Conference Agenda

Target 4.5 of the UN sustainable development goals focuses on the fact that all individuals should have equal opportunity to enjoy education, achieve at equal levels and enjoy equal benefits from education. Unfortunately, research suggests that educational disadvantage exists across the life course and education sectors including the transition from second to third level with limited research available on the effectiveness of interventions which increase second-level students’ aspirations and progression to third level (Ní Chorcora, Bray and Banks, 2023).

Trinity Access Programmes' (TAP) Schools of Distinction programme aims to address the challenge of low progression rates to further and higher education, among students from low socio-economic backgrounds. By implementing evidence-based core practices in mentoring, leadership in learning, and pathways to college in partnership schools, TAP aims to increase aspirations and progression for groups that have been marginalised.

This paper presents research on the observed impact of the SOD programme on students’ college readiness. It aims to provide guidance for school leaders, policymakers and practitioners on what types of interventions work.

Methods

The paper uses data from a broader study on widening participation (Tangney et al., 2022) which surveys over 3600 students attending schools which have a disadvantaged status in Ireland. All schools included in the study are linked with the university widening participation outreach programme. Students were asked about their level of engagement with the core practices, as well as self-reported educational outcomes on their college readiness. College readiness in this instance refers to four validated self-reported measures; active engagement in education, educational aspirations and goals, college application efficacy, and students’ confidence in college success.

Findings

Preliminary findings suggest positive effects of certain WP outreach programmes on students’ college readiness. There was a significant difference in college readiness scores when comparing students who had a college student as a mentor and those that did not, even after controlling for students’ mother’s education. Students who reported having a college student as a mentor or having a staff member from their school as a mentor reported having statistically higher scores on all four college readiness measures. Findings showed that students who engaged in three or more Pathways to College activities had significantly higher scores on all measures of college readiness.

Educational importance

These findings give important insights into the roll out of mentoring programmes in schools and which types of mentors can be most impactful for young people from disadvantaged areas. Discussion of the analyses point to the fact that short, day-long events such as college fairs, campus tours, application clinics and college talks can be effective in increasing college readiness if they are embedded into school life.

This paper is relevant to the 3P network conference themes and specifically leading schools and education systems that promote equity, inclusion, belonging, diversity and social justice. The School of Distinction programme gives a template and structure to school leaders working in disadvantaged areas who want to cultivate college going cultures in their schools with the ultimate aim of increasing college readiness and post-school progression.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance engaged and purposeful dialogue between politicians, practitioners, policymakers and researchers in developing policies for school improvement by providing new insights into the role of politicians as policymakers in the development of large-scale education system reform.

The focus of inquiry is how the Minister for Education in NSW, Australia, developed the Local Schools, Local Decisions (LSLD) reform, the political considerations that arose and how they were addressed, and insights that might be relevant to policy development in other contexts or jurisdictions.

While there is general agreement that politicians are integral to public policy development, very little systematic research exists on the politics of reform. How politicians manage the political context, and their relationships with other education system actors during the policy development process, are “still largely a black box” (Busemeyer & Trampusch, 2011, p.432).

This study builds on the small literature of the politics of education, and the extensive literature on large-scale system reform and public policy development, to explore the role of politicians as policymakers, and how the political context shapes education policy development.

The methodology is a qualitative descriptive case study of the development of LSLD, which had major impacts on the governance, funding and decision-making authority of all 2,200 NSW government schools. It takes an historical narrative approach, drawn from the epistemically-privileged perspectives of insiders to the process: the Minister; his staff; and key stakeholders. Such voices are almost entirely absent in the research. The data is mainly from primary sources, including: public policy documents; private contemporaneous notebooks; the Minister’s (unpublished) memoir notes; and interviews.

Five key cross-cutting themes are identified through Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2013). They show that policy development depends as much or more on the politics of the reform process as on the technical reform design; demonstrate the importance of the Minister’s leadership in establishing the reform direction and determining the final policy; illuminate the value of his strong, active and respectful relationships and continual formal and informal engagement with a wide range of stakeholders; and reveal the messy, complex, intricate “policy dance” (Bridgman & Davis, 2004) that occurs between the Minister and the public servants. Building on my analysis, and on Ball’s (1993) conceptual lens of policy as both text and discourse, I theorise a new framework which describes each stage and focus of the policy development process.

The research contributes new knowledge to the politics of education and education policy fields on the role of politicians as policymakers and how policy development is shaped by the political context within which it occurs. This may enhance collaboration between politicians, practitioners, policymakers and researchers in improving education systems by giving practical guidance regarding the most effective engagement strategies to use at each stage of the process.

The paper connects to the conference theme regarding the impact of research/policy/practice collaboration for enhanced school effectiveness and improvement; and to the sub-theme of “engaged and purposeful dialogue between politicians, policymakers, academic researchers, educators, and wider school communities”.

