经合组织国家教育改革中的放权及其启示

20世纪80年代以来,经济合作与发展组织国家对公立学校进行重构与放权的尝试,主要包括:重新定位国家的角色,中央政府权力下放;扩大下级中层机构对学校管理和监督的权力;扩大学校的自主权;扩大社区与家长参与学校事务的权力几方面。改革之后,更多的权力从中央下放到地方和具体的学校,在管理自身事务以及提高教育质量方面,地方与学校发挥着更大的作用,承担着更多的责任。针对当前我国教育管理体制改革的情况,政府应该着重进行四个方面职能的定位:政策的制定应有利于支持权力的下放;关注加强学校能力的建设;严格的督导与评价;鼓励改革与更新。     

Teacher hiring practices and educational efficiency

This paper analyses the relationship between teacher hiring practices and educational efficiency in Norwegian school districts. The hiring decision is made at the school level by the principal or at the school district level. According to the data, efficiency is the highest in districts where hiring is decentralized. Hiring practices are decided by the school district, and linear estimates of the effect of decentralized hiring on efficiency may be biased because of non-random selection. First, I approach this problem by including a large set of controls in a school district level analysis, which does not alter the qualitative result. Second, I perform a school level analysis with district fixed effects. The results indicate, as expected, that the effect of decentralization is stronger for schools facing excess teacher supply than for schools without excess supply.     

Decentralization of First Nations Education in Canada: Perspectives on Ideals and Realities of Indian Control of Indian Education

Fuelled by the concept of self-determination, efforts to improve schooling under the banner of decentralization are taking hold in First Nations communities throughout Canada. Proponents of decentralization hold the perception that decentralized systems are more likely to improve education than centralized systems. But is there a chance that local control can improve First Nations education? From the point of view of the realization of the decentralization values, the outcome is uncertain at best and gloomy at worst. To the extent that First Nations are alert to the emerging educational needs and problems and strong enough to mobilize First Nations resources on their behalf, we may entertain a cautious optimism on the resolution of some of the manifold contradictions of decentralization. I contend that unless there is a genuine devolution that entails the empowerment of First Nations communities to provide an education that is specifically suited to each community, schools for Aboriginal children will remain mediocre in quality. If decentralization is to sustain its momentum and advance productively in coming years, at least it should meet three conditions. First, certain constraints or contradictions internal to decentralization will have to be resolved. Second, Aboriginal scholars and First Nations school authorities need to employ appropriate change strategies by providing a framework for local control, and finally, First Nations communities and federal authorities need to find the key symbolic and structural characteristics of decentralizing First Nations schools.     

Do communities know best?: Testing a premise of educational decentralization: community members' perceptions of their local schools in Ghana

A central premise of the argument for greater decentralization of education in the developing world is that those closest to the school, e.g., community members, have a better understanding of local conditions and are in the best position to make decisions about the educational processes that best serve local needs. This study tested that premise by examining the extent that community members in rural Ghana demonstrated a clear understanding of (a) what school practices were indicative of an effective school and (b) what community members could do to most effectively support their local schools. Results were interpreted with respect to attitude theory, decentralization, and program evaluation. Implications of the findings for the decentralization movement, the professional development of headmasters, and the work of international development organizations are discussed.     

校本课程开发中教师赋权增能现状的调查研究——以河北省为例

目前,在校本课程开发过程中地方教育部门、学校、校长、教师均在赋权增能上存在问题,主要是地方教育部门的政策落实不到位,校长的权力下放不到位,学校的培训指导不到位,教师群体缺乏合作意识,教师自我效能感不强。为促进校本课程开发的顺利进行,应明确界定地方教育部门与校长的权责,优化学校组织结构,营造教师群体合作氛围,增强教师自我效能感。     

An empirical study of the effects of decentralization in Indonesian junior secondary education

