Session Information
23 SES 02 C, Policy Reforms and Teachers’ Work (Part 1)
Paper Session to be continued in 23 SES 03 C
Contribution
This paper engages with the notion of school education productivity evaluations and two terms that are synonymous with it, teacher quality and teacher effectiveness. The paper argues against input-output ‘what works’ productivity evaluations of school education that in turn limit school education policy development exclusively to the selective ‘what works’ inputs of teacher quality and teacher effectiveness. Notwithstanding the contributions that teachers make to student achievement, the problem of school education productivity evaluations is generally one of misappropriation in that too often their focus on inputs such as teacher quality and teacher effectiveness to the exclusion of broader structural inputs masks important features of schooling. The paper will assert that teacher quality and its proxy teacher effectiveness serve aspects of an audit agenda distorting how we think about matters relating to student achievement and the provision of a quality school education for all. With this in mind, the paper grapples with the following research question, why is the problem of school education productivity evaluations generally one of misappropriation and how is school education policy development affected by them?
The objectives of the paper are threefold. First, to examine the input-output (production function) style of school education productivity evaluations commonly used in analyses of school productivity and to highlight the influence this evaluation style has in contemporary school education policy development. Second, to comment on the selective inclusion of inputs such as teacher quality and teacher effectiveness in school education productivity evaluations and third to propose an alternative to simple input-output evaluations of student achievement. A critical examination of school education productivity evaluations provides a basis for engaging with them to identify how they are characterized and assessed (i.e. measured), by whom, for what purpose and to what end. This allows for closer scrutiny of the school education productivity evaluation and terms connected to it like teacher quality and teacher effectiveness.
The paper is theoretically framed on the work of Pierre Bourdieu (2004) specifically his notion of doxa as part of a broader theory of symbolic power. An analysis of school education productivity evaluations using doxa as part of a theory of symbolic power helps to characterise, understand and clarify productivity evaluations as a dominant form and logic of practice typical of heteronomous forces impacting the field of school education. Doxa and symbolic power are used by Bourdieu to highlight ways in which particular arrangements of capital (economic, cultural and symbolic) shape fields like school education. His work on doxa and symbolic power can help expose the objectifying practices and inherent representations of dominant fields like economics on school education, an example of which is the input-output mode of evaluation analogous to the productivity and efficiency determinations of firms (see Karmel, 2000). An eventuality of this kind in many ways demonstrates a field authority over teaching with its potent mix of ritualizing evaluation practices and field specific “structurations” (Bourdieu, 2004, p. 167). The objectifying limitations imposed by school education productivity evaluations with their focus on teacher quality and teacher effectiveness legitimizes the control they have over teachers, their preparation (education/training) and their classroom teaching practices holding them accountable for education system deficiencies and imperfections.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Bourdieu, P. (2004) Outline Of A Theory Of Practice. Cambridge University Press: UK. Department of Education and Training (2015). Students First Strategy: Teacher Quality. Government of Australia. Available from http://www.studentsfirst.gov.au/teacher-quality. [1 March 2015]. Diem, S., Young, M.C., Welton, A.D., Mansfield, K.C., & Lee, P (2014) The intellectual landscape of critical policy analysis, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 27:9, 1068-1090. Karmel, P. (2000) Resourcing schools. Dialogue, 19:2, 7-35. Sahlberg, P. (2011). Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change In Finland? New York: Teachers College Press. Schlotter Martin, Schwerdt Guido & Wößmann Ludger. (2008) The Future of European Education and Training Systems: Key Challenges and Their Implications, Analytical Report for the European Commission prepared by the European Expert Network on Economics of Education (EENEE). Munich, Germany. Taylor, Sandra. (2004) Researching educational policy and change in ‘new times’: using critical discourse analysis. Journal of Education Policy, 19:4, 433-451 U.S. Department of Education (2015) Race To The Top. Government of the U.S. Available from https://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/k-12/race-to-the-top. [2 July 2015].
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