Shared responsibility in accountability

M. Ehren

m.ehren@ucl.ac.uk

16 October 2016

OECD, Brussels

www.ioe.ac.uk/lcll

Background to shared responsibility

Changing education systems:

- Decentralization

- Increased autonomy

- Increased network governance: linking different

stakeholder organizations around a public policy

purpose and a set of joint goals

Examples

The purpose of shared responsibility:

• Addressing failing ‘command and control’ types of

regulation

• Acknowledging that no singe actor can regulate

effectively

• Creating conditions for responsiveness

Shared responsibility and accountability

• Inherent contradiction?

• Regulation and accountability need to adapt to local

context and create the conditions in which schools

effectively steer themselves

Shifting from monocentric to polycentric approaches

Alkin and Christie’s evaluation tree

Methodology

• Collection and analysis of empirical data for the study

and judgment of particular aspects of social life.

• Theorists in this branch: Campbell, Scriven, Stake

(positivist, objectivist), Weiss, Pawson, Tilley (theory-

driven evaluations), etc.

Changes: from monocentric to polycentric:

• Who defines standards and criteria and methods for

evaluation?

• What is the object of evaluation?

Methodology

Monocentric Polycentric

Top down, standardized

approach to evaluate single

schools, aimed at predicting

and explaining school quality

Bottom-up, context-specific

approach to evaluate (schools

in) networks, aimed at

validating, interpreting,

understanding quality of

context-specific approaches and solutions

Examples methodology

• NI/West Belfast: area-based inspections informed by

network targets and self-evaluation

• England: formal consultations on inspection frameworks

• The Netherlands: round tables with (representatives of)

all stakeholders to discuss and develop inspection

frameworks, and pilot test frameworks

• Scotland: place-based scrutiny, scoping exercise to

inform data collection around one central question: what

is it like to live and learn in this community? Developing

questions for inquiry with local community

• England: soft intelligence of Regional Schools

Commissioners and local head teacher boards

Valuing/judgement

the making of value judgments about the quality of some

object, situation or process

Theorists in this branch: Levin, Lincoln and Guba, Eisner,

Scriven

Scriven describes different approaches: pass-fail

judgement, comparison of similar entities, goal-free (using

a qualitative approach to describe events, reactions and

interactions)

Valuing/judgement

Who decides evaluation criteria?

What is the object of evaluation?

Monocentric Polycentric

Prescriptive assessment

criteria to judge quality of

individual schools, pass-fail

judgment decided by

Inspectorate

Inspectorate facilitates

evaluation, goal-free, flexible

and specific to context and

information needs of

(network of) schools and stakeholders

Examples valuing/judgement

• NI/West Belfast: reports highlight strengths and

weaknesses of the network and percentage of ALCs

targets met

• Scotland: map the attainment of strategic objectives for

the area against the different subgroups and sub-

communities

• Sharing responsibility in judgment is counterintuitive to

the position of many Inspectorates

Use (user involvement and consequences)

use of evaluation findings, recognizing the importance of

involving stakeholders when determining the evaluation

questions to gather useful information.

Theorists on this branch: Patton, Stufflebeam, Chelimskey,

Wholey and others

In an inspection context: also interventions to motivate

improvement/compliance (e.g. rewards, sanctions)

Use (user involvement and consequences)

What is the role of stakeholders in inspections and use of

inspection findings? Which phase of the inspection are they

involved in?

Who decides on consequences of inspection assessment?

Monocentric Polycentric

‘Distanced evaluation approaches’

Stakeholders (and schools) are end

users of inspection assessments

and object of evaluation. Only

primary ‘decision-makers’ are target

of consequences (e.g. head

teachers)

‘Collaborative/participatory

evaluation’

Stakeholders and schools

involved in all inspection phases

Intelligent intervention strategies

targeted at all

schools/stakeholders in a

network to improve performance

of entire network

Examples of user involvement

- Ireland: NI/West Belfast: reports indicate who needs to

address weaknesses within the ALC

- England: RSCs discuss consequences of monitoring

(rebrokering of academies to other Trusts) with local

head teacher board, CEO of the Trust and academy

involved (but decision ultimately is made by the RSC)

www.schoolinspections.eu