Building Effective Schools In Diverse Context: Differences In Policy Strategies

Author(s):

Natalya Kozina(presenting / submitting)Marina Pinskaya(presenting)Sergey Kosaretski

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

11. Educational Improvement and Quality Assurance

Format:

Paper

Session Information

11 SES 06 A, Paper Session

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-24

15:30-17:00

Room:

OB-E2.14

Chair:

Jan Van Damme

Contribution

The paper uses the framework of school effectiveness to examine schools working in diverse socio-economic conditions demonstrating different educational outcomes. The objective of this research is to extract the particular group of schools performing beyond expectations considering their social-economic context. We are going to analyze their policy strategy which allows them to achieve a high outcome without screening the children unlike the schools working in better social-economic environment.

This study is concentrated on the analysis of holistic effect upon school performance, which was studied through principals’ leadership, their managerial practices and ability to create effective schools. We are interested in which strategies let principals of schools with low level of social-economic background to achieve high educational outcome considering that these schools usually have a shortage of human and material resources.

We considered a wide range of managerial strategies such as enrollment policy, attracting specific group of parents, evaluation of school and teachers working processes, and priorities of managerial activities. The result of this study could be used to improve the functioning of schools facing challenges and provide a formative evaluation of organizational development.

School performing beyond expectations should be discussed in a broader context of School Effectiveness Research (SER) which arises from a wide field of Educational Effectiveness Research (EER) studies (Sammons, Hillman, and Mortimore, 1995; Teddlie and Reynolds, 2000; Reynolds, 2010; Reynolds et al, 2011; Reynolds et al, 2012, Harris et al, 2013).

Studies on school effectiveness explore complex interconnections among single factors and processes which result in interactions aimed at producing a higher quality of education in certain schools, whereby specific schools have the ability to have a positive influence on a student’s educational outcomes.

The concept of an effective school is connected with researching school level processes particularly those which are typical for schools working under the most difficult conditions (Mortimore et al, 1988; Hopkins, 2001; Reynolds et al, 2003; Harris, 2002; Muijs et al, 2004; Harris et al, 2006; Chapman et al, 2012; Harris and Hargreaves, 2012).

Schools considered as effective schools declared their responsibility for creating an educational environment and pedagogical instruments. They would allow them to form resilience among their students who are at risk living in the families and communities they find themselves in. Schools performing beyond expectations help their students to achieve higher educational goals in the face of unfavorable conditions.

This research presents the universality of the effective school model including Russian context. Thus this model allows us to analyze the Russian schools success experience and could be a base for the whole national school system.

Method

The results of the project ‘Monitoring of Education Markets and Organizations’, carried out within the framework of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in 2013-2014, are presented in this work. The purpose of the MEMO Project is to collect generalized information and micro data, analyse, generalize and present information on recent trends in education in Russia: on choice of educational programs, funding of education, strategies of educational institutions, overall management, allocation of recourses, hiring policies, etc. Nowadays it is the biggest data set in Russia and represents Russian schools from 84 regions of the country. The result of the Unified State Exam was used as an indicator of school effectiveness. The Unified State Exam is a high-stakes test on key subjects used for both graduation and university admission decisions (nowadays it is the only available outcome measure for Russian schools). A contextualisation model was applied to control the school socio-economic conditions (an Index of Social Advantage). That model was developed by analysts of High School of Economics and is the first contextualization model which was applied in Russia for analyses of academic results. The regression modeling was applied to understand to what degree the actual school grade differs from the predicted grade based on social-economic status of the school. From this we were able to distinguish schools, performing beyond expectations working in disadvantaged environment and analyze its principals’ managerial strategies. We focus on differences in managerial strategies between these schools and schools working in favorable context. The analysis of principals’ strategies follows the descriptive format. A multiple univariate analysis of variance was used to analyse the differences between principals of different groups of schools. All statistical tests were set at level 0.05.