Decentralization in the education system has become a trend in many developing countries. However, it is not a solution to the many problems in education faced by these countries. One of the adverse effects of decentralization is disparity between regions or schools in terms of educational achievement. This paper offers a justification for such a view by studying the case of the Indonesian education system. Data was collected from about 5,000 Sekolah Lanjutan Tingkat Pertama (SLTP) schools (junior secondary schools). The method of covariance structure analysis was used to identify the influences and effects of factors related to educational environment upon educational outcome, and to make a comparison between before and after the introduction of decentralization in Indonesia. The main finding of this research is that increase in the school budget improves the quality of the educational environment and leads to higher test scores and lower dropout rates. Such positive results, however, turned out to be less significant, and the relationship between factors became weaker, during the period after decentralization had started. This was particularly the case for the group of schools whose budget level was relatively small. Therefore, there is a need to consider measures aimed at correcting the disparity between schools as well as regions.     

Policy and Practice of the Decentralization of Basic Education in China: The Shanghai Case

This paper is aimed at exploring distinctive features of the decentralization of basic education in Shanghai by drawing on data from Shanghai Program for International Students Assessment (PISA) 2012. While doing the research for this paper, the author found that from a policy perspective, Shanghai had launched a reform policy aimed at transforming the highly centralized education system. This included a devolution of the decision-making authority to local departments of education and a reduction of control over schools. Private school policies were also initiated with the understanding that private schools ought to enjoy autonomy in almost every aspect of decision-making. From the perspective of practice, decentralization of basic education could be categorized as county-based school decentralization. In such a situation, the county bureaus of education wielded decision-making authority over a number of areas in the public school sector, while gradually devolving some decision-making authority to the public schools themselves; and the private schools enjoyed autonomy within their major decision-making areas. Given both the policy and practice of the decentralization of basic education in Shanghai, some suggestions are provided regarding: (1) how to promote school decentralization, and (2) how to balance it with accountability.     

Parent–School Partnership Formation through the School Council in Korea

Official involvement of parents in school education has been very limited until recently within the highly centralized educational administration and school management system in Korea. But, the educational reform in 1995 has brought fundamental changes in educational administration and school management system of Korea. The main approach of the reform is decentralization, which tries to turn over the power of the central government in educational administration and school management to the hands of regional education offices and site schools. According to the reform, the school council was introduced to enforce autonomous and responsible school-based management through broad participation of various stakeholders of education. In this article, I examined the background, roles, and characteristics of the school council, focusing on the new pattern of parent–school participation formation. And based on the findings, I discussed the issues of parents participation and future prospects of the school council and suggested policy implications for better implementation of parent–school partnership through the school council.     

New guiding principles in educational policy: the case of Germany

Pluralism, decentralization, deregulation, school autonomy, greater diversity and parent empowerment in education are among the new guiding principles in educational policy in numerous industrial countries. Whereas this paradigm shift reflects the advance of the market ideology into the education sector in other (particularly English‐speaking) countries, the driving force behind this movement in Germany is rather the political system's loss of legitimation and the conflict‐ridden state of educational policy. The first part of the article takes a retrospective view which links up to the analyses of Weiler. It shows that the former strategies for securing legitimation and regulating conflicts ‐ involving science in the educational reform process, legalization and judicialization ‐ have only been effective temporarily. Using the new Education Act of Hesse as example, the hypothesis is developed that the strategy of increasing parent empowerment and partially transferring regulatory powers and decision‐making competence to individual schools will also not bring about the expected effects since this will not solve the structural problems of the German school system. In the second part of the article this thesis is elaborated within the framework of a differentiated analysis of the consequences of the structural problems as manifested in individual school types on local educational markets.     

The principals as literacy leaders with indigenous communities: professional learning and research

Recent educational changes in China such as the decentralization policy and the marketization of education have introduced concepts such as performativity, competition and effectiveness to the education sector and they have become part of the educational lexicon. Such policy shifts force more local participation in teacher education programmes and schools are now identified as the prime site for offering relevant professional learning activities to teachers. However, interestingly, research on professional development of teachers in China has not devoted significant attention to the voices of teachers. This paper examines how teachers from seven schools in Guangdong Province view the effectiveness of these school‐based learning activities within the new context of educational change.     

