Effect of School Decentralization and School Climate on Student Mathematics Performance: The Case of Hong Kong

For more than a decade, the Government of Hong Kong has instituted a policy of school decentralization aimed at devolving authority to all stakeholders, including the representatives of School Sponsoring Bodies, principals, teachers, parents, and community members. This study examines the relative contribution of two dimensions of school decentralization – teacher participation and school autonomy – to students' mathematics performance, and examines the role of school climate as a mediating variable between decentralization and performance. Data for the present study come from the second cycle of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 2003), which is a large international assessment measuring 15-year-old students' literacy performance across over 40 countries and regions around the world. Using multi-level analysis, the study finds that teacher participation is more important than school autonomy for student mathematics performance in Hong Kong. In addition, the effect of teacher participation on students' performance is mediated by four major school climatic factors – sense of belonging, disciplinary climate, students' morale and student behaviour – in Hong Kong's secondary schools.     

School autonomy,accountability and collaboration: a critical review

English education has recently experienced radical policy reform in the areas of school autonomy and accountability. The key focus of this paper is on how schools might best navigate through these policy moves. It highlights how these moves have constructed schools, teachers and students in problematic ways but also how they are offering possibilities for improving the quality of schools and schooling. The focus here is on the promise and scope of school collaboration. The difficulties of creating socially responsive and responsible collaboratives in the current ‘heterarchical’ and market-oriented policy environment are acknowledged. Guided by quality democratic governance, they are, nonetheless, presented as crucial in supporting schools to productively deal with the demands of this environment.     

School autonomy reform in Queensland: governance,freedom and the entrepreneurial leader

This paper examines conceptions of governance and freedom embedded within a new school autonomy policy in Queensland (Australia). Drawing on interview data from case study research, it foregrounds the practices of two school leaders from a secondary school in regional Queensland. It considers how such conceptions foster an entrepreneurial leadership of competition and compliance but also how they create space for something other than these dominant performative priorities. The paper’s theoretical contribution responds to calls for more nuanced accounts of entrepreneurial leadership to better understand how current performative demands are impacting on school leaders amid increasingly autonomised education systems.     

学校治理现代化:意义探寻与实践推进

学校治理现代化是学校改革发展的一次深刻变革,要准确理解学校现代化的涵义,认识“治理”与“管理”的联系和区别尤为必要。与其他领域的治理相比,学校治理现代化有着综合性系统性强、公平公正要求高、治理成效显现慢、治理环节转化多等特点。学校治理现代化从不同角度分类,可以呈现出多种不同形态。新时代之所以大力推进学校治理现代化,是建设现代化强国的需要,是办人民满意教育的需要,是实现立德树人办学目标的需要,是探索形成学校治理“中国经验”的需要。要把学校治理现代化落到实处,需要把握治理领导权、治理体系现代化、治理能力现代化三个基本问题。     

Educational decentralization: a review of popular discourse on Chinese–English bilingual education

Educational decentralization is a worldwide phenomenon, which takes different forms and leads to different outcomes in different socio-economic contexts. Taking Chinese–English bilingual education in Mainland China as an exemplar, this study examines how the decentralization of education has worked in China in the past two decades, and what consequences decentralization has brought about in the country. The analysis reveals that decentralization has created a favourable overall socio-economic and political context for bilingual education to develop, from a local endeavour into a nation-wide undertaking. The analysis also reveals that decentralization has allowed the diversified operation of bilingual programmes at the regional level. However, there has been a visible inconsistency and incoherence between the theoretical underpinnings of the programmes and the practice in schools and classrooms. Such an inconsistency and incoherence may have resulted from a newly reconfigured relation between the central government and local governments, as well as a lack of human or intellectual resources at the regional level, leading to some unintended educational and socio-political outcomes.     

The Identification and Development of Giftedness as a Paradigm for School Reform

Based on ideas advocated by Paul F-Brandwein's The Gifted Student as Future Scientist, this article summarizes theories of intelligence leading to his theory of the three-ring conception of giftedness and how that theory led to the development of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model. The Schoolwide Enrichment Model provides a detailed model for total school improvement that can be customized based on the local resources, student population, school leadership dynamics, and faculty strengths and creativity of each particular school. The model consists of three service delivery components: The Total Talent Portfolio, Curriculum Modification Techniques, and Enrichment Learning and Teaching, which are brought to bear on three school structures: The Regular Curriculum, Enrichment Clusters, and the Continuum of Special Services. Implementation of this model provides a organizational framework for schools to become places for talent development.     

