THE FAR SIDE OF
EDUCATIONAL REFORM
Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley
Lynch School of Education, Boston College
November 10, 2011
Report commissioned by the Canadian Teachers’ Federation
THE FAR SIDE OF CHANGE
Not surprisingly, therefore, teachers are also often at
the far end with educational reform. They are at the
end of their tether. Targets and testing, capricious
Teachers are at the far end of educational reform. Apart and contradictory changes, political climates that feed
from students and parents, they are often the very last to on failure and foment professional fear, insecurity
be consulted about and connected to agendas of what and instability, cut-throat competition and rampant
changes are needed in education, and of how those privatization – these are the enemies of teaching that
changes should be managed. Educational change erode confidence and betray trust throughout the
is something that government departments, venture teaching profession, although they are more prominent
philanthropists, performance-driven economists and south of the border than within Canada itself. However,
election-minded legislators increasingly arrogate less obvious adversaries in Canada and elsewhere can
to themselves. Even when these policy-setting and still make teachers feel at their wits end today. Hackneyed
policy-transporting bodies speak on behalf of teachers, harangues against whole-class teaching that equate
teachers often have little or no voice. Teachers are it with factory-style schooling; excessive exaltation of
rarely asked to speak on their own account.
technologically-driven instruction; reduc-tion of deep
personalization to slick customization;
When international delegations visit
data warehouses that drive teachers
high performing jurisdictions, including
Teachers are rarely
to distraction; and exploitation of
those in Canada, it is not teachers
international performance comparisons
asked to speak on
they typically get to meet but
to the domestic disadvantage of public
their own account.
rather ministers, administrators and
school teachers in almost every develadvisors – those who command
oped country – these are the gimmicky
and commandeer a view from the top, along with an Goliaths of educational change today. They are the
official version of what everyone else is supposed surreal Far Side of school reform.
to see. This is not only a bias of judgment, but
it leads to a bias of evidence and perception. If it is indeed the case, as is now commonly claimed,
Diane Wood’s research (2007) has shown that that the teacher is the most important within-school
professional learning communities, like many reforms, influence on a child’s educational achievement, then
are often viewed more favourably by people at the it is time to stop insulting teachers, excluding teachers
top than by those at the bottom. Quantitative survey and inflicting change after change upon them. It is time
research on leadership and trust, reveals that “site to bring teachers back in: to make them part of the
and district administrators view themselves…and each solution and not just part of the problem.
other…as exhibiting trust behaviors consistently higher
on every trust factor when compared with teacher
respondents. Moreover, the gap between teachers and THREE WAYS OF CHANGE
administrators is the greatest in regard to trust factors”
(Daly & Chrispeels, 2008, p. 44; also Daly 2009). To
put it more directly, administrators at the top tend to The First Way of Change
see themselves as more full of trust and to put a more
positive spin on their reforms than their teachers do.
Teachers are the end-point of educational reform – the How did we get to this position where teachers are
last to hear, the last to know, the last to speak. They are always the objects and never the subjects of change,
where leaders say they esteem teachers on the one
mainly the objects of reform, not its participants.
hand and then on the other hand assume that teachers
know little about how to improve teaching and learning?
1
anti-nostalgia – one that is deeply felt and that has been
deliberately perpetuated. It is skepticism and suspicion
for an excessively idealistic and even dangerously
ideological generation, polluted by progressive teaching
philosophies in ivory-towered institutions of teacher
education, and made lazy by excessive security,
expensive pension benefits and lavish union expense
accounts. Protected by their professional associations,
padded by their benefits, and made comfortable and
complacent by the perks of seniority and the declining
capabilities of middle age, this cohort now is seen as
a resistant generation that clings on to old factory-era
In a study of Change over Time interviewing over 200 practices, keeps to the contract, and criticizes any and
teachers and administrators in 8 secondary schools every alternative for increased accountability that is
about their lives and career experiences over more proposed.
than 30 years, one of us worked with Ivor Goodson and Dean Fink to discover that veteran teachers were Backed by corporate and philanthropic billions, movies
nostalgic for this period when education was not just like Waiting for Superman and carefully orchestrated
about making a difference in individual lives but also media releases and books turn teachers into the new
about changing the world by shaping the generations bankers of public approbation. They pick on exceptional
of the future. It was a period that veteran teachers incidents of union excess to tar all of the First Way
subsequently felt had been lost after standardization generation of teachers and their unions with the same
and outside imposition had stolen their freedom and brush (Brill, 2011; Brimelow, 2003; Paige, 2006).
distracted them from their original moral purposes These critics fail to balance the attack with similar
(Hargreaves & Goodson, 2006;
caricatures of ineffective charter
Hargreaves & Fink, 2006a).
school associations or of selfTeachers are the end-point
interested corporations that have
At the same time, we learned that
moved increasingly into the public
of educational reform –
there was not just one nostalgia,
education world.
the last to hear, the last to
but two. Older teachers in more
know, the last to speak.
mainstream subjects in traditional
When a few US school districts,
secondary schools bemoaned the
such as Atlanta, were seen to be
loss of their ability to teach what they liked – whether engaged in corruption at the highest level to manipulate
or not students were engaged with it. They regretted appearances of statistical improvement, no one
the loss of a time when parents did not challenge proposed that this should bring an end to school districts
or question their decisions and the loss of a period or to local democracy. When Enron and the entire
when schools were monocultural. They yearned for a global banking collapse stole billions of dollars from
simpler time when the football team galvanized strong ordinary people, no one seriously stated this should be
school spirit and when Christian hymns could be sung answered by the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.
in assemblies without accommodations or apologies Yet when excessive and occasionally egregious acts of
(Goodson, Moore, & Hargreaves, 2006).
particular unions or their leaders are exposed, this is
assumed to justify the end of unionism, or of district
The response of policy-makers and corporate critics controlled schools, or of defined benefit pensions, or of
to this 1960s Boomer generation of teachers and the a teaching profession that should now be subjected to
missions they still bear with them in their teaching is an performance based pay instead.
Things haven’t always been this way. In Canada,
Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States,
the decade from the middle of the 1960s through the
end of the 1970s was in many respects a Golden Age
of teacher professional autonomy. In those days, the
intrusion of the state into the classroom was weak and
provincial policy was suggestive rather than directive.
Schools were given resources and teachers were left
to get on with the job. Within the context of a strong
economy and demographic shortages of teachers,
there was optimism, expansion and innovation.
2
The First Way of change may have had its heyday
40 years ago, but it remains alive and well in the nostalgic
remembrance of its bearers, and in the embittered
anti-nostalgia of its political and corporate opponents.
The Interregnum
The First Way offered innovation but also introduced
inconsistency. It produced some progressivism but
also perpetuated traditionalism. There was a kind of
political and public trust in teachers and their autonomy
– but this was blind faith more than earned trust.