中国西部教育生产函数研究

本文运用“甘肃基础教育调查研究”项目2004年调查数据,采用教育生产函数方法和分层线性模型,对甘肃省农村初中数学和语文教育质量的影响因素进行了实证研究。研究结果表明,甘肃农村初中数学和语文教育质量在个体、班级和学校三个水平上均存在显著差异;学生家庭社会经济背景和学校同伴对数学和语文教育质量有显著影响;教师素质对数学和语文教育质量有重要影响;班级规模对数学和语文教育质量有显著负影响;分权管理制度对数学和语文教育质量有显著正影响。基于上述结论,本文对提高西部农村初中数学和语文教育质量提出以下主要政策建议：缩小班级规模;提高教师素质;建立代课教师权益保障制度;推动学校实施分权化管理。     

明清时期地方教育体系的演变与儒学传承--吉安府的个案研究

明清时期,吉安府地方教育体系呈现出由官办为主向民办为主的演变趋势。明初,吉安府地方教育以官学为主,社学为辅。明中叶后,官学的教学功能逐渐衰减,儒学的传承主要由民办为主的书院与讲会来承担。社学与义学、族学大多以启蒙教育为主。明代盛行一时的社学,人清后逐渐为义学、族学所取代,反映了基层启蒙教育的民间化趋势。民办教育机构逐渐占据了地方教育机构的主导地位,从而为儒学的创新与发展提供了制度化的保障与基础。     

State disinvestment,technologies of choice and ‘fitting in’: neoliberal transformations in US public education

Given state cuts to US public education, overcrowding and underfunding in urban district schools continue to grow. Yet, how parents understand the role of state disinvestment on underfunded and overcrowded public schools remains relatively unexamined. Drawing from an ethnographic study of school choice in Arizona, I explore how a group of white parents from diverse income and educational levels, who exited their child from a district school to enroll in a charter school, articulated state disinvestment in their everyday lives. Findings show that parents blamed local schools for what were largely the effects of state disinvestment. In particular, parents connected underfunding and overcrowding with a lack of district responsiveness to individual concerns to express the view that dire conditions were a personal and not a collective problem. Concurrent with the view that they were ‘were forced to choose’ a charter school due to a lack of district responsiveness, parents developed the belief that choice makes education more equal, especially for students who don’t ‘fit in’ to the district school. In total, findings highlight how technologies of choice enter into local cultural and material struggles to transform the relationship between parents and schools from a social to an economic one.     

Educational decentralization policies in Argentina and Brazil: exploring the new trends

This paper compares educational decentralization policies implemented in Argentina and Brazil during the 1990s, focusing on the rationales and contexts of the policies, and through a review of secondary sources and some official documents. The paper argues that school decentralization, the movement toward transferring functions and responsibilities to schools, appears as a new and extended reform that was accompanied by more traditional forms of decentralization, but also by a process of centralization of planning and evaluation at the national level. This new form of centralization/decentralization is seen as linked to the neoliberal restructuring of the state, to pressures from globalization processes and forces, and to various internal demands for improving quality and efficiency in the delivery of education.     

School decentralization as a process of differentiation,hierarchization and selection

The Austrian ‘school autonomy policy’, which allowed schools to develop specific ‘curricular profiles’, is taken as an example for discussing processes and effects of school decentralization policies. Data from school case studies (based on qualitative interviews and document analysis) are used to analyse and interpret the processes by which schools and teachers take up policy innovations and translate it into action and structures on school and classroom level. These policy changes and the resulting governance regimes are examined from a perspective on changing modes of ‘action coordination’ between actors on different levels of a school system and from an attention to processes of ‘re-contextualization’ in multi-level governance systems. The main result is that the Austrian decentralization policy – although not explicitly based on a market approach – boosted principles of competitive coordination between schools. In consequence, it resulted in processes of differentiation and hierarchization of schools and classes and offered new legitimatory and practical opportunities for student selection.     

