Complexity, Accountability, and School Improvement

Abstract

In this article, Jennifer O'Day builds on her earlier work defining and examining the standards-based reform movement in the United States. Here, O'Day explores accountability mechanisms currently associated with standards-based reform efforts that "take the school as the unit of accountability and seek to improve student learning by improving the functioning of the school organization." She examines such accountability mechanisms using the theoretical framework of complexity theory and focuses on how information travels through complex systems, with the understanding that information, its existence and usage, is key to improving schools. Drawing on work conducted with researchers at the Consortium for Policy Research in Education(CPRE), she contrasts the Chicago Public Schools' outcomes-based bureaucratic accountability approach with the combination of administrative and professional accountability found in the Baltimore City Schools. She argues that the combination of administrative and professional accountability presents a much more promising approach for implementing lasting and meaningful school reform.

Quality and Equality in American Education: Systemic Problems, Systemic Solutions

“…They also differ in the makeup of both the adult and the student populations in their systems and the histories that each of these groups has had with schooling, inequality, and change. Varying cultures, conditions, and structures across organizational units and systems can infl uence the ways in which local actors interpret and act on any given reform or intervention (O'Day 2002(O'Day , 2008Spillane et al 2006 ). Weatherly and Lipsky's ( 1977 ) seminal piece on "street-level bureaucrats," which examined variation across three districts in their implementation of special education in Massachusetts, spawned a host of increasingly sophisticated analyses of the causes and manifestations of contextual variation in implementation.…”

Social Reporting in Italian Public Schools in Theory and Practice

“…This confirms the hostility of Italian schools towards tests and their evaluation uses, imputing to them the limit to be an overly simplistic nature of a very complex reality (O'Day, 2002;Soder, 2004;Jacob, 2005;Sahlberg, 2010;Paletta, 2011).…”

“…Although several empirical studies show that centralized tests can be considered a synthetic and valid assessment and reporting tool of school management, as well as a useful tool to increase students' learning performance (Carnoy & Loeb, 2002;Hanushek & Raymond, 2006;Schütz et al, 2007), there are studies that highlight some problems with standardized testing. Several studies, in fact, show that an accountability system, focused on standardized tests, is not an accurate mean to assess the education-training function of schools (Stecher et al, 1998;Linn, 2000;O'Day, 2002;Jacob & Levitt, 2003;Wallace & Hoyle, 2007;INVALSI, 2010). Furthermore, the publication of test results cannot be considered an effective way to meet the information needs of schools' stakeholders (Klein et al, 2000;Soder, 2004;Jacob, 2005;Hamilton & Stecher, 2006;Webb, 2006;Heilig & Darling-Hammond, 2008;Nichols & Berliner, 2007).…”

Developing a school based model for optimising the professional development of Canadian primary school teachers

“…A conventional system of International Journal of Learning & Development ISSN 2164-4063 2012 www.macrothink.org/ijld teacher development such as completing additional degrees (Frost, Durrant, Head & Holden, 2000;Meier, 1995) attending curriculum theory-based workshops (Delong, Black, and Wideman, 2005;Hannay, Wideman and Seller, 2006) and the teacher performance appraisal (Blankstein, 2004;Fullan, 2001;Parkay, Stanford, Vaillancourt & Stephens, 2005) has called for improved methods of teacher development that integrates training at the school level to meet the demands of the contemporary classroom. Methods of teacher development such as action research (Calhoun, 1994;Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005;Delong, Black & Wideman, 2005) involving the interaction structure of professional learning community meetings (DuFour & Eaker, 1998;Hannay, Wideman & Seller, 2006;O'Day, 2002) can be supported and maintained through approaches such as peer coaching (Blasé & Blasé, 1998;Joyce & Showers, 1995) and informal discussions on improving teacher performance (Pitt, 2011;Pitt & Kirkwood, 2009). …”