Starting in England in the 1980s, and migrating
into Canada and Australia in the 1990s, there was
therefore an attempt to create more coherence in
the system, while still retaining the best of the 1970s
child-centered, learner-focused ideals. This was a time
when Ontario embarked on its Transition Years strategy
with its focus on interdisciplinary curricula, outcomes
based education, and alternate forms of assessment.
In the US, Kentucky was one of the first states to
spearhead a period of outcomes-based education,
adopting about 70 broad common standards across the
state. Ontario had about 13 standards – far less than
Kentucky. British Columbia led the way on curriculum
integration. Manitoba was a pioneer in alternative forms
of assessment, as Saskatchewan also was (and still is).
The Republic of South Africa and the Australian states
of Western Australia and Tasmania all experimented
with and eventually abandoned the outcomes-based
approach to educational change.
in the province actively engaged in taking professional
courses of one kind or another at any one time. The
need for less inconsistency was evident, and teachers
were a significant part of identifying how this need
should be addressed.
One of us conducted research with Lorna Earl and the
Government of Ontario during this period – first in helping
set directions by reviewing international research of
best practice on the Transition Years (Hargreaves &
Earl, 1991), and later by assessing the implementation
of the New Democratic Party’s government strategy
(Hargreaves, Earl, et al, 2001). Apart from noting the
customary failure to scale up what was learned from
pilot projects, or even to wait until the evidence of the
pilot projects was in, we learned two key things from
this period.
1. Teachers didn’t like broadly written outcomes
because they were seen as vague and written in
educational jargon. Probably the most often-used
and misused word in any system of outcomes and
standards is “appropriate.” But when school boards
reacted by specifying outcomes in considerable
written detail, teachers felt they were restricting and
oppressive – an infringement of their professional
judgment. The answer, we learned, was to be found
in the quality of school leadership and whether it
was able to work with teachers to build a shared
community of understanding of what the outcomes
meant for their own purposes and practices. Clarity
was not to be found in the nature of the text, but in
the strength of the professional community.
The attempt to create a common and more coherent 2. In a related project on teachers’ emotional responses
to educational change, we found, unsurprisingly,
curriculum that set an agreed-upon direction, while still
that teachers preferred internally developed over
leaving room and discretion for professional judgment,
externally imposed changes. The more significant
was professionally inclusive. Pilot projects abounded
insight was that many of the changes that teachers
and teams of teachers writing curricula proliferated.
felt had been internally developed
Board after board came up
were actually external in origin
with their own ring binders of
It
is
time
to
bring
teachers
(Hargreaves, 2004). It didn’t
outcomes and standards. In
back
in:
to
make
them
part
matter in other words, where a
Ontario – and this is an important
change began – what mattered
of the solution and not just
corrective to later claims –
more
was whether a school and
professional capacity was strong,
part of the problem.
its community of teachers were
with around a third of all teachers
3
able to make it their own. The Interregnum
demonstrated that under good leadership
The Interregnum demonstrated that under good
and strong professional communities, the
leadership and strong professional communities,
quest for coherence could be successful.
the quest for coherence could be successful.
But there was insufficient early investment
in leadership or in teacher collaboration on
any systematic basis. This pattern was not
with his own enthusiastic advocacy, helped export the
particular to Canada. It was repeated in many parts
philosophy and strategy to Conservative governments
of the world. So government after government
around the world that were intent on rolling back the
then turned to and followed the inspiration of
state financially and tightening its control ideologically
Augusto Pinochet of Chile, Margaret Thatcher
(Caldwell & Spinks, 1988, 1992, 1998). Self-managing
of the United Kingdom, and Ronald Reagan of
schools or Local Management of Schools travelled
the United States, to pursue a Second Way of social
to Victoria in Australia and then New Zealand,
reform instead.
then England, and finally to Ontario under Premier
Mike Harris. They also found their way all the way
back to Alberta, where they spread throughout the
The Second Way
province under the Klein Government.
The Second Way of Educational Change was inspired
by the ideological politics of neo-conservatism but
specifically influenced by the city of Edmonton in
Alberta. It was there that Australian professor Brian
Caldwell, like many Australian peers at the time, had
undertaken his doctorate in education at the University
of Alberta (see Hargreaves & Fink, 2006b, for an account
of the international flow of this influence). As part of his
research Professor Caldwell had studied Edmonton’s
pioneering efforts to develop self-managing schools
in the 1980s. Ideologically, much of the new Second
Way rested on combining a belief that government
investment should be replaced by market principles
wherever possible, but that this competition should
be conducted on centralized ground-rules defined
by standardized curriculum and assessments. At the
same time, in the early stages of its development, the
philosophy of self-managed schools where educators
were responsible for much of their own budgets and
administration within these broad guidelines appealed
to some progressives and libertarians who sought more
self-determination in their decision-making.
Caldwell took the principle of self-management back
to the Australian island state of Tasmania and then,
in a trilogy of books on self-managing schools, and
4
The United States too adopted Second Way strategies
but in a more patchy and incremental way. There the
Second Way was driven through initiatives such as
magnet schools and the beginnings of charter schools.
In his new book on Finnish Educational Reform,
Finland’s greatest educational expert and former
World Bank specialist, Pasi Sahlberg, refers to this
pervasive new Second Way strategy as the Global
Educational Reform Movement (GERM) (Sahlberg,
2011). The GERM has five defining characteristics:
• Standardized Teaching and Learning with “clear,
high, centrally prescribed performance standards
for all schools, teachers, and students”;
• A focus on Literacy and Numeracy and basic skills in
reading, writing, mathematics and natural sciences;
• Teaching for Predetermined Results with predictable
and uniform outcomes;
• Renting Market-oriented Reform Ideas from other
systems or sectors rather than devising one’s own
solutions;
• Test-Based Accountability linked to systems of
inspection, punishment and reward;
• Control through continuous monitoring of data
With colleagues Dean Fink, Ivor Goodson and others,
one of us evaluated the impact of these reforms on a
range of secondary schools in Ontario and New York
State (Hargreaves, 2003). We found the reforms were
utterly antithetical to the knowledge society objectives
of schools then being promoted by the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
and its associated goals of increasing innovation and
creativity.
Some of the effects of Second Way reforms were that:
• the standardized curriculum was less responsive
to culturally diverse learners. Special education
teachers, vocational school teachers and alternative
school educators who dealt with very diverse
learners, felt that this curriculum was particularly
inappropriate for their students.
• there was less creativity – a tragic result in
an increasingly competitive global knowledge
economy. Teachers described having to “teach to
the test instead of being creative”; “feeling forced
to leave out interesting exercises”; and being “too
busy to try” being creative. In the words of one
teacher “creativity and enthusiasm have become
hopelessness and depression, and a lethargic
outlook has evolved”.
• there was demoralization – literally loss of purpose.
Teachers had a “feeling of betrayal.” They were
“tired of being bashed” by the government. One
spoke for many colleagues when he said, “I’m a
good teacher. I love teaching, and I really enjoy
working with teenagers. But right now I am so
depressed about the politics surrounding teaching
that I sometimes don’t know how I will go on!”
