PROFESSIONALISM AND GOVERNANCE

(40 years of frustration!)

Professor Graham Donaldson

OECD

Brussels

October 2016

How do we ensure that every young person in the country

is purposefully engaged in relevant and high quality

learning throughout their time in school?

7 Propositions

• The world is changing fast leading to growing expectations of schools, a multiplicity of

well-intentioned but often incoherent short-term responses and challenges to political

confidence in the teaching profession. The translation of educational aspiration into

classroom reality is problematic. We need a new and more organic approach to school

improvement.

• The policy discourse drives approaches to effectiveness and improvement that tend to be

reductionist and unimaginative; to ignore opportunity cost and focus on structures; to

value unduly limited accountability metrics–do not reflect the imperatives of rapid change.

• Strategic agreement on long-term purposes, increasingly expressed in terms of capacities

or competences, is vital to coherent change and improvement.

• Good governance should be less about structures than vision, capacity building and

constructive accountability.

• Professionalism needs to be understood as involving collective values, responsibility and

challenge as well as individual expertise and commitment. That means a capable,

empowered and collegiate teaching profession.

• Accountability processes must be constructive and true to the longer-term vision.

• We need a new paradigm of reform within which schools are learning organisations with an

inclusive leadership culture. Quality and improvement should be more about pull than

push.

Some Ambitious Challenges

Agreeing and pursuing ambitious goals for all our young people – equip them as

people for future lives

Raising ‘standards’, including basic literacy, numeracy and digital competence,

but also creativity and entrepreneurship

Developing values and ethical understanding

Defeating destiny – deprivation/experience/expectation/aspiration

Establishing a broad, secure and enduring base of education

Creating space for engaging teaching and learning – enjoy the experience and

challenge of learning

Sustaining high quality, relevant and challenging education

Building the confidence and capacity of teachers, individually and collectively

Establishing a constructive accountability culture

Creating the conditions for all young people to experience education of the highest quality requires 2

complex challenges to be addressed successfully –

The Learning Challenge -

Creating an inclusive, engaging and challenging set of learning experiences in pursuit of ambitious

and agreed purposes of education.

“What our children and young people learn during their time at school has never been more

important yet, at the same time, the task of determining what that learning should be has never

been more challenging.”

Donaldson G ‘Successful Futures’ 2015

The Realisation Challenge –

Bridging the gap between aspiration and the reality of day-to-day classroom life.

“A major, sustained change programme will be required to convert the recommendations of the

Review into practice.”

Donaldson G ‘Successful Futures’ 2015

THE LEARNING CHALLENGE

Strategic Direction

Agreeing and pursuing relentlessly ambitious goals for all our

young people

Raising and broadening ‘standards’ across the board –

‘subject’ as well as basic literacy, numeracy and digital

competence.

Addressing issues of wellbeing and the development of ethical

understanding and personal values

Feeding a desire to learn and keep learning

Learning Challenge

Learning Challenge

Technical Design

Creating a framework that

• pursues the strategic purposes

• is progressive and stretching and that embodies the best

of current knowledge

• can be realised in practice

• provides space for engaging and effective teaching and

learning

• embodies assessment as integral to (deep) learning

~

“…the wants of this age are indeed very special and very

urgent. It is a time of rapid progress; and rapid progress

is in itself good. But, when the velocity is great, then, as

in the physical so in the moral world, the conditions of

equilibrium are more severe, and the consequences

of losing it are more disastrous.”

W E Gladstone Rectorial Address to the

Students of Glasgow University Dec 5 1879

)

“...no education system can remain static. The world is changing

rapidly, Technology is transforming our lives. The skills needed

in the future will be very different from those needed today.

Education offers each individual and nation the best chance of

navigating an unknown future – coping with uncertainty,

adapting to evolving conditions and learning how to learn.”

