Monday 25 August 2014

The Case for a PISA Alternative? Exploring the Global Educational Reform Movement

Part Two: The Economy of Performance vs Ecologies of Practice



The knowledge economy and the targeting of particular educational objectives to economic focused outcomes is currently in conflict with a profession that has a history of social, moral and cultural approaches to education where:
The professional is motivated by service to the community rather than by the anticipation of an immediate material reward; altruistic values predominate over egoistic inclinations (Turner 1993 p14 cited in Stronach & Corbin 2002 p2)
In early 2014 an open letter written by Heinz-Dieter Meyer and signed by many educationalists challenged some of the perceived problems posed to education by OECD and PISA with some significant arguments that oppose the types of comments shared by Schleicher and others seen earlier in this essay. I would like to share three statements from the letter here:
  1. PISA results are anxiously awaited by governments, education ministers, and the editorial boards of newspapers, and are cited authoritatively in countless policy reports. They have begun to deeply influence educational practices in many countries. As a result of PISA, countries are overhauling their education systems in the hopes of improving their rankings. Lack of progress on PISA has led to declarations of crisis and “PISA shock” in many countries, followed by calls for resignations, and far-reaching reforms according to PISA precepts
  2. PISA, with its three-year assessment cycle, has caused a shift of attention to short-term fixes designed to help a country quickly climb the rankings, despite research showing that enduring changes in education practice take decades, not a few years to come to fruition.
  3. PISA takes attention away from the less measurable or immeasurable educational objectives like physical, moral, civic, and artistic development, thereby dangerously narrowing our collective imagination regarding what education is and ought to be about.
These three statements raise important educational concerns about how governments are applying reforms in connection with PISA and I will now analyse them in reverse order by providing three directly contrasting statements that intend to highlight the conflict between the profession and its policy makers. Point three is raised by the new UK Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, who justifies the coalition government reforms as necessary by criticising previous government policy, in the Telegraph on the 11th August 2014:

England’s performance in international studies stagnated… This wasn’t the fault of hard working teachers, but of a system which prized all the wrong outcomes… as schools were encouraged to push… young people towards poor quality qualifications [which have] little or no labour market value

This statement clearly emphasises a government focus on a particular form of educational attainment as being more important than the less measurable objectives outlined by both Grek and Meyer. 

The issue raised in point 2 above is that under the current reformation this focus is also short-term in its gaze, demanding education systems to apply strategies that are historically expected in the world of corporate business. Subsequently a government’s investment in human capital now demands immediate results and is at odds with the historical approach to the profession that cultivates successful educational content where ‘all good and true education is an expression of national life and character’ (Sadler 1900 cited in Alexander 2001, 27). Sellar and Lingard cite Feher 2009 on this matter and explain that:

[I]n the neoliberal world of globalized and unregulated financial markets, corporate governance is concerned less with optimizing returns on investment over time than with maximizing the distribution of dividends in the short run.

When applied to the education sector of a nation, governments become preoccupied with the perpetual appreciation of the international value of the sector rather than the original investment in training which waits for productive future returns. 

The initial point made by Meyer that I selected is the one that currently causes most conflict within the profession where:

The political conflict relocates the centre of debate outside the profession itself, leaving the professionals mere spectators. Accordingly, one rescue strategy (amongst many others) in such embattled professions is of course to change sides, ‘to abandon the professional mode’ in favour of more successful and dominant contributors to the discourse (Stronach and Corbin 2002, 7)

This significant external influence on the methodology of delivery is seeing the divisive application of approaches such as performance related pay, free schools and academies in England, the compulsory teaching of English in Chinese schools, the Race to the Top contest in the United States and forms of policy borrowing between nations which is resulting in an:

intolerable contradiction between what teachers are expected to do and what they want to do as individuals [longing] for meaningful ways to maintain their self-esteem in new personal and professional identities and to deal with the conflicts between the new roles established by the new curriculum and their ‘old’ identities (S. Guo et al. 2013, 250)

Competition between teachers regarding performance is particularly contentious. Governments feel that they can legitimise attacks on the profession and undermine cultural pedagogical approaches by raising issues found in other countries that are deemed to be successful. It therefore implies that one’s pedagogical strategy has no personalised context for delivery but is universal to any other educational system where other teachers can understand and use the narrative constructed for a particular cultural environment. It could be considered part of an educators professional skill set to be able to manipulate others pedagogical approaches and indeed this is possible, but it does cause confusion within the identity created by each individual, nurtured and developed over time through repetition, trial and error. (Alexander 2001, 30) questions the validity of this interchangeable transnational approach to education:

in countries that are as culturally different as the UK and Japan, treating culture as an independent variable in a statistical calculation encourages the assumption that an educational strategy can be detached from the values and conditions which give it meaning and ensure its success, transpose it to a context where these may be diametrically opposed, and yet expect it to deliver the same results.