• there was an exodus from the profession. Those who
could, got out of education. Because of the negative
attitude of the government and deteriorating working
conditions, teachers had “firmly decided to leave.”
Teachers planned on “leaving the profession as
quickly as I can” and “looked forward to retirement.”
Instead of inspiration and renewal, they were
becoming “very, very burned out.” Perhaps this is
what government wanted all along – to get rid of
those who were old, expensive and in the way. But
the young were also becoming disillusioned; not just
the old. “There is no joy in teaching,” said one, “only
a paper trail of grief.” Another who “loved to teach”
was “seriously considering leaving the profession.”
A young teacher with three degrees had come to
regret his career path because “there is no joy in
being told that you are a no-good freeloading fat
cat for six years running.” “I surely wouldn’t wish
this profession on my children.” he said. He “loved
working with children, but not with this government.”
• there was less collegiality. Top down pressure and
the pace of reform meant there was “no time for
collaboration” or “communication with colleagues.”
There were fewer opportunities to “share and
implement,” “work together,” “consult,” “discuss best
practices,” or “conference with other individuals
teaching similar courses.” One school had “a lovely
staffroom where people can congregate and share”
but it was “usually empty.” So where were the
teachers? “In their offices, planning and marking,
often by themselves, to keep caught up!”
• there was less pleasure in teaching and in learning.
“There just seems to be so much focus on meeting
standards set from the outside that I don’t think we
get to spend as much time thinking about what we’re
going to be doing in the classroom and enjoying it.”
What has happened in our two jurisdictions of Ontario
and New York since we completed our study in 2003?
In Ontario, the bad old days of the Second Way are
a fast-fading memory. But New York is a different
case altogether. Internationally, the Second Way is
experiencing an energetic resurgence in the form of
charter schools and national standards in the United
States, national standards in New Zealand, a national
curriculum in Australia, free schools in Sweden, and
academies in England. The aggressive promotion
of performance-based pay for teachers in the US, is
reinvigorating elements of Second Way managerialism
throughout the world.
5
It is not ageing teachers who are unable to break
free from the grip of a factory model of schooling, as
is all too commonly claimed by those who undertake
an assault on teaching but Governments that are
aggressively re-imposing it through the pressures of
markets and standardization. Yet this old orthodoxy is
increasingly being questioned. Marc Tucker (2011) of
the National Center for Education and the Economy
in the US, for example, now states that Second Way
reforms such as privatization and pay-for-performance
incentive schemes are out of step with international
high performing systems, and unsuited to develop
the skills and dispositions required for an innovative
knowledge economy.
The Third Way
Inspired by leading social theorist Anthony Giddens
(1999) and a triumvirate of western leaders comprising
Tony Blair, Gerhard Schroeder and Bill Clinton, a new
wave of policy reforms was proposed in the 1990s and
into the new century. Disillusioned with the extremes
and unfulfilled promises of the First and Second
Ways, Third Way thinkers and leaders described a new
approach to social change that would rest between and
beyond the market and the state. Properly conceived
and implemented, the new Third Way would replace
public and private opposition with public and private
partnerships; give people increased autonomy but also,
through performance targets, increased accountability;
offer professionals more support of finance and
resources, while increasing expectations and pressure
for results at the same time. There was more community
but also heightened urgency. In this way, it was thought,
it would be possible to create future societies that
were both more competitive and also more cohesive
(Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009).
In educational reform, the Third Way was launched most
comprehensively through Tony Blair’s commitment
to education, education, education! Under the advice
and leadership of Sir Michael Barber, a National
Literacy and Numeracy Strategy was introduced with
a prescribed, timed and scripted curriculum backed
up with the intensive support of training, coaching and
materials, and linked to system-wide targets and testing.
The Blair Government also continued its predecessor’s
attitude of being tough on failing schools through
regimes of strict inspection and intervention.
But what happened in practice? After a surge of initial
increases in system-wide test results in the UK, scores
began to hit a plateau once the “quick wins” had been
gained. Barber’s response was to do little more than
“sustain the same messages for longer” (Barber, 2007,
p. 371). He wanted to be “as hard as nails” (Barber,
2007, p. 32) on teachers and school leaders in the push
to improve learning in all schools, and especially those
in the most challenging circumstances.
The gains that had been made on the systems’ own
measures were widely and thoroughly criticized for
being a result of curriculum narrowing, teaching to
the test and creating an artificially low floor by testing
people’s initial skills before support had been provided.
Statistically, the improvements were also shown to be
a continuation of trends preceding the Blair and Barber
strategy, rather than a result of the strategy itself
(e.g. Tymms, 2004). Moreover, Britain’s current Coalition
Government has not been slow to
point out that after a dozen or more
years of English educational reform
Ideologically, much of the new Second Way rested on
under New Labour, England’s
combining a belief that government investment should be
scores on OECD’s Programme for
replaced by market principles wherever possible, but that this
International Student Assessment
competition should be conducted on centralized ground(PISA) tumbled downward – to a
rules defined by standardized curriculum and assessments.
miserable 24th in reading literacy,
for example.
6
Sir Michael Barber moved on
through
the
results
Third
Way
thinkers
and
leaders
plateau. After Barber left
to a high level appointment
described a new approach to social
the education hot seat in
with McKinsey & Company
England, Blair got distracted
change that would rest between and
and then on to the office of
from his education agenda
Chief Education Advisor
beyond the market and the state.
and “lost the plot” due
to Pearson, one of the
to international events. This
world’s largest textbook,
ascribed “loss of the plot,” incidentally, was under
test-writing and school supply companies. In 2011, for
Labour’s education Minister and former teacher Dame
example, Pearson signed a five-year, $32m contract Estelle Morris – whose priorities were to regenerate
to write the standardized tests from 3rd grade to a disheartened profession and embrace increased
8th grade for the Education Department of New York commitment to innovation.
State (Otterman, 2011). Barber is the leading author
of a McKinsey & Company report on How the World’s McKinsey & Company are not alone in extolling Ontario’s
Most Improved School Systems Keep Getting Better virtues as a high performer worth emulating in terms of
(McKinsey & Company, 2010). One of five systems the policies that are associated with its success. For
that are “sustained improvers” and that have gone from instance, in Standing On the Shoulders of Giants: An
“Great to Excellent,” according to the report, is Ontario. American Agenda for Educational Reform, Marc Tucker
McKinsey praises Ontario for being a top performer on (2011) at the US National Center on Education and
the (PISA) tests administered by the OECD – whose the Economy, picks out Ontario alongside Singapore,
Shanghai and Finland as an inspiring example of
own report highlighting Ontario as one of four “strong
educational achievement, improvement and equity.
performers” and “successful reformers” was released
He praises Ontario for attracting and keeping highly
just days after McKinsey’s. In some ways, the Ontario qualified teachers, making peace with teacher unions
way has become the new prototypical Third Way for that had become disaffected under the previous Second
others.
Way administration, and (compared to the US’s Race to
The Top strategy) allowing teachers more control over
the core of their work in a way that has respected their
professionalism.
