Testing Times: The need for new intelligent accountabilities for schooling
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Dr Bob Lingard
Testing Times: The need for new
intelligent accountabilities for schooling
The advent of the Rudd federal
Labor government has seen the
strengthening of the national
presence in schooling. This includes
new national accountabilities, a
national curriculum and a range
of national partnerships between
the federal government and the
states and territories. Recently, the
Australian Curriculum, Assessment
and Reporting Authority (ACARA)
has been established to oversee
these national involvements. These
national engagements have grown
out of a new cooperative federalism
in respect of schooling, facilitated
– at least in the early stages of
the Rudd government – by Labor
governments in all the states and
territories.
Apart from investment in school
infrastructure, the most obvious
manifestation of the strengthened to the socio-economic context of each Government’s response to Queensland’s
national presence in schooling and new school and expenditure at the school. apparently “poor performance” on
national accountabilities is the National While contextualised data will be more NAPLAN in 2008, for example establishing
Assessment Program – Literacy and useful for policy interventions, there are the Masters Review, demonstrates that
Numeracy (NAPLAN). NAPLAN entails good reasons to be sceptical, especially the tests have become high-stakes. One
yearly full-cohort standardised testing in about the impact of the creation of league likely outcome of these high-stakes tests
literacy and numeracy at years 3, 5, 7 and tables on poorer performing schools, and consequential accountability is an
9, conducted in all schools in Australia. many of which are located in the poorest “uninformed systemic prescription”
The outcomes of these results gain a great communities. In particular, it looks like the from above and mistrust of teachers and
deal of media coverage, and provoke initial publication later this year of NAPLAN schools, ushering in an “uninformed
cross-state and cross-school comparisons. results on the internet will provide only professionalism” (Schleicher, 2008).
Over the coming months, the federal raw data – with all the dangerous and
Bernstein’s (1971) sociology of the
government will also release “like school” potentially negative effects that flow
curriculum demonstrated the ways in
measures, comparing school performance from this. This approach reveals a tension
which the three message systems of
for policy and practice interventions. They between the government’s commitment
schooling – curriculum, pedagogy and
will also prepare league tables of school to transparency in reporting school
evaluation – sit in symbiotic relationships
performance on NAPLAN. performance on national testing and good
with each other, with change in one
public policy making, which necessarily
The Federal Education Minister, Julia affecting the practices of the others. In
takes account of diverse contextual factors.
Gillard, like all relevant stakeholders, policy terms across recent times, the
agrees that these league tables should Despite claims to the contrary, NAPLAN evaluation message system – or more
not be constructed simply around raw tests have quickly become high-stakes, specifically high-stakes, census testing
results. Instead, she says, the results with all the potentially negative effects on at national levels – has become the
should be contextualised in a number of pedagogies and curricula (Stobbart, 2008, major steering mechanism of schooling
sophisticated ways, especially in relation Hursh, 2008, QSA, 2009). The Queensland systems (Rizvi and Lingard, 2010). This has
QTU Professional Magazine November 2009 – 13had a profound impact on curricula and upon teachers as the sole source and ambitions regarding a national curriculum.
pedagogies, especially in the UK (or, more solution to all schooling problems Surprisingly, to date, there has not
accurately, England) and in the USA, where • reject a narrow construction of school been a strong professional or academic
schooling has been driven by high-stakes league tables and a name, blame and voice defending this progressive and
testing and consequential accountability. shame approach evident in the English educationally valuable form of secondary
As Stobbart (2008, p.24) notes: schooling policy context assessment.
