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5 - PISA for sale? Creating profitable policy spaces through the OECD’s PISA for Schools
- Edited by Christopher Lubienski, Indiana University, Miri Yemini, Tel-Aviv University, Claire Maxwell, University of Copenhagen
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- Book:
- The Rise of External Actors in Education
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 13 October 2022
- Print publication:
- 28 June 2022, pp 91-112
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Summary
Introduction
We find ourselves in a moment where the unprecedented need for, and generation of, performance data in education is drastically reshaping schooling. Alongside demands for increased accountability and transparency in public schooling, these data have produced new urgencies around finding ‘evidence-informed’ (Lingard, 2013, 2021) solutions to putative problems of policy and practice, or, put differently, to identify and implement ‘what works’ (Auld & Morris, 2016; Lewis, 2017a). This desire for solutions has produced a new market for policy populated by new providers of services, with efforts to identify ‘what works’ occurring in tandem with the increased presence of non-governmental organisations in education, both within and beyond the territorial boundaries of the nation-state. As such, powerful transnational private policy networks – which encompass intergovernmental organisations, for-profit businesses, non-profit agencies, and the philanthropic sector – now contribute towards a ‘global education industry’ that exceeds $4 trillion annually (Verger et al, 2016). This has relocated much schooling evidence and expertise from more traditional sources – such as the nationstate, state agencies, academics in universities, and teachers – to the private sector, including providers outside of government, the public sector, or, as is now common, outside of education itself (for example, statistical or technology companies) (Lewis & Holloway, 2019; Holloway, 2020). Such opportunities for private policy networks to produce ‘universal’ forms of evidence and expertise, often with little regard for local contexts, make a compelling case to seek to understand how attempts to reconstitute and govern professional knowledge, learning, and practice are being realised locally (that is, at the teacher, school, and schooling system levels).
Given these recent developments, our chapter focuses on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD’s) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Schools, an instrument designed to assess individual school performance in reading, mathematics, and science against the national (and subnational) schooling systems measured by the main PISA test. Scores on PISA for Schools are situated on/ against the PISA main scale, meaning that comparisons of PISA performance are made possible between the school and the nation, as well as between the school and other nations across the globe.
6 - Resisting the neoliberal: parent activism in New York State against the corporate reform agenda in schooling
- Edited by Lyn Tett, The University of Edinburgh, Mary Hamilton, Lancaster University
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- Book:
- Resisting Neoliberalism in Education
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 30 April 2022
- Print publication:
- 28 August 2019, pp 89-102
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Summary
Introduction
On 8 February 2018, the New York State Board of Regents Chancellor and Commissioner, and the Board of Regents, who are together responsible for the general supervision of all educational activities in the state,1 filed a lawsuit against the State University of New York (SUNY) Charter Schools Committee and other SUNY committees for adopting a proposal in which charter schools would not need to hire certified teachers, but could grant certification to their own novice teachers (Clukey, 2018). Such a process, Chancellor Rosa and Commissioner Elia argued, would lower standards and ‘allow inexperienced and unqualified individuals to teach those children most in need – students of color, those who are economically disadvantaged, and students with disabilities – in SUNY authorized charter schools’ (Prothero, 2017). A lawsuit, in which the Chancellor, Commissioner and the Regents challenged the charter schools, would have been unthinkable until recently, if for no other reason than the fact that the previous Chancellor, Merryl Tisch, was a strong supporter of charter schools; indeed, so strong that she now sits on the SUNY Charter School Committee (State University of New York, no date) that passed the proposal to have charter schools certify their own teachers.
To understand how New York's leading policymakers came to sue several committees, including the SUNY Charter Schools Committee, one needs to understand how parents, teachers and students have reasserted the right of the public to determine or at least have a strong say about education policy against those who wish to adopt neoliberal reforms of privatisation, accountability based on scores on standardised tests and managerial techniques that shift power away from teachers and parents towards philanthropists, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, hedge fund managers and investors (Hursh, 2015). The lawsuit reflects the increasing resistance from New York State parents, students, educators and community members to neoliberal reforms, including the privatisation of education, the Common Core State Standards and assessing students, teachers and schools via standardised tests.
Our focus in this chapter is explicitly on the two most influential opt-out groups in New York State, namely, New York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE) and Long Island Opt Out (LIOO).
ten - Multiple capitals and Scottish independent schools: the (re) production of advantage
- Edited by Julie Allan, University of Birmingham, Ralph Catts
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- Book:
- Social Capital, Children and Young People
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 01 September 2022
- Print publication:
- 25 April 2012, pp 181-198
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Summary
Introduction
This chapter reports on findings from the Scottish Independent Schools Project (SISP), a project developed to complement a range of other case studies supported by the Schools and Social Capital Network of the Applied Educational Research Scheme (AERS), which focused largely on ‘disadvantaged’ groups or communities. SISP, in contrast, sought to explore how social and other capitals work in and through the spatio-temporalities (Sassen, 2001, Gulson and Symes, 2007) of a more privileged setting – that of independent schooling in Scotland. The assumption here was that there is a relationship between the (re) production of advantage and disadvantage and that bonding social capital on a global scale is a feature of contemporary processes of the production of advantage. Succinctly, the research was predicated on the assumption that understanding the production of advantage would also provide insights into the reproduction of disadvantage and the policies and practices required to address it.
Social capital embraces the idea that social networks are valuable assets for individuals and societies, and is one of a number of ‘capitals’ defined by Lin (2001, p. 3) as ‘investment of resources with expected returns in the marketplace’. As outlined below, SISP worked across two theoretical frameworks of social capital: namely that of Putnam (1993, 1995, 2000), Coleman (1988) and Woolcock (1998) on the one hand and that of Bourdieu (1977, 1986, 1991, 2003; and Bourdieu with Wacquant, 1992) on the other, eventually adopting an approach we described as multiple capitals. Bourdieu focuses on multiple capitals and the potential of all forms to be transformed into economic capital linked to the production of advantage, whereas Coleman, Putnam and Woolcock are more sanguine about the ability of social capital to address disadvantage and open up opportunities.
The research sought to understand the differentiated nature of independent schools in Scotland and how different capitals worked in and through them. As such, a preliminary analysis of independent school websites was undertaken. This showed how such schools represent themselves, revealing also the complexity of categorising independent schools in Scotland, given their differentiated nature. Case studies were then carried out in the only three independent schools that agreed to participate, and involved the collection of data by means of interviews, focus groups and questionnaires. It proved impossible to include in the research the highest status, highest profile schools or to explore the capitals held by them.