Recapitulation and Application to School Improvement

Abstract

In this chapter the balance is made up about the educational effectiveness research results that were brought together in this book and their theoretical interpretation. Next, the use and application of the “knowledge base” is addressed in discussions about research use and usability and strategies for school improvement and systemic reform. This leads to a comparison between the fields of educational effectiveness research and the study of school improvement, and to the identification of reform strategies at school and system level. What we have is a positive theory on what works in education, with a fair consensus about key levers for improvement at system, school and classroom level. But then, there are a lot of additional considerations that call for prudence in joining the “heroic journey” towards organizational excellence that some school improvement experts are envisaging. Despite broad consensus on the factors that are positively associated with student performance, there is much divergence in reviews and meta-analyses about the actual effect sizes. Despite the rationality and common sense of the conceptual models, there was a story to be told about the negative side effects and interpretations and theories that explain ineffectiveness. And, finally, implementation of the research results into practice appears to be a complex endeavour, where improvement guidelines frequently go far beyond strong factual support. The chapter adds up to the identification of four functional scenarios for systemic educational reform: (a) the teacher training and recruitment scenario, (b) the accountability scenario, (c) the good governance scenario and (d) the evidence-based comprehensive reform scenario. In addition, a dysfunctional scenario is hinted at under the heading of “the displaced goal scenario”.