Abstract:
Despite constant efforts to use national policy at a macro level to affect change at a micro level in schools, the ‘spinning wheels’ of reform efforts fail to engage with the messy realities of schools and individual policies fail to deliver the reform intended. This research aims to consider why by drawing a clear line from the setting of national policy reform agendas at the national level, through state and territory schooling sectors, through school leadership and to individual teachers ‘on the ground’.
This paper presents the culmination of four studies exploring different elements contributing to the disconnect between policy intention and experience at key stages of the enactment process. Commencing at the national level the study draws on Riceur’s concept of forgetfulness to consider how the political and strategic motivation of Federal Education Ministers can work against the progression of key policy commitments. Progressing then to state and territory level schooling sectors, it draws on Derrida’s description of aporia to consider how policy gets ‘stuck’ at a state level in overlapping political, governmental and bureaucratic spheres.
For the final phases it considers the lived experiences of school leaders and teachers ‘on the ground’, tasked with enacting the remnants of the original policy commitments. To do this, findings are shared from a set of interviews spanning all schooling sectors in Queensland about how national policy affects them in their role. It draws on repetitive experiences between interview participants to describe perceptions of policy that suggest its impact is that of increased workload and inconsistency between schools largely driven by motivations to secure funding for schools. This is used to describe the disconnect between national policy and teachers, and consider the impact of the limited knowledge teachers have of policy that results in an overall lack of buy in, the lack of teacher consultation in policy development, and the disconnect between policy leaders and those ‘on the ground’.
In anticipation of a new era of schooling reform agendas in Australia, I present a summary of these studies to consider the obstacles at each stage of our schooling structure and ask how they could be reconsidered to allow for a better flow of policy from the national to local schools and importantly – from schools back to the Commonwealth.
This paper presents the culmination of four studies exploring different elements contributing to the disconnect between policy intention and experience at key stages of the enactment process. Commencing at the national level the study draws on Riceur’s concept of forgetfulness to consider how the political and strategic motivation of Federal Education Ministers can work against the progression of key policy commitments. Progressing then to state and territory level schooling sectors, it draws on Derrida’s description of aporia to consider how policy gets ‘stuck’ at a state level in overlapping political, governmental and bureaucratic spheres.
For the final phases it considers the lived experiences of school leaders and teachers ‘on the ground’, tasked with enacting the remnants of the original policy commitments. To do this, findings are shared from a set of interviews spanning all schooling sectors in Queensland about how national policy affects them in their role. It draws on repetitive experiences between interview participants to describe perceptions of policy that suggest its impact is that of increased workload and inconsistency between schools largely driven by motivations to secure funding for schools. This is used to describe the disconnect between national policy and teachers, and consider the impact of the limited knowledge teachers have of policy that results in an overall lack of buy in, the lack of teacher consultation in policy development, and the disconnect between policy leaders and those ‘on the ground’.
In anticipation of a new era of schooling reform agendas in Australia, I present a summary of these studies to consider the obstacles at each stage of our schooling structure and ask how they could be reconsidered to allow for a better flow of policy from the national to local schools and importantly – from schools back to the Commonwealth.