THE JAIME AND JOAN CONSTANTINER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION The legislative & regulative context of 'polycentric inspections‘: Policy Windows – or a Looking Glass? Prof. Dan Gibton, ( Ph.D , MA, LL.B ) Tel - Aviv University School of Education & Faculty of Law, Research Fellow, UCL Institute of Education Thanks to the London Centre for Leadership in Learning (UCL Institute of Education) Thanks to all those who took part in the study and dedicated their time and thoughts and whom I cannot name here for ethical reasons. [email protected]
Transcript
THE JAIME AND JOAN
CONSTANTINER SCHOOL
OF EDUCATION
The legislative & regulative context
of 'polycentric inspections‘:
Policy Windows – or a Looking Glass?
Prof. Dan Gibton, (Ph.D, MA, LL.B)
Tel-Aviv University School of Education & Faculty of Law,
Research Fellow, UCL Institute of Education
Thanks to the London Centre for Leadership in Learning (UCL Institute of Education)
Thanks to all those who took part in the study and dedicated their time and thoughts and whom I cannot
Government agendas are the result 'of considerable doses of messiness, accident, fortuitous coupling and dumb luck‘ (Kingdon, 2003:206)
Optimistic approach…: 'rules can control just enough to allow professional judgment to be used effectively' …Pessimistic approach that rejects the idea of a linear and controlled governance model and views it 'as inevitably a squeaky wheel system' (Paul Hill, 2003: 62)
It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. (Alfred Adler, 1870-1937)
There are only two kinds of madness one should guard against. One is the belief that we can do everything. The other is the belief that we can do nothing. (Andre Brink, 1979)
Everything works somewhere – nothing works everywhere (Tony Bryke, Carnegie Foundation)
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. 1. How and whether can the arrangements enacted in the 2000-2015 legislation regulate England’s school system?
2. 2. What are the actual implications and consequences of legislation on the regulation of education?
3. 3. How does legislation-based regulation qualify as an equity tool and what are its implications on equality and access to quality education?
Higher Standards, Better Schools For All: More choice for parents and pupils (White Paper10/05)
Education and Inspections Act 2006 Academies Act, 2010 The Importance of Teaching – white Paper 2010 Education Act, 2011.
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5(Kingdon, 2003)
(an educational regime) … a collective response to a primary problem of political economy. … acceptance of a core of political ideas that may derive from a dominant political ideology but more often will be created from conflict and compromise among the proponents of opposing doctrinal positions. … implies a distinctive set of public policies covering both the governance and the provision of education. (Manzer, 2003: 3–4)
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…put crudely the education market both
de-socializes and re-socializes; it destroys
older forms of sociability, while at the
same time encouraging competitive
individualism and instrumentality.
Prevailing values are changed and spaces
within which reflection upon and dialogue
over values were possible are closed
down and replaced by the technological
promiscuity of the technical and
managerial profession (Ball, 2007: 188).
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Optimists about governance think rules can control just
1.—(l) Her Majesty may by Order in Council appoint a person to the Her Majesty's office of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools in England ("the Chief Inspectorate of Inspector for England"). Schools in England.
(2) Her Majesty may by Order in Council appoint persons as Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools in England.
(3) Any person appointed as one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools in England shall serve, in accordance with the terms and conditions on which he is appointed, as a member of the staff of the Chief Inspector for England.
(4) The Chief Inspector for England shall hold and vacate office in accordance with the terms of his appointment, but—
(a) shall not be appointed for a term of more than five years;
(b) may at any time resign by giving written notice to the Secretary of State;
(c) may be removed from office by Her Majesty on the ground of incapacity or misconduct.
