Conference Agenda

The New Public Manegment (NPM) influences educational policy in many aspects. One of them deals with strengthen global governance by the reinforce the involvment of stakehoders from the business sector and philanthropy in educational policy. This involvement strives to adapt values of globalism, standards, and accountability as part of the educational evaluation policy (Lingard, Martino, & Rezai-Rashti, 2013).

The educational evaluation policy targets power relations between different stakeholders. The stakeholder's position and values are more often reveal in the way they identify structural problems and strategical difficulties in the education system. That effects both the educational evaluation policy and the expectancy from the education system to enact and implement the policy. The enactment of evaluation policy is more often challenging due to demands from the formal authorities and obstacles from inside the educational system (Adert-German, 2021; Ball, Magurie, Braun, & Hoskins, 2011; Camphuijsen, 2020).

The objective of this research is to comprehend the scope of evaluation policy and the effects of NPM on it. This highlights the influence of different ideologies and standards regarding educational evaluation policy. Moreover, the research challenges policy stakeholder's expectancy from enactment and implementation of the policy.

Our research deals with the educational policy in Israel since 2005. This was a significant year for Israeli education policy because of the Dovrat (Israel National Force for Education) Committee, which revealed their findings and recommendations.

This committee raised concerns regarding improving evaluation and measurement of the educational system, and adopting an evaluation policy that promotes accountability (Livni-Huberman, 2021; Resnik, 2011).

The Dovrat committee recommended establishing the National Authority for Measurement and Evaluation. It was also involved in the evaluation policy and its implementation in the educational system, including the national and international examinations. Another notable recommendation was creating the position of evaluation coordinator. A coordinator is a teacher specializing in the field of evaluation. This teacher trained to become the school evaluation coordinator and to enact the evaluation policy within the school.

In recent years, instability has become one of the permanent elements in everyday life, from the global economic crisis in 2008, through the climate crisis and the Arab Spring, which increased emissions and migration to Europe, culminating with the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the consequences of these emergencies was recognition of the advantage of local government over central government in effectively solving problems (Gupta et al., 2021). These events, along with changes of government, demographic shifts, and economic changes, are reflected in the characteristics of educational reform (Cohen, Spillane, & Peurach, 2018). Educational reforms usually seek to establish a new policy that will change teaching and learning patterns for the benefit of the schools and society (Sahlberg, 2016). As such, educational reform usually challenges the school principals’ basic concepts and assumptions, and can affect their professional skills. This study seeks to explore how a top-down reform affects principals’ professional skills.

The reform explored in this study is called “Gefen” (PAF – Pedagogical-Administrative Flexibility), designed by Ministry of Education policymakers, to be implemented by school principals. This reform reflects the growing accountability and crisis management trend at local leadership level. By means of a digital platform, this reform enables management of school budgets by selecting administrative and pedagogical alternatives, such as educational programs, consultancy and training, technological tools, etc. Choosing solutions requires principals to use professional skills to diagnose the schools’ needs, choose an appropriate intervention, and infer from the process and results (Abbott, 1988). In addition, to successfully meet the demands of the reform, principals have to develop supportive networks with colleges and experts to obtain information, resources, and tools (Eyal, 2019). The present study seeks to examine the relationship between educational reform and the professional skills of school principals.

Preliminary findings show that the main challenges the principals face are meeting budget requirements, timetables, and reports, while keeping to the reform budget. The principals deal with these challenges by participating in networks that provide sound advice, consultation, and quick solutions to the demands of the reform. Following the wisdom of the network enhances the pattern of compliance, and suppresses the professional skills needed to adapt the solutions to the school’s needs and context. Virtually no evidence was found of diagnostic processes regarding students’ or teachers’ needs. The principals preferred to delegate diagnosis responsibilities to middle leaders, such as the social education coordinator, or favored programs with popular topics, like student inclusion and resilience. At times, the guiding principle of “Every child gets something”, leads to purchasing a wide variety of programs that do not necessarily correspond to the students’ or teachers’ needs.