Objective and focus of inquiry

Many governments recognize the limitations of centralized policy in motivating school improvement and turn to ‘network governance’ and the establishment of interorganisational networks in education to improve educational outcomes. Relying on such networks has far-reaching consequences for existing accountability structures, most of which were developed to support hierarchical control of individual school quality. This paper presents a systematic literature review which looked at the introduction of new accountability arrangements for networks and whether/how these improve education.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework

The added value of inter-organizational networks in addressing complex issues has been well established in the literature (Ehren & Perryman, 2018), including in education. School-to school networks or other types of local partnerships can enable more localized decision-making to address complex problems that require interactions of multiple actors. Many studies have however also outlined the unintended consequences of such networks (Kenis & Raab, 2020), such as substantial coordination and transaction costs and reputation and legitimacy concerns for the member organizations (Tunisini & Marchiori, 2020). Accountability is expected to incentive and legitimize collaboration and orient members’ contribution to the purpose of the network and address these concerns (Ehren & Perryman, 2018). For the purpose of this paper we take a broad perspective on accountability: “Accountability refers to the diverse relationships between parties involved in, or affected by a program/action, in which each party has an obligation to explain and justify his/her or their conduct, and other parties can pose questions and pass judgement and the party may face consequences” (Tran, 2021, p.10).

Methods and data sources

This paper presents the findings from a systematic literature review of peer reviewed sources -both conceptual and empirical papers- about the accountability of purpose-oriented inter-organizational networks. An initial search of Web of Science and Eric resulted in 5819 sources. A screening of titles and abstracts resulted in a set of 60 papers of which 54 sources were included for full coding.

Findings

The findings of the review first describe the types of accountability described in the studies and the types of networks (according to maturity, size, formal/informal and public nature of the partnership) in which these were introduced. We then explain the types of outcomes indicated by the various types of accountability (e.g. improved collaboration, network-level types of educational outcomes) and the conditions under which these emerge (trust, regulatory frameworks, alignment between levels of evaluation and accountability).

Educational importance

Many governments are moving towards ‘network governance’ to coordinate their education system in an attempt to address the limitations of centralized policy. The change in coordination also implies the need for other types of accountability to ensure networks can meet their joint purpose. This paper offers an overview of literature in this area and whether and how accountability can improve the functioning and outcomes of educational networks.

Connection to the conference theme

The paper provides further insights into a particular aspects of collaboration and partnerships in education systems around the world and how their accountability can enhance school effectiveness and improvement.

This paper presentation addresses the conference theme of ongoing professional learning and growth through focussing on the processes and outcomes to date of a partnership between the Centre for School and System Improvement (CSSI) in the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and the School Improvement Division of the Northern Territory Department of Education (NTDoE). The CSSI focuses on investigating and supporting system transformation (Sengeh & Winthrop, 2022). The partnership between our organisations spans many decades. However, in 2018, the NTDoE embarked on a deliberate strategy to grow expertise in using ACER’s National School Improvement Tool (NSIT, 2016; now the School Improvement Tool, 2023) to review and analyse school performance for school improvement planning across differentiated improvement journeys. The SIT is a research-based framework which makes explicit good practice in school improvement in nine interrelated domains, each with four performance levels. Schools can use the Tool to pinpoint their current levels of practice in each domain and plan for improvement, based on evidence collected from a range of sources and stakeholders.

School communities in the (Northern Territory) NT have the greatest degree of remoteness and lowest socio-economic levels in Australia (ABS, 2022; Goss & Sonnemann, 2018). They also have the lowest educational outcomes in the country. 0ver 29,000 students are enrolled across 154 government schools in the NT (NT Government, 2022). Fifty per cent of students in NT government schools are Aboriginal. Approximately 71% of these schools are in remote and very remote areas. These circumstances bring unique challenges for school improvement. The Education NT Strategy 2018-22 (NTDoE, 2017), and the subsequent continuation of this agenda in the Education NT strategy 21-25, aimed to accelerate school improvement by ensuring that each school was focused on a “sharp and narrow set of priorities” and that, in turn, the system would provide schools with differentiated support to achieve performance goals and targets (NTDoE, 2019, p. 4) so that the NT would become the most improving education system in Australia. The NTDoE-ACER partnership was to support this overarching goal. Given the contextual complexity and high historical teacher and principal turnover, the partnership focussed building sustainable expertise within the system, contributing to the development of a pipeline of school leaders, and enabling culturally responsive improvement approaches. Strategies focussed on:

• Building a system-wide shared understanding of and practice in improvement

• Ongoing professional learning in school improvement practice using ACER tools across a broad range of stakeholders

• Culturally sustainable practice

• Differentiated support and resources to schools

• Growing a pipeline of leadership from within the system

• Monitoring for impact.

Independent evaluation shows that the impact of this approach has been positive with clear indication of improvement over a relatively short period. Successful outcomes have been observed particularly in growing expertise within the system. This has enhanced leadership and teaching capability, as well as staff attraction and retention rates, which have positively influenced student outcomes.