论省级开放大学办学自主权的合理性

随着《国家中长期教育改革和发展规划纲要（2010-2020年）》的颁布,开放大学的筹建被提上日程,办学自主权是其中关键的一项。开放大学系统不仅面临着国家层面办学自主权的落实,也面临着省级开放大学办学自主权的突破。不管是从开放大学的高等教育属性来看,还是从法理、利益、管理层面等来看,省级开放大学都应该拥有办学自主权。只有重新构建省级办学自主权,兼顾国家开放大学和省级开放大学的利益,才能形成系统改革合力,实现共同的目标。     

Regulatory autonomy and performance: the reform of higher education re-visited

The main aim of this article is to contribute to the understanding of organizational autonomy and control in higher education reform and related expectations as regards the performance of universities. Our analyses draws on principal-agent models as a normative theory of policy reform, and institutionalist approaches in public policy and institutional design as an analytical theory of policy reform. We discuss how the dominant narrative of political reform moves away from traditional beliefs in university autonomy that are built on institutional trust and linked to professional autonomy. In the emerging narrative of political change, autonomy becomes re-defined as the ‘new organizational autonomy’ of universities as both strategic actors and as an addressee of governmental control. The concept of ‘regulatory autonomy’ captures the use of organizational autonomy of universities as a tool of a new regime of governmental control. Exemplified by the Dutch case, we analyze autonomy policies for strengthening managerial discretion and internal control of universities that are combined with regulatory policies for external control that steer organizational choices. Regulatory autonomy thus aims at aligning universities more closely with governmental goals and improve respective performance. Our literature review shows, however, that there is scarce, inconclusive and methodologically problematic evidence for a link between ‘organizational autonomy and performance’. We point at promising avenues for further research on autonomy and performance as two core concepts in the contemporary higher education debate.     

大学内部管理改革的渐进策略与适宜逻辑——以某省T大学近年的两级管理变革为例

T大学是S省的一所省属重点综合性大学,该校在近年开展了以调整校院两级管理方式为核心的改革,其主要目的是给予院系更大的自主性以调动院系的积极性。这次改革将两级管理的改革与岗位聘任结合在一起,改革的主要内容都涉及师资问题,如院系教师合适的数量,教师工作量核算以及教师职称晋升标准等。案例描述了这次改革的背景、改革的相关内容,重点探讨了管理改革过程中围绕着大学中学校与院系、教学与科研、学术与行政之间的关系展开的博弈过程及相关方的权力地位的变化情况。     

Policy implementation within the frame of school-based curriculum: a comparison of public school and Islamic private school teachers in East Java,Indonesia

This paper describes research on how curriculum reform provides novel conditions for influencing teacher professionalism. It draws on Bernstein’s theories of the ‘classification and framing’ of curriculum and theories of teacher professionalism to investigate the impact of curriculum reform on teacher professionalism. The research was conducted in Indonesia during the implementation of a school-based curriculum that grants teachers greater autonomy to develop curricula appropriate to their context. A second concurrent reform introduced a character education policy that requires all teachers to address a specific set of values in all classes. Teachers working in public and Islamic private secondary schools were interviewed to investigate the degree of professionalism they exercised when implementing these reforms. Although theories of curriculum reform suggest that the higher degree of autonomy offered by a school-based curriculum has the potential to re-professionalise teachers, this study observed different outcomes for teachers in different workforce environments in Indonesia.     

Family,schools and Taiwanese children's outcomes

Background Educational reform is a major challenge facing schools in Taiwan. The new educational reform requires that every primary school must have parental involvement programmes in their school schedules, and to support these new programmes, there is a need for research to examine the extent and nature of parental involvement in primary schools in Taiwan, and to investigate the impact of parental involvement on pupil outcomes.

Purpose The purpose of the study was to examine the extent to which parents' involvement in schooling is related to primary pupil outcomes, after taking into account differences in family social status and family structure, and the children's perceptions of their school learning environments.

Sample For the analyses data were collected in 2001 from 261 6th-grade Taiwanese students, 128 boys and 133 girls, from four primary schools in the Taichung City school district. The average age of the children was approximately 11 years.