At the same time, when the principals chose programs, there was partial reference to an informed choice between alternatives. One reason for this is that the digital reform includes more than 5,000 different programs, making it difficult to choose. Consequently, in most instances, the principals look for recommendations from colleagues, or continue with programs already operating at the school.

Finally, little evidence was found to evaluate the quality of the program. Principals used accessible indicators, such as the students’ desire to participate or the absence of discipline problems, with no reference to whether the program’s pedagogical or administrative goals have been achieved. Possible explanations for the principals’ coping patterns are associated with the nature of reform implementation (top-down, all at once, without sufficient time), with “growing pains” of the new digital system, and with the principals’ lack of professional skills, which altogether result in them devoting their efforts to “solving the problem of the reform”, rather than to the problems the reform seeks to solve.

The study analyzes the emergence of new modes of regulation in education and the teaching profession, resulting in phenomena of multiregulation in education (Barroso, 2005). This involves the interaction of state and non-state actors at different levels and with different approaches, in new spaces, utilizing various governance instruments (Leuze Martens & Rusconi, 2007; Rizvi & Lingard, 2006). The study acknowledges the increasing intensity and complexity of transnational governance in education (Carvalho, 2016), leading to the creation of non-traditional spaces. One such example is the Erasmus+ support line for European projects, specifically Key Action 3 – Support for policy reform, Action Type – Policy experimentations, which includes the case of the European project - LOOP – Empowering Teachers.

The propositions put forth by this group are analyzed as an expression of transnational governance (Ozga & Lingard, 2007; Djelic & Sahlin-Anderson, 2006) of teacher training policies in unconventional forums. The identification of the issues that unite the actors in the LOOP consortium is based on the recognition of a global political matter that demands attention. This matter arises from two main factors: i) the shortage of teachers in Europe, which poses a pressing challenge and has significant impacts on educational systems, and ii) the necessity to attract and retain more qualified professionals, recognizing the critical early stages of the teaching profession (Almeida et al., 2018; Costa et al., 2019). In this context, the establishment of the consortium is justified, further fortified by the approval and funding of the proposal at the European level.

The consortium brings together representatives from Ministries of Education, academics, and teachers from six European countries (Croatia, Slovenia, Spain (Catalonia), Greece, Italy, and Portugal) to address a shared issue. The consortium's collective goal is to design a solution that can be implemented at a national level, incorporating perspectives from state authorities, teachers, and academic experts. The involvement of Ministries of Education adds legitimacy to the consortium as they are considered crucial stakeholders responsible for implementing the proposed solutions within their respective national contexts.

Therefore, as part of a larger project, this study has three main objectives: i) to document how the consortium organizes itself and assigns roles to different actors involved; ii) to analyze the issues raised as part of a critical analysis process, constructing a coherent argument that identifies and defines the key features of a shared problem and emphasizes the need for a collective response; and iii) to present the recommendations that emerge from the coordinated search for solutions to the identified problems, including proposals and suggestions for addressing the challenges at hand.

This effort encompasses a progressive exploration of potential approaches that should be adopted, following the established guidelines (Delvaux, 2009). It is crucial to analyze the tools and methods employed by the consortium to generate knowledge that supports the proposed solutions. For instance, the consortium utilizes various instruments in different national contexts, such as identifying teachers' needs and motivations during the initial phase in the consortium's six countries. Additionally, the consortium gathers 'best practices' and exemplary case studies from participating countries, which serve as inspiring models.

The generated knowledge, aiming to build the supporting 'argument' for the group's proposals, is based on 776 questionnaires collected by the LOOP consortium, applied to teachers (newly graduated and experienced) and school directors; 56 interviews conducted by LOOP teams and six focus groups (64 participants), and results obtained through a trial of the solution via the implementation of national pilot projects.