“A key purpose of assessment, particularly • recognise the centrality of informed Research (e.g., Lingard et al, 2001) has
in education, has been to establish and teacher judgement and quality of demonstrated that upper secondary
raise standards of learning. This is now pedagogies to achieving better teachers in Queensland are highly
a virtually universal belief – it is hard learning outcomes for all students assessment-literate. School-based,
to find a country that is not using the • recognise the need to address teacher-moderated senior assessment has
rhetoric of needing assessment to raise poverty so as to facilitate more equal been a profound form of ongoing teacher
standards in response to the challenges of educational outcomes. professional development and learning,
globalisation.” characterised by informed professionalism
There is still time for Australia to forego and teacher judgement. Unfortunately,
This has become a globalised educational the deficiencies so evident in the UK and research has also demonstrated that this
policy discourse: the evaluation message US in respect of high-stakes testing and assessment-literacy does not stretch
system has taken the upper hand in many their negative and reductive effects on to other parts of the schooling system
schooling systems around the world. schools, students, teachers and learning – (Lingard et al, 2001). This Queensland
However, we also need to recognise that but we need to act now. approach is atypical in the Australian
national and provincial uptake of this
senior secondary schooling context, with
discourse always occurs in vernacular Queensland
only the ACT operating under a similar
ways mediated by local histories, politics
Despite years of conservative government regime. Across all other levels of schooling,
and cultures. Witness, for example,
in Queensland (1957-1989), education however, the professional judgement of
how educational federalism mediates
in the state has had many distinctive teachers has been central to dominant
all schooling policy developments
progressive features in respect of assessment practices and reporting until
around national curriculum and testing
assessment and other features of quite recently.
in Australia, even when there is political
schooling. The first was the abolition of
alignment across the tiers of government. From the late 1990s, Queensland also saw
all public examinations following the
a plethora of progressive changes and
In this article, I consider the impact of
these new accountabilities, set against an There is still time for reforms in schooling. The Queensland
School Reform Longitudinal Study
account and evaluation of the negative
effects of similar policy regimes in the Australia to forego (Lingard et al, 2001) documented
pedagogies that made a difference to
UK and the USA. In calling for better
policy learning and rejecting blind the deficiencies so student learning across various curriculum
domains and year levels of schooling,
policy borrowing, I argue the need for
new educational accountabilities, linked
evident in the UK naming the productive pedagogies.
Productive pedagogies were intellectually
to a new social imaginary of the place of and US demanding, connected, supportive, yet
schooling and future society. Evidence from
Radford Report of 1969. Since the early demanding, and worked with and valued
the highest performing schools systems,
1970s, senior secondary assessment in differences. These pedagogies were
such as Finland and Korea, suggests the
Queensland has been school-based and geared to achieving better academic and
need for “informed prescription” at the
teacher-moderated with a core skills test social outcomes from schooling for all
systemic level and support for “informed
providing the final element of moderation, students. Following the QSRLS, Professor
professionalism” at the school level within
adding another dimension of equity and Allan Luke, a researcher on the QSRLS, was
a culture of trust, innovation and on-going
accountability to the system. The core seconded as Deputy Director-General to
learning for all in schools (Schleicher, 2008).
skills test assesses students’ capacities in the state department and given a remit to
We need more sophisticated and intelligent
relation to core curriculum goals of senior rethink schooling, particularly in relation
forms of school accountability, which:
secondary school curricula. In this way, to the message systems of curriculum,
• recognise the reciprocal responsibilities pedagogy and assessment for the twenty-
of all actors, including governments, the core skills test is unusual in that its
first century.
systems, schools, communities and effects on pedagogy have been to stretch
parents teaching, curricula and students, rather This led to the New Basics trial, which
than reducing them to a lowest common developed a new trial curriculum for
• acknowledge the broad purposes of
denominator. This system is highly schooling from years 1-9, to be aligned
schooling
lauded by assessment experts across with productive pedagogies and
• reject the view that improved test the globe – ironically, with less positive assessment practices called rich tasks. The
results on NAPLAN are indicative of evaluations across Australia. The Howard rich tasks were exemplary of their kind,
improved schooling or a more socially government, for example, was critical of involving assessment experts such as Dr
just school system this approach, desiring a return to public Gabrielle Matters in their construction.
