Place-based governance and leadership in decentralised school systems: evidence from England

Relatively few studies have explored the ways in which 'middle tier' institutional arrangements in education, such as school districts and local authorities, are responding to New Public Management reforms characterized by centralization, decentralization, marketization and disintermediation (Lubienski, 2014). This paper analyses these issues, drawing on governance (Tenbensel, 2017) and path dependency theories (Streeck and Thelen, 2005), together with evidence from five locality case studies in England (Greany and Higham, 2018; Greany, 2018). It finds that the process and impact of 'middle tier' disintermediation is uneven and often fraught, with significant implications for place-based coherence, equity and legitimacy. It shows how national hierarchical mechanisms work in concert to require and/or incentivise change across local school systems, most obviously by reducing the remit and capacity of traditional Local Authorities. This process can open up new opportunities for emerging and existing actors to work together through network and community forms of governance to counteract the negative impact of fragmentation, a process that Munby and Fullan (2016) dub 'middle out' change. However, responses and outcomes vary widely across the five localities and productive 'middle out' change is by no means a given, so the article analyses the processes at work and their impact across different contexts. It concludes by assessing implications for research, policy and practice in contemporary education systems

Evaluation for what purpose? Findings from two stakeholder groups

A host of reasons exist for the pursuit of evidence in the public sector, including to support good governance and policy development. As the expectations for program evaluation from policymakers have evolved, so too has evaluation practice and a great deal of experimentalism has ensued. There is a risk that these developments and the complexity inherent in them, may lead to conflicting expectations about why program evaluation is done, or even a loss of purpose. This prompts the meso-level analysis of two types of stakeholders in a governance network, explored in this chapter. This chapter presents the findings of an ongoing study which explores the perceptions of program evaluators and policy implementers towards the purpose of evidence. The findings suggest that program evaluators and policy implementers have divergent expectations of why and how evaluation data might be used. The findings suggest that program evaluators aspire to support change and enhance the policy domains they serve, whereas policy implementers perceive program evaluation as serving a more governance-/management-orientated role. The chapter demonstrates the complexity of both program evaluation and policy and may have implications for the twin pillars of governance and responsibility at the heart of the book. If governance and responsibility are the twin pillars of sustainability then the complex networks of relationships, expectations, values, and outcomes may need to be considered. The findings also have implications for evaluation commissioners and practitioners, demonstrating the need for the purpose and expectations of program evaluation to be agreed early. The use of program evaluation as a symbolic, aesthetic or structural mechanism also emerges, prompting opportunity for further research, for instance, to explore legitimacy and program evaluation.N/

Steering in complex education systems: why similar aims can have dramatically different results

In the wake of neo-liberal informed global trends to set performance standards and intensify accountability, the Dutch government aimed for ‘raising standards for basic skills’. While the implementation of literacy standards was hardly noticed, the introduction of numeracy standards caused a major backlash in secondary schools, which ended in a failed introduction of a high stakes test. How can these major differences be explained? Inspired by Foucault’s governmentality concept a theoretical framework is developed to allow for detailed empirical research on steering processes in complex systems in which many actors are involved in educational decision-making. A mixed-methods multiple embedded case-study was conducted comprising nine school boards and fifteen secondary schools. Analyses unveil processes of responsibilisation, normalisation and emerging dividing practices. Literacy standards reinforced responsibilities of Dutch language teachers; for numeracy, school leadership created entirely new roles and responsibilities for teachers. Literacy standards were incorporated in an already used instrument which made implementation both subtle and inevitable. For numeracy, schools distinguished students by risk of not passing the new test affirming the disciplinary nature of schools in the process. While little changed to address teachers main concerns about students’ literacy skills, the failed introduction of the numeracy test usurped most resources