education policy analysis
archives
A peer-reviewed, independent,
open access, multilingual journal
epaa aape
Arizona State University
Volume 22 Number 70
July 21nd, 2014
ISSN 1068-2341
The Performing School: The Effects of Market &
Accountability Policies
Alejandra Falabella
Universidad Alberto Hurtado
Chile
Citation: Falabella, A. (2014) The Performing School: The Effects of Market & Accountability
Policies. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 22 (70). http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v22n70.2014.
Abstract: Market and accountability educational reforms have proliferated around the globe, along
with high expectations of solving countries’ school quality deficits and inequities. In this paper I
develop an analytical framework from a critical sociology angle for analyzing the effects of these
policies within schools. First I discuss conceptually the configuration of this quasi-market schema
and develop the notion of the ‘performing school’. Additionally, I study the effects of these policies
within schools, based on a literature review of 130 papers, and focused particularly on a smaller
body of critical sociology research (56 papers). The aim is not to produce a comprehensive overview
of policy benefits and disadvantages, but to understand school transformations within the current
policy scenario. Schools, in this context, are placed within a competition-based schema, where
managers and teachers continuously have to compete, marketize and perform ‘successfully’
according to external criterion. These policies are not only changing school practices and triggering
'secondary' effects, but, moreover, they are transforming school life, ethics and teaching profession
subjectivities in complex and deeply-rooted ways. In this paper I attempt to challenge policy
assumptions and a technocratic view of policy implementation, and invite readers to rethink the
nature and consequences of these policy formulae.
Keywords: school markets; accountability policies; performativity; critical sociology; literature
review.
Journal website: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/
Facebook: /EPAAA
Twitter: @epaa_aape
Manuscript received: 1/24/2013
Revisions received: 12/26/2013
Accepted: 1/9/2014
Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 22 No. 70
La escuela performativa: Los efectos de las políticas de mercado y de
responsabilización con altas consecuencias
Resumen: La introducción de políticas de mercado y de “responsabilización con altas
consecuencias” en el sistema escolar han proliferado en distintos países, junto a la
expectativa de resolver las desigualdades educativas y los déficit en la calidad escolar. En
este artículo desarrollo un marco analítico desde la perspectiva teórica de la sociología
crítica con el fin de analizar estas políticas y sus consecuencias. Primero discuto
conceptualmente la configuración de este modelo de cuasi-mercado y desarrollo la noción
de la "escuela performativa". Además, estudio los efectos de estas políticas al interior de la
escuela en base a una revisión bibliográfica de 130 artículos, y me focalizo especialmente
en un cuerpo más pequeño de investigación que se desarrolla desde la tradición de la
sociología crítica (56 trabajos). El objetivo no es producir una descripción exhaustiva de
los beneficios y las desventajas de la política, sino que entender las transformaciones de la
escuela en el escenario de la política actual. Las escuelas, en este contexto, se sitúan dentro
de un esquema basado en la competencia, donde los administradores y equipo docentes
tienen que continuamente competir, “marketearse” y desempeñarse “exitosamente” de
acuerdo a criterios externos. Estas políticas no sólo están cambiando las prácticas escolares
y provocando “efectos secundarios”, pero más aún están transformando la vida cotidiana
de la escuela, la ética de la gestión y las subjetividades de la profesión docente. En este
trabajo cuestiono los supuestos de la política y la visión tecnocrática de su
implementación, e invito a los lectores a reconsiderar su naturaleza y consecuencias.
Palabras-clave: mercados escolares; políticas de responsabilización con altas
consecuencias; performatividad; sociología crítica; revisión bibliográfica
A escola performativa: Os efeitos das políticas de mercado e de responsabilização
com altas consequências
Resumo: A introdução de políticas de mercado e de "responsabilização de altas
consequências" no sistema escolar têm proliferado em diferentes países, com a expectativa
de atender as desigualdades educacionais e déficits na qualidade da escola. Neste artigo,
fazo o desenvolvimento de um quadro analítico da perspectiva teórica da sociologia crítica,
a fim de analisar essas políticas e suas conseqüências. Primeiro discuto conceitualmente a
configuração deste modelo de quasi- mercado e desenvolvo a noção de "escola
performativa". Além disso, estudo os efeitos dessas políticas dentro da escola basada numa
revisão da literatura de 130 artigos, e particularmente me concentro num espaço menor da
pesquisa desenvolvido a partir da tradição da sociologia crítica (56 pesquisas). O objetivo
não é produzir uma descrição exaustiva das vantagens e desvantagens da política, mas
entender a transformação da escola no cenário político atual. Escolas, neste contexto,
estão localizados dentro de um esquema baseado na competição em que os gerentes de
escolas e os professores devem continuamente competir", se introduzir no mercado " e
trabalhar " com sucesso" de acordo com critérios externos. Essas políticas não estão
somente mudando as práticas escolares e causando "efeitos colaterais", mas também estão
transformando ainda mais a vida cotidiana da escola, a gestão da ética e a subjetividade da
profissão docente . Neste artigo, questiono os pressupostos da política e a visão
tecnocrática da sua implementação, e convido os leitores a reconsiderar a sua natureza e as
consequências.
