School Improvement and School Effectiveness
School Improvement and School Effectiveness
As a whole, the Arab Region has achieved significant progress on the social front since the 1970s, developing extensive health and education systems based mainly on state welfare policies and aided by Islamic traditions of charity and family support networks (United Nations Development Programme Regional Bureau for Arab States, 2004, p. 16). However, Arab education systems, “often touted as engines of modernization in other regions, have not been successful in positioning the workforce to meet the labour needs of today nor in stimulating research and development” (ibid.). The resulting mismatch between the education system and the needs of the labour market has led governments, educationalists, and parents to question the performance of both the system itself, and their children’s schools. World-wide concerns about the effectiveness of education have led to questions being asked about the role of schools, how schooling contributes to students’ achievement, whether some schools are performing better than others, and indeed, how a country’s education system compares with another, by ranking against international standards. In other words, stakeholders at all levels want to know the effectiveness of schooling (Gorard, Hordosy, & Siddiqui, 2013).
School Effectiveness
Townsend describes several different definitions of school effectiveness including that of Levine and Lezotte (2007, p. 287), which is “the production of a desired result or outcome”. School effectiveness is defined by Scheerens as the average achievement of students at the end of a period of formal schooling (2000), whereas Callender argues that value-added can be referred to as the growth a student makes in the annual assessments compared with the previous year (2004). Indeed Scheerens, Witziers, and Steen suggest that student achievement should be the basic criterion to judge the effectiveness of a school (2013).
In contrast, Coe argues that it is misleading to assume “that learning gains can be interpreted as effectiveness” (2013, p. 11). Coe (ibid.) clarifies that value-added is not always the same as effectiveness, illustrating this by citing the situation where teaching the top sets of students might yield high results, though the added value may be questionable. Indeed there is an extensive literature emanating from the US, where using value-added to evaluate teachers is widespread (Ballou & Springer, 2015; Jiang, Sporte, & Luppescu, 2015). Researchers are somewhat divided about the benefits of this, but there are certainly plenty who argue that it is inappropriate, such as Goldhaber (2015); Goldring et al., (2015), and Douglas N. Harris and Herrington (2015). Others stress the need for specific cautions in use or in interpretation (Ballou & Springer, 2015). Indeed, Coe and Fitz-Gibbon (1998) argue that effectiveness does not mean value added, explaining that value-added models can only measure half of learner performance, such as the progress students make in annual examinations. They argue that aspects such as motivation and self-esteem might provide more useful indicators of school effectiveness if measured appropriately, adding that while the ”value-added data may not answer your questions, … it can help you to ask better ones” (Coe, 2013, p. 10).
The term school effectiveness has been widely used since the 1960s (Ghani, Siraj, Radzi, & Elham, 2011). In 1966, Dr. James Coleman published “The Equal Education Opportunity Survey” report, which concluded that family background affected student learning and public schools did not make a difference in student achievement. Other writers have similarly argued that family factors prevented children from learning (Cortez-Rucker, Adams, & Cortez-Rucker, 2013; Lezotte, n.d.). Coleman’s report stimulated a great interest in this area, providing a basis for “many of the studies that would later come to define the research base for the Effective Schools Movement (Lezotte, n.d., p. 1). Equity is the driver to make the school effective for everyone Edmonds (1979) argues, regardless of their socioeconomic status or family background, according to Lezotte (n.d.). Whilst Edmonds did not accept all the conclusions with Coleman’s report, he did acknowledge that family background makes a difference in children learning, Cortez-Rucker et al., explain (2013). By 1990 the school effectiveness movement was at its peak, according to McInerney, Dowson, and Etten (2006) and subsequently the concept has been widely applied to understand the effort the school makes to improve all students’ performance. Since that time, the focus has widened with further studies building on this approach. For example, Ghani, Siraj, Radzi, and Elham’s research (2011) conducted in Malaysia and Brunei found that the excellent schools in both countries had adopted effective school practices, but they also concluded that the role of the school principal was instrumental in bringing about change. Indeed, Gill et.al. (2004) claim that the basis of the school effectiveness drive in the 1990s has refocused on shared values and student-teacher relationships in order to enhance commitment to the development of high standards of students’ achievement. Other writers argue that schooling is about many more things than just students’ achievement (Ladwig, SiMoLa, & Berends, 2010), a conclusion supported by De Maeyer et al., (2010), who found that school effectiveness studies were generally restricted to the basic disciplines such as mother tongue and mathematics, concluding that there is a need to broaden the approach to include various other criteria to support the concept of school effectiveness. All of this debate in the literature leads to the question of what makes an effective school?
