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Journal of Educational AdministrationEmerald Article: System alignment as a key strategy in building capacityfor school transformation

Jim Watterston, Brian Caldwell

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To cite this document: Jim Watterston, Brian Caldwell, (2011),"System alignment as a key strategy in building capacity for school

ransformation", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 49 Iss: 6 pp. 637 - 652

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Alma Harris, (2011),"System improvement through collective capacity building", Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 49

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tephen Dinham, Frank Crowther, (2011),"Sustainable school capacity building - one step back, two steps forward?", Journal of

Educational Administration, Vol. 49 Iss: 6 pp. 616 - 623

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M. Bruce King, Kate Bouchard, (2011),"The capacity to build organizational capacity in schools", Journal of Educational

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System alignment as a keystrategy in building capacity for

school transformationJim Watterston

Department of Education and Training, Canberra, Australia, and

Brian CaldwellEducational Transformations, Brighton, Australia

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review strategies to build capacity for school improvement

in Australia. The focus is on public schools and strategies adopted for the system as a whole.Design/methodology/approach This paper traces developments from a national perspective andmakes a case for the key contemporary policy shift that has provided the platform for a new era ofeducational reform. Two contrasting case studies are described in order to demonstrate the pathwaysembarked on by a large jurisdiction, namely the State of Victoria, which has led the nation in terms ofdevolved decision-making for public schools, and second, a much smaller jurisdiction, the AustralianCapital Territory (ACT), which is introducing a range of reforms to give public schools much greaterautonomy in order to achieve improved performance. The paper concludes with a futures view ofhow strategies may continue to evolve. Shifting the language from improvement to transformationis canvassed.

Findings It is concluded that a key to success has been to align strategies among different levels ofthe school system: central, regional/district, school and classroom. The possibilities for moving beyondimprovement to transformation are canvassed.

Originality/value The value of the paper lies in its up-to-date account of system-wide efforts toimprove schools and a summary of evidence on their impact. The paper is of particular interest toschool and school system leaders as well as those engaged in the study of educational policy andeducational leadership.

Keywords Improvement, Educational policy, Leadership, School change, Education, Schools, Australia

Paper type Research paper

There are several seemingly intractable problems in education in Australia and effortsto address them are gathering momentum even though educational reform andstrategies for school improvement have been underway for nearly four decades. Theseproblems include the unacceptable disparity in achievement between high and lowperforming students (PISA, 2006), including distressingly low levels of success for thenations Indigenous students (MCEETYA, 2008, 2009); a fragmented approach toschool governance across the six states and two territories; continuing and oftendebilitating debates about school choice, especially in relation to public (government,state) schools and private (non-government, independent) schools; and the content ofcurriculum and approaches to learning and teaching. Despite these problems,Australias students generally perform well in international tests of studentachievement such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)and the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) (Gonzales et al., 2008;

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm

Building capacityfor school

transformation

637

Received March 2011Revised May 2011

Accepted June 2011

Journal of EducationaAdministration

Vol. 49 No. 6, 2011pp. 637-652

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0957-8234

DOI 10.1108/09578231111174794


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PISA, 2006; TIMSS, 2007). There is, however, a general view that the country could domuch better, not only in addressing the aforementioned problems, but, in ensuring thatthe system of education at all levels helps ensure that Australia will thrive in an era ofglobalization.

Much of the effort is connected to the challenge of achieving what has been termed anew federalism or cooperative federalism. Constitutional powers to make laws inrelation to education lie with the states but the federal or commonwealth governmenthas a very important role because of its financial powers and influence. It is the onlylevel of government that has the power to raise funds through an income tax and aGoods and Services Tax (GST), and it must make decisions on how funds will bedisbursed to the states and territories. There can only be a truly national approach ifthere is broad agreement across both levels of government and an arguablyunprecedented effort is being made to achieve this. A key concept is alignment; a keychallenge is how to achieve alignment of effort among and within the different levelsof government in ways that have an impact on outcomes for students.

International observers are surprised that a national framework is not already inplace, since this is the normal arrangement in most countries. In this respect,considering nations around the Asia Pacific, Australia is more like Canada and theUSA. Indeed, the constitution that established Australia as a nation in 1901 is in manyrespects modelled on that of the USA, with the challenge of developing a nationalperspective much greater in the latter, with 50 states, than in Australia, with six statesand two territories. There is, for example, no national curriculum in the USA and thelikelihood of developing one is remote, whereas Australia is in the midst of introducingone. Canada presents another contrast, with the federal government having virtuallyno role in school education except for Indigenous students and children of militarypersonnel. There are also differences in these three countries in respect to private andpublic schooling. Australia provides public funding to support both, and the

mechanisms for allocating funds are complex and under constant scrutiny and debate.In the USA, there is a constitutional bar to the public funding of private schools, but thepicture has become blurred with the introduction of publicly funded,privately-operated schools, as illustrated in the growing but still relatively smallcharter school movement. In Canada, the issue has been resolved in most provinceswith parity in funding for public and non-public so-called separate school systems.

