Leadership for Transformation

Abstract

School improvement has been the dominant model for educational reform for many educational systems in recent years. It is still the most robust model in terms of its academic integrity, its capacity to inform policy making and its impact on professional practice in schools. The dominance of school improvement in largely explained by its consistent success. There is little doubt that it has had a significant impact on the comparative performance of schools and school systems. Evidence from a wide variety of national systems points to the demonstrable success of the model against a wide range of criteria. In essence, performance has improved, achievement has been raised and a range of related outcomes have been met. However, this success has always been subject to questioning when the criteria for success are changed from generic, system wide improvements to a focus on the achievement of the individual child. Whether it is the realisation of the potential of an outstandingly gifted young person or the maximisation of the life chances of a young person with profound learning difficulties the prevailing system does not always seem able to accommodate specific, personal needs.

What might be described as the ‘Improvement Movement’ has created an effective hegemony since the mid 1980s. The combination of an emphasis on measurable outcomes and the improvement of the internal processes of the school has created an orthodoxy which has been reinforced by models of accountability and the redefinition of the characteristics of effective teaching and management in schools. It is an hegemony because it is a highly integrated model with educational policy moving from an enabling function to being deterministic. One of the key characteristics of educational policy making by many governments has been the increasing specificity of regulations and guidelines. It could therefore be argued that the school system is approaching an optimum state — it is difficult to envisage what else might be done to improve its efficiency and effectiveness.

However, one characteristic of the school improvement strategy that is practised by governments is that it has not in any way questioned the fundamental premise of the nature of the school as an organisation or of the system of administering schools. There has been a tacit acceptance of the school as the optimum means of organising education. Indeed, education has come to be defined as the outcome of schooling. This notion will be questioned later in the following discussion.