改革开放以来我国高等教育集权与分权的周期性变革

中央集权制与地方分权制是两种基本的教育行政体制。改革开放以来,我国高等教育行政体制在由计划经济向市场经济转变的进程中呈现出从中央高度集权、中央与地方分权到中央政府向地方政府、高校和市场适度分权的周期性变革趋势。本文对高等教育行政体制的生成状况进行了分析,通过梳理高等教育集权与分权变革的30年演化历程及相关问题,阐明我国高等教育集权与分权改革的走向。     

我们需要什么样的现代学校制度

教育市场化不能成为建构现代学校制度的指导性原则,更不能将现代企业制度直接移植到现代学校制度中来。现代学校制度是一种"教育制度"而不是"经济制度",它所应关注的不是产权归属、产权明晰等经济学问题,而应是本真的教育问题,即学生的发展问题。现代学校制度包括核心制度和外围制度。建立现代学校制度要求转变政府的教育职能,落实学校的办学自主权。     

School educational project as a criterion of school choice: discourses and practices in the city of Barcelona

In its advancement towards an education quasi-market, Catalonia has recently been driving the development of school educational projects in all schools (both public and private) as a tool to facilitate school autonomy and family choices. A school educational project is a formal document in which schools identify their pedagogical goals, missions and orientations, their academic resources and organisational structures. Through the analysis of 60 in-depth interviews with parents of children at the age of commencing universal pre-primary education (three years old) and data collected from surveys completed by a representative sample made up of 3245 families, this article explores the impact of this policy on discourses and practices of school choice amongst families in the city of Barcelona. On the one hand, we observe that interest in educational projects has penetrated the discourses of the most educated parents, even though, at the same time, we detect a generalised lack of knowledge of the content of such projects. On the other hand, we note that the social composition of schools is still a prominent factor in choice practices. Such findings question the ideal of the autonomous and rational citizen-consumer that underlies the policy of establishing educational projects.     

Curriculum reform with a school-based approach: intellectual,structural and cultural challenges

Curriculum reform with a school-based approach is often assumed to offer schools and teachers autonomy at the site level, thus enabling them to develop a school-based curriculum and pedagogies to better fit the needs of students. Over the past decade, school-based curriculum development in Hong Kong has encountered issues that deserve worldwide attention and discussion. By reviewing the experiences of two schools in Hong Kong and drawing on international evidence, this study identifies key challenges and difficulties in school-based curriculum reform in three areas. Intellectually, there is a lack of a strong and broad shared knowledge base for curriculum development. As a result, most school-based curriculum initiatives have been piecemeal, fragmented and shallow. Structurally, many teachers have wasted time ‘re-inventing the wheel’ when developing school-based curricula. This effort has left them without sufficient time and energy to be effective in teaching. Culturally, reliance on school management to steer school-based reforms has prevented the development of a new culture in which teachers have the autonomy to make changes in their daily practices. Without cultural changes, curriculum reforms are not sustainable or effective. This study proposes a cooperative platform that integrates the strengths of central intelligence and school-based initiatives to maximise support for curriculum development at the teacher, school-site and system levels.     

The Australian Education Union: A History of Opposing School Choice and School Autonomy Down-Under

In this article, I chronicle the recent history of efforts to broaden school choice in the Commonwealth of Australia and the opposition to these efforts put forth by Australia’s largest teacher union, the Australian Education Union (AEU). Evidence is presented on the positive effects that flow from the public funding of nongovernment schools and of the perception held by principals that less external regulation improves school functions. In spite of this, the Union continues to oppose choice efforts. I conclude that, at least in Australia, the influence of the AEU has placed impediments in the way of increased school choice and autonomy. Readers in other countries may draw their own conclusions from these observations in Australia.     

高校章程建设的问题、归因与对策

高校章程是高校的"宪法",对高校实现依法治校、构建现代治理体系以及长远发展具有重要意义。但高校章程并未引起相关主体的重视,在文本、实施等方面都还存在不少问题。高校章程建设需要立法机关、教育行政主管部门、其他相关部门以及高等学校的共同努力,并要严格规范章程的制定程序、完善提高章程文本的质量与水平、建立与完善章程的实施机制和监督程序等,以此推动高校章程真正发挥实效。     

Democracy,Justice, and School Closures

Over the past few decades, school closure has emerged as a key strategy for education reform. Districts across the country have moved to close schools deemed to be chronically underperforming by official metrics as way to promote academic achievement. More recently, a sizeable body of literature has emerged raising significant questions about the wisdom of school closures, with some scholars and activists criticizing school closures as an injustice. In this article, Ellis Reid takes seriously the claim that the adoption of school closures as a reform strategy is unjust. Drawing on work in democratic theory, Reid argues that the widespread embrace of school closures to "turn around" schools thought to be failing rests in part on racially stigmatizing ideas about schools serving Black and Latinx students and the communities in which these schools are embedded. Importantly, racial stigmatization is not an isolated problem but rather points toward a broader crisis in American democracy. Ultimately, Reid argues that responding to this crisis demands that we take seriously the arguments advanced by the critics of school closures and adopt a broader view of the value of a school.     

