On the politics of performance in South African education: Autonomy, accountability and assessment

The South African obsession with performance-based pedagogies, as I have shown, has negative implications for resolving equity problems in educational reforms; it threatens to negate a political debate about ‘goals’ in favour of a technician’s debate about ‘ends’; and it fragments knowledge into meaningless tasks that assign value to external behaviours rather than the multiplicity of ways in which learning and valuing can be experienced (if not always expressed). The real danger to building a strong democratic culture through education is that what should be vibrant debates about ‘what’s worth knowing’ could be effectively silenced in a performance assessment system that only values, through a complex assessment system, that which is worth doing. Such an understanding of education is, unfortunately, entrenched in a global network of economic and technological processes that make such pursuits appear both normal and inevitable.     

Coming to terms with the accountability versus improvement debate in assessment

Concerns about quality and accountability in higher education have led the majority of states to mandate student outcomes assessment. While many institutions have begun to address these requirements as matters of accountability, discussion in most state capitals seems to be more about program improvement than about summative evaluation. These dichotomous perspectives frame a fundamental debate over the nature and direction of the assessment movement in the United States. Accountability and improvement are twin concerns of effective assessment, but their coexistence depends upon the resolution of suspicions and different interpretations of the mission of higher education between state and institutional authorities.     

Autonomy versus affirmative action: What price social justice?

This study measures all the marginal direct and indirect costs of an affirmative action/equal employment opportunity (AA/EEO) program at a single institution through cost analysis procedures identifying cost generating variables in three categories: personnel, operating expenses, and capital outlay replacement value. Costs were weighed against benefits, as measured by number of women and minorities hired. Since costs and benefits should be evaluated only in relation to effectiveness of implementation procedures, program administration was assessed through a series of interviews with faculty chairs. Total compliance costs incurred for the university in one budget cycle amounted to 0.4% of the total institutional budget, and the great majority of these costs were expended indirectly, in faculty time. Representation of women and minorities was increased by approximately 1.9%, despite lack of strong leadership from the central administration and haphazard program administration. Although the costs incurred in implementing AA/EEO are negliglible compared to other social justice legislation, educators still decry its expense. Thus, we argue that educators are not concerned with the actual dollar outlay for AA/ EEO but instead use its intangible educational costs as a symbolic issue in their struggle with the state over university autonomy.     

学习者自主与教师自主性

在外语学习中，自主学习观念已经深入人心，但自主性已经不是一个仅仅属于学习者的概念。今天，探讨学习者自主性已经把教师自主性当作一个不可或缺的有机部分。作者在分析两个概念的基础上，探讨了两者的关系：学习者自主依靠教师自主，教师自主发展可促进学习者自主。     

教师自主及其对学习者自主的培养

学习者自主一直是近年来的热门话题,但必须认识到只有教师自主才能达到真正的学习者自主,教师自主是学生自主的前提。本文从教师自主概念出发,分析了自主型教师的信念及其作用,并提出自主型教师如何促进学习者自主。在此基础上对高职院校的英语教师自主情况进行了问卷调查并进行了分析,结果发现高职院校英语教师的自主状况另人堪忧,呼吁教育界关注教师自主。     

试论民初“联省自治”思潮中的地方自治思想

1920—1923年代的＂联省自治＂思潮与该时期中国社会的政治发展有着密切联系。该思潮的核心理念是＂分权＂和＂自治＂,在这一理念的指导下时人对中央与地方权力的关系、省自治以及省范围内的直接民权等进行了规划,这些规划中所蕴含的＂地方自治＂思想为当代我国民主政治建设提供了有益的思考。     

The anatomy of accountability

This discussion reconsiders issues of educational accountability. To do so, I report on a qualitative case study of a public elementary school that identified how a model of educational accountability threatened to punish educators through a sophisticated network of surveillance. Data indicated that district personnel used standardized tests to monitor teachers in attempts to coerce them into accepting normalizing judgments of their practice. The study also described the surveillance within the school, including strategies by curriculum developers, reading facilitators, parents, and the principal to monitor teachers’ work. The analysis examined the effects surveillance had on participants and described the ways teachers amplified the effects of surveillance in the school. The analysis rethinks such punitive accountability practices and suggests replacing them with opportunities for teacher education and teacher learning.     

论自主学习

外语教学的发展越来越趋向于以学生为中心的学习方式.本文主要从教学发展的规律,教学流派的演变,外语教学中存在的误区论述了近年来国外外语界出现的全新的教学理念--学生自主学习.就此,本文提出了我国实施"自主学习"方式的可能性和必要性.     

围绕学生自主 创新教师自主

教师自主已经成为一个伴随学习者自主讨论的深入而产生的崭新的概念。在探讨学习者自主性的过程中已经把教师自主性当作一个不可或缺的组成部分。本文围绕学生自主,探讨了教师自主的内涵;揭示了教师自主的误区;浅谈了教师自主的启示。旨在深化我国大学英语教学改革中创新教师自主性,提高英语教学效果,以适应新的外语教学模式发展的要求。     

关于我国行政问责文化的思考

行政问责制是我国行政体制改革的新亮点。要建立科学、合理、实效、法治的行政问责制,除了制度的构建外,还需要行政问责文化的建设。行政问责文化有其独特的内涵及特征,在构建行政问责机制中的作用逐步彰显,但现阶段行政问责文化建设滞后的现象不容忽视,其缺失有着深刻的原因,建设行政问责文化仍是一项重大课题。     

外语学习中的学习者自主与教师自主

外语教学中日益注重培养学习者自主性,这就要求人们重新审视学习者和教师之间的关系,以期促进外语教学由"如何教"转变为"如何学"。