The Race for ‘World Class’ Education: Improvement or Folly?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23918/ijsses.v10i3p124Keywords:
Equity, World Class, School Improvement, Global Testing, Datafication, Teacher Professionalism, Policy AnalysisAbstract
Motivated by neoliberal economic priorities and under global education governance, students’ test scores are the preferred evidence of education quality. Chasing ‘world class’ education quality, a southern Australian education department is seeking to improve ‘falling standards’ with their policy text: Toward 2028: Department for Education Strategic Plan. Significantly, the strategy includes improvement planning with mandatory formats and targets, evidence-based approaches and expert support and a focus on data from standardised assessments to determine whether outcomes have improved. Examining whether these approaches will improve the state’s learning outcomes, or are folly, critical policy sociology is employed, specifically policy analysis using Bacchi’s: What’s the problem represented to be? approach. The department for education’s strategic plan is interrogated, underscoring global themes: challenges to equity, reductive effects of test-based accountability, and the implications and impacts on teachers. The analysis identifies deep engagement in global discourses and calls for a shift away from what is a source of global inequities rather than the solution.
References
Adamovic, Mladen. 2009. “Online-Utility.Org: Utilities for Online Operating System.” Open access. Online Utility Org. 2009. https://online-utility.org/about_us.jsp.
Addey, Camilla, Sam Sellar, Gita Steiner-Khamsi, Bob Lingard, and Antoni Verger. 2017. “The Rise of International Large-Scale Assessments and Rationales for Participation.” Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 47 (3): 434–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2017.1301399.
Australian Council for Educational Research. 2022. “Help All Students Make Ongoing Learning Progress.” Education consultants. ACER PAT. 2022. https://acer.org/au/pat.
Australian Education Council. 1989. The Hobart Declaration on Schooling: Agreements of the 60th Australian
Education Council in Hobart 14-16 April 1989. a vols. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia: Australian Government Department of Education.
Bacchi, Carol. 1999. Women, Policy, and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems. London; Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage.
Bacchi, Carol. 2009. Analysing Policy: What’s the Problem Represented to Be? Frenchs Forest, N.S.W: Pearson.
Bacchi, Carol. 2015. “The Turn to Problematization: Political Implications of Contrasting Interpretive and Poststructural Adaptations.” Open Journal of Political Science 5 (1): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojps.2015.51001.
Ball, Stephen J. 1993. “What Is Policy? Texts, Trajectories and Toolboxes.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 13 (2): 10–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/0159630930130203.
Ball, Stephen J 2019. “Australian Education Policy – a Case of Global Education Reform Hyperactivity.” Journal of Education Policy 34 (6): 747–747. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2019.1668651.
Ball, Stephen J. 2021. “Response: Policy? Policy Research? How Absurd?” Critical Studies in Education, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2021.1924214.
Bills, Andrew, and Nigel Howard. 2022. “It’s Time to Reflect: What Is the Cost of the South Australian Education Department’s Pursuit of Becoming a ‘World Class’ Education System by 2028?” Education research 2. Flinders University CEPSW Educational Leadership Industry Report. Adelaide, South Australia: Flinders University. www.itstimetoact.net.
Breakspear, Simon. 2012. “The Policy Impact of PISA: An Exploration of the Normative Effects of International Benchmarking in School System Performance.” OECD Education Working Papers 71. Vol. 71. OECD Education Working Papers. https://doi.org/10.1787/5k9fdfqffr28-en.
Cornelius, Karen, and Aidan Cornelius-Bell. 2022. “Systemic Racism, a Prime Minister, and the Remote Australian School System.” Radical Teacher 122 (April): 64–73. https://doi.org/10.5195/rt.2022.935.
Cornelius, Karen, and Kerrie Mackey-Smith. 2022. “Improving Educational Outcomes: Why Don’t Remote Schools in Australia Measure Up?” Issues in Educational Research 32 (3): 925–42.
Council of Australian Governments. 2018. “National School Reform Agreement EDU183533.” Australian Government Department of Education. https://dese.gov.au/quality-schools-package/resources/national-school-reform-agreement.
Council of Australian Governments. 2019. “The Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration.” Australian Government Report TRIM: D20/327384. Alice Springs, Australia: Department of Education, Skills and Employment. https://dese.gov.au/alice-springs-mparntwe-education-declaration.
