Leading change in Schools and Regions
Lecture: Change in Schools: 2
Alfred J. Sant Fournier
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socrates
Evaluation is “the systematic collection and interpretation of evidence leading to a
judgement of value with a view to action”.
Beeby (1997)
Evaluation helps the school to answer the following questions:
How are we doing?
How do we know?
What are we going to do now?
"the most important purpose of program evaluation is not to prove but to improve”
Stufflebeam (1983)
Action Research tends to be …
Cyclic
Participative
Qualitative
Reflective
Bob Dick, Department of Psychology
University of Queensland
‘There is nothing so practical as a good theory’
Lewin Field theory in social science (1951) p 169
I experience a problem
I imagine a solution to the problem
I implement the imagined solution
I evaluate the outcome of my actions
I re-formulate my problem in the light of my evaluation.
Whitehead in McNiff (1988)
Self evaluation
The school that knows and understands itself is well on the way to solving any problems it
has. The school that is ignorant of its weaknesses or will not, or cannot, face up to them is
not well-managed. Self-evaluation provides the key to improvement. The ability to
generate a commitment among staff to appraise their own work critically, and that of
others, is a key test of how well a school is managed.
Self - evaluation helps to cement ownership of the SDP
External Evaluation
Those who play the game do not see it as clearly as those who watch.
Chinese proverb
Two pillars of evaluation are Accountability and Empowerment
Glickman (1990)
Key purposes for any judgements of school quality
Promote school self-accountability, translatable into wider accountability
Provide useful indications of what works well and what needs to be improved
Guarantee equal opportunities for all pupils
Determine trend in schools’ effectiveness and improvement over time
Lead to further development
Stoll & Fink (1996) pp 168 - 169
Micropolitics of schools (1987)
Boyle
•People work at professional level
•People work at their own interests
•People work at external interests
Approaches to evaluation
ELP – Evaluation by listening to people
EMP – evaluation by measuring performance
School Development Plan
Review/assessment stage
Design/planning stage
Implementation stage
Evaluation stage
Evaluating after Implementation
Monitoring is important
Evaluating the process of improvement
Awareness – “beginning stages”
Mechanical – “getting a good start”
Routine – “well on the way”
Refined – “best practices working”
An improving school is a self-evaluating school involving:
SMT
Teachers
Students
Parents
Etc…
Principal, St. Francis’ Canossian College, Hong Kong
Overriding principles
Monitoring and evaluation should operate within a climate of mutual trust,
respect, support and professionalism
Monitoring and evaluation should assist in developing a culture of reflective
practice
Boroughmuir High School, Edinborough
Fullan (2004)
When to EVALUATE!
Should not be left to chance.
A reasonable time-scale is required.
Hand in hand with the School Development Plan
Key considerations for indicators
The purpose and audience for collecting information need to be clear.
It is important to measure and acknowledge outcomes.
Performance indicators are only part of the whole school story
There is a danger of overvaluing easily measured outcomes at the expense
of ones less quantifiable.
Indicators should measure enduring features of schools so trends can be
analysed over time.
Indicators should be readily understood by broad audiences.
Information should not be collected merely because it is available.
Indicators should address quality, equity and efficiency issues.
Collecting too few indicators may lead to interpretation difficulties because
of insufficient information. Too many can be overwhelming.
Stoll & Fink (1995) p 184
Stages of transition
Stage 0 – Preparation prior to headship
Stage 1 – Entry and encounter (first months)
Stage 2 – Taking hold (3 to 12 months)
Stage 3 – Reshaping (second year)
Stage 4 – Refinement (years 3 to 4)
Stage 5 – consolidation (years 5 to 7)
Stage 6 – Plateau (years 8 and onwards)
To know what is going on takes sense.
To know what to do about it takes wisdom.
Chinese proverb
http://evaluation.wmich.edu/resources/schooleval/