Lee Hsein Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore 2012 (Oceans of Innovation, IPPR 2012)

Strategic Direction

Trends and Forces Shaping

Twenty-First Century Education

‘Average is over’

“This maxim (average is over) will apply to the quality of your job, to your

earnings, to where you live, to your education, and to the education of your

children…if you and your skills are a complement to the computer, your wage

and labour market prospects are likely to be cheery…” (pages 4/5)

“…a modern textile mill employs a man and a dog – the man to feed the dog and

the dog to keep the man away from the machines.” (page 8)

“The ability to mix technical knowledge with solving real-world problems is

the key…” (page 21)

“It might be called the age of genius machines, and it will be the people that

work with them that will rise…we (will have) produced two nations, a fantastically

successful nation , working in the technologically dynamic sectors, and everyone

else.”

Tyler Cowan 2013 ‘Average is Over’

TECHNOLOGY AND EMPLOYMENT

‘According to our estimates, about 47 percent of total US employment is at risk. We further provide

evidence that wages and educational attainment exhibit a strong negative relationship with an

occupation’s probability of computerisation.’

‘…current trend towards labour market polarization, with growing employment in high-income cognitive

jobs and low-income manual occupations, accompanied by a hollowing-out of middle-income

routine jobs.’

‘…while technological progress throughout economic history has largely been confined to the

mechanisation of manual tasks, requiring physical labour, technological progress in the twenty-

first century can be expected to contribute to a wide range of cognitive tasks, which, until

now, have largely remained a human domain.’

‘…computerisation will mainly substitute for low-skill and low-wage jobs in the near future. By contrast,

high-skill and high-wage occupations are the least susceptible to computer capital…’

‘…as technology races ahead, low-skill workers will reallocate to tasks that are non-susceptible to

computerisation – i.e., tasks requiring creative and social intelligence. For workers to win the

race, however, they will have to acquire creative and social skills.’

Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne (2013) The future of employment: how susceptible are jobs to

computerisation? (www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academicThe_Future_of_Employment.pdf)

Technology and Learning

‘…as humans live and work alongside increasingly smart machines, our education systems will

need to achieve at levels that none have managed to date.’

If we are to bring about a step-change in the breadth and quality of learning for all learners, if we are to

tackle the persistent and unsolved challenges of learning in the 21st century, funders and

researchers need to go deeper and wider.

…begin with the pedagogy and be more ambitious!’

Luckin, Holmes,Griffiths & Forcier (2016) Intelligence Unleashed Pearson

Strategic Direction

In a generation

• Real incomes have nearly trebled

• Inequality has increased sharply

• More people are living alone

• Life expectancy has risen by around 8 years

• More children are born to single parents

• Migration and diversity have increased significantly

• Air travel has grown six-fold

• Most households have internet access

• Consumer debt has trebled

• UK election turnout 77.7% in1992 to 66.1% in 2015

‘The Velocity is Great’

Globalisation • Interdependence

• Competition

• Offshoring

• Reshoring

• Migration

• Scarcity

• Climate

Employment • Skill demand changing

• Portability

• Employability

• Digital competence

• Fluid job market

• Lifelong learning

Society • Inequality increasing

• Demography

• Life expectancy

• Single households

• Civic participation

• Changing family

structures

Education

• New and growing expectations

• Instrumental pressure? Education is for

work?

• Education for democratic participation /

citizenship?

• Uncertainty and lifelong learning

• New conceptions of knowledge?

• Creativity, teamworking, problem-solving?

• Deprivation and educational achievement?

• Better learning or different learning?

• Anywhere, anytime learning? Hand-held

connectivity?

• Social networking

• Internationalisation – PISA/PIRLS/TIMMS

Resources

• Scarcity

• Efficiency

• Accountability

New markets and jobs but also volatility, insecurity and migration

Complexity, diversity and inequality

Ambiguity and citizenship

Connectivity, collaboration and cybersecurity

Personal and collective learning and innovation or obsolescence

“If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.”

John Dewey (1915) Schools of Tomorrow

Future Opportunities and Challenges?