(5) The previous appointment of a person as Chief Inspector for
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(6) The interval is a period not exceeding 5 years after the end of the school year in which the latest of the inspections mentioned in paragraph (5) was carried out. (8) The first condition is that the inspection is carried out within the period of 5 years beginning with— (a) the end of the school year in which the earlier section 5 inspection was carried out; or (b) if one or more relevant section 8 inspections have already been carried out, the end of the school year in which the most recent of those inspections was carried out. (9) The second condition is that the Chief Inspector— (a) carries out the inspection for the purposes of determining whether the school would be likely to achieve a grade of “good” or better for the quality of education it provides if a section 5 inspection were carried out; and (b) having carried out the inspection, is satisfied that the evidence does not suggest that the school would not achieve such a grade if a section 5 inspection were carried out.
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2.—(1) The Chief Inspector for England shall have the general duty of Chief Inspector keeping the Secretary of State informed about—
for England. .
(a) the quality of the education provided by schools in England;
(b) the educational standards achieved in those schools;
(c) whether the financial resources made available to those schools are managed efficiently; and
(d) the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils at those schools.
(2) When asked to do so by the Secretary of State, the Chief Inspector for England shall—
(a) give advice to the Secretary of State on such matters as may be specified in the Secretary of State's request;
(b) inspect and report on such school, or class of school, in England as may be so specified.
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(3) The Chief Inspector for England shall, in addition, have the
following specific duties—
(a) establishing and maintaining the register mentioned in section 10(1);
(b) giving guidance to inspectors registered in that register, and such other persons as he considers appropriate, in connection with inspections of schools in England under section 9 and the
making of reports of such inspections;
(c) keeping under review the system of inspecting schools under section 9 (so far as it relates to schools in England) and, in particular, the standard of such inspections and of the reports made by registered inspectors;
(d) keeping under review the extent to which any requirement
imposed by or under this Act, or any other enactment, on any
registered inspector, local education authority, proprietor of a
school or governing body in relation to inspections of schools in
England is complied with;
(e) promoting efficiency in the conduct and reporting of inspections of schools in England by encouraging competition in the provision of services by registered inspectors.
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SSFA, 1998
25 Adjudicators
(1) The Secretary of State shall appoint for England such number of persons to act as
adjudicators for the purposes of this Act as he considers appropriate.
(2) Any matter which by virtue of this Act is required to be referred to “the adjudicator”
shall be referred to such person appointed under this section as may be determined in
accordance with regulations under Schedule 5.
(3) Accordingly in this Act “the adjudicator”, in relation to any such matter, means the
person mentioned in subsection (2).
(4) Schedule 5 has effect in relation to adjudicators.17
EDUCATION AND INSPECTIONS ACT 2006
PART 1 EDUCATION FUNCTIONS OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES
1 Duties in relation to high standards and the fulfilment of potential For section 13A
of EA 1996 substitute—
“13A Duty to promote high standards and the fulfilment of potential
(1) A local education authority shall ensure that their functions relating to the
provision of education to which this section applies are (so far as they are capable of being so exercised) exercised by the authority with a view to—
(a) promoting high standards,
2 Education and Inspections Act 2006 (c. 40)
Part 1 – Education functions of local authorities
Document Generated: 2011-01-17
Status: This version of this Act contains provisions that are prospective.
(b) in the case of a local education authority in England, ensuring fair access to
educational opportunity, and
(c) promoting the fulfilment by every child concerned of his educational potential.
(2) This section applies to education for—
(a) children of compulsory school age (whether at school or otherwise); and
(b) children under or over that age who are registered as pupils at schools maintained by the authority,
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5 School improvement partners
(1) A local education authority in England must appoint, in relation to each maintained school which they maintain, a person (to be known as a school improvement partner)
to provide advice to the governing body and head teacher of the school with a view to improving standards at the school.
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THE EDUCATION (SCHOOL INSPECTION)
(ENGLAND) (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS 2015
3.—(1) This regulation prescribes the interval between inspections of a school for the purposes of section 5(1)(a) of the 2005 Act (duty to inspect certain schools at prescribed intervals).
