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4
Choosing to Change
4.1 OVERVIEW AND DIRECTIONS FOR THE FUTURE
The submissions received clearly indicate that people are concerned about the prospect of more change. There is a strong belief that change over the past decade has not always been adequately supported, and in the minds of many, change has not been connected convincingly to improved learning. Proposals for further devolution present the prospect of even more change, which we realise will be assessed against the sometimes, unhappy experiences people have had over the past seven years. We set out to ensure that all of our proposals were assessed against the likelihood of improved learning outcomes for children, before we framed our recommendations. This was the central issue throughout our deliberations.
Schools will only seek the greater flexibility provided in some of our recommendations, if those at the local level - the members of the school community - are ready, willing and able to use the flexibility on offer. Effective change requires local commitment, and therefore our approach allows for choice: choice within a broad system framework which provides for increased discretion, but always with support, and always with accountability. This theme is evident in our first five recommendations, framed to ensure that a choice to change always has firm local support.
4.2 PREAMBLE
This chapter outlines a frame of reference which has guided the deliberations of the Group. If student learning is to be improved across schools and classrooms, what decisions are required, who should make them and how? We have needed to consider how much local decision making there can and should be, given that autonomy and accountability must go hand in hand in publicly-funded education. We have addressed two basic questions:
In a publicly-funded school system trying to improve the quality of learning for all its students, what decisions are best made at each level of the system (classroom, school, district, central office)?
What do parents, teachers and principals need to be assured of in their decision making before, during and after the decisions are made?
The first question focuses on the amount of discretion at each level of the system. The second focuses on the system framework within which discretion at each level is exercised and the checks and balances that are needed.
These questions have provided a basis for a fresh examination of decisions (and decision-making processes) in classrooms, schools and the system as a whole. They do not carry any presuppositions about a particular model of devolution. They have left equally open the prospect of our finding that there is too little or too much autonomy and accountability, or indeed that a current situation should continue. The "bottom line"throughout has been improved teaching and learning in government schools.
4.3 SOME BASIC FEATURES OF DECISION MAKING
The main task has been to determine what decisions should be made within schools themselves and how much discretion (flexibility) there should be. The first thing to be said is that countless decisions are made in each school, every day of the school year - most of them by individual teachers as they plan and then go about the business of teaching. This has always been the case and it will remain so for as long as there are schools.
These countless decisions may be examined in different ways. We have begun by looking at them along two broad dimensions: individual versus group decisions and routine versus deliberative decisions.
4.3.1 Individual Versus Group Decisions
This dimension highlights the point that decisions may be made either by individuals or by groups. The stereotype of the individual teacher, the class and the closed classroom door is an enduring image. But teachers' decisions about what to teach and how, increasingly involve others. Some teachers involve the children; others colleagues and parents. Teamwork and the sharing of ideas are being used more widely to develop a cohesive "whole-school" approach to teaching and learning.
The images of the autocratic principal and of the school operating in isolation from its community are also enduring stereotypes. The reality is that more and more principals now regard themselves as leaders of teams. Increasingly, teams are seen to include teaching staff, students, parents and the community. In some areas of decision making, principals are required, as a matter of policy, to consult others. A case in point is the obligation for principals to involve parents and the community in school planning decisions.
4.3.2 Routine Versus Deliberative Decisions
This second dimension highlights the fact that many school decisions are made on the spot with little time either available or needed for deliberation. These decisions are made through "if this happens, do that" routines. We stress that we are not using the term
"routine" in a derogatory sense. Teachers and principals are no different in this regard from practitioners in other fields. Much of what they do is handled through complex, skilfully-managed routines built up through experience and training. Schools could not operate each day unless most of their decisions were made routinely. To paraphrase the American psychologist William James, it may be said that "routine is the flywheel of an organisation".
Routines build up around a school's ethos, rules, traditions and timetable, its
"personalities" and their beliefs and values. All schools have a culture - the prevailing set of values, beliefs and expectations - and a climate - the quality of the interpersonal relationships among principal, teachers, support staff, students and parents. When culture and climate are positive and supportive, a school is well on the way to being a
"good school". Routines - set against the background of culture and climate - give stability and predictability. Because of them, people automatically know where they stand on many important matters.
But there are other matters in which a deliberative (rather than routine) approach to decisions is needed. Deliberative decision making is time consuming because of the
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need to think through the various possibilities. We do not want to argue that such decisions are necessarily sound. Deliberative processes can yield good, bad or indifferent decisions, depending upon the procedures followed and how well they are managed. Judgement, problem solving, leadership, flexibility and so on all play parts in the quality of deliberative decisions.
It is difficult to make hard and fast statements about what types of decision are (or should be) made routinely or deliberatively. Decisions may fit either category depending upon other factors. For example, a teacher trying to master new methods for teaching children to read will be more deliberative in lesson planning than a teacher who has been using the same methods for years. In a new school, there is deliberation on matters that, in other schools, are settled through long-established routines. By the same token, in any established school, a new area of responsibility (for example, allocating funds for professional development) will be subject to extensive deliberation before it too, in time, becomes a routine matter. Conversely, long-established routines (for example, a school's discipline policy) sometimes need to be taken off "automatic" and subjected to in-depth deliberative review.
At the system level also, the distinction is useful. Curriculum development, for example, is a deliberative process. Resource allocation, organisational structures and staff profiles for schools are routinely decided by applying a standard formula to each school's projected enrolment.
Generally speaking, it can be difficult to introduce change to areas regulated by long- established routines. Routines become embedded in the habits of individuals, the ethos of the profession and the culture of the school ("Why change things? We've always done it this way").