Education Governance: The Role of Data

Thinking About Governance:A Story and Some Dimension Lines

Marc TuckerNational Center on Education and the Economy

February 2015

Governing Complex Education Systems

Governance in the USA: One Man’s View

US led the world in attainment (quantity of ed) till the 1970s

Ended up with the world’s best-educated workforce

Did it with hardly any governance at the federal level, fractionated

and weak governance at state level, uniquely powerful districts built

on local funding model, and cheap teachers

Worked really well for us, system brilliantly adapted to needs of mass

production economy

Governance in the USA: Enter the 1970s

Globalization and automation: jobs dry up for those with only

basic skills

US winds up with surplus of low-skilled workers, shortage of

high skill workers, middle class hollowed out

Costs increase by factor of 2.5 but

Achievement of high school students level since 1970s

US exhausts limits of cheap-teacher, local control model

More and More Countries Outperform US

US Rankings on PISA

Reading Mathematics Science

2000 (32)

2003 (41)

2006 (57)

2009 (65)

2012 (65)

15 17 14

18 28 22

NR 34 28

17 30 22

24 36 27

US In Deep Trouble

Three measures

Average achievement

Equity

Productivity

Most important problem we face:

Failure to modernize our governance

Critical Premise: The Modern Model

High wage economies must provide to all a new kind of mass education: quality of

education formerly provided only to a small elite, individualized and flexible

Will require highly educated, very well trained and high status teacher corps

Implies radical shift from the system model based on cheap teachers managed as

blue collar workers in an early 20th century form or work organization

Crucial Importance of Governance

Requires governance system designed to support the move to such a system

Able to lead country to very different model and to execute on that model, common skeleton,

highly variable and flexible implementation within that skeleton

Countries experiencing very different capacities to pull this off; everything depends on:

sense of urgency

quality of political leadership

willingness to trust professionals

ability to get consensus

Dimension #1: Where the Buck Stops

Has to be a place where the buck stops

The nation vs. the state or province

Does not matter

Canada and Germany at one end

Finland, Singapore or Estonia at the other

Australia mixed case

US fractionated

Dimension #2:Industrial Blue Collar Model vs. Professional Model

Industrial blue collar model

Cheap teachers, recruited from bottom high school

performers

Tight administrative, regulatory control

Punitive accountability

Little latitude for professional judgment

Blue collar unions take no responsibility for oucomes

Dimension #2:Industrial Blue Collar Model vs. Professional Model

Professional Model

Expensive teachers, recruited from top high

school performers

Professional management model

Goals clear

Wide latitude for professional judgment

Teachers take responsibility for outcomes

Dimension #2:Industrial Blue Collar Model vs. Professional Model

Blue collar model

United States

UK

Professional model

Shanghai

Estonia

Dimension #3: Trust vs. Anger

LOW-QUALITYTEACHING, LOW

STATUS OF TEACHERS

POOR QUALITYINITIAL TEACHERS

PUBLIC ANGER ATTEACHERS, EVEN

HARDER TO GET GOODTEACHERS, DECLINING

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Dimension #3: Trust vs. Anger

HIGHER QUALITYAPPLICANTS TO

TEACHER ED PROGRAM

MAKE TEACHING MORE

ATTRACTIVE

BETTER TEACHING,BETTER STUDENT

RESULTS

Dimension #3: Trust vs. Anger

Anger

United States

England

Trust

Finland

Singapore

Dimension #4: Centralization vs. Recentralization vs. Decentralization

Centralization

United States

UK

Recentralization

Germany

Decentralization

Singapore

Dimension #4: But That is the Wrong Way to Think About It

Candidates for Centralization —

Student achievement standards

Broad curriculum framework

Qualification system

Small set of high quality national examinations

Responsibility for providing high quality teachers

Collection of taxes and disbursement to schools

Dimension #4: Candidates for Decentralization

Development of lessons

Accountability regimes

Development of instructional materials

School improvement/teacher professional dev’t

Choice of instructional strategies

School organization and management

Dimension #4: A Story

Singapore’s Minister of Education, Tharman

Shanmugaratnam, goes to Japan to see how the

Japanese are supporting the teaching of

creativity in their schools

Dimension #5: Market Models vs. Administrative Models

Market models

United States

Netherlands

New Zealand

Administrative models

Most other countries

Dimension #5: Market Models vs. Administrative Models

Value for choice vs. value on equal access

Value placed on small school-to-school

variation in outcomes vs. value placed on

innovation

Dimension #6:Value Placed on National Cohesion vs. Value on Local Determination

National cohesion

Singapore

Japan

France

Local determination

United States

Hong Kong

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

As you get better and better teachers, trust your

teachers and giver them more and more scope for

exercising their professional judgment

But, as the same time, make sure they know what the

society wants for its students and provide the

infrastructure—standards, exams, qualification

system, etc—needed to structure the right incentives

for all the actors

Balance Good Professional Judgment With High Level Political Guidance

Set your ministry up so that it will attract first

class professional educators to career positions

Make sure that education policy is made by

politicians with access to and the trust of the top

political officials

Do NOT try to isolate education from politics

Why is Governance So Important

The ability of the whole system to produce

superior results depends on the judgment,

experience and wisdom of the people who set the

direction for the enterprise, the authority they

have to implement their goals, and the legitimacy

they enjoy to exercise that authority