(2) In this regulation, “the earlier section 5 inspection”…
(3) Paragraph (4) applies where— (a) the school is not awarded a grade of “good” or better in the earlier section 5 inspection for the quality of education it provides; or
(b) the school is awarded such a grade in that inspection, and no relevant section 8 inspection is subsequently carried out.
(4) The interval is a period not exceeding 5 years after the end of the school year in which the earlier section 5 inspection was carried out.
(5) Paragraph (6) applies where the school is awarded a grade of “good” or better in the earlier section 5 inspection for the quality of education it provides, and one or more relevant section 8 inspections are subsequently carried out. 20
SANCTUARY BUILDINGS
GREAT SMITH STREET
LONDON SW1P 3BT
TEL: 0370 000 2288
2ND APRIL 2014
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Dear colleague
Regional Schools Commissioners and Headteacher Boards
As you may know, I recently took up the post of national Schools
Commissioner. As Commissioner it is my role to promote the
benefits of the academies and free schools programmes among
school leaders, local authorities and parents, recruit high-quality
academy sponsors and encourage school-to-school
collaboration and support. The role also allows me to work
closely with academies and ministers to shape the future of
academies and free schools as we develop a self-managing, self-
improving system.
…
Within government and the education sector there is a growing
consensus that decision making should lie closer to academies
and that those who have a track record of leading good schools
should have a stronger role in shaping the system.
This change will not cut across existing accountability lines;
accountability will remain with the Secretary of State. The role of
the RSCs will include the following functions:
Monitoring performance and prescribing intervention to secure
improvement in underperforming academies and free schools.
Taking decisions on the creation of new academies and making
recommendations to ministers about free school applications.
Ensuring that there are enough high-quality sponsors to meet local
need.
Taking decisions on changes to open academies, including
changes to age ranges, mergers and changes to multi-academy
trust arrangements, as well as changes to admission
arrangements.
…
Yours sincerely,
Frank Green
Schools Commissioner22
2014-15 QUALITY REVIEW RUBRIC
The 2014-15 Quality Review (QR) rubric continues to have ten indicators within three categories as outlined below: I. Instructional Core across Classrooms Curriculum (1.1)* Pedagogy (1.2)* Assessment (2.2)* II. School Culture Positive learning environment (1.4) High expectations (3.4)* III. Structures for Improvement Leveraging resources (1.3) Teacher support and supervision (4.1) Goals and action plans (3.1) Teacher teams and leadership development (4.2)* Monitoring and revising systems (5.1)
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The 2014-15 framework for the QR rubric
continues to align with the diagram above. The
instructional core is the relationship between
the student, teacher, and content (e.g.,
academic tasks). For the instructional core to
improve or to maintain a high standard across
classrooms within a school, the school’s
culture and structures for improvement must
facilitate efforts to increase and sustain quality.
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ISRAEL
An independent statutory unit - the National Authority
for Measurement and Evaluation – RAMA - shall be
established as the entity that leads and provides
professional guidance to the education system with
respect to measurement and evaluation.
RAMA will conduct periodic evaluations of the
education system and evaluations in schools, and will
publish its findings in an annual report submitted to the
National Council for Education.
From the Dovrat National Task Force in Education
(2004)
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It’s a change not a trend. Blair’s attempts to keep Labour governments a second, third, maybe fourth term achieving history, so there is a tendency to legislate for the consumer because it’s the consumer who carries the large vote. (senior political advisor to no. 10)
All along the years new types of schools were introduced or strengthened, with hope they would pull the whole system behind them. First were GM schools, then CTCs, then specialist schools, then academies, and further perhaps trust schools. By I think there is no evidence that any of these changed anything except for the specific schools that took part in the change, which indeed do better, sometimes on the expense of
the remaining ones. (Senior DfES officail, 2005)27
Do you know why we legislate? Because we can. New education legislation is somehow embedded in the DNA of administrations and secretaries of state. We simply have to come up with a new education bill every second tear or so, and if there's a new government, even if its run by the same party and headed by the same prime minister as the previous one, it still has to come up with a new education bill in its first six month. (Senior MP, 2011)
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New Labour would have seen themselves as the
custodians of inclusion and social justice they
had confused signals on special education. They
got to a point where LAs wanted to asset a
degree of social engineering Academies played a
small part in education, but this isn’t what this
government has intent on. LAs saw this as every
child should be part of mainstream education.