This paper traces developments from a national perspective and makes a case forthe contemporary policy shift that has provided the platform for a new era ofeducational reform. Two contrasting case studies are described in order to demonstratethe pathways embarked on by a large jurisdiction, namely the State of Victoria, whichhas led the nation in terms of devolved decision-making for public schools, and second,a much smaller jurisdiction, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), which is

introducing a range of reforms to give public schools much greater autonomy in orderto achieve improved performance. The paper concludes with a futures view of howstrategies may continue to evolve. Shifting the language from improvement totransformation is canvassed.

Conceptual foundationsThe developments reported in this paper have their foundation in several importantconcepts in administration. These include governance, decentralization and

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networking. There are two related integrating themes. One is the distribution of power,authority and influence among and within different levels of administration, withalignment of effort as the goal. The other is collective capacity which Fullan considersto be the sine qua non of system reform (Fullan, 2010 p. 70).

GovernanceGovernance may be defined as the process whereby elements in a society wield powerand authority, and influence and enact policies and decisions concerning public life,and economic and social development (International Institute of AdministrativeSciences, 1996). In his international work for different school systems Michael Fullanadvocates a tri-level arrangement in describing the shift from whole school reform towhole system reform (Fullan, 2004, 2005) with the three levels being national/state,district and school. He cites the successful alignment of these levels in the success ofthe system of schools in Ontario, Canada (Fullan, 2008).

Other writers stress the need for flexibility in governance. Sir Michael Barber isExpert Partner in the Global Public Sector Practice of McKinsey & Company and

former head of the Prime Ministers Delivery Unit in the UK. He contends that:

The era of the large, slow moving, steady, respected, bureaucratic public services, howevergood by earlier standards, is over. In the new era, public services will need to be capable ofrapid change, involved in partnerships with the business sector, publicly accountable for theservices they deliver, open to diversity, seeking out world class benchmarks, and constantlylearning (Barber, 2003, p. 115).

Flexibility of a kind that Barber had in mind is illustrated by Bentley and Wilsdon(2004), writing for the London-based think-tank Demos (Bentley is now Deputy Chief ofStaff for Australias Prime Minister Julia Gillard) who suggested that an adaptivestate is required if the best approaches to service delivery are to be achieved at aparticular point in time:

We need new systems capable of continuously reconfiguring themselves to create newsources of public value. This means interactively linking the different layers and functions ofgovernance, not searching for a static blueprint that predefines their relative weight. Thecentral question is not how we can achieve precisely the right balance between differentlayers central, regional and local or between different sectors public, private andvoluntary. Instead, we need to ask How can the system as a whole become more than the sumof its parts? (Italics in original) (Bentley and Wilsdon, 2004, p. 16).

Reflecting that element of governance that is concerned with social development,Michael Keating, former head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet inAustralia under Prime Minister Paul Keating (no relation) described reforms in servicedelivery in the public sector in the following terms:

The reforms of public administration affecting service delivery stemmed fundamentally frompublic dissatisfaction with many of the services provided. The major problems were theirlack of responsiveness to the particular needs of the individual client or customer [. . .] societyhas become more educated and wealthy and its individual members have developed greaterindependence and become more individualistic [. . .] This individualistic society is both moredemanding and more critical of service provision (Keating, 2004, p. 77).

According to Keating, this focus on the individual does not mean that concern for thecommon good is abandoned. It is the proper role of government to be concerned with


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the common good but: there has to be a reinterpretation of the notion of equity as aguiding principle for the delivery of public services, away from uniformity toward thedifferentiation of services, with the assistance provided varying according to eachrecipients particular needs (Keating, 2004, p. 78).

Developments in Australia illustrate flexibility in governance and the continuoussearch for the best configuration of structures that distribute authority, power andinfluence in efforts to build capacity and achieve school improvement.

DecentralizationFullans tri-level approach assumes a particular structural configuration that warrantscloser scrutiny. In the USA and Canada, the three levels are state (province), districtand school. The district has powers allocated to it in state (province) legislation. InAustralia, the three levels are understood to be the state (territory), region and school.However, the region is not a different level of government, as the district is in Canadaand the USA. The distinction between administrative and political decentralizationmay be helpful. According to Altshuler (1970, p. 64):

The former involves delegation from superior to subordinate officials within a bureaucracy.The organizing principle of the bureaucracy remains hierarchical. The top officials remainfree to revoke the delegation at any time [. . .] Political decentralization, by contrast, involvesthe transfer of authority to officials whose dependence is on the subjurisdictional electorate,or more narrowly, a subjurisdictional clientele. The assumption must be that such officialswill not be manipulable by the former possessors of the transferred authority.

In Australia, structural arrangements for regions are more like administrativedecentralization whereas, in USA and Canada, districts are more like politicaldecentralization. The French concept of deconcentration (Fesler, 1968, p. 370) maybetter describe the geographic dispersion of officials in regional arrangements inAustralia.

Decentralization to the school level is a key part of the developments reported in thispaper. The concept is variously known as school-based management, site-basedmanagement and school self-management. For example, a self-managing school is aschool in a system of public education to which there has been decentralized asignificant amount of authority and responsibility to make decisions related to theallocation of resources within a centrally-determined framework of goals, policies,curriculum, standards and accountabilities (based on a definition of Caldwell andSpinks, 1988, 1992, 1998, 2008). It may be more appropriate in Australia to refer to abi-level approach in school reform (rather than tri-level).