The research into school effectiveness identified many characteristics associated with high performing schools. Researchers like Muijs et al., (2014); Robinson, et al., (2008); Barber (1995); Scheerens et al., (2013)l Centra and Potter (1980); Hansen (1981) and Desimone (2002), identified nine common characteristics found in effective schools:
- A professional leadership that determines what goes on inside the classroom, enabling staff input into decision making and planning for school improvement, providing support and guidance to all staff to enhance their performance.
- A shared vision and goals, where all staff have a common sense of purpose and clear targets they work towards.
- An appropriate learning climate for students.
- Deep learning, where there is a focus on helping students to learn and achieve by providing high quality teaching that recognises that different students learn in different ways.
- Setting high expectations, which are clearly communicated to students.
- Recognition, with positive reinforcement of good work by both staff and students.
- Monitoring progress, with systematic monitoring of the achievement of students and the school as a whole, with results that are evaluated, analysed, and used for improvement.
- Professional learning communities, where teachers can learn from each other, supported by professional development programmes provided systematically to teachers according to their needs.
- Home-school relationships involve parents in the life of the school and enable them to take greater responsibility for their children’s learning.
However, although the research in school effectiveness identified these nine common characteristics associated with high performance schools, it did not describe the practical methods by which schools can become successful (Desimone, 2002). As Scheerens and Creemers (1989, p. 692) explain there are many reports of “what works in education”, but few theoretical explanations available of “why things work in education”. These nine common characteristics are frequently brought together in models seeking to improve school effectiveness, such as the Model of School Effectiveness (Gorard, 2010), and Comprehensive School Reform (Datnow & Borman, 2003). In general, these models seek to explain the relationship between the characteristics of effective schools and student achievement, most adopting an input-process-outcome and multi-level structure, usually targeting students, classroom, and school levels (Bosker & Scheerens, 1994). Such models aim to channel the volume of effort to ensure added value and identify the distance travelled by schools that have taken steps to improve and enhance the achievement of their students (Reynolds et al., 2014). Models are also used at all levels of school reform.
Reform Models:
In achieving the purpose of enhancing school performance, researchers use models for improvement. There are a number of models for school reform focusing on one area of schooling, such as enhancing leadership practice, developing teachers’ professional practice, or enhancing the curriculum (Schoening, 1998), with classic examples being teacher professional development in the USA (Craig, 2009) and the integrated professional development model for effective teaching (Kuijpers, Houtveen, & Wubbels, 2010). The later model was created by combining elements of the transfer teaching techniques and those focusing on developmental-reflective coaching. However, such unidimensional approaches generally failed to reach their objective, with little evidence of effectively increasing students’ achievement, according to Desimone (2002). Because of this, Kuijpers et al. maintain that the professional development model must be embedded in a comprehensive school-improvement programme (Kuijpers et al., 2010). Other approaches consider improvement as a holistic entity of many facets that need to be simultaneously implemented in schools to make the progress desired (Crowther, 2011), examples being the School Development Program and Success for All, The More Effective Schools programmes (Bifulco, Duncombe, & Yinger, 2005) and the COSMIC C-B model (Crowther, 2011). Because of the apparent importance of such models in effective and sustainable school improvement they will be discussed further in the next article.
To sum up, research in school effectiveness was found to focus generally on variation in learning outcomes between schools, or countries (Reynolds et al., 2014) and was restricted to outcome-oriented factors (Bosker & Scheerens, 1994). This approach has been changed in recent years with countries trying to implement the findings of school effectiveness research directly into school practice by the implementation of school improvement initiatives (Reynolds, Davie, & Phillips, 1989).