This government will take a different approach
and put emphasis on how a child is taught not
just where. (Think tank CEO, 2011)
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The legislation the government brought forward in the
summer of 2010 was fast tracked. It wasn't against it
when it came on time, but it happened too quickly there
hasn't been enough time for consultation. Time will tell
how robust or not and do with future challenges that come
it's way. A lot of the thinking on the Academies was
already there, there has been a change of regime and the
department has had to come into a different thinking
mode. The job of the civil servants is not to pass
judgments but their job is to turn ideas into new policy if
Michael Gove wasn't in opposition and people of Sam
Friedman were not around . (Superhead)
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Michael Gove has talked of the centrality of teaching but he's making big changes. Look at Pupil Premium. If we were expecting 3000 pounds and this is still a band aid. People underestimate the power of class and the ways your kids get effected by disenchanted aspirations . we stay here because the kids deserve a decent crack so we understand the expectations have to be a solid commitment and kids first legislation second. So if I have to ignore the law to reach the kids I will do it. I’m not indifferent to what I’m doing but I’ll do it anyway. (Superhead, 2010)
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One of the things that eluded practitioners was the level of intervention by the center, and it was overwhelming and it was necessary to avoid. Some of the schools were not run by your government not even the LEA because they lost a lot of their power, but by a group of people in Sanctuary building set out to micro manage everything, give you the full Monty people got fed up and are not following any more. (superhead2011)
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I've been a headteacher since 1986 in three different schools. The conclusion I've come to is that it’s my job to advance the learning and wellbeing of my students and if I have to do, in means of legal device, to ignore any type of legislation by government because it is destabilizing - I will. I'm a gate keeper to allow in these initiative and keep at bay these pieces of legislation that I think might work against the interest of the children. My parents are not as sophisticated as middle class parents. I have to work within the law I will not break the law but I will bend where I can. (Superhead, 2006)
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In terms of my policy what I work on today one of the areas isdregulation and therefore OfSTED how there are incentives for the system of school’s self improving the way we think to improve is to have a the best leaders to improve the weaker ones … these things do not happen on their own. What is the approach of the regulator ? You can get into definitions, but it’s rubbish they are all about making judgments… OfSTED are the only body with impact above government . I have concern that the whole system is based on capture were the expertise is and it will live or die by whether you have leadership capacity so you can get the best leaders into where they can make the most impact, to get them to work for all… the role of the regulator is problematic and the reason is OfSTED needs different accountability measures there are different ways and stories what a good school is and there's a problem in OfSTED because the value is too raw… I think if you are a ks4 school and your are in the top quartile pupils in prior attainment, you have a 90% chance to be good or outstanding. When OfSTED looks at schools there's a historical reason for this but their inspectors are not trained to look at a school through prior attainment for a series of reasons. (Senior DfE person, 2015)
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OfSTED’s role within education the phrase regulator has a specific meaning wer’e not a regulator of maintained schools and not a regulator of non maintained schools, we are an inspectorate we are a regulator of early years. Regulation is legislation, enforcement, we only do the inspection bit. For academies maintained schools, and free schools we are an inspectorate as such people think we can do, and we cannot is, close schools down that’s somebody else's job, within our framework we identify the status everything we do is transparent and is published. So therefore in part you can end the conversation there, so our role is key in the accountability framework and in doing that it’s a historical point of view OfSTED came around in 1993 but the 88 act was much more forming because of the NC, someone who goes into schools now, looking at regulation in this soft sense, there is much more consistency. … Were we are now with academioies it was a foundation laid down by GM schools. What we should be very clear is on OfSTED’s role is it doesn't matter to us what school it is re the type of governance of the school our directives have nothing to do with that. (Senior OfSTED person, 2014)
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EA 1988EA 1993
SSFA 1998Learning &
Skills Act,
2000
EA 2002EIA 2006
Academies Act
2010 EA 2011
Degree of freedom
Legislation / Year
Grant Maintained Schools
CTCs
CTC 'extensions'
Foundation Schools
CityAcademiesSpecialist
Schools
Academies
Trust Schools
Free Schools
Equity
non-incremental change ('leap')
LOWER
HIGHER
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Figure 9.1: the field of adhocracy and long-term planning, politics and ideology in law-based reform
Legend: Legislation in bold & italics; policy & reform in regular font.