European Framework of Key Competences

for Lifelong Learning (2006)

Communication in the mother tongue

Communication in (multiple) foreign languages

Math competence

Science and technology competences

Digital competences

Learning to learn

Social and civic competences

Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship

Cultural awareness and expression

European Commission

‘transversal skills’

Critical thinking

Creativity

Initiative

Problem solving

Risk assessment

Decision taking

Communication

Constructive management of feelings

Importance of

strong basic skills including digital competence

deeper conceptual understanding

connected and coherent knowledge

authentic knowledge in context

creativity and problem solving

learning in collaboration and to collaborate

ethics and values

personal agency

Move from what students should be learning towards what they should become?

(Priestley and Biesta 2014)

21st Century schooling?

INTERNATIONAL

CURRICULUM RESPONSES

AUSTRALIA Successful learners Confident and creative individuals Active and informed citizens

FINLAND Knowledge and skills for life and for further study Support each pupil’s linguistic and cultural identity – passing on the culture but also create new culture A tool for developing educational capital and enhancing equality and a sense of community

SCOTLAND (2004) Successful learners Confident individuals Effective contributors Responsible citizens

WALES (2015) Ambitious, capable learners ready to learn throughout their lives Enterprising, creative individuals ready to play a full part in life and work Healthy, confident individuals ready to live fulfilling lives as valued members of society Ethical, informed citizens ready to be citizens of Wales and the world

NORTHERN IRELAND Empower young people to achieve their potential and to make informed and responsible decisions throughout their lives; Develop the young person as an individual, as a contributor to society, the economy and the environment

ENGLAND Provide pupils with an introduction to the essential knowledge they need to be educated citizens Introduce pupils to the best that has been thought and said, and help engender an appreciation of human creativity and achievement.

SINGAPORE Confident person; Self-directed learner; Active contributor; Concerned citizen.

IRELAND

• to enable the child to live a full life as a

child and to realise his or her potential as

a unique individual

• to enable the child to develop as a

social being through living and co-

operating with others and so contribute to

the good of society

• to prepare the child for further education

and lifelong learning.

ALBERTA Engaged thinkers and ethical citizens with an entrepreneurial spirit; Strive for engagement and personal excellence in their learning

journey;

Employ literacy and numeracy to construct and communicate

meaning; and

Discover, develop and apply competencies across subject and

discipline areas for learning, work

THEMES

• Ambitious goals directed towards the development of the person

• Balance between development of basic skills, subject knowledge,

application, creativity and broader preparation for future life

• Broader purposes usually relate to lifelong learning, citizenship,

creativity/entrepreneurship, personal wellbeing and efficacy

• Pervasive tension between ambitious purposes and the curriculum as

experienced by students

THE REALISATION CHALLENGE

“Many of today’s schools are not teaching the deep knowledge that

underlies innovative activity.”

“...if the economy is no longer an industrial-age factory economy, then

our schools are designed for a quickly vanishing world”

“The standard model of schooling emerged during the industrial age and

it has been effective at generating the kinds of graduates needed by

the industrial economy...Existing schools should redesign

themselves...to develop new models of learning for the future.”

Sawyer ‘Learning to Learn Learning to Innovate’ OECD (2008)

21st Century schooling?

‘...there is strong evidence from a variety of sources that two decades of reform have not led to anticipated levels of educational improvement, and certainly not commensurate with levels of investment in education, but have led to widespread teacher and headteacher dissatisfaction’ Hoyle and Wallace Educational Leadership: Ambiguity, Professionals and Managerialism 2005, pp. 4-5 The impact of policies has been, at best, mixed. Neither general nor targeted interventions have, thus far, demonstrated substantial sustained improvements that can be spread widely. Kerr & West BERA 2010 Insight 2 “We have in education a long history of innovation but it rarely touches but a chosen few.” Hattie, Visible Learning (2009) p254 “Cultures do not change by mandate…the process of cultural change depends fundamentally on modeling the new values and behavior that you expect to displace the existing ones.’ Elmore, R (2004) School Reform from the Inside Out Harvard University Press

