I've just returned from an exciting, one-week trip to England where I visited a number of primary and secondary schools as part of a tour sponsored by FASNA, a consortium of English schools working toward greater autonomy from governmental interference in curriculum, teaching, and governance. I was deeply impressed with the sweeping changes England is making in the delivery of education and I think their experiences point the way toward meaningful reforms here in the U.S.
Essentially, the English are working toward the dissolution of their equivalent of school "districts," which they call the "local authority," or LA. Each school, overseen by a locally-elected or appointed board of governors, will essentially receive its funding directly from the national government, will own the land and buildings that make up the school, will hire teachers, contract for services, and determine its own curriculum and teaching approach. Students will still take accountability tests, based on the national curriculum, at the end of each year, and results will be reported. Parents, who already have considerably more choice in schooling options than Americans, will send their children to schools of their own choice (a lot of structures governing enrollment and admissions will apply, of course), or may even have the opportunity to open their own "free" schools to compete with other local schools.
Only a handful of English schools have made the transition to "academy" status so far, the mechanism by which schools will achieve the maximum amount of autonomy under this plan, but the government's vision is that all schools will ultimately function as academies and will compete with each other for students. A genuine free market is coming to bear in English education. While the state will continue to fund schools as a public good, schools will face the ultimate form of accountability -- if they fail to educate students at high levels, they will go out of business or be bought out and replaced by schools that can deliver results.
For all of our debates about school choice in the U.S., the English experience makes it clear that we have barely begun a meaningful discussion about real school accountability here. U.S. and state policy makers have rightly placed a major emphasis on improving student performance. But state governments are still focused exclusively on highly-structured, top-down, one-size-fits-all mandates for the delivery of curriculum and instruction. The results have been disappointing, as student performance on NAEP and international assessments like PISA remain stagnant despite 20 years of these large-scale, whole-school reform efforts. Poorly performing schools continue to perform poorly, absorbing millions of dollars of funds and loads of technical support to "turn them around."
It's becoming increasingly clear that what matters, simply, is teaching and leadership. Where schools exhibit high levels of teaching quality and stable, dynamic, sustainable leadership, students will achieve. But it's also clear that state mandates to improve teaching quality or leadership have only a limited effect. I can only speculate as to why this is, but it seems partly common sense that genuine change and growth only occur when there is a high level of initiative and choice on the part of those who have been targeted for "change."
The English, long burdened by a level of bureacracy and government planning that would outrage many Americans, are particularly sensitive to the ineffectiveness of coercive methods that don't account for individual differences and individual choice and freedom. The prevailing philosophy, at least among the early adopters of the academy approach, is that effective teachers and principals, voluntarily working together, will themselves develop the innovations in pedagogy and leadership that will lead to higher levels of student achievement and they are ready to accept the ultimate accountability such freedom implies -- they will succeed or fail based on their parents' and students' assessment of their performance, informed by valid student test results. (This was a mantra we heard again and again from the academy principals we visited -- autonomy is naturally coupled with accountability -- and the national debate should rapidly shift to the validity and reliability of the student accountability system as the focus turns away from specifics of curriculum and instruction).
These developments in English education have great implications for schooling in the U.S. To what extent can we ensure real accountability if parents are ultimately limited in the choice of schools their children attend (and we must recognize that the nascent movement toward charter schools in this country is a far cry from the autonomy even regular English schools enjoy)? How can we ensure improvements in teaching and leadership when we continue to rely on bureacratic, top-down structures imposed from outside of the school? How could we simultaneously move toward greater accountability for individual schools and greater autonomy for schools and choice for parents?
And why is this conversation so seemingly foreign to American schools? How have we come to rely so heavily on bureacratic, government-controlled structures for the delivery of education (as Kevin Williamson pointed out in a recent issue of National Review, despite the American aversion to the world "socialism," no American institution so thoroughly embodies the idea -- and limitations -- of socialism than our schools).
I will continue to nurture the relationships and connections I made with schools in England, as I hope to pursue future collaborations that can also involve my education administration students and area practitioners. And I will continue to reflect on the implications of what I've learned in my own work as an educator and provider of professional development. But ultimately, the work of educators is deeply shaped by the policy structures provided by our political leaders, and the greatest implications for what is happening in England will be in how we as Americans move forward toward real, meaningful school accountability and how we hope to get there.