Design and methods In the analysis of the research model, a quantitative approach was adopted, in which each student completed two questionnaires and two academic achievement tests. The first questionnaire included questions to assess family social status, family structure and parents' involvement in their children's education. In the second questionnaire there were questions to measure pupils' self-concept and perceptions of their schools' learning environments. The data were analysed using multiple-regression techniques to examine relationships among family social status, family structure, parental involvement, the school learning environment and pupils' school-related outcomes.

Results The findings suggested that: (a) children's academic achievement is related to their family social status and perceptions of immediate family learning environments, and (b) children's self-concept is associated with their perceptions of classroom learning environments, parents' aspirations and parents' involvement at home. These propositions indicate the differential nature of the relationships among family and school environments and measures of children's school outcomes.

Conclusions In the Taiwanese context, by showing the particularly important association between Taiwanese family environments and children's school outcomes, the present investigation supports the educational reform movement that encourages schools to involve parents more intimately in shared responsibilities.     

Science education: a (pending) chapter in the curriculum transformation in Argentina

The article documents the complex process of changing Argentina’s science curriculum and implementing those changes over the last 15 years. It recounts how reformers tackled the challenges of balancing national (federal) unity in education with local (provincial) autonomy from the political, social and pedagogical points of view. It also analyzes various attempts to improve science education in Argentina from the viewpoint of their relevance to current developments in various areas of scientific knowledge and human action. In Argentina the effort to ensure equal opportunities for learners at the federal level led to a strong emphasis on developing Common Basic Contents (CBC) for both primary and secondary education. These contents were seen as fundamental components of the competencies that students need in a world increasingly driven by science and technology. Meanwhile, however, Argentina lacked adequate and sustainable policies and strategies for teacher education and training, which led to an unexpected complication: while the curriculum development process led to diverse and sometimes quite sophisticated curriculum documents, the actual quality of science teaching in the classroom did not improve significantly, and teachers still felt the need for more support before they could effectively implement the new science curriculum. The article ends by suggesting ways in which various stakeholders can work together intensively to improve science education in Argentina, in a new process that will respond to the current situation.

The role of mediating organizations for school reform: independent agents or district dependents?

This paper examines the role of mediating organizations in helping schools engage in whole school change as part of a school district's reform agenda. Specifically, it examines the Learning Community Program in Los Angeles, a programme designed by an external school reform organization, to assist schools in planning and implementing LEARN (Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now). The programme's success is shaped by the district and school contexts in which it operates. As mediating agent, the Learning Community Program must balance the challenges facing the schools ‐‐ particularly their readiness to engage in reform ‐‐ with the demands of the district for scale, accountability and resources. As it does so, it faces the challenges of maintaining program flexibility, building sustainable changes, and preserving its organizational independence. These pressures generate three central dilemmas and threaten to undermine the success of the district's reform and the Learning Community Program ‐‐ scale versus sustainability, district mandates versus site autonomy, and organizational independence versus survival. It concludes that mediating agencies can be constrained by their dependence on policymakers for critical resources.     

Professional community and the problem of high school reform

A two-year qualitative study of mathematics and English teachers in two urban comprehensive high schools investigated how teacher community serves as resource for teacher development and school reform. A school engaged in whole-school reform sustained high teacher commitment and school-level community by constituting professional community strongly at the school level, but its departments displayed varying capacity and disposition to examine problems of teaching and learning at the classroom level. In the second school, innovative teacher communities were constituted strongly at the department level in English and mathematics, but suffered problems of stress and turnover due to weak organizational supports for teacher development and school reform. Findings point both to the potential contribution of professional communities situated in subject departments and the challenge of capitalizing on such communities to advance whole-school reform. The study suggests complex relationships among organizational context, teacher community, teacher development, and institutional reform.     