试论学院制改革中的放权问题

在学院制改革的过程中,放权是一个重要问题。从学院制的本质来看,学术权力是放权中的首要内容;同时,还必须放置与学术权力相应的行政权力。学术权力是一个体系,掌握和行使学术权力不应该是一个主体,而应该是多重主体。     

Historicizing the Future: Educational Reform, Systems of Reason, and the Making of Children Who are the Future Citizens

Educational reform and reformist research are not merely about school improvement. They embody a field of cultural practices that constitutes the objects of schooling – the teacher who administers the reforms to the child and the distinctions and differentiations about who the child is and should be. Our interest is in the rules and standards of reason assembled through the cultural practices of school reform. Reason is a cultural practice functioning to enact a change in the conditions of people but also invests people with particular capacities and capabilities. This investiture of capacities and capabilities produces particular human kinds or categories of the determinant qualities of the individuals schools administer. Using studies of educational governance and social inclusion/exclusion in Europe and on US educational reform, the discussion focuses on the overlapping practices of system management and curriculum reforms that map different human kinds. One human kind is the child as a lifelong learner, an individual whose qualities entail actively and flexibly participating in communities through problem-solving strategies. The characteristics and qualities of the lifelong learner are differentiated from those who do not embody the norms of participation –the child left behind. The study of the systems of reason that govern the objects of reflection and rectification in school reforms is a strategy to consider the politics of reform, change, and social inclusion and exclusion.     

Neoliberalism as exception: the New High-Quality School project in Shanghai

ABSTRACT

Drawing upon Aihwa Ong’s concept of ‘neoliberalism as exception’, this paper explores how the education authority in Shanghai capitalises on neoliberal knowledge, techniques and logics to address local challenges. Through the creation of ‘new high-quality schools’ that is accompanied by a new assessment system, the authority hopes to persuade parents to choose non-elite schools instead of prestigious schools that excel in academic performance. The neoliberal strategy of school choice is supported by the policy of school autonomy for educators to go beyond test scores to promote holistic development in students. The paper underlines the indigenisation of neoliberalism through policy dynamics where multiple educational stakeholders interact with and mutually influence one another. By highlighting ‘neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics’ in Shanghai, this study demonstrates how neoliberalism coexists with state forms, cultural norms and social practices in a particular locality.     

学校效能与学校改革：对英国最新研究成果的述评

在对英国学校效能研究与学校改革最新研究成果进行了分析与研究后，我们可以发现目前学校效能与学校改革中存在的一些问题以及有待努力的方向。     

Governing for Results on a Postcollective Bargaining Wisconsin School Board

The popular narrative of Wisconsin’s collective bargaining battle started out being about money. Should public employees pay more toward their healthcare? Can school districts offset state aid cuts using the additional revenue from employee healthcare contributions? Does collective bargaining have a cost? This article gives an overview of Wisconsin school boards, explains exactly how Act 10 increased their power, demonstrates why and how improved school board governance can have an impact on student achievement, reviews the changes Wisconsin school boards are making because of Act 10, and provides policy recommendations to improve both board governance behaviors, and the quality of policies enacted by school boards in the postcollective bargaining era.     

社会资本、市场力量与学校变革

在世界上许多国家包括中国 ,人们开始以市场力量来对学校这种公共部门进行改革 ,以革除当今学校存在的弊端 ,提高学校运作效率 ,满足公众日益多样化的需求 ,并提升教育公平 ,这实际上深受新自由主义思潮的影响。然而 ,以市场为导向的改革就像一柄双刃剑 ,它提高了资源的利用效率 ,扩大了消费者的选择权 ,似乎给予所有的人以同等的选择的机会 ;但是改革也有可能加大学校之间的差距 ,加重社会不公正现象 ,扩大强势群体与弱势群体之间的不平等。因此 ,仅仅依赖市场是不够的 ,创造、提升或重建学校的社会资本是对市场魔力的一种平衡 ,也是当今学校变革的“第三条道路”。     

The changing nature of autonomy: Transformations of the late Swedish teaching profession

This article discusses teacher autonomy in the case of the Swedish teaching profession since the 1980s. It is argued that deregulation, decentralization, and marketization reforms of the 1990s have indeed increased teacher autonomy, but in some respects also led to a increase of complexity in the Swedish school system. In order to handle this complexity, the state intensified a standardization of schooling, which restricts teacher autonomy today. Relevant the paper's understanding is that teacher autonomy is always about control, exerted internally by the profession itself and facilitated externally by state standards. The article argues that the restriction of teacher autonomy in recent times is also related to a simplified understanding of the phenomenon in the reforms of the 1990s.