NetworkingThe concepts of governance and decentralization are normally associated with thevertical distribution of authority, power and influence. However, recentdevelopments are also concerned with horizontal arrangements. It is in thisrespect that the concept of networking is relevant.

A network is an association formal or informal, temporary or permanent,mandatory or voluntary between and among individuals, organisations, agencies,institutions or other enterprises, through which participants share knowledge, addressissues of common concern, pool resources or achieve other purposes of mutual benefit(Caldwell, 2008).

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The possibilities of networks were addressed in the work of the Schooling forTomorrow project of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD, 2003). The following illustrate different facets of networking, with the first(Johansson) highlighting connections to decentralization (autonomy) and community, and

the second (Barber) concerned with uncertainty, knowledge transfer and capacity building:

School autonomy goes hand-in-hand with being connected to community, other educators,and the broader society. Hence, the key roles of networks, and partnerships. Too mucheducational practice in OECD countries is characterised by isolation: schools from parentsand the community and from each other; teachers and learners in isolated classrooms( Johansson, 2003, p. 149).

The challenge of reforming public education systems is therefore acute. Those responsibleare in no position to deal with uncertainties. What they can do is manage and transferknowledge about what works effectively, intervene in cases of under-performance, create thecapacity for change in the system and ensure that it is flexible and adaptable enough to learnconstantly and implement effectively (Barber, 2003, p. 115).

These vertical and horizontal arrangements are not mutually exclusive, as madeclear by Harvard Universitys Karen Stephenson who sees organisations as a sort ofdouble-helix system, with hierarchy and networks perpetually influencing each other,ideally co-evolving over time to become more effective (cited in Groves, 2008). Thenotion of co-evolution is consistent with the flexibilities in governance advocated byBarber (2003) and Bentley and Wilsdon (2004).

National direction and interventionOver the last three decades Australia has experienced a steady drift of students from thegovernment (public) to non-government (private) sector. The deregulation of theeducational environment coupled with an increase in middle and higher socio-economic

communities have meant that a growing proportion of Australians have been able toexercise choice and select non-government schools. This has created a challenge for thepublic system. In addition to changes in educational preferences has been recognitionthat achievement levels across Australia, while high, involve a relatively wide gap inperformance of low- and high-achieving students. This has led to a national priority toraise educational outcomes for students from low socio-economic backgrounds and alsofor Indigenous students to the levels that are comparable to non-Indigenous students.

With the election of the Rudd Labor Government in 2007, there has been a strongerand more influential set of strategic initiatives and policy directions led by the Federal(Commonwealth) Government aimed at lifting educational standards across all

jurisdictions. The mechanism has been a suite of National Partnership Agreementsdesigned to inject additional resourcing into all schools (government and

non-government) to target areas of underperformance. These partnerships haveincluded agreements on: literacy and numeracy, schools in low socio-economic areas,indigenous students, teacher quality, tertiary and vocational education and earlychildhood. Resources have included reward payments to each jurisdiction for reachingtargets and milestones. There has also been a $14.3 billion building program in allprimary schools across the nation and science centres in selected high schools inaddition to a capital investment program that has provided much-needed digitalresources and associated infrastructure to all schools.


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The Federal Government has also focussed on the need for transparency ofperformance outcomes in all schools. To this end, a national web site known as MySchool has been created to display National Assessment Program Literacy andNumeracy (NAPLAN) results for all schools (www.myschool.edu.au). The publication of

this information has been controversial as some media have set about creating leaguetables of schools ranked in perceived order of performance. For many schools thisinformation has brought renewed attention and a high level of public scrutiny,depending on whether results are deemed to be high or low. Whether they agree withpublication, or not, teachers have become more acutely aware of, and driven by, theresults. As an extension of this transparency and federal involvement in mainstreameducation, Australia has seen significant new resources invested in all schools. Thesecome with a new and heightened level of external accountability that is creating impetusaround school improvement agendas at the national, jurisdictional and school levels.

It would not be an understatement to note that Australia is in the midst of aneducational transformation that is significantly altering the landscape in a way notexperienced previously. Prior to taking over as Prime Minister, former Minister forEducation Julia Gillard instituted a range of reforms along the lines describedpreviously. While several have attracted controversy, the way of doing business inschools across Australia has been permanently altered. Teachers now understand thatthere is an evidence base on which they and their school will be judged. As to whetherthis evidence base is fair and valid is still being contested in some quarters but what isinescapable as Australia moves forward is that there is a basis, albeit narrow andsomewhat limited, for judgements of school performance to be made.

The importance of creating a reliable and deep evidence base on which policydecisions and reform initiatives can be made and tested has been reinforced by thedevelopment of the My School web site which will continue to evolve as moreinformation and enhanced school performance data are added. As Banks (2010) points

out, while there have been increases in educational attainment over the past fewdecades in areas such as Year 12 completions, the gains made up until the mid-ninetieshave not been built on since that time. Currently, in times of strong employment inAustralia, despite the rest of the world struggling to overcome the aftermath of theGlobal Financial Crisis, over 20 percent of 20 to 24 year olds are not fully engaged inemployment, training or education.

