Vital Connections NZEI Principals group, Nelson

1. Vital ConnectionsNZEI Principals group, Nelson Cathy Wylie 21 November 2013

2. Genesis of the book • What difference did Tomorrow’s Schools make? – 24 years long enough to test a new system • Why hasn’t it led to more progress on the issues it was expected to solve? • What needs to change if we are to more successfully tackle these issues?

3. Expectations • “It will lead to improved learning opportunities for the children of this country. The reformed administration will be sufficiently flexible and responsive to meet the particular needs of Maori education” • David Lange, • foreword to Tomorrow’s Schools

4. In 2012 • “This will require lifting achievement across the education system and in particular, addressing system failure of learners who are Māori, Pasifika, have special education needs, and/or are from low socio-economic backgrounds” • Hon Hekia Parata, Minister of Education

5. A Cautionary tale • School self-management began in 1989 • No gains in student performance • No reduction in inequality of outcomes • Increased competition between schools • Increased fragmentation

6. Challenges for today’s schools • Greater than at any time in NZ education • Expectations of: • Engagement of all students • Qualification and pathway success for almost all • Schools as key to economic & social development • Schools as separate institutions more open to query

7. Before 1989 • Latitude at the school level • Latitude in the classroom • Schools often not operating as single system • Intertwining of support, knowledge circulation & building & ‘bureaucracy’ • Inspectorate as catalyst and connector • ‘Education family’

8. OECD Examiners’ report 1983- primary NZ sophisticated approach to learning not matched by • In-service training • Support for teachers to base practice on evidence (e.g., for Maori students) • Standards for recruitment of primary teachers • Teacher:student ratio

9. 1983 OECD examiners’ report – secondary • NZ comprehensive school ideal undermined by academic examinations • General acknowledgement of issues caused by examination backwash • No consensus or urgency • Fragmentation of examination boards & syllabus development • Insufficient professional development • Changes needed to be at the political level

10. The issues leading up to Tomorrow’s Schools • Secondary schooling – qualifications, growing expectations • Māori underachievement & provision • Relationship of school & ‘community’ • Insufficient funding of professional development • Generic public service & Treasury rules for approval of everyday school decisions

11. Tomorrow’s (& Today’s) Schools • Diagnosed core issue around education as: • Lack of school flexibility & accountability • Capability waiting to be freed • Separating policy & operations would ensure schools became properly independent • Choice would improve accountability • Parental choice of school • School choice of its support

12. What was lost • Interconnections • Circulated knowledge & confidence • Built new knowledge & resources • Identified & nurtured talent • Policy informed by operational understanding • Work on school development • Joined-up work on secondary qualifications & curriculum • Curriculum review etc

13. 1990s – the lost decade • New framework for school self-management takes the attention & energy • Sir John Anderson’s advice to government: • proper resourcing and support for the new curriculum and qualifications framework is more important than the drive for bulk funding – putting all of a school’s staffing & operational funding into one grant • Capacity for school self-government not universal • New Zealand unique in the OECD countries in having no intermediary structures between schools and centre Ignored. • Lack of coherence among government agencies • Lean staffing • Minimal role for regional Ministry offices • Education Review Office focuses on compliance

14. The 1990s • Schools were on their own • Sense of competition undercut expectations of clustering or sharing • ERO the watchdog and scold - ‘accountability’ learnt as compliance • Entrenched the ‘self’ of self-management • Showed powerlessness of policy Ministry in relation to improving school capability

15. Steering at a distance – the 2000s • Welcome • focus on capability development & joint work • focus on more evidence-based approaches and inquiry • provision of useful assessments – including assessment in learning • A more ‘evaluative turn’ • Investigation of ‘personalised’ learning

16. Also important • Professional development – national coherence but focused on individual schools & practice • NZ Curriculum • Manner of its development • Inclusion of pedagogy • Better initial support • Asks schools to work as collective cultures

17. More collective cultures • Use of student ‘data’ as currency of teacher conversations • Sense of progression across years But still difficult to: • have time to work productively with colleagues • Only 57% of primary teachers & 28 % of secondary teachers have sufficient time to work together to plan teaching & discuss student work • observe colleagues • learn from teachers in other schools Unevenness in extent to which schools are learning cultures

18. Riding the challenges • Far better base for teaching & learning development than had 25 years ago • Most of this has come from joint work • NZ Curriculum, practice+research knowledge & networks • It is still unevenly experienced & shared • Development needs persistence • It needs to be well-founded so that encouraging results are likely • It needs collective inquiring cultures.

19. But – no real changes to the ‘building blocks’ of the system • Sense of competition sharpens • Funding & property remain pre-occupations • Voluntary school clusters are unreliable • Still too easy for schools to deteriorate • Uneven gains – too reliant on individuals & school situations • Insufficient use of knowledge • Reinvention of wheels • Limited bridges for operational-policy work

20. Benchmarking Educational Leadership Practices survey results

21. Quality of school leadership • School scores reflect school context – lower where ask is greater • School scores unrelated to years of principal experience • Essential to have ongoing principal and school leaders support & development

22. Fragmentation • Increasingly clear that some issues beyond ability and authority of individual schools to resolve • Recent loss of schools-government trust • Danger of return to 1990s defensiveness • Need collective frameworks and shared responsibility

23. Self- management = self-handicapping • Cumulative cost of • stand-alone schools • thinning of schools-government relations • thinning of infrastructure to support educational & school development • Increasingly harder to address deep issues & ensure public funding can be well spent

24. Where to from here? • How do we reconnect schools with the support and challenge they need to keep developing? • How do we develop more sharing and building of knowledge that improves learning? • How does government work with schools to address the problems schools cannot solve on their own?

25. Learning from other systems & research on change • Productive roles of: • ongoing relationships • formative accountability (based on sharing of knowledge, focused on inquiry) • shared responsibilities • joint work • something more than sum of parts

26. Reframing the system • Connection rather than separation • Coherence • Principles would be: • Knowledge building & sharing • Capability development • Relationships of challenge & support • Shared responsibility for student learning opportunities & outcomes

27. New relationships for a true learning system • Self-management within a collective • Porous rather than fenced (off) • Reframe school-government-community relationships through • creation of districts • Work framed within underlying principles • Role for larger community • Reframe policy-operations relationships through • Real evaluative inquiry at national level • Take shared responsibility seriously

28. Reflective questions • If you were designing our education system now, how would you ensure that No school was left behind? • What would the Ministry of Education do and how would it work to ensure schools had equal amounts of challenge & support?

29. What can you do to build a more collaborative way of working?