• reject the top-down, one-way gaze exams in Queensland, perhaps linked to The rich tasks were geared to ensuring
14 – QTU Professional Magazine November 2009high intellectual demand in pedagogies policy learning and accountability, but but numbers-driven global league tables
and assessment practices, which were the emphasis within this NPM is on exist in countless domains (universities
more closely aligned with high order outcomes – especially outcomes that can are an example). In relation to schooling:
curriculum goals. Also central to the New be measured. think, for example, of the Organisation
Basics was an attempt to align curriculum, for Economic Co-operation and
This forces us to face head-on all of the
pedagogy and assessment. The Development’s (OECD’s) Programme for
difficulties of measurement associated
experiment recognised that investment in International Student Assessment (PISA)
with schooling, particularly in relation
teachers (both pre-service and in-service) and the International Association for the
to measuring teaching and learning
and their professional knowledges and Evaluation of Educational Achievement’s
outcomes. Schools have both long-
skills was central to enhancing learning (IEA’s) Trends in International Mathematics
term and short-term goals and both are
outcomes for all students across primary and Science Study (TIMSS) and Progress
broader than test results. However, given
and secondary schools and, importantly, in International Reading Literacy Study
the current fetish for outcome measures,
for achieving more socially just outcomes (PIRLS). There has thus been a globalising
measurement has become critical in
across schools serving different socio- of the policy-as-numbers approach: today
policy and accountabilities, with the
economic communities. the “global eye” and the “national eye”
implicit danger of measuring what is easy
The evaluation of the New Basics trial was to measure, rather than what is significant govern together through comparison
very positive and affirming, documenting in terms of educational quality. This is, of (Novoa and Yariv Marshal, 2003).
its positive effects on the intellectual course, a danger and difficulty in all forms Global measures create a worldwide
demands and effects of schooling. Again, of measurement. And those in education commensurate space of measurement,
this was a reform in primary and lower know only too well that what is counted is while testing such as NAPLAN does the
secondary assessment practices that what ultimately counts. same at national level. Global and within-
was lauded around the globe. As but nation comparisons are today a central
There is the additional problem picked feature of governance.
one example, I have recently worked
up by the old aphorism that “you don’t
in Scotland, where a number of the Global measures are also linked to
fatten a pig by weighing it”. A focus on
country’s most elite independent schools, globalisation and the emergence of a
improving test scores can lead simply to
some government schools and one local post-Westphalian1 political reality. These
enhanced capacity to take tests, rather
authority are basing their assessment global restructurings have precipitated
than enhanced and authentic learning.
practices on the rich tasks that emerged a reworking of national sovereignty
Indeed, elsewhere in this magazine, the
from the Queensland experiment. and the role of the nation-state. This is
Queensland Studies Authority documents
The advent of NAPLAN as high-stakes the well-researched and negative effects especially true with respect to economic
testing and the state government of high-stakes testing: reducing the self- globalisation, but is also obvious in the
responses have challenged these esteem and commitment to learning of enhanced policy relevance of international
progressive reforms. In the longer term, lower-achieving students; promoting organisations to national policy making
the national curriculum also represents shallow rather than deep conceptual and educational policy discourses.
a potential challenge to the Queensland learning through teaching to the test; This is more than older forms of policy
form of school-based, teacher-moderated, and misinterpretation of test results as borrowing; it is also a trend towards global
upper-secondary assessment. demonstrating improved learning rather convergence, at least in macro educational
than improved test-taking abilities. The policy terms and the ways in which we talk
The policy context of new twenty-first century demands high order about educational policy. Schooling, and
educational accountabilities outcomes for all students in terms of the more broadly education, are seen to have
individual purposes of schooling and as their central purposes the production
Accountability literally means to give of the requisite quantity and quality of
in terms of opportunity, economic and
an account. In arguing for intelligent human capital within a given nation.
democratic outcomes; it does not require
accountabilities, I employ this definition. That human capital is in turn regarded as
schooling reduced to better test taking.