Motivation
Degree of adhocracy
HIGH
LOW
Political Ideological
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39Year
Israel
US
201020001990198019701960
National Rimalt Admissions Cultural Schools Act, 2008Ed. Act, 1853 committee Code, 1978 Combined Schools amendment
Brown Keys, Ridick Rodriguez Missouri Parents Sheff v. Jenkins Involved / Meredith
Gratz/Grutter
ESEA Title I
NCLB ESEA reform blueprint /reauthorization
Improving America’s
Schools
England EA 1944 ERA, 1988 SSFA,1998 Academies Ed Bill‘Butler’ Act , 2010; 2011
Kremer Dikman Shpekman Poriya AlKasami
Abott
Equality
Figure 9.3: Kingdon’s model and England’s law-based reform
Based on: Kingdon, 2003.
Decentralization & school choice;
Standards in teaching, learning and assessment;
Admissions policy
Community cohesion
New Party rule (1998; 2010)
New Administration (1998; 2007)
New Secretary of State ;
Heads of Delivery / Standards Unit, undersecretaries, advisors to the SoS.
Poor results on international tests;
Social unrest and religious / ethnic confrontations.
School segregation and issues of placemnets in schools
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In a political context, the end result of the ‘transaction’ is normally legislation which has a general coercive effect, applying to’ and often imposing costs on, those who did not vote for it or did not want it. From a normative perspective, it should be noted that unless a unanimity voting rule (allowing any potential cost-bearer to veto a proposal) is adopted, the collective choice may give rise to economic inefficiency… But in the absence of constitutional constraints, collective decisions are made on the basis of less-that-unanimity voting rules can be used to oppress minorities. (Ogus, 2004: 59)
…the centralized pool of information on which rulers must rely for regulatory measures could never replicate the widely dispersed fragments of knowledge which individuals use in pursuance of their own ends and therefore could never be adequate to anticipate all the variety of circumstances to which specific regulation must be applied. (Ibid: 57).
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There is no going back to a past in which public sector as a whole worked well and worked fairly in the interests of all learners. There was no such past. …it is difficult to deny that some education businesses do some things well, and perhaps better than some of the public sector, and do enhance the lives and opportunities of young and not-so-young people. This is not a defense of the private sector as a whole but it may involve an acceptance of some kinds of private sector participation are more defensible than others and that some public sector 'work' is not as defensible as all that.
(Ball, 2007: 187).
…unstable, uneven but apparently unstoppable flood of closely interrelated reform ideas is permeating and reorienting education systems in diverse social and political locations with very different histories. This convergence had given rise to what can be called a generic global policy ensemble that rests on a set of basic and common policy technologies… the components of this ensemble and the workings of these technologies (are)… the market, management and performativity. (Ball, 2008: 39).
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Each time our secretary of state visits a foreign country, and is invited into the one successful school – we cower in fear and prepare for the worst (Secondary school principal in London, 2011)
Gibton D (2012) Law, Education, Politics, Fairness: England's fantastic legislation for education reform . UCL Institute of Education: IoE Press.
