Learning and Doing Policy Analysis in Education: Examining Diverse Approaches to Increasing Educational Access PDF
Preview Learning and Doing Policy Analysis in Education: Examining Diverse Approaches to Increasing Educational Access
Learning and Doing Policy Analysis in Education COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION: A Diversity of Voices Volume 16 Series Editors Allan Pitman University of Western Ontario, Canada Vandra Masemann University of Toronto, Canada Miguel A. Pereyra University of Granada Editorial Board Mark Bray, International Institute for Educational Planning, Paris, France Ali Abdi, University of Alberta, Canada Christina Fox, University of Wollongong, Australia Steven Klees, University of Maryland, USA Nagwa Megahed, Ain Shams University, Egypt Crain Soudain, University of Cape Town, South Africa David Turner, University of Glamorgan, England Medardo Tapia Uribe, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico Scope Comparative and International Education: A Diversity of Voices aims to provide a comprehensive range of titles, making available to readers work from across the comparative and international education research community. Authors will represent as broad a range of voices as possible, from geographic, cultural and ideological standpoints. The editors are making a conscious effort to disseminate the work of newer scholars as well as that of well-established writers. The series includes authored books and edited works focusing upon current issues and controversies in a field that is undergoing changes as profound as the geopolitical and economic forces that are reshaping our worlds. The series aims to provide books which present new work, in which the range of methodologies associated with comparative education and international education are both exemplified and opened up for debate. As the series develops, it is intended that new writers from settings and locations not frequently part of the English language discourse will find a place in the list Learnning and DDoing Policy Analyssis in Educcation Examinning Diverse AApproaches too Increasing EEducational AAccess Editor: Maria Teresa Tatto Michigaan State Univerrsity Contribuutors: Justin Brruner Fida Hussain Chang Corvell GGeorge Cranfield Tara Miyyoko Kintz Nai-Cheeng Kuo Sandra KKurtti Pylvaineen Andleebb Sharif Maria Teresa Tatto Michigaan State Univerrsity A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: 978-94-6091-931-2 (paperback) ISBN: 978-94-6091-932-9 (hardback) ISBN: 978-94-6091-933-6 (e-book) Published by: Sense Publishers, P.O. Box 21858, 3001 AW Rotterdam, The Netherlands https://www.sensepublishers.com/ Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved © 2012 Sense Publishers No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgement vii 1. On Constructing a Framework for Policy Analysis in the Global Era 1 Maria Teresa Tatto 2. Is Poverty Reduction Enough? 13 Justin L. Bruner 3. The Effectiveness of Policy and Practice for “Universal Primary Education” Within Education for All 41 Fida H Chang 4. School Capacity the Neglected Paradigm in EFA Movement 61 Andleeb Sharif 5. Achieving Education for All –Together 93 Nai-Cheng Kuo 6. The Effect of the No Child Left Behind Accountability Mechanisms on Middle School Mathematics Teaching and Student Performance 117 Tara Kintz 7. Teacher Perceptions of Curriculum Under No Child Left Behind 163 Sandra K. Pylvainen 8. The Implementation of Mathematical Literacy as a New Subject in the South African Curriculum 207 Corvell Cranfield 9. The Reach and Possibilities of Educational Reform for the Rural Poor in Mexico 233 Maria Teresa Tatto 10. Scholarly Teaching 253 Maria Teresa Tatto, Justin Bruner, Fida Hussain Chang, Corvell Cranfield, Tara Miyoko Kintz, Nai-Cheng Kuo, Sandra Pylvainen and Andleeb Sharif Appendix 267 Notes on Contributors 295 v Acknowledgement We acknowledge the valuable help of Dr. Douglas Campbell of the College of Education's Office of Student Writing Assistance for helping us improve our manuscripts. vii CHAPTER 1 MARIA TERESA TATTO On Constructing a Framework for Policy Analysis in the Global Era The Effects Of The Global Introduction Of Performance Standards And Regulations To Promote And Improve Education For All How is education policy made? What choices are preferable, for whom, in what context, and for what purpose? How are competing choices investigated before they are made into policy? In other words, how are current and potential policies analyzed to produce “usable knowledge”? How does policy analysis serve to enlighten current thinking, future policy studies, and prospective policy making?1 This book originated in a policy analysis class taught during 2010, “TE 919: Policy Analysis in Education2,” a course that seeks to engage doctoral students with the conception, generation, and analysis of educational policies in a number of contexts, such as diverse levels of governance across national settings, and