Building a communitarian policy of educative accountability using a critical pragmatist epistemology
| Pages | 273-295 |
| Published date | 01 August 1999 |
| Date | 01 August 1999 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/09578239910275508 |
| Author | Reynold J.S. Macpherson |
| Subject Matter | Education |
Building a
communitarian
policy
273
Journal of Educational
Administration, Vol. 37 No. 3, 1999,
pp. 273-295. #MCB University
Press, 0957-8234
Received 4 September
1997
Revised 28 February
1998
Accepted 27 March 1998
Building a communitarian
policy of educative
accountability using a critical
pragmatist epistemology
Reynold J.S. Macpherson
University of Auckland, New Zealand
Keywords Accountability, Governance, Leadership, Policy, Professionalism
Abstract This paper reports a policy research project intended to clarify the accountability
processes and criteria that should be used to collect data, report and improve the quality of
learning, teaching and leadership in Tasmania. Its outcomes informed the design of a new three-
year school review process that seeks to integrate local governance, school planning, action
research evaluation, external reviews, and systemic performance monitoring. Behind the
recommended policy is a touchstone set of processes and criteria that comprise a theory of mutual
and educative accountability. This theory represents an attempt to reconcile centralism with
pluralism, exhibits liberal, democratic and limited forms of community government, anticipates
educative forms of leadership, and values communitarian over collegial and individualistic forms
of professionalism.
In February 1992, the Tasmanian Department of Education and the Arts (DEA)
commissioned policy research to identify forms of accountability preferred by
stakeholders. It expected that, ``in mapping forms of accountability, the project
will address the criteria and the processes that are or should be used to identify,
report on, and improve learning, teaching and leadership'' (Harrington, 1992,
p. 1). The same memorandum asked that the findings be ``reported in 1994 in a
form which will assist school communities and the department to review their
accountability policies'' (p.1). Parenting and governing mechanisms were not
mentioned but emerged later as important issues.
The project design assumed that accountability policy in education is an
expression of theories about what constitutes valuable knowledge, how
learning, teaching and leadership can be demonstrated and improved, and how
obligations should be built and discharged between stakeholders in a policy
community.
The project had a unique context. The accountability policy documents of
the 1990s, on the small island state of Tasmania, embedded accountability
mechanisms in planning, resource management, monitoring, reviewing and
reporting functions (e.g. Department of Education and the Arts (DEA), 1993).
This bureaucratic design was justified by a systems theory of organisation and
a corporate model of ``self-management''. Schools were expected to have an
``accountability cycle'' that cohered with the DEA's strategic plans and
evaluation activities. Senior school personnel were required to implement
policy statements in consultation with district superintendents. Schools
Journal of
Educational
Administration
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councils were not empowered to provide governance or accountability. The
stress was on ``proving'' rather than ``improving'' education, reporting outcomes
using different forms of evidence, and coordinating the information collected
by schools through the system's line management hierarchy.
There were also marked differences between federal and state jurisdictions
on whether accountability policy should both prove and improve public
schools. Australian national policy communities have shown markedly less
interest in community and nation-building capacities in the 1980s and 1990s
(Pusey, 1991). National policy discourse has featured commodification,
vocationalism and quantification (Yeatman, 1990). The emphasis was on
empirical performance and outcomes indicators that correlate with, and thus
justify, accounts of expenditure. The stress was on productivity and political
forms of accountability.
In Tasmania, successive governments and the DEA have sustained an
additional interest in the accountability criteria and processes that enhance
learning conditions, professional development and school improvement. The
focus has been on professionally effective forms of accountability. The
strategic challenge for the DEA has, therefore, been to balance political and
productivity accountability with more professional and developmental forms
of accountability. The three-part policy research challenge identified was,
therefore, to assemble the forms of ``educative accountability'' preferred by
immediate stakeholders, to develop a state education accountability policy that
promises to both ``prove'' and ``improve'' public education, and to advance
accountability policy-making capacity in schools. The policy research process
developed to assist with this strategy is summarised in the next section.
Epistemically critical policy research
Preliminary data and documentary evidence collected in 1992 and 1993 using
school community workshops and stakeholder focus groups showed that three
perspectives dominated a largely paralysed policy discourse. The three views
(see Table I) reflected technical or systemic, professional and client interests,
much as identified in the UK and the USA (Kogan, 1986; Elmore and
Associates, 1990). They also appeared to be mutually exclusive, and, since they
were buttressed by deep beliefs about other stakeholders' views, unlikely to
change.
On the other hand, the early data also revealed an awareness that
accountability was an important means of affirming and reconstructing the
legitimacy of policies and practices, the rationality of public schooling and the
commitment of participants and stakeholders. The establishment of an
Educational Review Unit (ERU) in the DEA was a structural expression of this
awareness. The ERU was asked to both demonstrate and develop the quality of
schools and boost confidence in public schooling, essentially by coordinating
reviews of systemic policy and institutions. However, while ``proving'' the
performance of schools apparently required little more than the somewhat
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