Towards a new cartography of curriculum reform: Reflections on educational decentralization in Argentina

Curriculum reforms have led to discursive and organizational changes in Argentina. These reforms have reshaped school knowledge and institutional patterns of school administration. We analyse the process of this 'curriculum reterritorialization', the contradictions and displacements it produces, and the hybrid products that result from it. Reterritorialization is traced through four interrelated movements: the hybridization of discourses; the design of new maps of relations between the centre and the periphery of the educational system; the new 'regime of truth' that emerges out of these changes; and the role of the intellectual in educational reform. Although they are different in scope and magnitude, these movements provide the tools required to analyse the many ways in which curriculum reform is transforming Argentina's educational experiences.     

指向教师专业发展的学校组织变革

新时代教师专业发展在发展主体、发展内容和发展形式上都有了新的变化,基础教育阶段学校组织的现实状况已凸显出与教师专业性之间的矛盾,迫切需要进行变革。从学理层面分析,促进教师专业发展的学校组织的理想样态是扁平化的组织结构、从"成事"到"成人"的运行机制和合作型的组织文化。"学术管理"机制提供了一种基于"专业取向"的学校组织变革理论思路。辽宁省实验学校引入学术管理机制,分三个阶段进行了学校组织变革的路径探索。学校通过增设学术型组织,完善组织架构和运行机制,给教师领袖增权赋能,实现了校本教研的顶层设计和集团化办学中优质教育资源的共享,促进了教师的专业发展和教师团队整体素质的提升。     

A Cross Canada Inventory: Evidence of 21st Century Educational Reform in Canada

This paper reports on an initial website review of Ministries of Education, provincial teacher associations and select school jurisdictions across Canada with respect to their publically available and visible policy commitments to 21st century educational reforms. This review was conducted for the purposes of drawing conclusions about the current state of these reform efforts in Canada and, consequently, to provide implications for the future. Through the implementation of thematic analysis findings revealed that the publically available 21st century reform policy of provincial Ministries of Education tended to be best described by one of three frames: the futurist frame, the political frame and the teacher as change agent frame.     

Social capital practices as adaptive drivers for local adjustment of new public management in schools

New public management (NPM) reforms have typically undermined teachers’ autonomy, values, and status in society. This article questions whether such reforms automatically have these outcomes or whether and how possibilities for local adjustment of such reforms may prevent negative outcomes. Drawing on empirical case studies from two Danish municipal schools and the concept of organisational social capital, we investigate how two reform initiatives – ‘student plan-based school–home collaboration’ and ‘teamwork’ – were locally adjusted into collaborative practices. The analysis demonstrates surprising local adjustments of the reform initiatives, while also revealing some ambiguities. The results demonstrate that some reform initiatives can lead to new collaborative leadership and management practices in schools that solve the central school leadership and management tasks of coordination and planning. This indicates that collaborative leadership and management practices may emerge from NPM reforms, and that such practices can prevent negative outcomes of such reforms.     

论少数民族地区高校内部管理机制创新

在21世纪知识经济快速发展与西部大开发的背景下，西部少数民族地区高校的内部管理机制必须与时俱进。要按管理职能创新组织结构；以人力资源管理改革为突破口，创新支撑保障机制；以扩大办学自主权为核心探索股份制运作机制。     

Perceived autonomy support,relatedness with students,and workplace outcomes: an investigation of differences by teacher gender

Abstract

We examined the role of gender in teachers’ perceived autonomy support (PAS), relatedness with students, workplace buoyancy, and organizational commitment. With 276 Australian secondary school teachers, structural equation modelling showed predominant similarities across gender in associations between PAS, relatedness, buoyancy, and commitment. For example, for both female and male teachers, PAS predicted greater relatedness with students and both factors were positively associated with organizational commitment. However, there were some noteworthy differences across teacher gender. For example, relatedness with students was positively associated with buoyancy for male teachers only. In addition, findings showed that male teachers reported higher levels of workplace buoyancy.     

