Session Information
23 SES 01 B, Approaching Education Policy (Part 1)
Paper Session
Contribution
Introduction
Competency-based reform initiatives promote an ambitious agenda in the sense that they aim to change the nature of knowledge with the ultimate goal of improving student learning. This new wave of reform invites a reconsideration of our conventional understanding of the role that current educational systems play in the development of a broad-based reform movement. This world-wide reform may require a means for linking policy at distant levels of the educational system with local capacities generally lacking in earlier reforms. In particular, some countries which indicate high level competencies in the international comparison have improved not only student achievement but also local capacities by adopting effective policy strategies (Hargreaves et al., 2007).
However, existing empirical treatments have generally been limited in scope, introducing specific programs within a particular country. As a consequence, our understanding of competency based reform is limited in making comparisons across policy strategies and thus identifying successful policy strategies affecting individual competencies and schooling.
Thus, this study develops a new empirical strategy for investigating cross-national differences among educational policy strategies developing individual competencies in the competency based reform contexts. First, we examine the level of competency in forty nations and identify patterns of competency in these countries. Next, this study investigates the educational policy strategies each country emphasizes to develop competency and classifies the educational policy in each country in terms of types of countries.
Conceptual framework
This study explores any differences in the characteristics of educational policy strategies among these four different types of countries, assuming that educational policy strategies affect student achievement. For this, the study develops a framework that centers on the notion of alternative policy instruments that translate substantive policy goals into concrete actions, drawn from McDonnell and Elmore’s ideas (1987). McDonnell and Elmore (1987) identify four generic classes of policy instruments, explaining policy instruments as policy strategies using resources (e.g., money, rules, and authority) to influence the actions of individuals and institutions.
The first instrument is ‘mandates’ which are rules governing the action of individuals and agencies, and are intended to produce compliance. The conceptions of mandates draw on theories of regulations, which address the conditions under which the targets of regulations can be expected to comply given various levels of enforcements, sanctions, and costs and benefits of compliance.
The second instrument is ‘inducements’ which transfer money to individuals or agencies in return for certain actions. Our discussion of inducements draws on theories of public finance that deal with intergovernmental transfers. Theses theories address the conditions under which government agencies can be induced to perform certain actions by conditional grants of funds from other governmental agencies.
The third instrument is ‘capacity-building’ that is the investment in material, human capital, or social capital for the future returns. Capacity building has distant and ambiguous effects, mandates and inducements have proximate and tangible effects.
The fourth instrument is ‘system-changing’ which means transfer official authority among individuals and agencies in order to alter the system by which public goods and services are delivered.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Bardach, E. & Kagan, R.(1982). Going by the book: The problem of regulatory unreasonableness. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Eccles, J. S., & Wigfield, A. (1995). In the mind of the actor: The structure of adolescents’ achievement task values and expectancy-related beliefs. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 3, 215-225. Fullan, M. (2003). Change Forces with a Vengeance, Routledge, London. Giles, C. & A. Hargreaves (2006). The Sustainability of Innovative Schools as Learning Organizations and Professional Learning Communities during Standardized Reform, Educational Administration Quarterly, 42 (1), pp. 124-156. Gramlich, E. M. (1977). Intergovernmental grants: A review of the empirical literature. In W. E. Oates (Ed.), The Political Economy of Fiscal Federalism. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Hargreaves, A. (2003). Teaching in the Knowledge Society: Education in the Age of Insecurity, Teachers College Press, New York. Hargreaves, A. (2007). Sustainable Professional Learning Communities, in L. Stoll and K. S. Louis (eds.), Professional Learning Communities: Divergence, Depth and Dilemmas, Professional Learning, Open University Press, Maidenhead, pp. 181-195. Hargreaves, A., Halasz, G., & Pont, B. (2007). School leadership for systemic improvement in Finland: A case study report for the OECD activity improving school leadership, OECD. McDonnell, L. & Elmore, R. (1987). Getting the Job Done: Alternative Policy Instruments, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 9(2), 133-152. Newmann, F. M. & G. Wehlage (1995). Successful School Restructuring: A Report to the Public and Educators by the Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools, The Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools, Madison.
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