农村寄宿制中小学问题的探索和反思——以内蒙古三个旗县为例

通过对内蒙古三个旗县的调研,发现目前农村寄宿制中小学存在着一些问题,如寄宿生的超负荷学习和过度管制、生活条件和心理状况不良、家庭经济负担较重;寄宿制学校教师工作负担过大,学校管理面临困境等。其原因是:未能处理好农村学校的集中与分散的关系;大多数寄宿制学校尚不具备实行寄宿制的"软硬件"条件;寄宿制学校的普遍建立影响了农村薄弱学校的发展;寄宿生的经济补助数量少、覆盖面不足等。对此,应实行农村寄宿制学校与非寄宿制学校的均衡、协调发展,寄宿制学校要超前建设,保证寄宿制学校的教育资金需要,加大寄宿生的经济补助力度、扩大覆盖面。     

The impact of school choice and public policy on segregation: Evidence from Chile

Advocates argue that vouchers can make improved educational opportunity available to disadvantaged students. Critics contend that vouchers increase the risk of stratification. Researchers have found that Chile's voucher program has lead to increased socioeconomic school segregation. What has been overlooked, however, is segregation between schools within a sector and variation within private for-profit and non-profit school sectors. I find that public schools are more likely to serve disadvantaged students than private voucher schools. I also find that disadvantaged students are more segregated among private voucher schools than among public schools. While between and within sector segregation levels vary across private voucher school types, the differences are not always consistent with theory. The data also suggest that policies can either mitigate or exacerbate the stratifying effects of educational vouchers.     

Effects of school quality,school citizenship policy,and student body composition on the acquisition of citizenship competences in the final year of primary education

This study examines the effects of general educational quality of schools, school citizenship policy, and ethnic homogeneity of the student body on the acquisition of citizenship competences in the final year of primary education. The theoretical framework is based on developmental, psychological, and sociological studies into effects of social context on educational outcomes and research into effective schools. The effects of school quality, school policy, and student population were analysed using 2-level (students, school) multilevel models. The results show that differences in citizenship competences between students and schools are mainly explained by factors at student level. Although the school also appeared to play a role, the school variables used in the analysis did not offer sufficient explanation for these differences. In order to further investigate the relationship between school factors and students’ citizenship, more insight is needed into characteristics of citizenship practices of schools.     

Comprehensive secondary education and middle schools in Belgium

Most of the middle schools in Belgium are two-year schools that form a link between the six years of elementary education and the last four years of secondary education. In Flanders they are regarded as an example of the more global reform of the secondary educational system in a comprehensive sense.First I shall outline the new system of secondary education as it took shape in the beginning of the 1970s, thereby focusing on the first two years — the so-called observation stage. I shall then sketch the development of renewed secondary education and the current situation. In this connection I shall deal with the middle school and the innovation strategy that was followed. Thirdly a report will be given of the research so far carried out.As appears from this contribution, the changes in and the adoption of the new educational structure have not always led to a new school structure and a new school culture. In general, the movement towards moderate comprehensiveness has had only a limited effect on the behaviour of the teachers; there are more indications of effects on the school career of the students.     

10 School decentralization and empowerment

School results for children of poverty ‐ those forced by that poverty to live in inner‐city neighbourhoods ‐generally indicate educational failure at a much higher rate than is seen for students nurtured by wealthier school districts. This failure in school severely limits chances of social and economic upward mobility, which translates into a waste of human capital for the nation's business‐industrial‐political complex, and dashed hopes, dreams and self‐esteem for the individual. Parents and concerned citizens from across socio‐economic strata, long aware of the general inadequacy of schools in poor communities, have demanded improvement, often seeking it through legal and political means. Important strategies among the various federal, state and local school reform efforts to make schooling a meaningful process for all students, and particularly the minority poor, are decentralization and citizen/parent empowerment, the focus of this chapter. The movement to decentralize school governance ‐ an effort to place control into the hands of the people being served ‐ has gained momentum and exists in some form in most large‐city school districts today. An extension of administrative decentralization, citizen/parent empowerment is seen as one of several factors, including teacher and administrator preparation, curriculum renewal, school financing, and school restructuring, vital in the improvement of schools. A look at the meaning and scope of decentralization, operationalized through citizen/parent empowerment, and its probable effectiveness in improving school outcomes indicates that, alone, it is insufficient to ensure positive academic and social performance in school.