Local education authority’s quality management within a coupled school system: Strategies, actions, and tensions

Abstract

International policy trends point to an increased focus on student achievement, teaching quality, and school outcomes. Attention to Swedish students’ poor academic achievement over the past two decades has resulted in an increased emphasis on the responsibility of municipalities and schools to create a better educational atmosphere through building quality control systems at the local level. The purpose of this study is to contribute in-depth knowledge of not only how local education authorities (LEAs) support and control schools through quality management systems but also how these local governance strategies are conditioned and obtain legitimacy in relation to the national governance of schools. Based on interviews with LEA actors in one large municipality in Sweden, as well as observations of meetings within the quality management system, this paper uses an organizational theory to explore what appears to be important in a LEA quality management system and the tensions between the state, the municipality, and the school. The results show that the LEAs’ quality management system is based on three specific strategies: (a) data use, (b) leadership, and (c) different forms of dialogues, which, in turn, contribute to relatively close system connections. The exception is the LEAs’ ability to sustainably contribute to equity in outcomes and quality, where different tensions become clear. There is some support for the LEAs’ potential to contribute to stability and coherence in relation to national governance and to the local schools.