School Lines Rub-da-dub-dub. A hub or a snub? Lester Flockton
lester.flockton@gmail.com
We now have a report from a committee of nice people who have been able to independently give expression to their ideas, perspectives and biases around how our schooling system should be re-jigged amidst the now fashionable and often ill-informed knocking of Tomorrow’s Schools – which, remember, was initially never about addressing issues of student achievement but was mainly about a devolved system of administration and accountability. The committee has listened to and captured concerns about the state of things impacting on the schooling sector and has come up with its ideas on how they might be addressed. So it is now time to thoughtfully analyse, unwrap and critique what they have in mind, putting our feet very firmly on the ground while at the same time peering positively and realistically into the future. They have been told about major issues and problems in our system – the role and functioning of education agencies (MoE and ERO), variable performance among school boards, inequalities, ineffective and inadequate support for schools and teachers working with children with special needs and behavioural issues, and principal/teacher workload. They say the education ‘system’ is not working well enough for our most disadvantaged children – a claim that is worryingly unfair and simplistic. Overall, they have come up with some potentially promising recommendations worthy of wide yet conditional support, and some that most definitely shouldn’t go unchallenged. We need to seriously ask, for example, whether re-arranging and re-styling the administrative deck chairs and putting out some new ones would really bring about stronger community engagement, success for all, fairness, and fix-its for the challenges our system and society has created. This is not to deny the best intentions of the committee’s proposals, but let’s not kid ourselves. We should have learned by now that in education there are no silver bullets, and no one-size-fits-all solutions (e.g. every school marshalled into a hub?). The power of factors that lie outside of schools’ and teachers’ control, and that significantly impact on their students’ progress and learning, are such that we need to be honest and realistic about how much we can progress system ideals (e.g. ‘educational success for every student’). The constitutional arrangements and powers of the committee’s proposed hubs are matters that need a lot of careful thought, questioning and a considered response. It seems, for example, that the idea of all schools being compulsorily assigned to a hub with a certain jurisdiction over them is something of an issue. Having optional access to a hub would be a different matter. We need to ask whether they would amount to a new set of bureaucracies with new controls and oversight of school boards
and principals, and competition among schools for access to their invariably limited resources? (On a formula of one hub to 120 schools, all of Otago would have one such hub – just like it had one Education Board pre-Tomorrow’s Schools.) And would they introduce yet another layer of ‘politics’ in the way they are governed and managed? Broadly, the idea appears good, but the role, powers, and functions seem to need a lot of re-thinking. In time, perhaps a trialling of a few hubs rather than going holusbolus would be a sensible precautionary step, and give the needed evidence of the extent of their efficacy. Competition among schools for resources and students is a long-time topical issue (it was definitely around before Tomorrow’s Schools). But it’s something the committee would like turned around so that all schools work together in a spirit of harmonious co-operation so that all can prosper and advance their practice by happily sharing ideas – that work for them in their particular circumstances (but with no guarantees of effective transfer to others’ circumstances). So it sounds good in theory, yet it cannot be denied that competition is an almost instinctive characteristic of the human psyche that is here to stay, like it or not. You see it everywhere, and in countless situations it has proven to be of real benefit. So, competition in one form or another, in one situation or another, to one degree or another, will continue regardless of system re-engineering. And so will co-operation and collaboration. In truth, we should accept that the two co-exist – and for good reason. More sensibly, the goal should be to get some sort of balance between them. Take a really good look at the committee’s six recommendations for supporting schools and teachers to work with children with special learning and behavioural needs. If yours is one of those schools that regularly experiences challenge and frustration in this domain, are you confident that the suggested measures will go a long way towards alleviating the situation? Are the suggested measures getting right to the nub of the matter? Or should it purely and simply be a matter of far easier and more timely access to additional, adequate and suitably qualified support staff placed in (not visiting) the school? The recommendations around supporting teaching are certainly on track – even though initial teacher training is not tackled in the report despite being well and truly off the rails. The re-instatement of local advisory services sounds wonderful, but only wonderful if they represent the full scope of The New Zealand Curriculum, are nationally networked and not doctrinaire. Concerning the recommendation for proven national PLD programmes, the key word is ‘proven’. Over recent years, a number of such programmes instituted by the Ministry (mainly in literacy and numeracy) clearly have not proven to be
universally effective (look at National Standards results over the years of the regime – virtually no improvement). The establishment of a national leadership centre is an exciting prospect, but the committee’s recommendation that it be within the Teaching Council tears away the gloss. Many have claimed that the Council is overly ambitious towards expansion of its role. We should ask whether placing the leadership centre here is a good thing, or would it amount to more control, more authority, a bigger empire? Could a national leadership centre not be established as a stand-alone entity governed by educational leaders? Our responses to the committee’s suggestions should not be labelled or dismissed as negative, sceptical, or worse still cynical. They need to be forward thinking, constructive, honest and insightful – and respected as such. Moreover, they need to be sensible and discerning about claims that changes will/might/
perhaps/one day fix our system’s multiple blemishes so that every citizen will be delivered a fair, life enriching educational experience within a systemically unfair economic and societal infrastructure. We all share a professional responsibility for taking the time to consider the implications of what the committee has proposed, and more importantly, to attempt to assess whether their ideas will really make the differences they claim, or the differences we would want. Is there sufficient evidence to give us confidence that the proposed changes, with all of their complexities, will in fact result in significantly reduced workloads, effective support for working with challenging students, all children enjoying educational success, etc. Floating up into aspirational clouds is one thing – having clear, visible landings on sought-after outcomes is quite another.
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