Market Ideology and Accountability: case studies in the early childhood and special education sectors in New Zealand

ABSTRACT

Conservatism is becoming evident in recent policy changes affecting some sectors in the New Zealand education system, such as the early childhood and special education sectors. An administrative mechanism called ‘contestability’ by the Treasury is used to encourage new providers to compete with services traditionally offered by the welfare state. The author argues that this introduced competition has meant women in particular, and Maori, have suffered setbacks to their progress towards better life chances.

Two models of ‘contestability’ are described and analysed in these case studies. The analyses show that the implementation of the models has been problematic and strenuously resisted by teachers and others. Teachers (and parents) are not comfortable with being thrust into the role of consumer as competition is created by the state.

Michael Apple's theory about Market Liberals reconstructing our ideas about managing inequality is used to explain the persistence of decision‐makers in the face of resistance.     

Development of School Attendance Difficulties: An Exploratory Study

This article discusses aspects of school attendance difficulties, focusing on why a minority of children decide to miss school. It is an exploratory study representing a developmental approach that aims to establish the immediate determinants of school absence to gain more understanding of the nature of attendance difficulties and eventually inform practitioner methods. Questionnaires, designed to measure attitudes, perceptions and parent–child interaction over school absence were administered to two hundred and nine 12–13 year olds attending a comprehensive school. Thirty-five individual interviews were carried out with good and poor attenders to clarify the questionnaire responses. It was concluded that school attendance difficulties develop like other defiant behaviour problems, with parental reaction playing a major role. Government policies encouraging the use of punitive measures with parents of poor attenders do not provide practitioners or pastoral staff with the sophisticated working methods necessary to help poor attending children achieve an education.     

Creating a learner-centered teaching environment using student choice in assignments

Learner-centered teaching (LCT) has been found to be a more effective pedagogy for online students, as traditional teaching methods do not work well in online courses. Professors in an upper-level technology management class revised their online introductory course to incorporate cafeteria-style grading. This LCT approach allowed students to select assignments they wanted to complete. More assignments were offered than needed to achieve an A grade. They included traditional projects such as research papers as well as more engaged activities such as demonstrating or mastering skills. To determine whether these changes promoted active learning, course data were obtained and analyzed. Students completed a range of assignments, showed mastery on a number of skills, and were overwhelmingly positive about having flexible options. Tellingly, 36% of students completed more assignments than were needed to earn the top grade.     

Assessing the Sensitivity of Weighted Least Squares Model Fit Indexes to Local Dependence in Item Response Theory Models

Given the relationships of item response theory (IRT) models to confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) models, IRT model misspecifications might be detectable through model fit indexes commonly used in categorical CFA. The purpose of this study is to investigate the sensitivity of weighted least squares with adjusted means and variance (WLSMV)-based root mean square error of approximation, comparative fit index, and Tucker–Lewis Index model fit indexes to IRT models that are misspecified due to local dependence (LD). It was found that WLSMV-based fit indexes have some functional relationships to parameter estimate bias in 2-parameter logistic models caused by violations of LD. Continued exploration into these functional relationships and development of LD-detection methods based on such relationships could hold much promise for providing IRT practitioners with global information on violations of local independence.     

Coping strategies for adaptation to new teacher appointments: Intervention for retention

Findings are presented from a qualitative longitudinal collective case study of 29 teachers newly appointed to rural or remote schools in Western Australia. All participants experienced stress and articulated coping strategies in response: direct-action, palliative and avoidant strategies. Where protective structures and processes existed in environments, teachers employed direct-action problem-solving strategies. Avoidant strategies were more common in young and mature-aged novices, rather than experienced teachers.Three critical times were identified to support adaptation: first weeks of appointment for information, first semester for assistance, support, feedback for development of competence and three months before the year-end for stability and certainty.