Evidence-Based School Development in Changing Demographic Contexts

Abstract

This book takes on the longstanding and “wicked” problem of school improvement. At the core of this problem is the interaction between students (their understandings, capacities, aspirations and dispositions) and their experiences in schools. These experiences are shaped - but not determined - by their teachers, peers, families, classroom and school structures and wider communities. In the face of the enormous potential diversity on both sides of this interaction is society’s expectation that, somehow, all students will achieve (among other unpredictable things) a common core of outcomes. Logically speaking, this is an entirely irrational expectation and the extent to which it is realized stands as something of a taken-for-granted miracle. Achieving this miracle becomes more likely, we are to believe, when teachers and school leaders do things certain ways, when district leaders provide certain forms of support, when policy makers establish certain systems of sanctions, rewards and the like. All the while, these certain ways of doing things, forms of support and systems of sanctions and rewards are variously ignored (often for good reasons) or under constant refinement, debate, critique and re-formation. Achieving the miracle, one might easily conclude, stands no chance absent an innate disposition on the part of children to learn from social interaction. So, that is one perspective on why the school improvement problem is “wicked”; it can sometimes be reduced in complexity and made easier to understand. Occasionally someone even hits a home run. But is never going to be “solved” in the typical meaning of the term. Just because the problem is wicked, however, does not mean we have the choice of not working on it. Taking on this problem, the best way we know how, is a requirement not an option, for all of us working in and around schools.