Independent Public Schools

Last updated

Independent Public Schools (IPS) refers to an education reform first introduced in Western Australia in 2009 by the state's Department of Education. [1] An independent public school is a state/public school that, while a part of the state education system, has been granted a higher degree of decision-making authority than a regular, non-independent state school. The term, Independent Public School, has been increasingly used by other state governments in Australia, such as Queensland, to label similar reforms to the governance of their state schools. [2] Federal Australian governments also use the term Independent Public Schools. In February 2014 the Federal Education Minister, Christopher Pyne, announced a $70 million Independent Public Schools Initiative to support 1,500 state schools across Australia to become more autonomous. [3]

Contents

Western Australia

The Independent Public Schools (IPS) initiative was launched in Western Australia in 2009 by then Education Minister Dr Elizabeth Constable and the State Premier Colin Barnett. The Independent Public Schools initiative in Western Australia is an opt-in program, meaning schools choose to become an independent public school. In 2009, primary and secondary state schools were invited for the first time to express an interest in becoming an IP school through an application process administered by the Western Australian Department of Education. [4] Applying schools need to demonstrate their readiness for increased autonomy and accountability through demonstrating the principal and school administration have prudent and effective financial and staff management ability. Schools should also demonstrate that there is a benefit to the school of becoming an IP school, and that the school staff and local community support the application. Applications are assessed by an independent panel. In its first round, 34 schools were admitted into the program. These schools began operating as IP schools in 2010. Since 2010, the following number of schools have been admitted into the program: 64 in 2011, 73 in 2012, and 84 in 2013. A further nine new schools opened as Independent Public Schools in 2014. Over half of all public schools have sought to become Independent Public Schools since the initiative began in 2010.

Key features of IPS in Western Australia

Schools granted IPS status choose to opt into a number of "flexibilities" or "authorities". These include:

Independent Public Schools are also awarded a recurring payment of between $25,000 - $50,000 for administrative support, and $20,000-$40,000 one-off payments for transition costs.

Independent Public Schools and their principals must:

An Independent Public School, its principal and board cannot:

Research and criticism

The Independent Public Schools initiative has been justified on the grounds that system decentralisation and principal autonomy improves the educational outcomes of students. A review of the Western Australian IPS initiative commissioned by the Department of Education (WA) was undertaken in 2013. This review found that principals welcomed the flexibilities offered by the program. There was no evidence of any change to attendance, suspension or academic achievement. The review noted that it was too early for the initiative to demonstrate an effect on student outcomes. [5] A study in Victoria, Australia, following self-managing reforms in that state found no direct cause and effect between the decentralisation of decision-making in planning and resource allocation, and improved learning outcomes of students. [6] A recent review of the literature into the effects of school autonomy concludes there is no causal link between autonomy and improved student learning outcomes, however local decision-making can improve learning outcomes in particular circumstances, such as where there are strong accountability mechanisms and a focus on improving the quality of teaching. [7] The OECD has attempted to map the types and levels of autonomy across education systems, and to measure the impact of school autonomy on student performance. A comparison of the 2003 PISA results by the OECD concludes that different facets of school autonomy and accountability are associated with the level of student achievement - students perform better on average in schools with the authority to hire staff, but perform worse in schools with authority over formulating budgets. [8] A comparison of the 2006 PISA results concludes that 'school level autonomy in relation to staffing, educational content and budgeting do not show a significant association with school performance. However, a system-level composition effect appears with regard to school autonomy in educational content as well as budgeting. Students in educational systems giving more autonomy to schools to choose textbooks, to determine course content, and to decide which courses to offer, tend to perform better regardless of whether the schools which individual students attend have higher degrees of autonomy or not'. [9] A comparison of the 2012 PISA results concludes that school systems where schools have more autonomy over curricula and assessments tend to perform better overall, however the relationship between school autonomy and performance within countries is more complex, with factors such as accountability arrangements and teacher-principal collaboration in school management impacting on performance. [10] Scholarly concern is registered about the effects of self-management and the deregulation of school choice that has accompanied it. These effects include: increased administrative burden on principals; [11] [12] levels of resourcing required to effectively self-govern; [13] and the intensification of 'the gaps between schools serving the rich and those serving the poor, gaps marked by growing differences in school size, student intake, resources and achievement'. [14] Other research explicitly situates IPS in its political and policy context. IPS has been criticised as a New Public Management reform not directed at improving the educational outcomes of students, but at reforming the public sector, particularly through introducing managerialist and market values, practices and mechanisms. [15] IPS is also understood as a regulatory regime aligned with neoliberal modalities of governing. Using a Foucauldian theoretical approach to the IPS initiative, the rationalities, techniques and practices of IPS have been understood as transforming the identities of principals around the neoliberal norms of entrepreneurship, self-reliance and self-responsibility. [16]

Related Research Articles

Education in Australia encompasses the sectors of early childhood education (preschool) and primary education, followed by secondary education, and finally tertiary education, which includes higher education and vocational education. Regulation and funding of education is primarily the responsibility of the States and territories; however, the Australian Government also plays a funding role.

