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/