The Reform Conundrum

OECD “Education 2030” project

Experience identifies implementation issues of

• Time lag

• Overload

• Quality

• Universality

• Implementation

Complex Governance

• Increasing complexity in education systems

• Move away from hierarchical relationships

• Division of labour, independence & self regulation

• Multi-level governance – fluid and negotiated relationships

Burns T& Koster F (2016) Governing Education in a Complex World OECD

THE AMBITION VORTEX

METRICS DRIVEN

SHORT-TERM

REDUCTIONISM

EVENTS

NATIONAL &

INTERNATIONAL

SURVEYS

eg PISA

Addressing the Conundrum

Research and experience points to

• ‘Better’ teachers

• ‘Better’ leadership’

• ‘Less’ prescription

• ‘More’ collaboration

• ‘Rigorous’ accountability

BUT

What about the improvement trap?

THE IMPROVEMENT TRAP

RESEARCH,

EVALUATION

&ACCOUNTABILITY

LESS

PRESCRIPTION

MORE

COLLABORATION

‘BETTER’ METRICS DRIVEN

SHORT-TERM

REDUCTIONISM

EXPERT

TEACHERS

EFFECTIVE

LEADERSHIP

APPROACHES TO GOVERNANCE IN

COMPLEX SYSTEMS

• Stakeholder involvement and ownership of agreed goals and principles

• A whole-system vision that keeps the focus on processes, and does not get mired in discussing

structures

• Alignment of roles and responsibilities

• The ability to identify needs and develop capacity in a realistic and timely manner

• A flexible and adaptive education system that can react to change and unexpected events

• Harness evidence and research

Burns T& Cerna L Enhancing effective education governance in Governing Education in a Complex

World OECD (2016)

Winning both the hearts and the minds of diverse stakeholders for

ambitious purposes

Determining and building on the interaction of non-linear and non-

hierarchical dependencies - ecosystem

Sustaining education for all young people that is both high quality

and relevant needs a continuous learning system

Establishing a dynamic and ambitious leadership culture

Building the individual and collective capacity of practitioners,

particularly the teaching profession – knowledge creation and

mobilisation

Establishing an accountability culture that is constructive and

founded on mutual respect

Some Interesting Elements of the

Realisation Challenge

Creativity Narrow accountability

Ambition Limited capacity

Intrinsic drivers Extrinsic drivers

Dynamism/adaptivity Compliance

‘Autonomy’ Uniformity

Emerging Tensions

STICKY CHANGE

Package and push?

Direct and demand?

Manage and measure?

Promise and punish?

Reassert and restructure?

Hearts and heads?

Network and nourish?

From Storming

to

Collaborative Partnership

Promoters

Drivers

Clear and agreed

purposes and building blocks

Motivated teachers

supported by guidance and

resources

Teachers’

(individual & collective)

professional learning and development

Leadership

Accountability

Inspection

Assessment, reporting and qualifications

Support from parents, young

people, employers, universities,

colleges

NEW PARADIGM

EXPLORATION MORE THAN IMPLEMENTATION?

‘Too many of the developers take the McDonald’s approach: the significant thinking and planning are

done at corporate headquarters and the franchise holders are expected to adhere to corporate policies

and regulations…Developers have both idealized and simplistic notions of educational leadership’

FAITHFUL IMPLEMENTATION

‘Why should any effort at innovation be expected to be other than a first approximation of what needs

to be done?...The educational reform movement has been almost totally unaware that its initial models

are…just that: first approximations...that would lead to better ones’

Sarason (1996) Revisiting the culture of the school and the problem of change’

STRATEGIC EXPLORATION

IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHERS AND

LEADERSHIP

• Profession not simply workforce

• Value and peer-driven intrinsic drivers

• Re-imagine a ‘teacher’

• Distributive leadership that recognises professionalism and

supports teacher agency.

• Learning school

We need teachers who -

have high-levels of expertise – subject, pedagogy and theory

have secure values – personal and professional accountability for the wellbeing of all young people

take prime responsibility for their own development and sustain that development

use and contribute to the collective understanding of successful teaching and learning

see professional learning as an integral part of educational change

engage in well-planned and well-researched innovation.