Julia Gillard has called for school principals to be given greater autonomy to give theirschools the capacity to make significant shifts in the way they operate in order to achieveimproved outcomes. This policy setting is now starting to gain traction across the nation.Victoria has provided a relatively high level of autonomy for its schools for nearly twodecades. In 2009 Western Australia created a number of independent public schoolswhereby local school communities could choose to take on a broad range of

self-managing functions. In 2010 South Australia announced reforms that will enableschools to manage resources and select staff. The Australian Capital Territory will dothe same from 2011. Case studies from Victoria and the ACT highlight the different wayscapacity for school improvement is being developed at the system and school levels.

New alignments in VictoriaAcross Australia each state and territory has developed its jurisdictional approaches toreform and school improvement, with Victoria recognised since the early 1990s as the

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most devolved in terms of providing school leaders with a high level of authority,responsibility and accountability (94 percent of the states operating budget in schooleducation is decentralized to schools for local decision-making). If public schools aregoing to compete successfully for market share in the face of increased participation in

non-government schools then public school principals need to have a leadership modelthat is similar to their non-government counterpart. This includes the capacity to selectstaff at the local level and to flexibly manage all resources including those provided bythe state. While the initiatives in place for two decades have been ground-breaking,there are still inconsistencies in the performance levels of schools across the state andoverall comparisons with other Australian jurisdictions provide a case for furtherimprovements to be made in terms of student outcomes. On the face of it, however, it isclear that while a relatively high level of autonomy at the school level is important inthe quest for improved performance, autonomy on its own is not sufficient. To fullyexploit the opportunities for greater innovation and enhanced local decision-making anexemplary level of leadership capacity together with high quality teaching across allclassrooms are required.

In 2003, the Victorian Minister for Education and Training at the time outlined theneed for further educational reform based, as Fraser and Petch (2007, p. 2) describe, ona sense of urgency about the differential quality of the educational experience ingovernment schools. The Blueprint for Government Schools (2003) identified threecritical areas for reform:

(1) Recognising and responding to diverse student needs.

(2) Building the skills of the education workforce to enhance the teaching-learningrelationship.

(3) Continuously improving schools.

The Blueprint recognised that while the public school system in Victoria had

improved in some areas, more needed to be done to ensure that the whole systemprospered and sustained the gains that had been made. There was also a need toenhance public confidence in the quality of the public school system in the face ofquestions over performance and falling market share. Developing leadership capacityin order to improve the quality of teaching has been the over-arching goal of recentstrategic initiatives across the public system.

In more recent times however, the Department of Education and Early ChildhoodDevelopment (DEECD) in Victoria has focused on using a deeper and more reliableevidence base to drive both system-based and locally-initiated strategies to bring aboutimproved student performance. This work has been complemented by a stronger levelof internal accountability whereby school principals and staff have been required totake greater responsibility for the performance of their schools. Victorian schoolleaders are contracted for up to five years and contract renewal has moved from beinga mere formality to an opportunity for reflection and an integrated performance review.As a result, a more considered and heightened contract renewal process has become akey opportunity for system change and improvement as the tenure of some leaders hasbeen discontinued while others have used this process to make career decisions tomove on.

Key elements of the Victorian public school reform process also include thealignment of policy and strategic directions. The development of a network model of


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collaboration between schools and the provision of renewed and arguably bettertargeted system support have enhanced decentralization that had, for some, simplymeant competition between schools.

Research on the impact of networks in VictoriaAn example of successful networks was reported by (Caldwell, 2008) who drew onresearch by Educational Transformations, commissioned by the Hume Region to studythe implementation of the states regional effectiveness model. Hume is a rural regionof about 160 schools located in North East Victoria. The eight elements of the model areprofessional leadership, a focus on learning and teaching, strategic stakeholderpartnerships, shared moral purpose, high expectations for all learners, a focus oncontinuous improvement and strategic use of resources. Each network in the regionincludes several clusters of schools with the expectation that principals of each schoolshare responsibility for all students in the cluster to the extent that professionalknowledge is shared, issues of common concern are addressed, and resources are

pooled wherever possible.Principals and other school leaders in the Hume Region participated in a commonprofessional learning program that focused on building knowledge and skills as well ascreating a shared language on matters related to learning and teaching. This wasknown throughout the region as the common curriculum. There has been powerfulimpact, with the following, drawn from case studies in six schools, giving an indicationof how school leaders perceived the effectiveness of clusters and networks.

All schools reported high levels of involvement in their clusters and networks. Thehigh expectations in the region for all school principals to be dedicated, focused andprofessional, for example, resulted in increased professionalism in all network andcluster meetings. Principals reported that their meetings were more strategic andfocused on areas that can assist other schools. Representatives from each school were

actively involved in professional learning communities in their cluster that targeteither literacy or numeracy. Principals reported that their networks also providedresources and support for other forms of professional development.