However, “accountabilities”, as they necessary to ensuring the international
have been constructed by governments More broadly, the NPM “steers at a competitiveness of the national economy
over the last two decades, have been distance” in a culture of low trust of
(the boundaries of which, of course, are
linked to a range of changes, including those street level professionals who
melting into a global economy).
the new public management (NPM), deliver public services like schooling.
which has restructured the state and We have seen the emergence of “policy- Policy in education thus has been
its modes of operation. The emphasis as-numbers”, a new empiricism (Rizvi economised. The (neo-liberal) globalisation
now is on outputs and outcomes, rather and Lingard, 2010). There is also a global of the economy and the reworking of
than inputs and processes. Sometimes aspect to this outcome measurement the nation and its political functioning,
the new accountabilities seek to create focus and the new policy-as-numbers. This demand new global comparisons of
input/output equations as forms of is especially true in relation to schooling, student performance as a surrogate
1 The Peace of Westphalia of 1648 set the legal framework for the sovereignty of nations. By ‘post-Westphalian’, I mean the ways in which political
authority today is not only located within the borders of the nation state, but also has been rescaled, creating another layer beyond the nation,
including a large range of international governmental and non-governmental organisations. The nation remains important, obviously, but works in
different ways and with different influences.
QTU Professional Magazine November 2009 – 15measure of the quality of the nation’s spectrum: it often appears that the media schooling has affected the very souls of
schooling, training and university systems. are driving the agenda (particularly in teachers, who feel they can no longer
They demand new forms of outcome relation to transparency), more than the practise authentic pedagogies or authentic
accountability and comparison. While electorate and parent groups. assessment practices aimed at learning
more traditional perceptions of teachers across a wide curriculum, but instead are
The useful concept of performativity
might have seen them as servants of the framed by the evaluation message system
picks up on the distorting effects
state, this policy construction perhaps as mere technicians, implementing a
of the policy-as-numbers approach
reconstitutes teachers as “servants of the centralised and standardised curriculum.
necessitating school league tables. There
global economy” (Menter, 2009, p.225). This changes what it means to be a
is a focus on “being seen to perform”
teacher.
So the global policy convergence in – or fabrication – as much as authentic
schooling has seen the economisation performance and outcomes. This culture The culture of performativity and the
of schooling policy, the emergence of a of performativity is particularly evident distorting impact of high-stakes testing
human capital rationale as meta-policy in the English schooling system, where are also evident in the USA. There, high-
in education, and new accountabilities, markets and NPM have seen policy targets stakes testing (including most recently
including high-stakes testing and policy for improvements structured around at the federal level, the bipartisan No
as numbers, with both global and national national forms of testing. And, as we Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB)) has
features. In this context, Stephen Ball know (see, e.g., Stobbart, 2008; QSA, 2009; also seen a performative distortion of
(2008) has suggested there are three new Hursh, 2008), when a measure becomes a schooling. As Hursh (2008) notes, NCLB
policy technologies at work, for example, target, it seriously distorts the measure. In has led to a decline in the quality of
in English schooling. These technologies teaching and learning in US schools and
include market mechanisms to do with ... we should see the a narrowing of focus in schools serving
consumer choice (in schooling policy, disadvantaged students, which further
school choice), new steering-at-a-distance English situation as disadvantages them in the education and
labour markets.
