of Schools

The fabric of many public schools is also a cause for serious concern. Perhaps the most critical aspect is that many schools are simply falling apart after years of neglect, especially in those communities that were established and grew rapidly with the increase of population in the baby boom following World War II. Such was the rate of construction and the cost involved that only light construction was possible in some places, and working in such structures must surely be a source of dissatisfaction for teachers and students alike. For most schools, however, the design is simply inappropriate in an age of technology. These are the schools built on factory lines, essentially a line of box-like structures through which students progress in lock-step fashion as in mass production. The range of shapes and sizes that hightech schools require is still rare. This is not to say that some nations have not done well in the design of their public schools in recent years, or even during the boom times, especially in those communities in Canada and the United States where the majority of voters had children in schools and gave their support on ballots to secure the additional levels of property tax or bond issues to raise the funds required for state-of-the-art schools.

Levels of Resources

There seems to be agreement among all commentators that there is a crisis in the resourcing of public schools. However, this issue is, at the same time, apparently the chief cause of conflict in different views about cause and effect. Those who are concerned about the decline in standards, especially in respect to the adoption of technology, or who point to the long-neglected physical condition of many schools, suggest that lack of public resourcing is the cause. International comparisons of per capita expenditure among nations in th...