The perceptions of principals, as reported previously for case study schools, wereconsistent with views across the region. In 2008 the Department of Education andEarly Childhood Development (DEECD) conducted an online survey of principals andpersonnel at the regional and central level to seek their views on a range of matters. Inthe Hume Region, the percentage of principals giving favourable ratings was higherthan given by their counterparts in other regions in Victoria for nine of the 14 themesaddressed in the survey. They gave the highest or equal highest percentage of positiveratings to 81 of 168 items (48 percent) in the survey. The following are ratings that areparticularly relevant to networking. The percentages are of respondents giving a

positive rating and these are the highest in the state for these items.. there is close collaboration among principals in your network (92 percent);. you feel that the people in your network are passionate about what they do (96

percent);. you are proud of what your network does (95 percent);. your network demonstrates its commitment to continuous improvement (97

percent);

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. your network is contributing to the greater good of the development andeducation of children (99 percent); and

. in your experience, people in your network actively encourage the sharing ofinformation (94 percent).

An independent assessment of developments in VictoriaIn 2007 Harvard Universitys Richard Elmore (2007) offered high praise for theapproach to school improvement in Victoria. The good news is that Victoria, becauseof the thoughtful design of its improvement strategy, is on the leading edge of policyand practice in the world. He identified three distinctive features of the design. First,its central focus is the creation of human capital. The central message is simple:Schools improve by investing thoughtfully and coherently in the knowledge and skillof educators. This feature is in harmony with the finding of the McKinsey report(Barber and Mourshed, 2007). Second, accountability measures are seen asinstrumental to the development of human capital. He contrasts this with the

approach in the USA in which accountability for performance is considered to be theleading instrument of policy, and human investment is considered to be a collateralresponsibility of states and localities resulting in a disastrous gap between capacityand performance. What is impressive about Victoria, Elmore states, is its emphasison using school performance data and data on teacher, student and parent attitudestowards their schools, as the basis for human investment decisions, rather thanprimarily as the basis for administering rewards and sanctions. Elmores thirddistinctive feature about Victorias approach to school improvement is the way itdefines leaders as essential carriers of the new culture of school improvement.

New alignments in the Australian Capital TerritoryWithin the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), which is the nations smallest public

education system, there is a transformation occurring that seeks to build on highperforming past practice and on a range of new initiatives designed to improve systemcapacity and responsiveness. At a time when the Commonwealth Government ismaking more significant investments in education, the ACT Government is seeking tocapitalise on this opportunity both through complementary investment and a range ofpolicy and strategic initiatives.

The vision contained in the ACT Department of Education and Training StrategicPlan 2010-2013 Everyone Matters is to ensure that all young people in the ACT learn,thrive and are equipped with the skills to lead fulfilling, productive and responsiblelives. This plan signals a significant shift in policy and direction for the previouslycentralized public education system. While some ACT public schools are alreadyachieving excellent results, there are individual students in all schools who are not

achieving at an appropriate level for a range of reasons. It is recognised that in everyschool and every classroom there is room for improvement.

In 2010 the ACT Department of Education and Training (DET) began to implementan integrated and comprehensive approach to school improvement based on theprinciple that the core work of all school leaders is to improve student learningoutcomes. This approach builds on the current work in schools to improve teacherquality, develop leadership capacity, introduce more consistency in curriculumprovision and use valid and reliable data to monitor and report on school performance.


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Through its 2010-2013 Strategic Plan the DET has committed to developing a moresystematic and targeted approach to school improvement by providing for schools tolocally select all staff, both teaching and non-teaching, to ensure that specific schoolneeds can be addressed by the most appropriate and skilled personnel. In addition,

schools will be transitioning to one line budgets which will enable staffing profiles tobe more flexible and more responsive to school priorities and program development.Other key initiatives include:

. organising all public schools into four smaller networks of no more than 23schools, each led by a school network leader (SNL);

. clarifying the accountability of principals and school network leaders in order toensure that schools can demonstrate that enhanced autonomy is deliveringimproved performance;

. increasing the availability and use of data to inform school improvementpractices and monitor progress;

. providing support for principals and building capacity to ensure they are highlyeffective instructional leaders; and

. building the capacity of teachers, particularly in the essential areas of literacyand numeracy.

Strengthening school improvementBetween 2010 and 2013, schools and their communities will use the ACT SchoolImprovement Framework (SIF) to reflect on the quality of their practices through theidentification of strategic priorities and programs that are effective, challenging andengaging for all students. The SIF is based on the capacity for schools to self-assessthrough the evaluation of student progress and the resulting identification of ongoingschool priorities. Schools plan for improvement through a four-year school strategic plan

and an annual operating plan including accountability measures and targets. Progress isthen made available through the Annual School Board Report. Schools participate in anexternal review process over a four-year cycle. The SIF has been designed to assistschools to evaluate their performance using evidence-informed processes and tools.

Recent analysis of school performance has highlighted significant variation instudent outcomes within and across ACT public schools. The strengthened schoolimprovement focus aims to reduce these gaps by ensuring that every student isexposed to high expectations, effective teaching and a supportive learningenvironment, regardless of the school they attend. This is designed to define andpromote consistent understandings of what constitutes effective teaching and learningat school, network and system levels. System priorities include a commitment toraising the bar and lifting the tail of student achievement through improvement in

literacy and numeracy and school graduation rates in addition to a whole-of-systemapproach to identifying and teaching gifted and talented students. Key initiatives alsoinclude the setting of high expectations for student learning and the capacity tointervene early when individual maximise teaching time within each lesson and theschool day in addition to using in-class coaching as a basis for professional learning tobuild teacher and school leader capacity.

