 
Week 4 - Local School Management
|  | The School Self-Management Movement: What Does it Mean for NSW Primary Schools? |
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Listing of Papers | |
MR JOHN McMILLAN
New South Wales, Australia
MR JOHN McMILLAN
NSW, Australia
SCHOOL-BASED management has been a significant movement in Australian public schools for the last decade and has taken many different paths across the continent. Many States have instigated reports, which have driven reforms in the way schools are managed, e.g.,
- 'Better Schools', Western Australia, 1987;
- 'Schools Renewal', New South Wales, 1989;
- 'Schools of the Future', Victoria, 1993;
- 'Directions for Education', Tasmania 1996; and,
- 'Leading Schools', Queensland, 1997.
Brian Caldwell defined the 'Self-Managing School' in 1992 as:
'... a school in a system of education where there has been a significant and consistent decentralisation to the school level of authority to make decisions related to the allocation of resources'.
This article will focus on the current state of the self-management movement in New South Wales public primary schools and suggest possible future directions for school communities and government.
Historical Background
Devolution of authority to schools in NSW commenced in 1989 and proceeded in controversial circumstances with the Minister for Education in the early nineties, Dr Terry Metherell, cutting teaching positions and introducing new structures and systemic reforms. Funds were devolved to schools, major professional development funding was injected into schools, merit selection of principals and executive was introduced, inspectorates (groupings of schools) were replaced by clusters and inspectors were replaced by directors.
The answer to the question: 'Can local school management achieve improved student learning?' is 'Yes!'
Just One Factor
However, local school management alone is not responsible for improved student learning. It can provide the capacity for local decision-making on the allocation of some resources to meet the needs of students but it is the skill of teachers, the collaborative nature of the learning environment, the use of appropriate pedagogy and the provision of sufficient and appropriate resources that collectively improves the learning outcomes of students.
School-based management has greatly contributed to the success of public primary schools in New South Wales during the nineties.
- School communities have become highly skilled planners, with annual School Management Plans reflecting collaborative decision-making processes designed to make a difference to learning outcomes in schools. These plans reflect systemic requirements, as well as local needs.
- Budgets allocate global and community funds to support School Management Plans.
- Accountability processes report to the system and to local communities. Initially, this accountability process was a monitoring exercise carried out by Directors of Schools. This was replaced by Quality Assurance Reviews and, currently, an Annual Report which focuses on school achievements and financial standing, is in place.
- Local communities are empowered to make decisions through membership of school committees involving teachers and parents. A majority of schools have School Councils, which oversee the functioning of schools, although they have no direct power in day-to-day management. There has been a decrease in the number of functioning School Councils in recent years with less emphasis by the Government on their establishment.
- Schools have become more independent in managing their own affairs and meeting local needs, although they are still dependent on the government for most funding.
Learning Outcomes
In terms of learning outcomes, NSW public schools have:
- achieved the highest levels of any State in literacy, as indicated by matching the Basic Skills Test results against National Benchmarks;
- curriculums in all Key Learning Areas that detail outcomes for students at each stage of their learning development. A balanced curriculum meets the academic, cultural, physical and social needs of students;
- comprehensive and innovative assessment and reporting procedures that involve student portfolios, with students reporting to parents;
- a high level of engagement of students with technology. Through government and local funding, public schools have a low ratio of students to computers, networks in schools are commonplace, and all schools are connected to the Internet.
Three Key Issues
There are three issues pertaining to local school management that are vitally important for the future.
The first issue centres on how far should school based management move towards the privatisation of public schools? Heather-Jane Robertson, in an article, 'Shall We Dance?', reporting on privatisation movements in Canadian public schools, says: 'Entrepreneurs, free marketers, right wing ideologues, fed up taxpayers, religious fundamentalists and radical educational reformers make strange bedfellows, but they have found a common mission: dismantling the monopoly of public education so that market rules can be applied to the business of schooling'.
She further reports that schools have been forced to act as competitors for budget share, staff and prestige and that the advantages of collaboration have given way to the urge to out-manoeuvre the opposition.
In one instance, Heather-Jane Robertson recounts how a new outcomes-based curriculum was tendered to the private sector. A publisher of textbooks (a.k.a. the curriculum) who won the contract, met the deadline by bringing in American materials containing only cosmetic references to Canada. Is this what we desire in New South Wales or Australian public schools?