it includes the examination of the ethics, uses and limitations of policy analysis. In this course the professor follows a “problem centered” approach to engage students individually and as a group with policy analysis. The approach is based on the idea that students learn better from their own experiences as they select a policy issue and then actively struggle to understand the complexity of designing, implementing, and assessing social policy, within the learning community of the class. The first day of class, the professor and students agree to create a course designed to represent a reflective and grounded experience in policy analysis on a current and relevant issue with global ramifications; we begin by exploring policies that have been developed at the global level and implemented locally. In this class in particular, we investigated the surge of globally developed standards and regulations in an effort to improve education for all. Our goal was to learn cross-nationally about policies that promote standardization in education such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Education for All (EFA) and its cousin in the United States of America, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and similar policies that seek to reform curriculum and instruction under efficiency and global competitiveness arguments. We knew our work would be bounded by the time available in a one-semester class, and by resource constraints. We did exploratory inquiry supported by Maria Teresa Tatto, (Ed.), Learning and Doing Policy Analysis in Education: Examining Diverse Approaches to Increasing Educational Access, 1–12. © 2012 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved. MARIA TERESA TATTO literature reviews, reports of rigorous research studies, and in one case an exploratory case study. The policies we chose to explore, such as MDGs, EFA and NCLB, offered us the opportunity to examine current reform tendencies that provide access to quality education for all children, prepare teachers and organize schools to accommodate children in response to vague policy mandates, and affect different constituencies and stakeholders. The effects of these and other policies were difficult to track as the research on them is scant, and decisions are often made based on impressionistic information, ideology or political persuasion. Our purpose was to begin to explore the critical issues that originate such policies, and to investigate how much the effectiveness with which they have achieved their intended outcomes has been documented. Similarly, we worked to investigate the factors that seem to interfere with successful implementation. We began with the idea that policy analysis relies on the assumption that policy actors are rational, and that if available they would use valid and reliable information to design or improve policy, staying away from approaches that have proven untenable. Thus, this course explored what it takes to produce “usable knowledge” within the frameworks of the social sciences. We uncovered in examinations of the available literature that rigorous policy studies are scarce, and when they are available they often fail to assess comprehensively the effectiveness of the policy in question. Through engagement with on-going (or “living) policies, we learned that there are not ready-set frameworks for policy analysis but that rather these have to be constructed according to the issues that emerge from lived experiences as policies when implemented are adjusted to fit local contexts and needs. As waves of educational reform bring about the development of innovative ways to address the many shortcomings of schooling, there is increased public interest in understanding whether and how old and current policy have had the expected results, and whether the social investment in these innovations is cost- effective. The call to document the projected and actual effectiveness of policies at all levels of the system in the context of shrinking resources has rapidly evolved into systems of accountability and regulation, a global dynamic that is bound to increase over the next decade. ON THE EMERGENCE OF PERFORMANCE STANDARDS AND REGULATIONS The nature of policy making in the USA and globally is changing dramatically. Increasing requirements for accountability at all levels of education systems necessitate not only that policy be informed by valid and reliable data but that once implemented, policies be subject to scrutiny through systematic analysis, assessment, and evaluation. What we will call in this book the “new culture of accountability” in education, is emerging as a global phenomenon. A key tool for the implementation of accountability cultures in policy making is the assessment of outcomes; and assessment systems are also of a global character. For instance, a number of international evaluations of student progress have shown 2
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