School improvement
According to Akist, while school effectiveness is more concerned with school outcomes, school improvement focuses more on the process of the school (2007). It appears from the literature that the focus on school effectiveness is on the academic outcomes (such as students’ exams results), while with school improvement the focus is wider, being based also on non-academic outcomes (such as professional development). Some argue that the focus of school improvement is shifting from an emphasis on changing school processes to outcomes, seeing whether the changes are evidencing improved student outcomes. However, it appears that there is little conclusive evidence that identifies clearly the effect of non-academic initiatives on students’ learning (Ladwig et al., 2010). Indeed, whilst the importance of capacity building through professional development via learning communities, the use of external support teams, strategic planning, and an internal focus on collaborative patterns of staff development to enable teachers to see and implement good practices are strategies identified through more recent studies on school improvement (Potter, Reynolds, & Chapman, 2002), without the link to outcomes the argument for their adoption is not strong.
Never-the-less, through utilising all these ideas, effective school improvement is defined by Creemers, Stoll,and Reezigt as “planned educational change that enhances student learning outcomes as well as the school’s capacity for managing change” (2007, p. 2). But how does school improvement occur? According to Creemers and Kyriakides (2008), the first step to be taken in any school improvement initiative is to determine the starting point, where the school or system is, and to gain a clear understanding of the goals to reach and how to improve the school’s practices to achieve them. In this approach, establishing a collaborative commitment for improvement is crucial, to share a clear understanding of the destination and how the school’s performance is going to be improved. Aksit’s (2007) overview of research on school improvement suggests a number of key factors that should be taken into consideration, such as sustained professional development, high student achievement expectations, strong parental involvement and shared decision-making, which were also identified in the literature covering school effectiveness. Similarly, despite the volume of research on factors related to school improvement, there is no specific knowledge about how and why improvement occurs according to Fullan (1985).
From the expansive range of school improvement studies, Fullan (2005); Hawley and Sykes (2007); and Copeland (2003, cited in Anderson & Kumari, 2009) recognise that systematic long-lasting improvement in schools will not happen simply because of the implementation of a new initiative, a set of professional development programmes, or the implementation of new policies. With this realisation has come a recommendation that schools should establish learning communities, where all academic and managerial staff are engaged collaboratively in a purposeful continuous cycle of action, where the impact of strategies implemented is continuously monitored and evaluated, with a rethinking of better solutions to achieve the shared vision (Anderson & Kumari, 2009).
In summary it can be seen that there is a lot of overlap between the idea of effective schools and school improvement. Not surprisingly then, Hopkins, Reynolds, and Gray (1999) note that for practical purposes in school development projects, the elements of both are combined. Consequently, to effectively evaluate a school, elements from school effectiveness as well as the elements from school improvement need to be brought together, according to Creemers et al., (2007). Such a combination emphasises the need to collect data about students’ achievement from multiple sources, both the achievement of students from the school process and the implementation of the school improvement initiatives within the school context (Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008). As Hoeben explains, the focus on effective elements for students’ outcomes answers the question: “Does the school achieve better student outcomes?” (1998, cited in Creemers et al., 2007, p. 2). The improvement elements, on the other hand, refer to the school leadership, or/and professional development, seeking to address the question of whether the school manages change successfully. Recognizing the value of this combination gives rise to yet a further question, which is how to link the elements of both the school effectiveness and school improvement movements? The focus on capacity building for improvement has been suggested as the way forward.
School Capacity for Improvement
Capacity for improvement appears to be the key linking idea between school effectiveness and school improvement. A school identified as having capacity for improvement can be recognised because it is “a school that sustains its effectiveness by successfully managing change in a context of instability and reform” (D. Hargreaves, 2001, p.2), a concept that warrants further exploration, which occurs in Section 3.5 below. Both school effectiveness and school improvement are underpinned by the acknowledgment of the importance of the teaching and learning process on students’ achievement, a point highlighted in Section 3.1. Evidence for linking teaching and learning with students’ achievement has come from external inspection organisations, which combine process and outcomes to judge the overall effectiveness of schools (A. Harris, 2001). Hence, schools need to assess, design, and plan their own ways to create mechanisms for implementing their school improvement initiatives and measuring their impact on students’ performance, argue Creemers et al. (2007). In order to do that, schools need a mix of measures to identify and monitor improvement in the classroom, as well improvement in school processes and in the school outcomes that are linked with the school goals (Potter et al., 2002). But as well, schools need a climate that is open to the notion of change and improvement, an aspect that will be discussed further in Section 3.10.
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