Competition and Choice?
The Federal Minister for Education, Dr Kemp, uses the words, 'competition and choice'. The Enrolment Benchmark Adjustment strategy appears to be moving masses of funding from public to private schools.
Dr Ken Boston, Director General of Education and Training in NSW, has emphasised to public primary principals on more than one occasion that we have to become competitive to counter the rise in the number of private schools and the drift in enrolments to the private sector.
Tim Costello, Baptist Minister and lawyer, warned primary principals at the Riverina Combined Districts Conference in 1999 that there is a trend in government to privatise and outsource functions by giving all the funding to outside agencies, and then taking no responsibility when things go wrong or there is a shortfall in funding.
Major moves to privatisation would greatly damage the NSW public school system, 'the crucible of society', as Dr Boston stated in a speech to ACEA Conference in Cairns in 1997.
Can Equity be Guaranteed?
A second issue of vital importance to the future of local school management is the extent to which local school management guarantees equity for all students.
The New Zealand public school system is a far more devolved system than any state system in Australia. Following the Picot Report in the early nineties, local schools assumed all operational functions under the governance of a Board of Trustees. Valerie Burns, the Director of Early Childhood Education in Western Australia, has found that 'There is no evidence in New Zealand that competition is improving the standard of education. In fact, it may be having the opposite effect - particularly in schools with a low socio-economic intake'.
This view is supported by Tony Townsend of Monash University, in Victoria, who quotes evidence that reforms in New Zealand have been less successful in improving educational opportunities for children from disadvantaged groups. Resource gaps remain evident there, particularly in schools serving low income and/or Maori children.
How to Win Enough Freedom?
A third issue centres on how school communities become free enough of government controls to act as self-managers. Governments have the right to make policy but they do not have the right to make and implement bad policy. Both the Federal Government and the NSW Government are implementing policies that are not based on involving communities in decision-making. Therefore, there is a discrepancy between the views of the Government that, on the one hand, advocate devolving decision-making and, on the other hand, do not want to demonstrate that position through all policies.
MacNeill and Silcox argue that schools should embrace a process of renewal, rather than reform. Reform they say, is 'top down', system-initiated and needs to be done because something is perceived as not operating efficiently.
School renewal, on the other hand, say MacNeill and Silcox, is characterised by a 'bottom up' ongoing school community-driven approach to educational improvement. This is a much more effective method for bringing about improvement in schools and more strongly supports the philosophy of local school management.
Three Strategies for Developing a New Paradigm
Public primary principals in NSW would not advocate a return to the past, to what Brian Caldwell calls the 'back to the future' scenario. However, there is a need to define a new paradigm. Three strategies are suggested for developing a new world view for NSW public primary schools.
A public debate, even a review, of public education in NSW should be initiated as soon as possible. In recent times, public education has been treated badly in the media. Some of this negative publicity is related to a prolonged salary dispute between the Government and the NSW Teachers Federation. There have been bans, stop work meetings and a strike. All of these have provided the media and the wider community with the opportunity to denigrate public education and teachers.
Notwithstanding this issue, there is an enormously strong feeling amongst principals and teachers that they have been alienated, that they are not valued and trusted by the Government and the Department of Education and Training. There is a severe loss of confidence in the Government and the bureaucracy, who have not publicly supported the teaching profession.
There is also a need for principals, teachers and school communities to regain some control of the educational agenda at a state and national level. There is a need for them to participate in discussing the future, to establish a vision for the future and forge coalitions of all education constituents - something that would be quite different from the 'field of combat' that exists at the moment. A renewal process should be initiated that re-emphasises local school management as a major factor in rebuilding the image of public education in NSW.
In Queensland, a highly innovative renewal program, the 'New Basics', seeks to teach children all they need to know for the global information age, to simultaneously support and reinvigorate teachers, to rebuild public education as a brand of excellence in its own right. Queensland is throwing out the syllabus. School renewal there will be built on integrated reform of teaching practice, curriculum and assessment. The emphasis is on flexibility with schools, and teachers left to make key decisions according to their judgment about local needs.
In Victoria, the Bracks Government has decided to establish a process enabling all Victorians to assist in the development of the Government's vision for schools. The principles of this review include:
- the view that public education is a public benefit;
- the establishment of high and improved standards of student learning;
- the ensuring of inclusiveness and equity;
- the development of personal and democratic values;
- the enhancement of the professional status of teachers;
- the enhancement of school management; and,
- the ensuring of access to educational opportunity.