Davidson, Peter, Bruce Bradbury, and Melissa Wong. 2022. “Poverty in Australia 2022: A Snapshot.” Issues paper 18. Poverty and Inequality Partnership. Australian Council of Social Service and University of New South Wales. https://povertyandinequality.acoss.org.au.
Department for Education. 2018a. “Department for Education Strategic Plan: Toward 2028.” Adelaide, South Australia: Department for Education. https://futureschools.sa.edu.au/ar/.
Department for Education. 2018b. “Growth for Every Student in Every Class in Every School: World Class Education.” Government website. Department for Education: South Australia. 2018. https://education.sa.gov.au/world-class.
Department for Education. 2018c. “World-Class Road Map: Towards 2028 Strategic Plan.” Department for Education. https://education.sa.gov.au/world-class.
Department for Education. 2019. “Department for Education: 2018 Annual Report.” Annual Report. Adelaide, South Australia: Department for Education. https://education.sa.gov.au/annual-report-2018.
Department for Education. 2020. “Department for Education: 2019 Annual Report.” Annual Report. Adelaide, South Australia: Department for Education. https://education.sa.gov.au/annual-report-2019.
Department for Education. 2021a. “2021 Action Plan: A World-Class Education System by 2028.” Department for Education. https://education.sa.gov.au/world-class.
Department for Education. 2021b. “Department for Education: 2020 Annual Report.” Annual Report. Adelaide, South Australia: Department for Education. https://education.sa.gov.au/annual-report-2020.
Department for Education, dir. 2021c. World-Class Education: Our Story so Far. YouTube. World-Class Education. Adelaide, South Australia. https://youtu.be/yi4HAFwnE2Q.
Department for Education, dir. 2021d. What Is School Improvement. YouTube. Adelaide, South Australia. https://youtu.be/iPY0CnlcV9Y.
Department for Education. 2022. “Department for Education: 2021 Annual Report.” Annual Report. Adelaide, South Australia: Department for Education. https://education.sa.gov.au/doc/department-education-annual-report-2021.
Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. 2022. “The National School Reform Agreement.” Government website. Quality Schools Package. 2022. https://dese.gov.au/quality-schools-package/national-school-reform-agreement.
Eacott, Scott. 2022. “Building Education Systems for Equity and Inclusion.” Sydney, Australia: Gonski Institute for Education. https://gie.unsw.edu.au.
Foucault, Michel. 1988. “Technologies of the Self.” In Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, 18:170. The University of Massachusetts Press.
Francis, Becky, Martin Mills, and Ruth Lupton. 2017. “Towards Social Justice in Education: Contradictions and Dilemmas.” Journal of Education Policy 32 (4): 414–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2016.1276218.
Gable, Alison, and Bob Lingard. 2016. “NAPLAN Data: A New Policy Assemblage and Mode of Governance in Australian Schooling.” Policy Studies 37 (6): 568–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/01442872.2015.1115830.
Gerrard, Jessica, and Jessica Holloway. 2023. Expertise: Keywords in Teacher Education. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
Gonski, David, Terrey Arcus, Ken Boston, Valerie Gould, Wendy Johnson, Lisa O’Brien, Lee-Anne Perry, and Michael Roberts. 2018. “Through Growth to Achievement: Report of the Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools.” Government Report AD17/006431. Gonski Review 2.0. Australia: Department of Education and Training. https://dese.gov.au/quality-schools-package/resources/through-growth-achievement-report-review-achieve-educational-excellence-australian-schools.
Goss, Peter, and Julie Sonnermann. 2016. “Widening Gaps: What NAPLAN Tells Us about Student Progress.” 2016–3. Grattan Institute. https://grattan.edu.au/report/widening-gaps/.
Griffiths, Tom. 2009. “Social Justice, Equity, Schools and the Curriculum.” Curriculum Perspectives 29 (1): 76–82.
Guenther, John. 2013. “Are We Making Education Count in Remote Australian Communities or Just Counting Education?” The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education 42 (2): 157–70. https://doi.org/10.1017/jie.2013.23.
Halliday, M. A. K., and Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen. 2004. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 3rd ed. London: New York: Arnold; Distributed in the United States of America by Oxford University Press.
Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
Henig, Jeffrey R. 2013. “Foreword.” In The Infrastructure of Accountability: Data Use and the Transformation of American Education, edited by Dorothea Anagnostopoulos, Stacey Rutledge, and Rebecca Jacobsen, 296. Harvard Education Press.
Holloway, Jessica, Tore Bernt Sørensen, and Antoni Verger. 2017. “Global Perspectives on High-Stakes Teacher Accountability Policies: An Introduction.” Education Policy Analysis Archives 25: 85. https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.25.3325.
Hwa, Yue-Yi. 2021. “‘What Works’ Depends: Teacher Accountability Policy and Sociocultural Context in International Large-Scale Surveys.” Journal of Education Policy, December 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2021.2009919.
Lewis, Steven, and Anna Hogan. 2019. “Reform First and Ask Questions Later? The Implications of (Fast) Schooling Policy and ‘Silver Bullet’ Solutions.” Critical Studies in Education 60 (1): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2016.1219961.
Lewis, Steven, and Jessica Holloway. 2019. “Datafying the Teaching ‘Profession’: Remaking the Professional Teacher in the Image of Data.” Cambridge Journal of Education 49 (1): 35–51. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2018.1441373.
Lingard, Bob. 2013. “Historicizing and Contextualizing Global Policy Discourses: Test-and Standards-Based Accountabilities in Education.” International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives 12 (2): 122–32.
Lingard, Bob, Aspa Baroutsis, and Sam Sellar. 2021. “Enriching Educational Accountabilities through Collaborative Public Conversations: Conceptual and Methodological Insights from the Learning Commission Approach.” Journal of Educational Change 22 (4): 565–87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-020-09407-x.
Lingard, Bob, Wayne Martino, and Goli Rezai-Rashti. 2013. “Testing Regimes, Accountabilities and Education Policy: Commensurate Global and National Developments.” Journal of Education Policy 28 (5): 539–56. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2013.820042.
Lingard, Bob, Sam Sellar, and Steven Lewis. 2017. “Accountabilities in Schools and School Systems.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education, by Bob Lingard, Sam Sellar, and Steven Lewis. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.74.
Lingard, Bob, Sam Sellar, and Glenn C. Savage. 2014. “Re-Articulating Social Justice as Equity in Schooling Policy: The Effects of Testing and Data Infrastructures.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 35 (5): 710–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2014.919846.
McLean Davies, Larissa, and Jim Waterson. 2022. “Australia’s Teacher Shortage Won’t Be Solved until We Treat Teaching as a Profession, Not a Trade.” The Conversation, August 12, 2022.
Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs. 1999. “The Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century.” Council of Australian Governments.
Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs. 2008. Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians. ERIC. https://curriculum.edu.au/verve/_resources/National_Declaration_on_the_Educational_Goals_for_Young_Australians.pdf.
Mockler, Nicole. 2014. “Simple Solutions to Complex Problems: Moral Panic and the Fluid Shift from ‘Equity’ to ‘Quality’ in Education.” Review of Education 2 (2): 115–43. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3028.
Montoya, Silvia. 2019. “Global Review of Progress towards SDG 4-Education 2030 Targets and Commitments.” Evaluation. UNESCO Institute for Statistics. London, UK: UNESCO. https://oecd.org/pisa/pisa-for-development/19._PISA-D_Seminar_2019_Montoya.pdf.
Mourshed, Mona, Chinezi Chijioke, and Michael Barber. 2010. How the World’s Most Improved School Systems Keep Getting Better. Education. McKinsey and Company. https://mckinsey.com/industries/education/our-insights/how-the-worlds-most-improved-school-systems-keep-getting-better.
OECD. 2016. “Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).” 2016. https://oecd.org/pisa/.
OECD. 2018. Equity in Education: Breaking down Barriers to Social Mobility. PISA. OECD. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264073234-en.
Ozga, Jenny. 2019. “Problematising Policy: The Development of (Critical) Policy Sociology.” Critical Studies in Education, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2019.1697718.
Reid, Alan. 2010. “Accountability and the Public Purposes of Education.” QTU Professional Magazine 25 (November 2010): 6–9.
Reid, Alan. 2020. Changing Australian Education: How Policy Is Taking Us Backwards and What Can Be Done about It. Routledge.