forms of public management, and what
he calls “performativity”. Ball (2006, p.144)
a warning, not as a
Policy learning: England and
defines performativity in the following system from which Finland
way (here describing it in a generic
fashion, as applied to the working of the to learn England
NPM and its outcomes focus): particular, we need to distinguish between
To this point I have implied the policy
“Performativity is a technology, a culture the short-term and long-term effects of
regime framing schools and schooling
and a mode of regulation that employs high-stakes accountability testing. While
practices in England. To elaborate: in
judgements, comparisons and displays this kind of testing and the professional
England, students sit for standardised
as a means of incentive, control, attrition responses to it can provide gains in the
assessment tests (SATS), linked to the
and change – based on rewards and short-term, and a refocusing on the basics
national curriculum, taken at the end
sanctions (both material and symbolic). of literacy and numeracy, the long-term
of key stage 1 (age 6/year 2), key stage 2
The performance (of individual subjects effects have almost universally been
(age 11/year 6) and key stage 3 (age 14,
or organisations) serves as a measure degrading of schools and teachers’ work,
year 9) in English, maths and science. The
of productivity or output or displays of and it is ultimately counterproductive
SATS at key stage 3 has recently been
‘quality’.” (Stobbart, 2008, p.116). As Stobbart (ibid)
abolished because of the failure of the
notes, the focus on a narrow indicator
As a consequence, struggles over private contractor to deliver analysis of
always “distorts what is going on”. The
educational policy call into question who the test results on time. Students sit for
most benign effect is the culture of
controls the field of judgement – including the General Certificate of Secondary
performativity – being seen to perform
who controls measurement and chooses Education (GCSE) at year 11, with the
and “glossifying” school achievements –
what is measured. Again in Ball’s words government targetting 30 per cent of
while the most venal is outright fabrication
(2006, p.144): “The issue of who controls students gaining an A*-D grade, and
and cheating. To avoid either set of effects
the field of judgement is crucial. One key schools rewarded and punished according
– from the relatively benign through to
to their achievement or otherwise of this
issue of the current educational reform straightforward fabrication – requires that
gold standard target. This is consequential
movement may be seen as struggles over the focus shift to enhancing the quality
accountability at work! “A” levels at the
the control of the field of judgement and of teaching and learning. This in turn
end of schooling provide another set of
its values”. demands a culture of trust of teachers and
league tables of school performance. All of
investment in the enhancement of teacher
This is clearly evident in contemporary this has seen the rejection of mixed-ability
skills and capacities.
Australia around debates about national teaching and the use of tight streaming in
forms of testing and accountability: there The erosion of trust in teachers also – all schools, as well as a triage effect, with
is a dichotomy between measurement obviously enough – affects teachers’ schools focusing on those students close
and evaluation driven by the profession professional lives and sense of professional to achieving test or exam targets. What we
and high-stakes testing controlled by worth. Ball (2008) has written about how have seen is the transfer of authority from
governments. We can only speculate the impact of high-stakes testing and professional teachers to standardised
about where parents sit along this a culture of performativity in English testing instruments and the creators of
16 – QTU Professional Magazine November 2009such tests – a fraction of the middle class Blair and Brown New Labour schooling trends. We can think of an Anglo-American
who have benefited in career terms from reforms have been laudable, namely to model of school reform, and also speak
this policy regime. improve educational outcomes for all of “English exceptionality” in policy
students – and, specifically, to improve terms. It is interesting in the UK context
The latest stage in schooling policy
the outcomes from schooling of the that Scotland and Wales have sought to
in England is articulated in the policy
most disadvantaged students so as to distance their school policy regimes from
document, Making Good Progress: How
enhance their life chances. Yet there has the English approach. The global trend
Can We Help Every Child to Make Good
been a failure to recognise that it is the – represented by the Anglo-American
Progress at School? (DCSF, 2006). This quality of teacher classroom practices model – has been towards standardisation,
policy is designed to ensure “even better that count most in terms of school effects while Finland retains flexibility and
ways to measure, assess, report and upon student learning, and especially in comparatively “loose standards”. The
stimulate progress in schools” (p.1). The relation to students from disadvantaged global trend has been towards a narrowed
policy is about retaining the focus on backgrounds. Recognition of the focus on literacy and numeracy, while
“absolute attainment”, with the addition of importance of teacher classroom practices Finnish schooling continues to emphasise
a new focus on “progress”. When Making demands informed prescription at the broad learning combined with creativity.
Good Progress becomes national policy policy centre, working with a culture of Sahlberg suggests that the global
in England, it will require target setting trust and respect of teachers and full education reform trend has been towards
for schools in relation to attainment, support for teachers to develop and “consequential accountability” where
but also progress at both school and practise their professional judgements. negative consequences flow from the
individual pupil levels. There will also be In other words: the quality of classroom failure to meet targets, while Finland
a focus on students whose progress is practices is what counts. This means that works with intelligent accountability and
“blocked”. Additionally, there will be the governments need to invest heavily in trust-based professionalism.
development of sophisticated measures ongoing teacher learning.