A key element of the renewed focus on improved outcomes for all is theestablishment of relevant and integrated networks across the system for resource

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deployment, school improvement and professional learning. While schools areexpected to use the school-based autonomy that is being provided to create localsolutions there is also a need to provide system support through increasing SchoolNetwork Leader (SNL) collaboration within and across schools by working in

partnership to identify, share and resolve problems of practice. The SNLs are chargedwith the role of developing effective and purposeful partnerships within and across thefour school networks. Partnerships are designed to be flexible and innovative and areinformed by high quality local, national and international practices designed toimprove the performance of every school. It is fundamental that school network leadersand principals will engage in honest and open discussion about the individual andcollective performance of their schools. Through authentic collaboration in networksthe SNLs prioritise common areas for improvement and develop and articulate these innetwork improvement plans. These are based on joint analysis of data gathered fromall schools in the network, with improvement strategies and actions identifiedcollectively. At the heart of the departments school improvement agenda is theprinciple that accountability applies across all levels of the system and involves acollective responsibility to work together. Principals are required to share their schoolaccountability and performance data openly and collectively work on solutions toindividual and network problems. Principals from high performing schools areexpected to share their schools successful teaching and leadership practices.

SNLs are responsible for overseeing continuous school improvement. They areaccountable for the overall performance of their network, including the performanceof each school, and ensuring effective planning, resource allocation and support atschool and network levels. Network leaders, however, are not super principals andtherefore do not have a heightened line management role to over-rule appointedschool principals. The school network leaders and the departments senior executiveare accountable to the community and government for establishing the conditions

that can support sustained improvement in schools and for overall performance ofthe system.

Principal performance and developmentThe principals appraisal process has been refined to complement the strengthenedschool improvement agenda, including the responsibilities of each principal beyondtheir school to the network. It is imperative for school leaders to be able to operateeffectively in an autonomous environment and to receive reliable and targetedfeedback on their performance and ongoing development. Each principal works withtheirSNL to identify school and network priorities that will be the focus of theirindividual work. They devise an agreement based on a frank analysis of theirleadership strengths and developmental needs, and the support they will require to

achieve the identified school targets. In drawing up the Principals Performance andDevelopment Agreement (PPDA), the principal and SNL agree on a clearly identifiedset of criteria to monitor the principals performance.

The PPDA outlines the leadership strategies and personal and network professionallearning the principal will undertake. The School Leadership Framework provides areference to support discussions. The performance and development process includessystematic self-evaluation, and the provision of constructive feedback. SNLsprovideprincipals with objective, and constructive written feedback on their performance, and


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professional growth at the mid and end points of the cycle. Feedback supports bothschool, and system-wide improvement.

To monitor progress at a system level the ACT benchmarks improvement againstother high-performing systems, and seeks opportunities to share practices and learn

from others. To support this approach, Michael Fullan, an international authority onlarge-scale reform in school education, acts as a critical friend for the department tohelp build a more strategic and targeted approach to school improvement. As Fullanstates:

System change will not occur one school at a time. Schools and the district must worktogether to change a system. A good indicator of this is a district in which individualprincipals become almost as concerned about the success of other schools in the district asthey do about their own school. Collective work increases shared commitment and sharedknowledge to alter the context for all schools (Fullan, 2003, p. 16).

Preliminary indicators of success

During the first 12 months of the 2010-2013 of the Strategic Plans implementation,there has been an array of initial evidence that indicates that school improvementbased reforms are impacting positively across the system. The NAPLAN results forthe ACT in 2010 have continued to improve and are among the highest in the countryand within the three highest performing jurisdictions along with New South Wales andVictoria for all assessment domains and year levels (Grace, 2010, p. 2). In addition tothe high achievement gains in student performance, for the first time in a decade thenumber of students attending the public system has increased along with a significantincrease in the average number of applicants for school principal positions. Thewillingness of a greater number of aspiring school principals to apply for schoolleadership positions could be interpreted as support for the enhanced focus on systemic

consistency in relation to school improvement strategies. SNLs also report that for thefirst time all school principals are now regular participants in network meetings, whichis an indicator of the willingness to engage in the collaborative culture that isemerging. Further evidence of enhanced practice across the system was provided bythe consultancy firm The Leadership Practice which conducted an independentreview in November 2010 of the ACT public school External Validation Process. Asnoted in the Executive Summary of the report, A change in focus to an evidence basedapproach to school improvement and the requirement to report outcomes as the keyinformation in school reviews has seen a substantial change in the strategic leadershipand the professional culture of schools (Bywaters and Boucher, 2010, p. 2).

Discussion

Achieving alignment among policies and practices to lift achievement for all studentsis particularly challenging for countries with federal systems like Australia, Canadaand the USA, which have an additional level of government compared to countries likeNew Zealand and the UK with their unitary systems. There has, however, beenconsiderable progress in Australia over the last three years through a series ofnational partnership agreements that gave effect to new federalism or cooperativefederalism. Two jurisdictions (Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory) illustratehow this has worked from a state and territory perspective.