Teachers Matter but…

“For commitment to flourish and for teachers to be resilient and effective, they

need a strong and enduring sense of efficacy…They need to work in schools

in which leadership is supportive, clear, strong and passionately

committed to maintaining the quality of their commitment.”

Day et al ‘Teachers Matter’ OUP 2007 quoted in Hargreaves & Fullan

‘Professional Capital’ Routledge 2012

Leadership Matters Also

“The importance of the headteacher’s leadership is one of the clearest

messages emerging from research. There is no evidence of a school

being effective with weak leadership”. J Gray (1990), British Journal of

Educational Studies

Leadership second only to classroom instruction in affecting what

students learn at school and that leadership effect largest in the most

challenging schools (Leithwood et al 2006)

“Headteachers are perceived as the main source of leadership by key

school staff. Their educational values and leadership practices shape

the internal processes and pedagogic practice that result in improved

pupil outcomes.” (Day et al., The Impact of School Leadership on Pupil

Outcomes, University of Nottingham, 2009)

“A culture of initiative and collegiality within which learning is always the

prime focus embodies the kind of distributive leadership which is the

hallmark of our most dynamic and effective schools”(Teaching

Scotland’s Future, 2010)

0.27

0.84

0.42

0.31

0.42

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

5. Ensuring an Orderly and

Supportive Environment

4. Promoting and Participating in

Teacher Learning and

Development

3. Planning, Coordinating and

Evaluating Teaching and the

Curriculum

2. Resourcing Strategically

1. Establishing Goals and

Expectations

Effect SizeRobinson, V., Hohepa, M. and Lloyd, C. (2009), School

Leadership and Student Outcomes: Identifying What Works and

Why: Best Evidence Synthesis Iteration, Wellington: New

Zealand Ministry of Education.

Relative impact of leadership activities

Leadership

NOT

Followership • Purpose, purpose, purpose

• Culture, culture, culture – flexible, impact-focused, collegiate, outward looking

• Relentless focus on capacity-building

• Use professional standards to promote alignment and growth, including

leadership qualities

• Extended professionalism/discretionary effort –

professional learning as key dynamic

• Talent spotting and coaching

• Mentoring as role of experienced teachers

• Manage the authorising environment – risk and reward / permission and

forgiveness

12 FEATURES OF A LEARNING SCHOOL

• High expectations of all students in pursuit of ambitious purposes and early

intervention as issues emerge

• The culture is both grounded and creative – critical, flexible and open to ideas

• Research aware and active

• Technology rich – as and for learning plus networking

• Focused on impact on students’ learning – evidence, interpretation & action

• Build capacity by focusing on growth not deficits

• Teachers grow, develop and learn as part of normal work

• Culture of collaboration

• Constant focus on improving the practice of learning and teaching

• Outward facing – parents and wider community both partners and a resource

• Distributive leadership - empowering

• Self-evaluative - sceptical

IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATION

SYSTEMS AND GOVERNANCE

• Move away from implementation and delivery paradigms

• Apply principle of subsidiarity

• Invest in building professional capacity

• Engage professionals and wider stakeholder group creatively in policy

• Support distributive leadership cultures

• Apply intelligent and constructive accountability

Broad purpose -

Accountability

Control/Compliance

System monitoring

Informing ‘consumers’

Agent of improvement through expectations

Agent of improvement through capacity-building

Build confidence and create a ‘safe’ space for innovation

Focus -

Legislation/policy

Outcomes – learning/processes

Teachers/teaching

School compliance/effectiveness

System performance/policy impact

Evaluation/Inspection Traditions

STANDING INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

OF (EUROPEAN) INSPECTORATES

(Bratislava Memorandum 2013)

Inspection must not take the responsibility for achieving high quality away from schools

themselves. Self‐evaluation leading to improvement rather than passive compliance with an

externally determined agenda is central to sustained enhancement in the quality of students’

learning.

As the need for greater flexibility and innovation in education systems has become central to

educational policy, inspection needs to achieve a balance between its traditional roles and helping

to stimulate well‐founded innovation. Inspection itself must be flexible and innovative as it

meets the challenges of the changing educational context.