of school effects, or “value added”, and Moreover, Finnish teachers have high
even more sophisticated accounts, which The evidence is very clear that high- status; teaching is a highly respected
acknowledge the socio-economic context stakes testing produces “defensive profession and an attractive career option
of a school’s catchment, developing the pedagogies” (McNeil, 2000), rather than for high-achieving students at the end of
concept of “contextual value added”. pedagogies of the kind described in the secondary schooling. Teachers in Finland
These are better measures, but perhaps productive pedagogies research, which are comparatively well paid. They also
their sophistication might limit their policy make a real difference to the quality have master’s degrees, with a good
use in relation to schooling policy alone. of schooling outcomes. The effects of number of principals having doctorates.
the English policy regime are negative: There is a real valuing of learning for all
For a whole range of reasons – including de-professionalisation of teachers with associated with schooling. Teachers have
policy borrowing, the flows of individual reductive effects on schools, which means a considerable degree of professional
policy advisors between the countries, it is difficult for them to achieve their autonomy. There is no high-stakes testing.
and political alignments – the English broad policy goals. These negative effects While teacher pedagogies appear to be
situation has had real policy salience in have emerged despite the admirable teacher-centred, they are intellectually
Australia. But we should see the English focus on disadvantage. demanding. There are only government
situation as a warning, not as a system schools: in a sense, all students attend
from which to learn. Robin Alexander’s Finland the same school. Finland has a low Gini
independent Cambridge Primary Review, Finland represents a counterpoint to the coefficient of social inequality, that is,
for example, has provided a devastating English experience. Finland (with Korea it is a relatively egalitarian society with
attack on the effects of the English policy closely behind it) is the outstanding a high degree of equality. But Finland
regimes on primary schooling there, its achiever on the OECD’s PISA, achieving is also a small and relatively ethnically
goals, ambience, pedagogies and curricula high quality and high equity outcomes. homogeneous society. This suggests the
(the Review is soon to be published Interestingly, while student scores on SATS need for some caution in borrowing or
as Children, their World, their Education and GCSE in England have improved across learning from Finland.
(Alexander et al, 2009)). In policy and the period of performativity, England’s
Nonetheless, the central lessons to be
political terms, there is now some belated results on PISA still lag with mid-range
learnt from Finland are the importance
recognition of the negative effects of outcomes, and with continuing low equity
of social equality and the significance of
the dominant policy regime, with also in terms of the tail of performance and
teachers and their professional practices
some stepping-back from the absolute its link to socio-economic disadvantage.
to achieving both high quality and high
emphasis on high-stakes testing. Despite The contrast between improvements on
equity outcomes. A high status profession
this, there remains an incapacity to move national tests and exams and stagnation
practising intellectually demanding
beyond the dominant policy paradigm of on PISA is telling.
pedagogies, with a lot of school-based
seeking to achieve better educational and
Sahlberg (2007) has provided a good support for learning, are key features of
equity outcomes through targeting linked
account of the key features of the Finnish the Finnish system of schooling, as is
to league tables of performance on high-
policy regime, which he contrasts with intelligent accountability, which entails the
stakes testing.
“global education reform trends”. England system being held accountable to schools
Having said that, the motivation for the represents an extreme version of these for making the desired outcomes possible.
QTU Professional Magazine November 2009 – 17What does the research tell us? of the variance in student performance moving to a more productive schooling
is due to whole school effects, while 35- policy frame, I conclude by moving to a
The Finnish case confirms what we 55 per cent of such variance is due to different register, sketching a big-picture
know from educational research about teacher effect. In terms of teacher effects, sense of how we might reconceptualise
the major factors impacting on student it is pedagogies of the kind described schooling in the current political climate.