Expected Outcomes

Effective schools’ strategy is more based on immaterial motivation of their teachers such as professional growth opportunity and social recognition. Their principals apply penalties such as a reduction in teachers’ wages to a lesser extent. All these lead to a better working environment for the school faculty. However, effective schools working in unfavorable environment practice a particular strategy. We can distinguish three main features. Firstly, principals of schools performing beyond expectations implement the policy of high expectations towards its teachers and students. They believe that to attract parents they need to provide a wide range of educational activity and have a high academic achievement level. Secondly, there are pedagogical leadership practices. Principals demonstrate less bureaucratic management style and realize the strategy of pedagogical leadership more often including attending lessons to support teachers. Thirdly, there is a lower selection level. Principals of these schools are also interested in attracting the best students but they also keep on teaching children from disadvantaged background. It looks like a less strict policy when children with different family backgrounds are doing well together. This strategy is different from non-effective schools which have no policy of contingent control and from successful school working in advanced conditions which pursue a strong selection policy. Thus, typical characteristics of resilient schools are: recruiting more successful students from other schools, the branding of the school, creating a culture of high expectations for staff and students. Principals of these schools create advanced courses in different subjects, prepare their student for graduation exams,and organize additional activity.

References

Chapman, C., P. Armstrong, A. Harris, D. Muijs, D. Reynolds, and P. Sammons. (Eds) 2012. School Effectiveness and Improvement Research, Policy and Practice: Challenging the orthodoxy? Routledge. Hargreaves, A., and A. Harris. 2012. Performance beyond expectations. Routledge. Harris, A., C. Chapman, D. Muijs, D. Reynolds, C. Campbell, B. Creemers, L. Earl, L. Kyriakides, G. Munoz, L. Stoll, S.B. Stringfield van Velzen, and J. Weinstein. 2013. Getting lost in translation? An analysis of the international engagement of practitioners and policy-makers with the educational effectiveness research base. School Leadership & Management 33, no. 1: 3-19. Harris, A., C. Chapman, D. Muijs, D. Reynolds, C. Campbell, B. Creemers, L. Earl, L. Kyriakides, G. Munoz, L. Stoll, S.B. Stringfield van Velzen, and J. Weinstein. 2013. Getting lost in translation? An analysis of the international engagement of practitioners and policy-makers with the educational effectiveness research base. School Leadership & Management 33, no. 1: 3-19. Hopkins, D. 2001. Meeting the Challenge: An Improvement Guide for Schools Facing Challenging Circumstances. London: DFES. Mortimore, P., P. Sammons, L. Stoll, D. Lewis, and R. Ecob. 1988. School matters: The junior years. Open Books. Muijs, D., A. Harris, C. Chapman, L. Stoll, and J. Russ. 2004. Improving schools in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas: A review of research evidence. School effectiveness and school improvement 15, no.2: 149-175. Reynolds, D. 2010. Failure Free Education? The Past, Present and Future of School Effectiveness and School Improvement. London: Routledge. Reynolds, D., B. Creemers, S. Stringfield, C. Teddlie, and E. Schaffer. 2003. World class schools: International perspectives on school effectiveness. London: Routledge Reynolds, D., C.P. Chapman, A. Kelly, D. Muijs, and P. Sammons. 2012. Educational effectiveness: the development of the discipline, the critiques, the defense and the present debate. Effective Education 3. no. 2: 109-127. Reynolds, D., P. Sammons, B. De Fraine, T. Townsend, J. Van Damme J. 2011. Paper presented to the annual meeting of the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement. A State of the Art Review, Cyprus. Sammons, Hillman, and Mortimore, 1995 Teddlie, C., and D. Reynolds. (Eds.). 2000. The international handbook of school effectiveness research. Psychology Press.

Author Information

Natalya Kozina (presenting / submitting)

NRU HSE, Russian Federation

Marina Pinskaya (presenting)

NRU HSE, Russian Federation

Sergey Kosaretski

Higher school of economics

Moscow

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