Since referring to Meyer’s open letter I have explored areas of tension between policy makers and those who deliver it. But is PISA to blame for how policy makers are using the evidence they provide? Certainly it can be stated at the outset that the focus of PISA on such a narrow band of educational achievement, as discussed in some detail so far, is not particularly helpful. However the data in itself is quite useful and shortly I will explore some possible interpretations that go beyond simply regurgitating the stats in the form of policy before looking at viable alternatives to the pressures of the PISA bubble.

Monday 11 August 2014

A Lesson(in)Action - Preparation for the new academic year

"The ideological project embodied in educational policies since the ERA [Education Reform Act] has introduced increased regulation of primary [and secondary] education and rapid changes that have contributed to a climate of uncertainty for schools. The threat of failure: for children, teachers, schools and education departments in universities, maintained by the government through policing by Ofsted, reductive league tables and a policy of public naming and shaming, is ever present. The current climate constrains risk-taking and experimentation and obstructs creative approaches to learning and teaching that could result in innovation and originality."
Clare Kelly, 2013


To begin the new academic year you are invited to prepare and take part in A Lesson(in)Action 


The Unlesson Manifesto demands that you actively avoid:

Lesson Aims
Lesson Objectives
The 3-Part Lesson
Assessment for Learning
Pace
Differentiation
Measurable Progress
Learning Outcomes
Interactive Whiteboards
Seating Plans
Prior Learning



By removing the prescribed scaffolding of lesson planning, you are required to recalibrate your delivery. Your education system is working hard to ration every child's comprehensive educational experience and this is an opportunity to work creatively and actively avoid an approach that currently takes place every day across the globe. Through the avoidance of the structures listed above you will need to prepare a minimum of one lesson that encourages you as the teacher and your students to take risks. For some of you it may be a challenge to work outside of these parameters whilst for others it may be a simple reinforcement of how you already deliver in the classroom. Either way it is an attempt at a more conscious approach to how you work. We want to hear about your inventive approaches and conclusions - tweet comments to @BoHetherington and @LessonInAction or share via the comments box on the blog. All the best for the new term, stay strong and believe in your own professionalism

Sunday 10 August 2014

The Case for a PISA Alternative? Exploring the Global Educational Reform Movement

Part One: The Global Umbrella


In the global economy, the benchmark for 
educational success is no longer merely 
improvement by local or national standards, 
but the best performing education systems 
internationally

Andreas Schleicher 2014

Education remains one of the key battlegrounds for any government in the build up to an election. Candidates in government or in opposition lay claim to having the answer to solve educational concerns, usually countering any policies that have been put in place over the last term in office. However, now education is no longer a national battleground for politicians but a global one. Stakeholders and global education providers such as Pearson, OECD, UNESCO and McKinsey & Company and research by sources such as CEM and Fischer Family Trust in England, NCATE and the NRC in the United States are providing policy makers with data provision that profess to have the answer to any presumed educational mishap or failure. As such, governments and politicians are entering the educational battleground armed with massive amounts of analytical detail and statistical evidence that claim to provide the correct pathway out of perceived national educational poverty to the Valhalla of international educational acclaim.

The most successful of these provisions is the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), developed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which triennially examines the comparative performance of educational systems across the world. Grek, 2009 p.1 states that PISA ‘through its direct impact on national education systems… has become an… influential tool of the new political technology of governing’.

Andreas Schleicher, the Deputy Director of the Directorate for Education at the OECD, is a key player in the development of PISA becoming a significant tool for governments to measure educational success. It is his belief that ‘knowledge and skills have become the global currency in the 21st Century’ and states on Pearsons ‘Five Things I’ve Learned’ website that ‘[t]he goal of the past was standardization and conformity; now it’s about being ingenious, about personalizing education experiences.’ In theory this is encouraging – an educational approach that breaks away from conformity, promotes individual learning and supports inventiveness. However in practice this seemingly freewheeling approach has seen a greater focus by many educational systems on exactly the opposite; conformity, standardisation and an educational model, driven by global educational reformists that is impoverished in it’s application of holistic and creative learning as they try to attain high scores on the PISA tables.

This essay will explore some of the global education reforms that are currently being implemented across the world and try to make sense of the seemingly contradictory remarks made by such policy advisors that are resulting in educational austerity, at least in the places where they are being strictly adhered to. First, however, it is important to consider in greater detail the process that has taken the implementation of transnational education ‘to be a concern of the highest political priority’. (Hingel 2001 p.10)

[W]e are witnessing across the globe a robust anticipatory and proactive interest in OECD’s Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA). PISA is no longer just a ‘results phenomenon’. PISA leaders are increasingly getting at what lies behind the numbers and are thus generating key insights and questions.

