The Micro politics of Accountability: The Case of Staff Appraisal

Abstract

Nowhere are the micropolitics within schools more evident than in staff appraisal. Currently, the New Zealand government is attempting to shift the evaluation of teachers from a predominantly professional form of accountability to a more democratic form in which teachers are held accountable for their performance to both central government and local communities. A survey of New Zealand secondary school principals indicates that preferred models of appraisal are primarily developmental and involve teachers being accountable only to their peers because they fear the loss of autonomy implied by being accountable to external stakeholders. In this chapter, we argue that it is possible to reconcile democratic accountability requirements and the developmental purpose of appraisal preferred by teachers. We illustrate this argument with an examination of the micropolitics of a New Zealand secondary school as it attempted to make the shift from an optional peer-focussed appraisal system to a more democratic form which served the needs of both teachers and external stakeholders.