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An important strategy in securing alignment has been to achieve a higher level ofautonomy at the school level than has traditionally been the case. The ACT movedearly in the early 1970s but plateaued for more than three decades, accelerating againfrom 2010. Victoria made steady progress over four decades to the point that it is now

the most devolved of any system of public education in the nation. The major politicalparties at the federal level accept the need for a more decentralized approach aroundthe country to achieve a heightened level of alignment. Australia now has a nationalsystem of tests with a high level of transparency on a school-by-school basis throughthe My School web site. There is no doubt that schools and their principals are beingheld to account in unprecedented fashion. However, the missing link in thepolicy-practice-accountability chain in most jurisdictions has been a lack of authorityat the school level to take action in matters such as the selection of staff and theallocation of funds.

The case for higher levels of autonomy has a sturdy evidence-base. A study of PISA2003 results conducted for the OECD by the Ifo Institute for Economic Research at theUniversity of Munich, Department of Human Capital and Innovation, was concernedwith accountability, autonomy and choice, focusing on level of student achievement:

On average, students perform better if schools have autonomy to decide on staffing and tohire their own teachers, while student achievement is lower when schools have autonomy inareas with large scope for opportunistic behaviour, such as formulating their own budget. Butschool autonomy in formulating the budget, in establishing teacher salaries, and indetermining course content are all significantly more beneficial in systems where externalexit exams introduce accountability (Womann et al., 2007, pp. 59-60).

An important issue is the extent to which expectations can be achieved within atraditional school improvement paradigm. These expectations may be cast as highlevels of achievement for all students with a narrow gap between high- andlow-performing students. There is a strong case to be made that years of effort at all

levels have led to only marginal improvement. Such may be the case in England wheredramatically increased levels of funding, an unrelenting stream of reform initiatives,one of the most extensive re-building initiatives in any country, and demandingaccountability driven by high levels of transparency in school tests have led todebatable evidence on the extent of improvement. It may be that current efforts inAustralia may lead to similar disappointment.

System improvement in education may be viewed as a comprehensive andconsistent effort to achieve improvements in student outcomes within an existingparadigm of schooling. There may be limits to what can be achieved within thatparadigm which includes organisation of schooling in different levels and classes,curriculum, pedagogy, technology, facilities, relationships with other schools and withthe community, and role of teachers and other professionals. While noteworthy

changes have been made, the place called school is still recognisably the same place ithas been for decades.

It may be that transformation is a more appropriate term than improvement inthe decade ahead. At one level transformation can be described as an outcome alongthe lines of significant, systematic and sustained change that secures success for allstudents in all settings (Caldwell and Harris, 2008). Australia falls well short of such anoutcome at present. At another level is the specification of elements that make up atransformation paradigm, re-shaping and re-aligning elements in the improvement


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paradigm. Victoria is planning to change the language and the way these and otherelements are aligned in its next blueprint. This takes us into the territory of futuresthinking in school education and work in this area is now taking place at all levels (seeCaldwell and Loader, 2010 for how this work can be undertaken in schools). New

alignments will be required.

SummaryIt is clear that, in a world that grows smaller every day as the digital environmentconnects us in ways that were previously not considered possible, educational successfor all Australians will involve the establishment of productive partnerships and activecollaboration. As former Secretary of State in the UK Estelle Morris argued: there islittle place anymore for the stand alone school (Morris and Beare, 2007, p. 12). Schoolsnot only need to be networked, they have to be able to integrate their activity andauthentically learn from each other in ways that have not been mainstreamed in thepast. Within this networked school environment however, we must recognise that

just like students, every school is unique. The history, teacher profile, culture,demographics, size and a range of other variables in each school demand that localsolutions must be developed to address identified problems of practice andperformance. It is therefore abundantly clear that the one size fits all approach tosystemically controlling all schools will not move the nations educational performanceconsistently forward. While we must share wisdom, knowledge and practice toimprove schools within a network, enabling school leaders to innovate and provideflexible strategic direction is essential to improvement at the local level and for thenation as a whole.

References

Altshuler, A. (1970), Community Control, Pegasus, Indianapolis, IN.

Banks, G. (2010), Advancing Australias human capital agenda, Ian Little Lecture, MonashUniversity, Melbourne, 13 April.

Barber, M. (2003), Deliverable goals and strategic challenges a view from England onreconceptualising public education, Networks of Innovation: Towards New Models for

Managing Schools and Systems, OECD, Paris, Chapter 7.

Barber, M. and Mourshed, M. (2007), How the Worlds Best-Performing School Systems Come Outon Top, McKinsey & Company, London.

Bentley, T. and Wilsdon, J. (2004), Introduction: the adaptive state, in Bentley, T. and Wilsdon,J. (Eds), The Adaptive State: Strategies for Personalising the Public Realm, Demos, London,Chapter 1.

Bywaters, L. and Boucher, S. (2010), Report on the ACT External Validation Process for 2010,

ACT Department of Education and Training, Canberra.Caldwell, B.J. (2008), The Power of Networks to Transform: An International Perspective,

Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, London.

Caldwell, B.J. and Harris, J. (2008), Why not the Best Schools?, ACER Press, Melbourne.

Caldwell, B.J. and Loader, D.N. (2010), Our School Our Future, Australian Institute for Teachingand School Leadership (AITSL), Melbourne.