CANADIAN WAYS OF CHANGE?
Ontario is congratulated by McKinsey & Company for
having a tight focus on tested literacy and numeracy,
for giving schools lots of support for implementation,
and for persisting through the point when its own test
results reached a temporary plateau. Michael Fullan
(2009), Special Education Advisor to the Premier of
Ontario and also author of the Preface to the McKinsey
& Company report, has described how the foundations
for Ontario’s reform strategy were borrowed but also
adapted from England’s National Literacy and Numeracy
Strategy. Its system performance targets strategy was
also taken from the programs that Barber led, which
Fullan and his team evaluated, though, unlike England,
implemented with non-punitive consequences.
What Ontario did, Fullan says, was different from
what Barber put in place in the UK. Ontario reduced
the prescription, increased the support, and persisted
Like McKinsey & Company and the National Center
on Education and the Economy, the OECD also
picks out Canada as one of four “strong performers”
and “successful reformers” in educational change:
not least because Canada ranks 6th overall on PISA.
Strictly speaking, though, the OECD concentrates
not on the whole of Canada but on just the province
of Ontario. In a video presentation of PISA’s policy
implications, produced and marketed with the support
of the Pearson Foundation (2010), the OECD’s Andreas
Schleicher praises Canada for its positive approach to
immigration that is evident in narrow achievement gaps
between students from different social backgrounds,
but then, without explanation, switches to Ontario
– in effect, equating it with or having it stand for the
whole of Canada. The province receives plaudits
for its urgent focus on measurable improvement in
literacy and numeracy; its ability to set a clear plan
and sign up key stakeholders to commit to it, including
7
teachers; its sophisticated use of achievement data to
pinpoint problems in underperformance among certain
students or schools; and then its response to “flood”
these schools with resources, technical assistance and
support.
There is then, an apparently cohesive and interconnected narrative across McKinsey & Company,
the OECD, Pearson and the NCEE about Ontario’s
example as a model of successful educational reform.
This narrative aligns somewhat seamlessly with the
articulate descriptions of the Ontario reforms and
their impact by two of their leading administrators
and advisers – Premier’s Advisor Michael Fullan (2009)
and former Deputy Minister Ben Levin (2008).
So should we perhaps look for Third Way inspiration
in educational reform to Ontario as a province that
persevered and succeeded where England had
previously failed?
Without taking any particular stance regarding the
direction or desirability of Ontario’s strategy, there are
matters of evidence and of fact that should cause us
to question this overall interpretation of the reasons for
the province’s success. Most obviously, Ontario isn’t
the only high performing Canadian province on PISA
(Knighton, Brochu, & Gluszynski, 2010). On reading
literacy, Alberta actually leads, followed by Ontario
and British Columbia. On numeracy, Quebec leads,
followed by Alberta and Ontario. On science, Alberta
leads, followed by BC and Ontario. Some of these
differences between provinces are very tiny – barely a
percentage point or so. Yet the policies and strategies
are often quite different. When you get up into the 90s,
the only place that one or two points truly matter is on
a basketball court.
Take Alberta. Here the four-decade old Conservative
Government has supported the Alberta Initiative for
School Improvement (AISI) for more than a decade to
support school-designed innovations in over 90% of
the province’s schools. Almost all of Alberta’s schools
are actively involved in AISI, which was established to
conduct teacher-driven research on an ongoing basis.
Alberta would be a paradigmatic example of the kind of
jurisdiction described by Marc Tucker where teachers
are not the objects of research but its participants and
drivers in a commitment to learning, innovation and
8
self-developed improvement rather than delivery of
other people’s policies.
We recently served on a team to conduct a review of
AISI that was co-sponsored by the Alberta Teachers’
Association and the Government (Hargreaves, Crocker,
Davies, McEwen, Sahlberg, Shirley & Sumara,
2009). Freedom for schools has been matched with
strong support and networking. Innovation has been
unleashed. Teachers have been galvanized. The
measurable effects on teacher morale and satisfaction
are demonstrable. Schools everywhere are inquiring
into and improving their own practice. Minister, Dave
Hancock proudly asked to see more innovations failing
because, he said, if there is no failure, there is no
authentic innovation.
Unlike Ontario, Alberta doesn’t have government
improvement targets and it doesn’t concentrate the
focus so tightly on literacy and numeracy. In many
ways, it’s the opposite of Ontario. At the same time,
Alberta has, until now, retained a high commitment
of even longer standing than Ontario to standardized
testing in the form of provincial achievement tests
(PATs), although its new Premier, Alison Redford, has
announced that she shall soon end the Grade 3 and
6 tests because of the excessive stress they create for
students. Alberta performs slightly better than Ontario
with a quite different policy system and orientation that
is focused as much on innovation as improvement. So,
if Alberta is at least as effective as Ontario, if not more
so, with a different policy focus, should we abandon
Ontario as the exemplary model of change and hitch up
our wagons to Alberta instead?
Probably not. At the top of its system, Ontario has
more prominent and articulate intellectual advocates
of and interpreters of its strategy. The network
interconnections between Ontario leaders and the
international organizations that write about the province
are tighter and have given the province a world stage to
project its aspirations and achievements. This is a credit
to provincial leadership and indicates a seriousness of
purpose and an understanding of what is at stake in
global educational change from which we all can learn.
But is there anything in the policies themselves that
warrant our special attention? Perhaps Ontario’s
policies are just more self-evident and easier to explain
than Alberta’s, for example? Or might it be the case that
Ontario’s policies are more in tune with a new kind of
global educational reform in which various international
organizations, venture philanthropists and consulting
firms are invested?
It is not possible to answer these questions definitively, but it is possible to raise some evidence-based
questions about Canada’s leading international role in
educational reform and what it might mean.
would most likely be the elementary education
policies of the Second Way Harris government
that preceded the present one – a Government
that depleted teacher morale, cut back on support
teachers, presided over a deterioration in teachers’
overall working conditions and didn’t really focus
on elementary education at all – choosing to
concentrate on Secondary School Reform instead.
This seems an unlikely explanation.
• The same limitations apply for those who might
• There is no evidence-base in terms of PISA results
be inclined to prefer Alberta’s reform model over
that would support highlighting one province’s
Ontario’s. In our team’s evaluation of the AISI,
educational reform strategy as superior to its three
educational statistician Robert Crocker tried every
equally high performing peers or giving it privileged
quantitative strategy in the
or presumptuous equivalence
book to identify direct effects of
to the whole of Canada’s
a positive or negative nature of
When you get up into the
performance as a nation.
AISI on student achievement.