In common usage, evaluation is a systematic determination and assessment of a subject's merit, worth and significance, using criteria governed by a set of standards. It can assist an organization, program, design, project or any other intervention or initiative to assess any aim, realisable concept/proposal, or any alternative, to help in decision-making; or to generate the degree of achievement or value in regard to the aim and objectives and results of any such action that has been completed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Education in Canada</span>

Education in Canada is for the most part provided publicly, and is funded and overseen by provincial, territorial and local governments. Education is within provincial jurisdiction and the curriculum is overseen by the province. Education in Canada is generally divided into primary education, followed by secondary education and post-secondary. Within the provinces under the ministry of education, there are district school boards administering the educational programs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Education in Germany</span> Overview of education in the Federal Republic of Germany

Education in Germany is primarily the responsibility of individual German states, with the federal government playing a minor role. Optional kindergarten education is provided for pre-school children, after which school attendance is compulsory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">No Child Left Behind Act</span> 2002 United States education reform law; repealed 2015

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) was a U.S. Act of Congress that reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; it included Title I provisions applying to disadvantaged students. It supported standards-based education reform based on the premise that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals could improve individual outcomes in education. The Act required states to develop assessments in basic skills. To receive federal school funding, states had to give these assessments to all students at select grade levels.

A headmaster/headmistress, head instructor, bureaucrat, head teacher, head, chancellor, school administrator/school admin, school coordinator, school manager, principal or school director is the staff member of a school with the greatest responsibility for the management of the school. In some English-speaking countries, the title for this role is principal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Programme for International Student Assessment</span> Scholastic performance study by the OECD

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in member and non-member nations intended to evaluate educational systems by measuring 15-year-old school pupils' scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading. It was first performed in 2000 and then repeated every three years. Its aim is to provide comparable data with a view to enabling countries to improve their education policies and outcomes. It measures problem solving and cognition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Belmont City College</span> Public co-educational high school in Australia

Belmont City College is a comprehensive independent public co-educational high school, located in Belmont, 6 kilometres (4 mi) east of Perth, Western Australia. Opening in 1957, the school's catchment area covers most of the City of Belmont and the eastern part of the Town of Victoria Park. As of Semester 1, 2020 the college had an enrolment of 929 students between Year 7 and Year 12. In Semester 1, 2011, 69 students enrolled were Indigenous Australians.

Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) was a measurement defined by the United States federal No Child Left Behind Act that allowed the U.S. Department of Education to determine how every public school and school district in the country was performing academically according to results on standardized tests. As defined by National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), AYP was "the amount of annual achievement growth to be expected by students in a particular school, district, or state in the U.S. federal accountability system, No Child Left Behind (NCLB)." AYP has been identified as one of the sources of controversy surrounding George W. Bush administration's Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Private schools were not required to make AYP.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pimlico State High School</span> Public school in Townsville, Queensland, Australia

Pimlico State High School is an government public high school in Townsville, Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian Council for Educational Research</span> Educational research organization

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), established in 1930, is an independent educational research organisation based in Camberwell, Victoria (Melbourne) and with offices in Adelaide, Brisbane, Dubai, Jakarta, London, New Delhi, Perth and Sydney. ACER develops and manages a range of testing and assessment services and conducts research and analysis in the education sector.

Following independence from the Soviet Union, a major economic depression cut "public financing" for education in Kazakhstan, "which dropped from 6% of gross domestic product in 1991 to about 3% in 1994, before rising to 4% in 1999. Elementary- and secondary-school teachers remain badly underpaid; in 1993 more than 30,000 teachers left education, many of them to seek more lucrative employment.

Educational leadership is the process of enlisting and guiding the talents and energies of teachers, students, and parents toward achieving common educational aims. This term is often used synonymously with school leadership in the United States and has supplanted educational management in the United Kingdom. Several universities in the United States offer graduate degrees in educational leadership.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development</span> American membership organization for education professionals

The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development doing business as ASCD is a membership-based non-profit organization founded in 1943. It has more than 125,000 members from more than 128 countries, including superintendents, principals, teachers, professors of education, and other educators. The ASCD Community also includes 52 affiliate organizations, self-organized Connected Communities, and ASCD Student Chapters.

In larger school systems, a head teacher principal is often assisted by someone known as a vice-principal, deputy principal, or assistant/associate principal. Unlike the principal, the vice-principal does not have quite the decision-making authority that the principal carries. Although they still carry nearly the same authority among students, vice-principals do not have the same power on the board. Experience as an assistant principal is often a prerequisite for advancement to a principalship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Hanushek</span> American economist

Eric Alan Hanushek is an economist who has written prolifically on public policy with a special emphasis on the economics of education. Since 2000, he has been a Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, an American public policy think tank located at Stanford University in California. He was awarded the Yidan Prize for Education Research in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NAPLAN</span> Australias national school assessment program

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is a series of tests focused on basic skills that are administered to Australian students in year 3, 5, 7 and 9. These standardised tests assess students' reading, writing, language and numeracy and are administered by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). The National Assessment Program is overseen by the Education Ministers Meeting.