Caldwell, B.J. and Spinks, J.M. (1988), The Self-Managing School, Falmer, London.

Caldwell, B.J. and Spinks, J.M. (1992), Leading the Self-Managing School, Falmer, London.

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Caldwell, B.J. and Spinks, J.M. (1998), Beyond the Self-Managing School, Falmer, London.

Caldwell, B.J. and Spinks, J.M. (2008), Raising the Stakes, Routledge, London.

Elmore, R. (2007), School Improvement in Victoria, Department of Education, Melbourne,available at: www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/staffdev/schlead/Richard_

Elmore-wps-v1-20070817.pdf (accessed 25 November 2010).

Fesler, J.W. (1968), Centralization and decentralization, International Encyclopedia of the SocialSciences, Vol. 2.

Fraser, D. and Petch, J. (2007), School Improvement: A Theory of Action, Department ofEducation and Early Childhood Development, Melbourne.

Fullan, M. (2003), The Moral Imperative of School Leadership, Sage, London.

Fullan, M. (2004), Leading the Way from Whole School Reform to Whole System Reform , IARTVSeminar series no. 139, Incorporated Association of Registered Teachers of Victoria(IARTV), Melbourne.

Fullan, M. (2005), Leadership Sustainability, Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Fullan, M. (2008), The New Meaning of Educational Change, 4th ed., Teachers College Press,

New York, NY, and London.

Fullan, M. (2010), All Systems Go: The Change Imperative for Whole System Reform, HawkerBrownlow in partnership with Corwin and Ontario Principals Council, Melbourne.

Gonzales, P., Williams, T., Jocelyn, L., Roey, S., Kastberg, D. and Brenwald, S. (2008), HighlightsFrom TIMSS 2007: Mathematics and Science Achievement of US Fourth andEighth-Grade Students in an International Context, available at: http://nces.ed.gov(accessed 27 November 2009).

Grace, T. (2010), Final Report from the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy(NAPLAN), Doc ref: 2008/02908, ACT Department of Education and Training, Canberra.

Groves, M. (2008), Regenerating Schools, Network Continuum, London.

International Institute of Administrative Sciences (1996), Governance: A Working Definition.

Report of the Governance Working Group, The Global Development Research Centre,available at: www.gdrc.org/u-gov/work-def.hrml (accessed 1 May 2006).

Johansson, y. (2003), Schooling for tomorrow principles and directions for policy, Networks ofInnovation: Towards New Models for Managing Schools and Systems, OECD, Paris,Chapter 9.

Keating, M. (2004), Who Rules? How Government Retains Control of a Privatised Economy,Federation Press, Sydney.

Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) (2008),National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy. Achievement in Reading, Writing,Language Conventions and Numeracy, available at: www.mceecdya.edu.au/verve/_resources/NAPLAN_2008-Full_Report.pdf (accessed 30 November 2009).

Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) (2009),National Assessment Program: Literacy and Numeracy. NAPLAN Summary Report,available at: www.naplan.edu.au/verve/_resources/2009_NAPLAN_Summary_Report.pdf(accessed 4 December).

Morris, E. and Beare, H. (2007), Directions for schooling in the twenty-first century:two perspectives, in Morris, E. and Beare, H. (Eds), Leading the Education DebateVolume 2, Centre for Strategic Education, Melbourne.

OECD (2003), Networks of Innovation: Towards New Models for Managing Schools and SchoolSystems, OECD, Paris.


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Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) (2006), Executive Summary, availableat: www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/15/13/39725224.pdf (accessed 30 November 2009).

Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) (2007), TIMSS Results 2007,available at: http://nces.ed.gov/timss/results07.asp (accessed 27 November 2009).

Womann, L., Ludemann, E., Schutz, G. and West, M.R. (2007), School Accountability, Autonomy,Choice, and the Equity of Student Achievement: International Evidence from PISA 2003,Education working paper no. 13, Directorate of Education, OECD, Paris.

Further reading

Caldwell, B.J. (2010), Glacial progress on school autonomy, Directions in Education, Vol. 19No. 8, p. 2.

Council of Australian Governments (COAG) (2008), National Partnership Agreement onImproving Teacher Quality, agreed to by the Prime Minister, Premiers and Chief Ministers,December.

Department of Education and Training (DET) (2003), Blueprint for Government Schools: Future

Directions for Education in the Victorian Government School System, DET, Melbourne.

About the authorsJim Watterston is Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Departmentof Education and Training. His previous appointments include Regional Director (EasternMetropolitan), Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (Victoria); andDirector of Schools (West Coast Education District), Department of Education and Training(Western Australia). He has also served as Superintendent of Schools and School Principal inWestern Australia. He is a Director of the Australian Institute of Teaching and SchoolLeadership (AITSL) and is President of the Australian Council for Educational Leaders (ACEL).

Brian Caldwell is Managing Director and Principal Consultant at EducationalTransformations and Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne where he served asDean of Education from 1998 to 2004. His previous appointments include Head of the

Department of Educational Policy and Management at the University of Melbourne; Head of theDepartment of Teacher Education and Dean of Education at the University of Tasmania. He isDeputy Chair of the Board of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and wasPresident of the Australian Council for Educational Leaders (formerly ACEA) from 1990 to1993. Brian Caldwell is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]

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