If Ontario’s reform strategy
90s, the only place that one
The integrated nature of AISI
is already packaged more
or two points truly matter is
within the wider nexus of reform
coherently, it should be the
on a basketball court.
initiatives over more than ten
task of research and inquiry
years in 90% of the province’s
not to echo what prominent
schools,
plus
the
difficulties
of tracking individual
advocates and architects say about their reforms,
education numbers of students who had or had not
but to serve the wider public, the profession and the
been involved in particular kinds of AISI projects,
policy community by articulating reforms that work
produced no clear evidence one way or the other.
irrespective of how well they have already been
This is not to say that AISI did not have positive
articulated.
effects on student achievement – but simply
to
acknowledge that initiatives that have been
• Ontario’s reform emphases and priorities that
successfully and sustainably embedded in the wider
have been stressed by the province itself and by
system cannot be disentangled statistically from
international organizations that draw attention
other influences on achievement results. To say that
to them have been those that have been based
AISI is specifically responsible for high performance
largely on improvements in literacy and numeracy
on PISA would therefore be as misleading as
achievement in elementary schools, rather than on
to claim that the Ontario literacy and numeracy
teaching and learning in secondary schools (with the
strategy or improving high school graduation rates
exception of commitment to improved high school
are responsible for high performance on PISA.
retention). PISA assesses student achievement at
age 15. Since the Ontario elementary reforms had
barely been proposed more than seven years before
the most recent PISA cycle, their effects at age 15
will not be visible until the next cycle. If specific
elementary education policy has directly affected
current PISA achievement scores, therefore, it
• Particular policies may explain high PISA
performance, but they may not be the policies that
advocates always emphasize. In Alberta, is it the
long-standing emphasis on tested accountability that
has been responsible; or the ten-year commitment
to school-driven innovation? In Ontario, internal and
9
external advocates are inclined to emphasize the
where there has been anything but peace between
tight focus, the environment of high pressure and
teacher unions and the provincial government? Or
high support, the removal of union “distractions”,
why is Francophone Quebec first on mathematics,
and the heightened levels of professional support.
for that matter? The provinces have different policies,
But Ann Lieberman (2011) could point to the
different relationships between government and the
remarkable initiatives in teacher leadership driven by
teachers’ unions, and different parties of political
the Ontario Teachers’ Federation and the Ministry
control - but in Canada’s four most populous and
of Education where resources for professional
(over time) prosperous provinces, the results on
development and leadership go directly to
PISA are pretty much the same.
teachers, and 1500 teachers have recently had
direct involvement in projects using teacher inquiry
• Finally, Ontario and the other provinces might
– with significant impacts on teacher’s professional
point to their own data sources on system-wide
renewal. Then there is the project that one of us
improvements in provincial test scores as evidence
reviewing with Henry Braun on one seventh of
of policy impact. However, as in England or in US
Ontario’s school districts. This highlights the power
states, high stakes system measures collected as a
of a remarkably inclusive and flexibly implemented
census of all schools and students, that are linked
special education strategy to introduce whole-school
to specific intervention strategies for schools and
changes which are essential for identified students
students that are just beneath the threshold system
but also good for all students - using principles
targets, are vulnerable to what Marc Tucker in the
such as differentiated instruction, Universal Design
US, Secretary of Education Michael Gove in the
for Learning and assistive technologies. This
UK and the Royal Statistical Society also in that
strategy was developed by and customized for
country describe as “perverse incentives.” (Royal
each individual district, monitored and mentored
Statistical Society, 2009). In these cases, educators
by a middle-tier team of highly regarded former
have learned that it is possible to raise achievement
school board supervisory officers, and then
by non-authentic means such as curriculum
networked together across the districts, creating
narrowing; creating an artificially low floor when
transparency of participation
students take their first test to
and results. These policies
create an inflated appearance of
...we might want to
are not well known outside
improvement later on; assigning
consider
selecting
specific
the province but could just as
a school’s best teachers to the
policies on other grounds
plausibly have a significant
grades that are tested rather than
impact on achievement results.
to the places where they are most
than direct, traceable,
So if policies do influence PISA,
needed; or overly concentrashort-term impact on
they may not always or only
ting on “bubble” children just
student achievement.
be the ones that are officially
below the system’s threshold
emphasized.
for proficiency (Hargreaves &
Shirley, 2009). In Ontario, for example, the current
• We cannot prematurely or automatically applaud
research that one of us is undertaking in ten school
Ontario for its tight focus on literacy and numeracy in
boards is pointing to examples of boards and
relation to system targets any more or less than we
schools concentrating their energies on raising
can applaud Alberta for AISI’s apparently bottom-up
the results of children scoring just below level
or innovation-oriented approach. Other provinces’
3 proficiency on the EQAO test – at 2.7, 2.8 and
achievements only add to the riddles. How would we
2.9 – as part of the province’s “drive to 75” to meet
explain British Columbia’s superior achievement to
its system target of having 75% of tested elementary
Ontario on the science tests administered by PISA
students reach Level 3 proficiency by a particular
10
point. Sometimes, teachers are indicating, this is
at the expense of schools and boards attending
equally to the progress of other students further
below the threshold – for instance, between
levels 1 and 2.
All these considerations and reservations about
singling out one province from others, and indeed
singling out some aspects of that province’s policies
in the short term rather than other parallel and preceding policies, should push us, across Canada and
beyond it, to look with fresh eyes at the evidence of and
possible explanations for Canada’s impressive success
on international measures of student performance. To
us, there appear to be four significant ramifications of
and explanations for Canadian success in general.
First, there’s obviously something special about
Canada as a nation, or at least the more prosperous
parts of it. Canada has some striking commonalities
with Finland, the only non-Asian performer above it in
the OECD rankings. In 2007, one of us was rapporteur
for an OECD team of three that undertook a study
visit to Finland to examine the relationship between
educational success and the country’s leadership and
reform strategies (Hargreaves, Halász & Pont, 2008;
see also Hargreaves & Shirley 2009). The findings of
our intensive visit have been repeatedly confirmed by
subsequent interpretations of Finland’s success. Both
countries value teachers and teaching and insist on
a professional program of university-based training
for all public school teachers. Working conditions are
favorable with good facilities, acceptable pay, wide
availability of professional development, and discretion
for teachers to make their own professional judgments.
Both countries have a strong commitment to public
schools and only a very modest private sector in
education. Both countries have strong social welfare
and public health systems with broad safety nets to
protect the youngest and most vulnerable members of
the population. Last, both nations are characterized by
deeper cultures of cooperation and inclusiveness that
actually make them more competitive internationally.
It’s not this or that province’s recent policy that
makes Canada such a strong educational performer,
but a social fabric and long-term interconnected
policy approach that values education and teachers,
welcomes and integrates immigrants, prizes the public
good, and doesn’t abandon the weak in its efforts to
become economically stronger. The OECD (2011),
in its most recent work, is now also recognizing that
these more general aspects of the Canadian social and
policy fabric are influential in explaining the country’s
educational success.