The NSW public school system needs to chart its way, and can do this very well, as evidenced by the Review of Higher School Certificate in 1997/98, which involved over twenty constituent groups and which established a futuristic view and plans for students learning.
However, schools require the time and the professional development support to establish a revitalised vision of public primary education.
2. Principals and their communities have to think and act more politically. Governments have the mandate to make policy and bureaucracies have the task to implement policy. Principals and their school communities have to influence policy decisions, and to regain a say in establishing the educational agenda of governments.
One initiative being promoted by the NSW Primary Principals' Association, which is intended to place community views before politicians, is the formation of lobby groups.
Public Education lobby groups have been formed in three areas of Sydney - Liverpool, Campbelltown and Bankstown. These groups are made up of teachers, principals and community members who undertake to:
- lobby members of Parliament seeking greater support and advocacy for public schools, as well as a real increase in funding;
- encourage parents, principals, students and teachers to promote public schools and colleges;
- communicate regularly with the broader community in ensuring there is a well-funded and well-supported public education system; and,
- publicise public education as the cornerstone of Australia's democratic society.
District Councils and the State Executive of the NSW Primary Principals' Association are becoming more active in establishing communication with politicians at all levels (state and federal) and informing them of the views of principals and their communities on a wide range of issues.
3. There is a need for more research to be undertaken by organisations of principals, so that evidence can be presented to politicians, the media and the community at large of the views of principals and teachers. We must become more proactive in suggesting the way forward for the future.
The NSW Primary Principals' Association has become more proactive through the development of the Commitment to the Future document and the establishment of a
Futures Reference Group. The document, Commitment to the Future, details the goals and philosophical base for the operation of the Association and, as well, sets out annual priorities in all functional areas. The Futures Reference Group researches and establishes directions that the Association should pursue in improving teaching and learning in public primary schools.
The work being undertaken by the national group, Forum of State Primary Principals (FASPP) at the present time is a good example of proactivity. Research has been undertaken and papers are being written on the state of funding public primary schools across the nation. This research will be presented to politicians during the year 2000.
The words of Michael Fullan support these three initiatives, as a strategy for the future:
'Just as the principals of the last decade (1987-97) were urged to develop collaborative cultures within schools, the principals of the next decade (1998-2008) should be leading the way to redefine collaboration so that it encompasses alliances with groups and individuals outside school'.
Fullan further states: 'New relationships are about gaining allies. When dubious reform agendas throw schools into turmoil and teachers and schools are discredited as failing by government advertising and media reports, solid public support can make a world of difference to teachers. If it is strong enough, this support can even combat policy itself.'
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mr John McMillan has been a teacher in NSW public schools for thirty-five years and a principal of three schools - Portland Central (1982), Cabramatta (1989) and Denistone East (1995) Public Schools. He has been involved with District Principals' Councils and the NSW Primary Principals' Association since 1985 and is currently the President of the NSW Primary Principals Association.
John McMillan can be contacted by email at:
jmcmillan@nswppa.org.au
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REFERENCES
Public Schools - The Three Rs: Realistic, Responsible and Respected. Tony Townsend, Monash University, August 28, 1999.
'The Principal as Leader of the Self-Managing School in Australia', Brian J. Caldwell, in Journal of Educational Administration, Vol. 30, No. 3, 1992 pp. 6-19. University Press.
'Shall We Dance?', Heather-Jane Robertson, in Phi Delta Kappan, Volume 80, No. 10., June 1999, pp. 729 - 736.
'Competitive Chaos', Valerie J. Burns, in the Australian, November 15, 1999.
'School Renewal, Planning for Tomorrow's Schools', Neil MacNeill and Stefan Sillcox, in The Practising Administrator, Volume 22, Number 1, 2000, pp. 12 - 16.
New Basics, Theory into Practice, Queensland State Education, March 2000.
Public Education: The Next Generation, Department of Education, Employment and Training, Victoria, March 2000.
What's Worth Fighting For Out There? Hargreaves, A. and Fullan, M. 1998, New York, Teachers College Press.
The Future of Schools: Three 2020 Scenarios, Brian J. Caldwell, a paper presented to the Annual Conference of APPA, October 1999.
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