Evaluating School Effectiveness and School Improvement: The Impact of Change on School Performance

1. Masaryk University, Brno May 9, 2010 Evaluating School Effectiveness and School Improvement: The Impact of Change on School Performance Professor Tony Townsend Chair of Public Service, Educational Leadership and Management Department of Educational Studies, University of Glasgow

2. Perception Our view of the world is a product of what we are looking at, where we are standing when we are looking at it and how we feel about ourselves and the thing we are looking at. We can, however, change people’s perceptions of the world by providing them with new information, by educating them.

3. Drucker, 1993: p 1 Every few hundred years in western history there occurs a sharp transformation. We cross... a divide. Within a few short decades society rearranges itself, its world view; its basic values; its social and political structure; its arts; its key institutions. Fifty years later, there appears a new world...we are currently living through such a transformation.

4. Toffler, 1971: 12 I coined the term ‘future shock’ to describe the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time.

5. THE PACE AND FLOW OF CHANGE

6. Peter Drucker People born in the 1980s and 1990s cannot even imagine the world into which their parents were born.

7. Make a list Categories of change Technology Environment Health Wealth Employment Society/Population Culture Relationships Values

8. Thomas Watson, Chairman, IBM I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers 1943

9. Popular Mechanics, 1954

10. Shift Happens http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPI4xRszqDA

11. Climate Change – Czech Republic, greenhouse gas emissions

12. Climate change

13. Prosthetics

14. The number of people with AIDS in Czech Republic

15. Comparing ourselves with others: Expenditure on health

16. Alleviation of Poverty

17. Gini Coefficient

18. Gini Coefficient

19. Percentage of population at Risk of Poverty

20. Income per head and life-expectancy: rich & poor countries Source: Wilkinson & Pickett, The Spirit Level (2009)

21. But the world is changing… Hans Rosling http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html

22. Percentage of students not performing to the standards

23. Start Working End Working Longevity Age 120 100 80 60 40 20 124 107 77 62 62 47 21 14 18 1900 2000 2100

24. Employment

25. Population changes

26. Population density

27. Cultural changes

30. Thinking Globally and Acting Locally After school effectiveness 1980s-2010 Thinking Nationally and Acting Locally Before school effectiveness 1970s-2000s Thinking and Acting Locally 1870s-1990s 2000 BC- 1890s Townsend, 2009 Thinking and Acting Individually

31. Beare’s (1998) Metaphors for Education Prior to the 1870’s: the pre-industrial metaphor (‘for the few and the privileged’, p 5) 1870’s-1980’s: the industrial metaphor (‘bureaucracies which characterised factory production’, p6) 1980’s-1990’s: the post industrial metaphor (‘schools are being talked of as if they are private businesses or enterprises’, p10) 2000s: the accountability metaphor (competition, choice and the education market).

33. 2009 PISA (65 countries - 95% of the world’s economy)

34. PISA Proficiency Levels in Science CZECH REPUBLIC FINLAND Science Level 6 Student can consistently identify, explain and apply scientific knowledge and knowledge about science in a variety of complex life situations 3% 2% Level 6 10% 17% Level 5 32% 22% Level 4 Science Level 1Student has such a limited scientific knowledge that it can only be applied to a few, familiar situations 29% 28% Level 3 14% 23% Level 2 4% 12% Level 1 Below Level 1Unable to use scientific skills in ways required by easiest PISA tasks. BelowLevel 1 0.5% 4% OECD (2007), PISA 2006 – Science Competencies for Tomorrow’s World, Table 2.1a

35. PISA 2009 Reading

36. PISA 2009 Mathematics

37. PISA 2009 Science

38. Maybe this will help • Classroom effectiveness – improving student achievement through learning and teaching • School effectiveness – establishing processes that focus on student learning • School improvement – the attempts by local education authorities to improve effectiveness across schools • School reform – restructuring the school system to bring about large scale change

39. Educational Effectiveness Research Sets out to answer the questions: • What makes a ‘good’ school? • How do we make more schools ‘good’?

40. Reynolds et al (2011) • looks at all the factors within schools in particular, and the educational system in general, that might affect the learning outcomes of students in their academic and social development, which means it encompasses a wide range of factors such as teaching methods, the organisation - formally and informally - of schools, the curriculum and the effects of educational ‘learning environments’ in general.

41. What is an effective school? • What criteria would you use to judge whether a school is effective or not? • List five characteristics that an effective school would have that a less effective school would not • Choose the two you think are the most important

42. Coleman et al., 1966:325 Schools bring little influence to bear on a child's achievement that is independent of his background and general social context... this very lack of an independent effect means that the inequalities imposed on children by their home, neighbourhood and peer environment are carried along to become the inequalities with which they confront adult life at the end of school. For equality of educational opportunity must imply a strong effect of schools that is independent of the child's immediate environment, and that strong independence is not present in American schools.

43. Rutter et al, 1979:1 • do a child's experiences at school have any effect? • does it matter which school he goes to? • which are the features of school that matter?

44. Madaus et al, 1980:22 an effective school can be defined as such... ‘to the extent that there is congruence between its objectives and achievements. In other words it is effective to the extent that it accomplishes what it sets out to do’

45. Edmonds, 1978:3 I define an effective school as being instructionally successful for all children excepting those of certifiable physical, emotional or mental handicap. Specifically, I require that an effective school bring the children of the poor to those minimal masteries of basic school skills that now describe minimally successful pupil performances for the children of the middle class.

46. Rosander, 1984:1 Effective schools are those in which all students master basic skills, seek academic excellence in all subjects, and demonstrate achievement through systematic testing. As a result of improved academic achievement, students in effective schools display improved behaviour and attendance.

47. Lezotte, 1989:6 Conceptually, an effective school can be defined as one that can, in outcome terms reflective of its teaching for learning mission, demonstrate the joint presence of quality (acceptably high levels of achievement) and equity (no differences in the distribution of that achievement) among the major subsets of the student population.

48. Possible Goals for Effective Schools (Townsend, 1994) • Literacy • Numeracy • Other Academic Goals (eg science, history) • Behaviour • Attendance • Self-concept • Citizenship • Employment • Other Educational Goals (eg values, attitudes) • Community Goals (eg involvement, safety)

49. Townsend, 1994: 37 L N OA B A SC C E OE Com Possible goals for schools

50. Mortimore et al, 1988: 176 The study of fifty English junior schools, sought to ‘find a way of comparing schools' effects on their pupils, while acknowledging the fact that schools do not all receive pupils of similar abilities and backgrounds’.