Second, it is the interconnectedness of reforms and
policies within and beyond education, and the distinctive
character they assume together that is most significant
in terms of impacts on educational improvement
and achievement, not one or two strategies taken in
isolation. In Canada, Singapore, Norway, and Finland,
one Minister, Deputy Minister or other senior leader after
another has repeatedly emphasized to us the importance
of their country’s overall culture and distinctive identity
as something that cannot be technically transposed
or “teleported” from one place to another across the
planet (Shirley & Hargreaves, in press). Nor can policy
elements be easily disaggregated from one another
as they are transported between systems. Otherwise,
countries might all now be adopting the two years of
compulsory military service for men that is currently
required in Finland and Singapore alike! Expect little
or no positive effects on educational achievement and
improvement, for example,
• if you insist that all or most teachers should have
Masters degrees, but if you do not also provide
teachers with a supportive, respectful and secure
working environment;
• if you advise that Western countries tolerate larger
classes and whole class instruction methods of
Asian high performers without considering the
greater diversity in culture and learning styles of
most Western nations;
• if you improve educational policy but deplete
support for disadvantaged and poor children and
families through other social policies or taxation
strategies.
Third, if there is little evidence that the recent policy
strategies of one province or system is more or less
effective than any other, then we might want to
consider selecting specific policies on other grounds
than direct, traceable, short-term impact on student
achievement. These grounds might be ethical,
professional or democratic – or even pragmatic in
11
terms of their consistency with successful past policy
approaches over periods of time rather than with shortterm policy items in particular. These grounds provide
other legitimate bases for policy formulation than ones
of specific impact in terms of immediate results within
single election terms.
It is increasingly clear that these policies should also
be consistent with long-standing and interconnected
principles that are deeply and sustainably embedded in
the cultures and identities of high performing systems.
Like trust and betrayal, these interconnected principles
can be instantly and easily breached or betrayed by an
insensitive or unsympathetic government. They take
years and perhaps even decades to establish among
governments committed to transformation of their entire
societies.
children over others, these transnational organizations
are also vulnerable to preferring some interpretations
and recommendations over others, especially in
terms of the Ministerial or economic stakeholders
they must address. Political considerations come to
play a role in choices that are made to elevate some
successful systems above other equally successful
ones. Consultancy and advice that does not always
flow obviously or self-evidently from the evidence start
to shape professional discourse in ways that exceed
what the data actually convey.
These emphases are often quite subtle, but they exist
all the same, and to overlook them is to miss out on
some of the dynamics that are shaping the future of
education in singularly powerful ways. Two examples
illustrate the point.
Fourth and last, international organizations like the
OECD and McKinsey & Company have assumed an
inspiring role by raising international public awareness
of educational equity and achievement. They are
influencing policy makers to review their national policy
strategies based on what is effective educationally,
socially and economically, rather than on strategies that
are ideologically comfortable or convenient. They have
exposed how the largest and most powerful countries
are not necessarily the highest performing countries.
The first example refers to efforts to improve teacher
recruitment and comes from the OECD’s Building
a High Quality Teaching Profession: Lessons From
Around the World (OECD 2011). The example is drawn
from the UK and points to the success of a teacher
recruitment and advertising campaign that talked up
teaching, emphasized alternate routes into the
profession and promoted starting bonuses for teachers
in subjects where the supply was scarce. Here is how
the document puts it.
The OECD and McKinsey & Company have gathered
and analyzed masses of data that challenge the
assumption that past achievements will automatically
translate into future success. In the best Third Way
fashion, they have undercut the credibility of all those
who argue that educational improvement can be won
cheaply or that it can be secured with a mediocre and
even maligned teaching force. They have exposed
the weaknesses in the deceptively simple and alluring
arguments that real sustainable improvement is
amenable to simple and instant solution; and that high
performance can be guaranteed by punitive prescription
and standardization.
When it took office, the Blair administration
faced one of the worst shortages of teachers
in history. Five years later, there were eight
applicants for every opening. To some extent
this had to do with raising compensation
significantly, as well as with important
changes in teachers’ work environment; but a
sophisticated and powerful recruiting program
played a very important part in the turnaround.
At the same time, though, these transnational
organizations have an ambivalent role. They are at
their best when they are asking challenging questions;
presenting disturbing data; and confronting intransigent
ideologies. These are the marks of a top global teacher.
But like some teachers, who are tempted to favor some
12
The operative word is the conjunction “but” and what is
placed either side of it. “But” draws the reader’s attention
to the second part of the sentence after the qualifying
opener so that here, readers are alerted to the value
of short-term advertising campaigns as ways of raising
the status of teaching and improving recruitment,
compared to long-term and more expensive investment
in teachers’ working conditions and compensation. If
we reverse what stands on either side of the “but”, the
meaning suddenly changes.
When it took office, the Blair administration
faced one of the worst shortages of teachers
in history. Five years later, there were eight
applicants for every opening. To some extent
this had to do with a sophisticated and powerful
recruiting program but raising compensation
significantly, as well as… important changes
in teachers’ work environment played a very
important part in the turnaround.
In inquiry terms, the OECD compellingly and
inspirationally highlights, in ways that are completely
consistent with the evidence, the importance of
improving teacher quality and recruitment into teaching
if there are going to be improvements in results. But the
particular methods that are advanced or highlighted for
achieving this are not automatically given in the evidence
and are matters for judgment and interpretation.
it provides a strong incentive for experienced
teachers to stay in teaching longer than they
might otherwise, it makes teaching unattractive
to young people who are more concerned
about supporting new families than about their
retirement.
The trajectory of cash compensation is also
important. Most American teachers top out
quickly. And, even when there are adjustments for differences in the quality of teaching,
which is very rarely done, they are very
small... Some countries—again, Singapore
is a good example—are paying bonuses of
up to 30 percent to teachers who are found
to be particularly effective on a wide range of
measures.
Whatever the general merits of the argument about
A second example comes from Marc Tucker’s (2011) teacher compensation, there is nothing in the evidence
Standing On the Shoulders of Giants, written for the of international comparisons reviewed in this document
National Council on Education and the Economy that supports the view that young teachers are
in the US. Again, this is an inspiring document that not concerned about security or retirement or that justiis replete with findings
fies front-loading teachers’
about the power of high
pay at the expense of
quality teaching. Drawing
retirement benefits. It is
Political considerations come to play a
on others’ investigations
a spurious insertion of
role in choices that are made to elevate
of
high
performance
opinion. In addition, the
some successful systems above other
in Singapore, Shanghai,
selection of Singapore as
equally successful ones.
Finland
and
Canada
a case for performance(Ontario), Tucker highlights
based compensation is not
the importance of good
matched by any references
and competitive starting salaries for teachers, to more liberally democratic Canada or Finland which
embedding research and inquiry into the professional do not have such compensation. It therefore provides
practice of teaching, avoiding alternate pathways weak support on the overall balance of the report’s
or qualification routes into the profession, and evidence.
treating teachers as professionals capable of doing
knowledge work, not Frederick Taylor-like standardized The document also does not mention that Singapore’s
factory work. But towards the end of his analysis, calculation of teacher performance excludes direct
Tucker then moves from analysis to interpretation computations of test scores. It therefore leaves open
and recommendation. First, he advances some possible interpretations that would justify the use of test
assertions about teacher compensation:
scores to support performance based pay for teachers.