Charter schools operate with considerably more independence than traditional public schools. However, Massachusetts has two kinds of charter schools - Commonwealth Charters and Horace Mann Charters. Horace Mann charter schools differ from Commonwealth charter schools as they must be located within a school district. Both kinds of charter schools are free to structure their curriculum and school environment; for instance, many charter schools fit more instructional hours into a year by running longer school days and providing instruction on weekends and during the summer. Because few charter schools are unionized, they can hire and fire teachers and administrative staff without regard to the collectively bargained seniority and tenure provisions that constrain such decisions in most public schools. Although charter students made up only 2.9 percent of U.S. public school enrollment in 2008–2009, charter enrollment has grown rapidly and seems likely to accelerate in the near future. The growth of charter schools is an important component of the contemporary education reform movement's pursuit of accountability and flexibility in public education. Proponents see charter schools' freedom from regulation as a source of educational innovation, with the added benefit of providing a source of competition that may prompt innovation and improvement in the rest of the public system. At the same time, charter schools are controversial because, after a transition period in which the state provides subsidies, they receive a tuition payment for each enrolled student paid by students' home districts. In Massachusetts, tuition payments are determined largely by the average per-pupil expenditure in sending districts. Not surprisingly, therefore, public school districts are concerned about the revenue lost when their students enroll in charter schools.

The Programme for International Student Assessment has had several runs before the most recent one in 2012. The first PISA assessment was carried out in 2000. The results of each period of assessment take about one year and a half to be analysed. First results were published in November 2001. The release of raw data and the publication of technical report and data handbook only took place in spring 2002. The triennial repeats follow a similar schedule; the process of seeing through a single PISA cycle, start-to-finish, always takes over four years. 470,000 15-year-old students representing 65 nations and territories participated in PISA 2009. An additional 50,000 students representing nine nations were tested in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Douglas Willms</span>

J. Douglas Willms is the Founder and President of The Learning Bar Inc. He is a member of the US National Academy of Education, Past-President of the International Academy of Education and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. From 1995 to 2018, Willms was Professor of Education at the University of New Brunswick, where for eight years he held the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Chair in Human Development and for fourteen years held the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Literacy and Human Development.

References

  1. ↑ Gobby, Brad (14 May 2013). "Enacting the Independent Public Schools program in Western Australia". Issues in Educational Research. 23 (1): 19–34.
  2. ↑ Education Queensland. "Independent Public Schools". Queensland Government. Archived from the original on 6 March 2014. Retrieved 3 February 2014.
  3. ↑ Griffiths, Emma (3 February 2014). "Christopher Pyne announces $70 million fund to help public schools go it alone". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 3 February 2014.
  4. ↑ "Overview of the independent public schools initiative". Western Australian Department of Education. Retrieved 3 February 2014.
  5. ↑ Centre for Program Evaluation (2013). Evaluation of the Independent Public Schools Initiative. Perth: Department of Education, Western Australia.
  6. ↑ Caldwell, Brian (1998). Beyond the self-managing school. London: Falmer Press.
  7. ↑ Caldwell, Brian (2012). Review of related literature for the evaluation of empowering local schools. Canberra: Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.
  8. ↑ Wobmann, L (2007). School accountability, autonomy, choice and the level of student achievement: International evidence from PISA 2003. OECD Education Working Papers. Paris: OECD Publishing.
  9. ↑ OECD (2007). PISA 2006 Science Competencies for Tomorrow's World. Paris: OECD. p. 252.
  10. ↑ OECD (2012). PISA 2012 Results: What makes schools successful? Resources, Policies and Practices Volume 4. PISA. Paris: OECD Publishing. doi:10.1787/9789264201156-en. hdl:20.500.12749/3184. ISBN   9789264201149.
  11. ↑ Gobby, Brad (2013). "Enacting the Independent Public Schools program in Western Australia". Issues in Educational Research. 23 (1): 19–34.
  12. ↑ Whitty, Geoff (1998). Devolution and choice in education: The school, the state and the market. Buckingham: Open University Press.
  13. ↑ Gobby, Brad (2013). "Enacting the Independent Public Schools program in Western Australia". Issues in Educational Research. 23 (1): 19–34.
  14. ↑ Lamb, Stephen (2007). School reform and inequality in urban Australia: A case study of residualising the poor. In International studies in inequality, theory and policy: Volume 3 education theory and public policy. Netherlands: Springer. p. 29.
  15. ↑ Fitzgerald, Scott (2011). Putting the public first? An examination of the implications of the 2009 EAC report. Part two: Independent public schools. Perth: Curtin Graduate School of Business.
  16. ↑ Gobby, Brad (2013). "Principal self-government and subjectification: the exercise of principal autonomy in the Western Australian Independent Public Schools programme" (PDF). Critical Studies in Education. 54 (3): 273–285. doi:10.1080/17508487.2013.832338. hdl: 20.500.11937/4269 . S2CID   144969172.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.