Rizvi, Fazal, and Bob Lingard. 2010. Globalizing Education Policy. 1. publ. London: Routledge.
Ross, Alistair. 2021. “What Do Educational Science and the Public Good Mean in the Context of Educational Research for Social Justice?” In Educational Research for Social Justice, edited by Alistair Ross, 1:1–28. Education Science, Evidence, and the Public Good. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62572-6_1.
Rowlands, Julie, and Shaun Rawolle. 2013. “Neoliberalism Is Not a Theory of Everything: A Bourdieuian Analysis of Illusio in Educational Research.” Critical Studies in Education 54 (3): 260–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2013.830631.
Savage, Glenn C. 2017. “Neoliberalism, Education and Curriculum.” In Powers of Curriculum: Sociological Perspectives on Education, 143–65. Oxford University Press South Melbourne.
Savage, Glenn C., Jessica Gerrard, Trevor Gale, and Tebeje Molla. 2021. “The Politics of Critical Policy Sociology: Mobilities, Moorings and Elite Networks.” Critical Studies in Education, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2021.1878467.
Sellar, Sam, and Bob Lingard. 2018. “International Large-Scale Assessments, Affective Worlds and Policy Impacts in Education.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 31 (5): 367–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2018.1449982.
Skourdoumbis, Andrew. 2018. “National Plan for School Improvement and Students First: The Predictable Nature of School Education Policy and the Problem of Student Achievement.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 39 (4): 603–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2017.1300136.
Stacey, Meghan, Mihajla Gavin, Jessica Gerrard, Anna Hogan, and Jessica Holloway. 2022. “Why Is There so Much Talk about Teachers Right Now? Because We Are Afraid of Them.” Education research. Australian Association for Research in Education (blog). August 15, 2022. https://aare.edu.au/blog/?p=14028.
Thomas, Sue. 2011. “Teachers and Public Engagement: An Argument for Rethinking Teacher Professionalism to Challenge Deficit Discourses in the Public Sphere.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 32 (3): 371–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2011.573253.
Twining, Peter. 2022. “This Is How to Reposition Teachers as Experts.” Education research. Australian Association for Research in Education (blog). April 29, 2022. https://aare.edu.au/blog/?p=12747.
United Nations Development Programme. 2022. Human Development Report 2021/2022: Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives: Shaping Our Future in a Transforming World. Global Human Development. New York: United Nations. https://hdr.undp.org/system/files/documents/global-report-document/hdr2021-22pdf_1.pdf.
Verger, Antoni, Gerrard Ferrer-Esteban, and Lluís Parcerisa. 2021. “In and out of the ‘Pressure Cooker’: Schools’ Varying Responses to Accountability and Datafication.” In Accountability and Datafication in the Governance of Education, edited by Sotiria Grek, Christian Maroy, and Antoni Verger, 219–39. World Yearbook of Education 2021. London New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Verger, Antoni, and Lluís Parcerisa. 2018. “A Difficult Relationship: Accountability Policies and Teachers—International Evidence and Premises for Future Research.” In International Handbook of Teacher Quality and Policy, edited by Motoko Akiba and Gerald K. LeTendre, 1st ed., 241–54. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Verger, Antoni, Lluís Parcerisa, and Clara Fontdevila. 2019. “The Growth and Spread of Large-Scale Assessments and Test-Based Accountabilities: A Political Sociology of Global Education Reforms.” Educational Review 71 (1): 5–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2019.1522045.
Webb, P. Taylor. 2014. “Policy Problematization.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 27 (3): 364–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2012.762480.
Webb, P. Taylor, Sam Sellar, and Kalervo N. Gulson. 2020. “Anticipating Education: Governing Habits, Memories and Policy-Futures.” Learning, Media and Technology 45 (3): 284–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2020.1686015.
Ziegler, Albert, Ching-Chih Kuo, Sen-Peng Eu, Michaela Gläser-Zikuda, Miguelina Nuñez, Hsiao-Ping Yu, and Bettina Harder. 2021. “Equity Gaps in Education: Nine Points toward More Transparency.” Education Sciences 11 (11): 711. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11110711.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 International Journal of Social Sciences & Educational StudiesInternational Journal of Social Sciences & Educational Studies applies the
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic Licence (CC BY-NC 2.0)