The ways in which inspection can support innovation in education will be circumscribed by policy and

practice within individual countries. Inspection will always be only one element in a complex

process. However, irrespective of such constraints, its influence can be profound, particularly in its

potential to challenge thinking, evaluate impact, and stimulate improvement.

The relationship between inspection and innovation can be complex. Innovation will only be

successful if it is embraced by teachers and the strong focus of inspection on classroom

practice can both highlight and illuminate the impact of innovation on learning.

Governments should ensure that the potential of inspection to make a major beneficial

contribution to innovation is built into improvement and innovation strategies from the

outset.

Agreed, inspiring and driving purposes

Curriculum not imprisoned by the past or the context

Embodies principle of subsidiarity

Confident, expert & empowered teaching profession

Active and extended collegiate culture

Distributive leadership

Constructive accountability/evaluation

A revitalised and energised teaching and learning

community

Broad experiences, better outcomes & higher

standards for our young people

A revitalised and energised

teaching and learning

community

Improving Schools in Scotland

OECD 2015

The Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) is an important reform putting in place a coherent 3-18 curriculum

around capacities and learning. There is a holistic understanding of what it means to be a

young Scot growing up in today’s world promoted by the curriculum…It rests on a very

contemporary view of knowledge and skills and on widely-accepted tenets of what makes for

powerful learning.

BUT

It needs an ambitious theory of change and a more robust evidence base, especially about

learning outcomes and progress.

Unless a range of metrics is available that reflects the full ambition of CfE, the nature of quality and

equity always risks being reduced to the most readily measurable. Develop metrics that do

justice to the full range of CfE capacities informing a bold understanding of quality and equity.

The Scottish Government has outlined a National Improvement Framework, which was still at

proposal stage at the time of this review. This Framework has the potential to provide a robust

evidence base in ways that enhance rather than detract from the breadth and depth of the

CfE.

Move the Curriculum for Excellence on from ambitious underpinnings to an approach to

curriculum, assessment and pedagogy, with supporting leadership and capacity-building,

that is a genuine 21st century system to be among those leading the world.

SCOTLAND’S NATIONAL IMPROVEMENT

FRAMEWORK

A Curriculum for Wales –

A Curriculum for Life

KEY FEATURES OF THE WELSH

APPROACH TO BOTH CHALLENGES

Strategic and inclusive approach based on agreed purposes

Focus on deep learning, the ability to apply learning creatively and the

development of personal qualities

Reflects current evidence about successful reform

Not top-down but collaborative, ‘all-Wales’ reform - pioneer network

Strategic legislation– subsidiarity

Recognises the need to take time to build understanding and ownership

Strong commitment to realism through pioneer approach - capacity

building and professional learning

Critical importance of distributive leadership embracing all levels

Synergies across development and accountability

Digital Competence Framework

creating, evaluating, redefining and remodelling

Pioneer Schools open discussion

7 Propositions

• The world is changing fast leading to growing expectations of schools, a multiplicity of

well-intentioned but often incoherent short-term responses and challenges to political

confidence in the teaching profession. The translation of educational aspiration into

classroom reality is problematic. We need a new and more organic approach to school

improvement.

• The policy discourse drives approaches to effectiveness and improvement that tend to be

reductionist and unimaginative; to ignore opportunity cost and focus on structures; to

value unduly limited accountability metrics–do not reflect the imperatives of rapid change.

• Strategic agreement on long-term purposes, increasingly expressed in terms of capacities

or competences, is vital to coherent change and improvement.

• Good governance should be less about structures than vision, capacity building and

constructive accountability.

• Professionalism needs to be understood as involving collective values, responsibility and

challenge as well as individual expertise and commitment. That means a capable,

empowered and collegiate teaching profession.

• Accountability processes must be constructive and true to the longer-term vision.

• We need a new paradigm of reform within which schools are learning organisations with an

inclusive leadership culture. Quality and improvement should be more about pull than

push.