Ironically, in words that Tucker borrows from Arthur
It turns out that total compensation of teachers
Conan Doyle to make another point, this text is a case
is more competitive than cash compensation
of “The Dog That Did Not Bark.”
taken by itself, because American teachers’
compensation, like that of civil servants
Then there are some arguments about unions and
generally, is heavily weighted toward retirement
unionization.
benefits….The problem with this is that, while
13
As the states decide to pay teachers like
professionals and provide teachers the kind
of professional responsibility and autonomy
that other professions have, the teachers will
need to be willing to write contracts that move
away from the blue-collar model and toward
contracts that embrace a professional model
of work organization, in which teachers take
responsibility for raising teaching standards
to world-class levels, for the performance of
students, for working as many hours as it takes
to get the work done, for evaluating the work
of their colleagues, recommending termination
for teachers who do not measure up to high
standards and so on.
Teachers will have to give up seniority rights of
assignment and retention and other hallmarks
of the blue-collar work environment and they
will have to accept the proposition that some
teachers will be paid more than others and
have different responsibilities in recognition of
their superior performance.
general, they skimp “working as many hours as it takes
to get the work done.” Like the non-barking dog, the
quotation begs as many questions by what it does not
say, as well as by what it does.
Currently, several Canadian teacher federations
cooperate closely with governments in some areas
but contest them spiritedly and even bitterly in others
– yet the performance of these provinces remains
internationally strong. Tucker’s equation of unions
with blue-collar unions overlooks how many unions,
including teachers’ unions, are actually white-collar
unions with strong ethical codes of professionalism and
commitments to professional development that stand
alongside their historic collective bargaining rights.
National and transnational policy organizations have
harnessed their considerable resources to raise new,
important and inspiring questions about educational
policy that generally support improved status, conditions
and compensation for teachers. It is not wrong that
the organizations interpret and set out implications
from their data in ways that are compatible with the
nature of their foundation and the stakeholders whom
This interpretation may be judged to be good or bad, they serve. It’s just that the resulting explanations and
depending on one’s own standpoint and values. Here recommendations do not encompass all public and
we note it is an interpretation that does not square professional interests; they do not highlight all aspects
with some of the evidence about high performance – of the key issues they address. These organizations’
not least in the United States,
status as advocacy bodies as well
where the most unionized
as bodies that collect and interpret
If large and interconnected
state, Massachusetts, is also
data raises necessary questions
the highest performing state,
about the widely disseminated
transnational organizations are
and where the states with the
advice
these
organizations
the new Amazons of educational
worst records of academic
provide through corporate and
change, who will become the
achievement, historically in the
philanthropically
sponsored
educational equivalents of the
South, have weak teachers’
conferences, videos and other
unions (Ravitch, 2010). Again,
outlets.
The
interpretations
local independent bookstores
these are points that some
that
emerge
from
these
international
organizations
interconnected,
international
are now also beginning to recognize. For example, in organizations have a compelling consistency. The
Building a High-Quality Teaching Profession: Lessons consistency or “brand” is both their strength and their
from around the world, the OECD (2011) points out limitation highlighting some issues, and playing down
that all of the successful countries on PISA involve others. It is important therefore, that there is space and
teachers and their unions or associations in setting a platform for alternative interpretations with different
and supporting the reform agenda. We also note that in ethical and professional implications, advanced by
Tucker’s document at the national Center for Education constituencies with a non-corporate or non partyand the Economy, no evidence is provided to indicate political base that, in democratic and diverse societies,
that teachers do not “take responsibility for raising have a need and a right to be heard.
teaching standards to world-class levels” and that, in
14
Economically and politically-driven international
organizations have become the cornerstones of global
educational reform. They do exceedingly important and
highly influential work, but it is still work from a particular,
interconnected perspective. As well as politically and
business-based cornerstones in education and public
life, we also need corner stores – independent outlets
that offer alternative products that are sometimes
the same as and also sometimes different from the
mainstream. If large and interconnected transnational
organizations are the new Amazons of educational
change, who will become the educational equivalents
of the local independent bookstores that provide the
readings and intellectual stimulation for independent
readers who want to make up their own minds and don’t
want to have their selections suggested for them?
Here, there truly is a powerful and urgent role for
future-oriented professional associations, including
teachers’ unions and federations. We submit that the
time has come for the Canadian Teachers Federation,
in alliance with educators’ professional groups from
around the world, to sponsor and conduct a major
research investigation of international benchmarking
not from a policy, business and Ministerial perspective
but from a professional teacher-based foundation.
Such an investigation would examine and interpret high
performing countries and systems (as well as rapidly
improving peers beginning from a lower starting point)
from the perspective of how teachers and students
experience them and not only how Ministers and policy
administrators articulate them.
One first step towards this undertaking has been launched
in March 2011 by the Alberta Teachers’ Association
in Canada and the Center for International Mobility
Organization in Finland. The province of Alberta and
the nation of Finland are both among the world’s highest
achievers on the PISA tests. Yet, Albertan and Finnish
educational leaders are not complacent about their
performance but rather are asking themselves probing
questions about what they can learn from one another
so that high levels of achievement are complemented
with a spirit of innovation and life-long learning. They
are exchanging knowledge and experiences not only
among high-level policy makers but also among school
principals, teachers, and students.
This is an important step but a small one. A systematic
study of cross-provincial and cross-national high
performance in practice and from practice, and not only
among the policy community, is the giant additional
step that now needs to be taken, as a service to public
education in Canada, and to the voices and experiences
of high performing and rapidly improving teachers all
over the world. What we might find, then, we believe,
based on the research and reviews we have already
conducted in a number of high performing systems
around the world, are significant elements in Canada
of what we have described as being a Fourth Way of
educational change.
TOWARDS THE FOURTH WAY
As independent researchers and as scholarly
collaborators we have undertaken and are continuing
to undertake our own corner store interpretations of
international comparisons of educational achievement
and success based on independent and impartial firsthand inquiry into high performance and the reasons
for it in Finland, Ontario, Alberta, Singapore, teacher
union reform, and outliers of success among schools
districts and networks in what are generally lowerperforming contexts (Hargreaves & Shirley 2009;
Shirley & Hargreaves, in press; Hargreaves & Harris,
2011). This work is widely used by the educational
profession internationally but oddly absent from almost
all the research and references of transnational policy
and consulting organizations.
Our own findings have considerable overlap with the
Third Way strategies of the new global consensus
on international performance and reform strategies.
Teacher status and quality, a sense of common
direction, the importance of leadership development
and stability – these are just some of the areas of clear
agreement.
But there are also important differences of emphasis
and interpretation that are significant for schools and
the teaching profession and that can contribute to the
many voices of international comparison and policy
recommendation that deserve to be heard. Communitybased organizations, teachers’ organizations and
15
inquiry networks, educational leadership associations,
and other diverse communities that make up the
richness and complexity of the human and educational
experience have a great deal to bring to the table. We
believe, along with the academic guru of the Third
Way, Anthony Giddens, that the time has arrived to
acknowledge the stalled promise of Third Way reforms
and to not just tinker with or try and transfer Third
Way architecture, but to push forward towards bolder
and more sustainable improvements. For all of our
differences there surely is the public will to take many
of us democratically, inclusively, professionally and
inspirationally beyond what has been the Third Way of
current international advocacy.