performance at school. Social class or in the productive pedagogies research Globalisation as experienced over the
socio-economic background of students that make the difference. The defensive past thirty years or so has been neo-
is a major determining factor in student pedagogies which result from high-stakes liberal globalisation, an ideology which
outcomes from schooling. More broadly, testing and consequential accountability promotes markets over the state and
societies with a low Gini-coefficient of limit teacher effects in terms of higher regulation and individual advancement/
inequality are those societies in which order educational outcomes. self-interest over the collective good and
there is a less substantial effect of social common wellbeing. We have seen a new
class of origin on probability of good Julia Gillard, in various speeches, has
individualism, with individuals now being
school results and career success. Such acknowledged this research, accepting
deemed responsible for their own “self-
societies also have a small gap between the salience of social class background and
capitalising” over their lifetimes. Common
top and bottom performing students. good, intellectually demanding teaching
good and social protection concerns have
Finland is a good case in point. been given less focus and the market
valued over the state, with enhanced
The lack of economic capital is
accompanied most commonly by a lack
... it is teachers’ market or private sector involvement in the
of cultural capital, which is necessary practices – their workings of the state. The global financial
crisis has challenged many of these taken-
to successfully negotiate the demands
of schooling. Those from poor families pedagogies and for-granteds of neo-liberal globalisation.
Certainly we have witnessed some global
lacking the requisite cultural capital have
to learn many things at school. Learning assessment practices and national attempts at re-regulation.
However, my argument is that in social
to do school is one aspect here. Effective
schools in poor communities engage
(both formative and policy terms and in relation specifically to
education policy, we still remain trapped
with and recognise the strengths of these summative) – which within a neo-liberal imaginary as the basis
communities – they not only engage with
their capitals, but also attempt explicitly to have the most effect for social policy. We need to imagine
schooling policy otherwise.
give these students access to the cultural
codes necessary to successfully negotiate on student learning Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has written a
the academic requirements of schooling. scathing and intelligent critique of neo-
In assessment and pedagogical terms, this to student outcomes and especially in liberalism. He states: “The great neo-
demands a high degree of explicitness respect of outcomes for disadvantaged liberal experiment of the past thirty years
and scaffolding. So, out-of-school factors students. The million dollar question, has failed... the emperor has no clothes.
– economic and cultural – are important of course, is how the federal and state Neo-liberalism, and the free market
when considering school and individual governments should respond in policy fundamentalism it has produced, has been
performance on high-stakes tests. and funding terms to these realities and revealed as little more than personal greed
research evidence. dressed up as an economic philosophy”
At the same time, of all the factors that a
(p.23). Following this observation, he
school can control, it is teachers’ practices
Like New Labour in England, the policy then goes on to comment on the current
– their pedagogies and assessment
intentions of the federal government are political moment, which we might
practices (both formative and summative)
for better school outcomes for all with somewhat optimistically see as the post-
– which have the most effect on student
a renewed focus on more socially just neo-liberal period:
learning. This is particularly the case, as
demonstrated in the seminal Coleman outcomes. This is to be lauded, after the
“With the demise of neo-liberalism, the
Report of 1966 in the USA, for ensuring benign neglect of social justice matters role of the state has once more been
equal educational opportunities for by the Howard government and its recognised as fundamental. The state has
disadvantaged students. Teachers prioritising of school choice and related been the primary actor in responding in
are very important for the learning of funding redistribution towards non- three clear areas of the current crisis: in
disadvantaged students. Teachers have government schools. A more equitable rescuing the private financial system from
more effect than the whole school on school funding regime will have to be collapse; in providing direct stimulus to
student learning outcomes. Any emphasis negotiated by the federal government by the real economy because of the collapse
on leadership as a policy strategy must 2012. in private demand; and in the redesign of
ensure a focus on leadership as “leading a national and global regulatory regime.”
learning” targeted at enhancing the Conclusion: Beyond the neo-liberal (Rudd, 2009, p.25)
learning of all in schools. social imaginary
Federal government expenditure on
Townsend (2001, p.119) has summarised To understand the difficulties of schooling infrastructure is a central
the research on school and teacher recognising what the research says about component for providing stimulus to the
effects, noting that about 5-10 per cent schools, attainment and opportunity and economy. Rudd’s comments also reveal
18 – QTU Professional Magazine November 2009a binary divide between the neo-liberal and evaluation. Schooling must have effects.
focus on individual self-interest, the market broader goals than those implicit in the
and deregulation and the social democratic human capital rationale for schooling References
emphasis on the collective or common reform, which has underpinned national Alexander, R. (ed) (2009) Children, their
good achieved through state action. schooling policy for more than twenty World, their Education: Final report and
years. Schooling can only achieve its more recommendations of the Cambridge Primary
Rudd (2009, p.25) further notes: “social Review, Lodon: Routledge.