Classroom,Home and Peer Environment Influences on Student Outcomes in Science and Mathematics: An analysis of systemic reform data

Using secondary analysis of a large database from a Statewide Systemic Initiative, we examined the effects of several types of environments on student outcomes. Over 3 years, nearly 7,000 students in 392 classes in 200 different schools responded to a questionnaire that assesses class, home, and peer environments as well as student attitudes. Students also completed an achievement measure that, developed by scientists, teachers, and science educators, was not aligned with any particular curriculum. Students were enrolled in middle‐school science and mathematics classes in schools that had participated in the Statewide Systemic Initiative. Rasch analyses allowed us to compare across student cohorts and across schools. Findings confirmed the importance of extending research on classroom learning environments to include the learning environments of the home and the peer group. Although all three environments accounted for statistically significant amounts of unique variance in student attitudes, only the class environment (defined in terms of the frequency of use of standards‐based teaching practices) accounted for statistically significant amounts of unique variance in student achievement scores. The findings are supported by other studies of systemic reform in the United States.     

Transforming American High Schools: Possibilities for the Next Phase of High School Reform

The next phase of high school reform is ripe with possibilities. Over the last 3 decades, educational research has identified a number of promising and effective high school models. Research demonstrates the benefits of career academies and early college schools. Schools that offer small, personalized environments; comprehensive approaches to schoolwide instruction and operations; and integrated opportunities to experience career and college have exhibited positive impacts on labor market outcomes, student achievement, or high school graduation. Guided by advances in research of high school reform and recent education policy, leaders and funders of reform and educational innovations should seek to further integrate structural arrangements and instructional practices with local employers and higher education institutions. Reforms should also search for ways to accelerate rapid and dramatic improvements in school performance.     

国家开放大学和省级开放大学办学自主权的诉求与构建

随着《国家中长期教育改革和发展规划纲要（2010—2020年）》的颁布,开放大学的筹建被提上日程,办学自主权是其中关键的一项。从理论和现实看,国家开放大学和省级开放大学在办学自主权上都有自身的诉求,也均有其合理性,科学构建国家开放大学和省级开放大学的办学自主权,明确权利和义务,才能形成系统改革合力,实现共同的目标。     

Families,Schools, and Aspirations

The study examined relations between adolescents’ perceptions of school environments and their educational and occupational aspirations at different family environment levels. Data were collected from 16-year-old Australians from Anglo-Australian, Greek, and Southern Italian families. Regression surfaces were constructed from models that examined possible linear, interaction, and curvilinear relations among the variables. Generally, the findings indicate that while the school environment measure had moderate concurrent validities in relation to aspirations, it had either negligible or modest unique associations with aspirations after taking into account the family environment influences. The study did indicate, however, ethnic group differences in the relationships among the variables which suggests that results from investigations of family-school influences on children’s school outcomes should not necessarily be generalized across social groups.     

试论校本管理中学校自主权的实现

校本管理已成为学校管理改革的一个世界性热点。在我国,随着新一轮基础教育课程改革的推进,也在逐步推行校本管理。如何能够使校本管理不流于形式,真正实现理念到行动的转变,我们的当务之急就是完善学校的管理,在学校管理中落实学校自主权。包括:教育行政机关的放权、学校自主权的展现、领导者如何适应校本管理的角色以及参与式管理中各主体自主性的发挥。     

The effects of autonomy gap in personnel policy,principal leadership and teachers’ self-efficacy on their organizational commitment

School autonomy in personnel policy is important to effective personnel management. With increased autonomy in personnel policy, principals could wield their leadership to improve teachers’ organizational commitment. However, little is known about whether the given autonomy in personnel policy meets principals’ expectation and whether and how the gap in between has an effect on teachers’ organizational commitment. This research explores the effects of autonomy gap in personnel policy, principal leadership, teachers’ self-efficacy and school contextual factors on teachers’ organizational commitment. Multilevel analysis was used. The results show the effects of autonomy gap in personnel policy differ among areas. In particular, the autonomy gap in salary was found to be a significant antecedent of teachers’ organizational commitment. The results also highlight the importance of principal leadership in this process. Principals with a stronger leadership tend to perceive generally a larger autonomy gap in personnel policy. In addition, when transformational leadership increased, its positive influence on teachers’ organizational commitment became even stronger. Implications for developing efficacious leadership and autonomy policy in personnel management were discussed.