A conversation between different levels of accountability

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A conversation between different levels of
accountability

• ACEL 2007
• Dr Dick Cotter
• University of Melbourne

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The Two Perspectives of Personal and Public
Accountability

• (1) Discovering and supporting individual
  potential in personal relationships
• (2) Monitoring and reporting the systemic,
  aggregated outcomes of public policy
• Both forms have complementary functions
• But distortion occurs if one dominates
• Both forms meet in the school community
• Leadership to maintain balance and integrity

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Public Accountability

• At the heart of democracy
• Social contract with electorate
• An account to an authorised audience
• Can request receive specific accounts
• Audience affects what reported how
• Interactive responsiveness in reporting
• Reporting to higher levels usually one-way
• Applying consequences is not a conversation

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Personal Accountability

• Inbuilt within human relationships
• Necessary to trust and social interaction
• Identities defined by accountabilities
• Inseparable from teaching and learning
• Sense of presence and generosity
• Accountable for whole person beyond
  pre-specified public targets
• Personal assumes interpersonal interaction

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Audience in Personal Accountability

• Primary audience those involved in teaching and
  learning students and teachers
• Audience includes teachers reflective self
• This self as teacher also an agent
• Can expand primary audience to team teaching
  colleagues and/or observers
• Secondary audience in discussion about teaching
  teachers, parents and others

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From Accountancy to Public Accountability

• Mulgan principle of audit separating
  accountability from performance
• Homogenised data sets for comparison
• Each datum conforms to data in the set
• subjective survey responses fitted along
  standardised scales of measurement
• Teacher performance also standardised
• Uniqueness not captured by such frameworks

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Whole-school focusa meso-level perspective

• Mediates the two perspectives
• Carnoy, Elmore and Siskin three tiers
• Responsibility of the individual
• Shared expectations of school community
• Formal accountability of the state system
• focus on school as the central unit of
  accountability and on the academic performance of
  students as the primary target of assessment.

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Schools look in both directions

• State authorities bring schools within its public
  framework of accountability
• Schools increasingly manage data for authorities,
  esp. in English-speaking world
• Schools also critical for personal accountability
• Schools a lifeworld (Habermas Sergiovanni)
• Schools frameworks for identity and meaning
• They ground relationships in community

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Changing Work Profiles

• Increased reporting in public sector
• Work load on educational institutions
• Reporting performance of schools and teachers
• Can distract from central teaching role
• Satisfying external controls and reduced to
  monitoring pre-specified outcomes
• Place to be retained for personal judgement
• Personal accountability for individuals
  transcends pre-specified outcomes

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Necessity of Personal Accountability

• Necessity of trusting relationships for student
  outcomes (Bryk Schneider)
• Delivering the contract cannot distract from
  commitment to relationships
• Personal commitments cannot be reduced to
  satisfying external standards
• Public policy may support the lifeworld of the
  school but not replace it
• Meaning identity comes from the lifeworld
• This not delivered by public policy

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Necessity of Public Accountability

• Personal relationships do not replace the concept
  of the public good
• Cannot reject public framework on grounds of
  professional autonomy
• Public data stimulate professional reflection and
  conversation
• Provides protection when unfair personal
  judgements occur (provides the rule of law)
• Governments social contract requires reporting
  against public standards

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Mutually informing frameworks

• Personal viewpoints give meaning to public forms
  of accountability
• Public agencies look for professional
  collaboration not passive compliance
• The lifeworld illuminates public frameworks
• KPIs need ongoing definition and refinement
• System managers look to practitioners in
  identifying policy targets (e.g. special needs)
• Practitioners and system expertise develop
  understanding of problems and solutions

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Differences remain

• A well functioning school already connected to
  community members
• Circle of trust already provides feedback to
  parents, students and teachers
• External data may tell school community what they
  already know
• Communal bonds of commitment to students
• Commitments transcend external targets set by
  agencies of the state

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Task for educational leaders

• Protecting integrity of professional discernment
  in teachers daily work
• Meanwhile satisfying legitimate demands of public
  accountability from governments
• Managing the balance and building bridges between
  the two frameworks
• Encouraging teachers to use public data in their
  own professional conversations
• Inviting conversations with public agencies

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A continuing fugue

• Neither form of accountability can be collapsed
  into the other
• Both are legitimate, reminding each other of
  legitimate challenges
• All frameworks bring certain issues into focus
  but also filter out other issues
• Local school community is the modern unit of
  accountability (Elmore)
• Therefore, the best placed institution for
  dialogue

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What we love or ultimately care about

• What we love has a primary place in
  accountability
• Drives policy, motivates and identified the
  ultimate good for which responsible
• Some outcomes are means to a good as in the
  demands of strategic action
• At some point a final end or ultimate good
  requiring no further justification
• E.g. Kant persons as ends-in-themselves not
  means to some further end

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Ultimate Ends

• In society
• Wellbeing of individuals
• Well being of collectives - common good
• Commitment to human values, e.g. justice, truth
• In schools
• Well being of particular individuals
  personalism
• Wellbeing of whole school community
• Principles of mission sustained by virtues
• Overlapping and mutually supporting ends

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Policy and what is worthwhile

• Loves object is what is ultimately worthwhile
• Policy is driven by, but does not create what is
  worthwhile
• Leaders come with their own formation and history
  and sense of what is worthwhile
• This sense animates the public sphere and the
  people
• Without this, a divided self results our
  personal core doesnt come to work

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Common good and whole person

• Common good defined within the public sphere
• Democracies are responsible for the common good
• Common good requires good governance just
  policy
• Contrasting focus on this individual as whole
  person
• Good of particular individual transcends public
  targets
• Through relationships, knowing this persons
  particular needs, potential and interests
• In contrast, the public good requires measures of
  success for all
• The common good and the whole person are
  complementary concepts

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Differences of Scale

• A systemic scale is needed for much resourcing,
  especially for social justice
• Aspects of curriculum provision requires economy
  of scale
• Public accountability focuses on structure more
  than agency
• System focus so that resources are sufficient,
  used wisely, distributed fairly
• Student outcomes monitored across a system
• System focus on professional supply, development
  and wellbeing

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Different Contexts

• Public and personal viewpoints generate different
  phenomena or patterns
• The helicopter and grassroots lens brings
  different entities into view
• Importance of vertical communication
• Context also affected by audiences receiving
  account
• Audiences are not passive observers but will act
  in some way

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Different Processes

• Public format of large data sets usually from a
  distance, collected by outsiders
• Measurement of pre-specified elements separated
  from pedagogical processes
• Contrast with tacit feedback in the teaching
  process

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Conclusion

• The perspectives may be distinguished but not
  divorced
• Public accountability has scale and leverage to
  promote the common good
• Open-endedness at personal level embraces
  individuality of whole person
• Both perspectives necessary for a credible vision
• School a powerful bridge between the two
• School is a lifeworld that nurtures the
  individual
• It is also the unit of accountability in the
  larger policy framework