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democrats maintain robust support for the Ball, S.J. (2006) Education Policy and Social Class,
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funder and provider of public goods.”
neo-liberalism and his valuing of equality, Bernstein, B. (1971) ‘On the classification and
The potential for a post-neo-liberal human dignity and freedom, with Julia framing of educational knowledge’ in M.F.D.
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at least, find it difficult to move beyond ‘Towards a framework for validating gains
Unfortunately, if we look at the policy under high-stakes conditions’, CSE Technical
neo-liberal precepts, to think social policy
reality in schooling at the national Report, 551.
in other than neo-liberal ways.
level, the human capital framework Lingard et al (2001) The Queensland School
On social justice and the social democratic still dominates. This is evident in the Reform Longitudinal Study, Brisbane,
project, Kevin Rudd states: “Social justice central role of the Council of Australian Queensland Government.
is also viewed as an essential component Governments (COAG), rather than the McNeil, L. (2000) Contradictions of School
of the social democratic project. The ministerial council in education, in the Reform: Educational costs of standardised
social-democratic pursuit of social justice national schools agenda. Furthermore, testing, New York, Routledge.
is founded on a belief in the self-evident aspects of the national agenda, such as Menter, I. (2009) ‘Teachers for the future,
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productivity growth (although, happily, and state restructuring. They also link to research in education: a mode of governance
from the point of view of modern social the new empiricism associated with the or a historical journey?’ Comparative
democrats, both things happen to be audit culture of the neo-liberal state. And Education, 39 (4), pp. 423-438.
true).” (Rudd, 2009, p.25) as documented throughout this article, Queensland Studies Authority (2009) Student
the impact of high-stakes, national testing Assessment Regimes: getting the balance
Rudd goes on to acknowledge that in right for Australia (Draft discussion paper),
will reduce the remit of pedagogies
terms of social justice “all human beings Brisbane, Queensland Government.
and curricula in ways disjunctive with
have an intrinsic right to human dignity, Rizvi, F. and Lingard, B. (2010) Globalizing
the broader educative aspirations for
equality of opportunity and the ability to Education Policy, London, Routledge.
schooling. More pragmatically, this
lead a fulfilling life” (p.25). Rudd, K. (2009) The global financial crisis, The
approach is also disjunctive with the
However, the Prime Minister acknowledges economic and cultural needs of a decent Monthly, February 20-29.
only part of the equation. Rudd suggests future Australia. Sahlberg, P. (2007) Education policies for raising
that Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize winning student learning: the Finnish approach,
Given the Rudd government’s strong Journal of Education Policy, 22 (2), ppp.147-171.
economist, argues freedom is the way to
commitment to quality teaching,
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addressing educational disadvantage, through the Prism of PISA, in A.Luke, K.Weir
Critically, in his 1999 book, Development
and investing in school infrastructure – and A.Woods Development of a Set of
as Freedom, Sen also argues that the
and the need to rethink funding for non- Principles to guide a P-12 Syllabus Framework,
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government schools in the near future Brisbane, Queensland Studies Authority,
the global south are freedom and more
–the federal government could lead the pp.72-85.
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way with a progressive post-neo-liberal Sen, A. (1999) Development as Freedom, Oxford,
This is a different way of framing what
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In all of this, there are important accountabilities advocated in this abuses of assessment, London, Routledge.
implications for the meta-framing of article. But the danger remains that the Townsend, T. (2001) ‘Satan or saviour?
schooling policy in Australia – in relation accountability and transparency agendas An analysis of two decades of school
to both funding issues and educational will lock us into a neo-liberal social effectiveness research’, School Effectiveness
matters around curriculum, pedagogy imaginary with negative educational and School Improvement, 12 (1), pp.115-129.
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