Michael Fullan (McKinsey 2010)


The OECD’s PISA study, alongside the data from PIRLS, TIMSS and other studies, have transformed our understanding of what works

Michael Gove 2014


[T]he last round of QCDA-led changes… remain informed by a nationally-introspective approach and appear under-informed by lessons from transnational comparisons

Oates 2010 p.5


The sources that organisations use to glean their information are vast. McKinsey refers to 20 different school systems from around the world, PISA/OECD have access to 65 countries and represent ‘more than 80% of the world economy’ (PISA Results Summary 2012), whilst Oates refers to 3 large-scale international surveys – PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS. It would seem to be the case that their extensive research is worthy of listening to as so much evidence, from so many global sources, must provide significant findings regarding answers to successful educational reform. Indeed the provision of knowledge regarding an education systems performance in relation to another; be it a study of students attainment of literacy or mathematics, pedagogy delivery models or teacher and school accountability can be seen as an excellent source for planning and preparation for a country’s personal contextualisation. Yet the narrowing band of analytical performance, with its focus on mathematics, reading and scientific literacy is meaning governments and policy makers are focusing their research and subsequent demand for reform on a particular classification of educational attainment. An example of such an approach can be seen in two separate quotes from Andreas Schleicher regarding educational analysis in Wales and the United States:

1. Mr Schleicher criticised Wales for a lack of long-term vision for education. He said: ‘Your education system today is your economy tomorrow. There's a very, very close linkage between the skills that people develop in school and what they're able to do later in life. Our economies are evolving very rapidly. The demand for better skills, for the right skills. The knowledge economy no longer pays you for what you know... it pays you for what you can do with what you know.’ He also criticised the mindset of Welsh students.


2. The increasing impact of advanced skills on people's life chances -- whether it is employment, earnings or social participation, makes it a priority to do better in providing all talented students, regardless of their background, with access to advanced education…. it is also clear that an increasing number of countries have approached and surpassed U.S. graduation levels and others are bound to follow over the coming years.



Schleicher is quick to use the same rhetoric for two completely different education systems at different levels (one secondary and one higher education), both of which appear to need to address aspects of its approach to learning and student success. The threat of failure in comparison to other nations is the stick he uses to drive home his point and the evidence he presents is PISA data. Yet in the case of Wales at least a viable and alternative PISA run test presents the argument, as claimed by TLTP Education Recruitment (April 2014), where ‘[a]ccording to the OECD, the UK school system is producing kids that are teeming with cognitive fluidity and equipped with fully developed transferrable thinking skills’. Yet nothing was made of this contradictory and quite significant compliment by the British government. Indeed as Grek, 2009 p.5 cites, PISA ‘does not examine students’ mastery of school curricula nor does it pay attention to less explicit educational aims that resist measurement (e.g. democratic participation, artistic talents, understanding of politics, history etc)’, which then ensnares any national reforms to follow the PISA status quo.

The history and demand for the global knowledge economy, at least in European terms, can be traced back to the implementation of the European Space of Education; co-operation between member states to deliver quality education with the intention ‘to enhance the quality and relevance of human capital development’. In 1976 what Hingel 2001 p.5, describes as the ‘Eurydice action in the field of documentation and statistics’ was set up. It’s intention, in the longer term, was to measure pupil achievement, external evaluations and self-appraisal in schools through the form of quality evaluation and the involvement of stakeholders. Hingel, 2001 p.6, shares with us that in the development of a European Model of Education:

the increasing knowledge on national educational systems have played a central role. The Eurydice collection and analysis of data and information, in close co-operation with Eurostat, has been primordial.

Almost simultaneously in the United States the publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983 targeted the American system of schooling with remarkably similar language to that used by Mr. Schleicher in its fears of being left behind in a global education race and claimed the ‘unimaginable [in the fact that] others are matching and surpassing our educational attainments’. It used in its reforms what were only described as ‘notable programs and promising approaches [and] existing analyses of problems in education’ sensationally stating on page 1:

[i]f an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.

Aronson & Anderson 2013, make it clear that this report, where ‘reformers were able to legitimize their belief that only by tightening control over curriculum and teaching… and making education more disciplined and competitive’ has led to the implementation of market-based reforms that connect globalisation and economic competition. This ‘governance by comparison’, as called by Martens 2007 and cited in Grek 2009, through the quality evaluation of educational measurement, particularly by external sources, has paved the way for stakeholders such as the OECD and it’s subsequent PISA programme where, ‘[t]hrough its statistics, reports and studies, it has achieved a brand which most regard indisputable; OECD’s policy recommendations are accepted as valid by politicians and scholars alike.’ Grek 2009 p.3.

The educational reforms in China and Asia followed later than in Europe and the United States but they have not been any less aligned to global capitalism. China launched their New Curriculum Reform in 2001 and S. Guo et al. 2013 p.259 state that ‘[u]nder China’s market economy, education is also undergoing the process of marketisation, and privatisation in terms of orientation, provision, curriculum and financing.


The 34 nations that are members of the programme, and 31 additional other countries that refer to the results have created a competitive global umbrella that currently covers all 65 educational systems desperate to nurture student excellence in mathematics, reading and science to ensure they have the 'positive learning climate' required to 'produce the vanguard of a competitive, knowledge-based global economy' (PISA Results Summary 2012). In the mean time the less explicit educational aims, regarded as so by PISA, leave a generation of students at risk of a lack of creativity, awareness of social justice and cultural learning. 

The second of three parts of this essay will be posted soon and will explore 'The Economy of Performance versus Ecologies of Practice' - the conflict between the new educational objectives aligned to economic focused outcomes and the traditional social, moral and cultural status of teaching.