We conclude with what we believe are eight challenging,
yet eminently winnable victories that can help us move
beyond the Third Way to the Fourth:
• Put responsibility before accountability. Embrace the
Finnish emphasis on a society’s and an educational
system’s collective responsibility for the young
rather than, or at least before, Anglo-American
perseverations with external accountability that
have been imported into schools from the corporate
sector. Accountability should be the remainder that
is dealt with when responsibility has failed; not
the driver of teachers’ practice and the system’s
priorities.
of eradicating the last remaining standardized
tests for students before the end-point of high
school education, sparing students and their
families from unnecessary stress, saving
significant resources from the public purse
and unleashing opportunities for educational
innovation in 21st Century skills as they do so. It
is time for strongly performing systems to follow.
• Develop and disseminate diagnostic and developmental assessment alternatives. Build upon the
impressive work that has already been done in
Assessment for Learning in many Canadian contexts
to initiate constructive diagnostic assessment
alternatives that provide the in-time feedback for
teachers and for students that generates improved
learning and achievement.
• Abandon the obsession with technology as an end
in itself. Instead, use digital media to help enrich
and transform but not solely drive classroom
pedagogies. As Michael Fullan’s (2011) prominent
critique of the wrong drivers of educational reform
powerfully demonstrates, investing in technology
to drive change has no proven effectiveness of
success on any scale. It is when technological
change serves pedagogical change, he shows, that
transformation then becomes possible. Nowhere
is this more urgent and evident than in the push
for personalized learning. Personalized learning
has been given too much emphasis as flexible,
individualized, online access to existing curriculum
and learning (McRae 2010). This is superficial
personalization. Learning that is deeply personalized
rather than merely customized pursues meaningful
curriculum engagement with students’ diverse life
• Eliminate standardized testing connected to system
targets. Challenge the illusion that more testing
means better learning and instead develop
assessments that are based on a sample of pupils
rather than all students in a given district or province
– and, at the very least, like high performing
Singapore, Finland and Alberta, at all costs,
disconnect any standardized
testing that remains from highstakes system targets and
The way forward is to strengthen the teaching profession
the “perverse incentives” that
even further; to learn from each other as provinces in the
they always create. Two of
way that high performing countries learn from each other
the world’s previously mosttoo; and to boldly embrace innovation and inquiry in new
tested systems – Alberta and
approaches to teaching and learning instead of sticking with
England – are in the process
delivering incremental improvements in existing practice.
16
experiences, life projects and life-long learning –
the kind of approach that has been espoused for
decades by organizations like UNESCO (1996) and
also in the European tradition of life-long learning
or Bildung, as it is called in Germany (Shirley, 2008,
2009).
• Blend and interconnect the best of different provincial
reforms—improved high school graduation in
Ontario, extensive teacher inquiry networks
in Alberta, and rigorous math curricula in Quebec,
for example—to support learning between and
betwixt Canada’s diverse jurisdictions.
• Raise quality and standards for all teachers by
teachers and with teachers together. Improving
the quality of teaching is a collective responsibility.
As one of us points out in an upcoming book with
Michael Fullan on the future of the teaching profession, instead of concentrating, like reformers tend to
do, on improving things for teachers in early career,
or doing something for and about teachers in late
career, or rewarding a few apparently high performing
teachers with performance-based pay, the quality
of the profession will be increased when we pay
attention to the renewal of all teachers everywhere
– not just to teachers at the extremes of age,
experience or effectiveness (Hargreaves & Fullan,
in press). This entails committing to such things as
• Pursue strategic international coalitions, such as the
Alberta-Finland partnership, not just at the policy
and administrative level, but among all educators
and especially teachers, that allow high-achieving
provinces and nations to learn from one another
with professional openness, curiosity and integrity.
- Widespread involvement in professional inquiry
as an expected and supported part of the job;
- Constructing professional learning so that it is
experienced as an integral part of the job by
every teacher, every day;
- Developing collective responsibility for all
students among teachers of different grades
or between classroom teachers and those who
have specific roles in special educational needs;
- Engagement in professional learning communities that are characterized by lively and
challenging conversations about learning and
teaching rather than by hurried interactions
about spreadsheet data to produce rapid
results;
- Becoming partners with administrators and
policymakers in developing school curriculum
and educational policy, not just in delivering
them.
• Promote public engagement as part of the bone
and marrow of profound educational improvement
by linking school improvement and the teaching
profession more with community-based organizations and civil society organizations. Especially
in systems that are already high performing, it is at
least as important to build public commitment and
engagement as it is to develop a sense of public
confidence in education.
Canadian educators, Canadian policymakers and
the Canadian public should be proud of the country’s
status as an international leader in educational
change. This status and leadership is not the property
or the prerogative of any one province, but of several
provinces in particular and the fabric of the teaching
profession and of Canadian society as a whole. By
the international standards of McKinsey and Co, the
Canadian educational system, which is not one single
system, but many, is already somewhere between great
and excellent in its standards of performance. The way
forward from here is not to wring a few more percentage
points of tested achievement in basic subjects out of
the nation’s classrooms. Nor is it to embrace politically
and ideologically popular reform strategies from lower
performing countries such as maintaining widespread
standardized testing or introducing performance-based
pay. The way forward is to strengthen the teaching
profession even further; to learn from each other as
provinces in the way that high performing countries
17
learn from each other too;
and to boldly embrace
innovation and inquiry in
new approaches to teaching
and learning instead of
sticking with delivering
incremental improvements
in existing practice.
not only to make a kind of
transactional peace with
Education should ultimately therefore
each other, but also to
build a transformational
be not just about performance or
future together as dynamic
even personalization in the form of
and equal partners. This
individual customization but about
includes engaging teachers
creating better, more productive and
and their organizations
as active partners in the
more socially just lives for everyone.
Students have lives now
international
evaluations
and in the future. Learning
and recommendations of
should ultimately be about the enrichment of those educational performance that are so influential on
lives as citizens as well as consumers and producers. national and provincial strategies of educational change.
Education should ultimately therefore be not just about Canada has done well on the world stage of educational
performance or even personalization in the form of change. If this stage is to become a platform for even
individual customization but about creating better, more more dynamic change in the future, the country needs
productive and more socially just lives for everyone.
to have more than professional peace with or even
“buy-in” from its teachers. It needs its teachers and their
Teachers have lives too. Teaching helps others make federations to be co-creators of change on the broadest
meaning. They cannot do that if others are in control scale for a strong and just society in the future. It’s one
of the meaning that teachers make for themselves. thing to be excellent. It’s another to stay excellent. Are
It is time for governments and teachers’ federations governments and federations up for this challenge?
18
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