Palavras-chave: mercados escolares; prestação de contas político com grandes
consequências; performatividade; sociologia crítica; revisão de literatura.
2
3
The Performing School
Introduction
In recent times educational policies have evolved in complex and sophisticated ways. The
welfare state has declined as the unique provider and manager of a centralized and universal
schooling system. In multiple ways, neoliberal policies have been implemented and combined,
opening educational services up to the market, diversifying school providers, generating competition
between the private and public sectors, and offering ‘free choice’ (and exit) to parents. Conversely,
these devolving policies are fused with state centralization tactics, introducing, for instance, national
standards, assessment systems and school rankings, which are tied to individual and institutional
rewards and sanctions.
The state distances itself from educational management and daily processes, as it becomes a
contractor, target-setter, and performance monitor, demanding school accountability (Ball &
Junemann, 2012). School management is devolved and ‘made private’, while school aims, standards
and evaluations are centralized and nationalized, that is, ‘made public’. Thus, paradoxically, the state
strategically steers national school priorities and outcomes, while policy discourses promise ‘free
choice’, ‘school autonomy’ and ‘diversity’. This mixed policy configuration has been denominated in
ways that attempt to capture its dual nature. For instance: ‘quasi-markets’ (Le Grand & Bartlett,
1994; Levačić, 1995), ‘public-markets’ (Woods, Bagley, & Glatter, 1998), ‘controlled school markets’
(Bunar, 2010), the 'de/centralized model' (Falabella, 2007), and the ‘post-welfare model’ (Gewirtz,
1996, 2002).
In this paper I analyze these policy patterns in education and discuss their consequences on
the basis of an overview of the literature, particularly focused on ‘critical sociology’ literature (see
chart 1, appendix). The review involves a search of scientific papers indexed in the Web of Science
and Scopus between 2002 and 2012. The selection criteria, in first place, were essays and empirical
research related to the consequences of accountability policies (i.e., high-stake tests) and market
policies within schools (hence, I do not address the debate about how these policies impact on school
test results). In total, I reviewed 130 papers, 23 of which are policy analysis essays, 2 are metaanalysis reviews, and the rest (109) are empirical research papers. Additionally, 20 key books (related
to the authors of the papers) were reviewed, as well as research reports (8), and doctoral theses (2).
The literature reviewed mainly referred to the United States and England as exemplary countries that
have implemented these kinds of policies, although research findings also emerged from other
countries, such as Australia, Chile, and New Zealand.
In this paper I am particularly interested in developing an argument from a critical sociology
angle, analyzing the effects of the ‘double pressure’ on schools from both accountability and market
policies. The aim is not to offer a comprehensive review, hoping to assess the
benefits/disadvantages of these policies. In effect, there are available reviews on the impact of
market-oriented policies (Waslander, Pater, & van der Weide, 2010) and accountability policies
(Anstorp, 2010). This paper focuses particularly on critical policy literature (56 papers and 12 books).
This research perspective is particularly concerned with studying the relationships between
neoliberalism, social structures, and the production of school discourses and subjectivities. It
employs mostly qualitative data, and is strongly influenced by critical and post-structuralist theory,
including those outlined by intellectuals such as Bourdieu, Foucault, and Gramsci.
In brief, I argue that the market + state-accountability model configures the performing school,
in which managers and teachers continuously have to compete, marketize and perform ‘successfully’
within a prevailing competition-led schema. Contrary to policymakers’ assumptions, I find that this
model has not met the expected outcomes, such as encouraging continuous school improvement,
diversification of educational provision, and increasing equity. The identified policy consequences
Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 22 No. 70
4
entail impoverished teaching practices, triggering of exam-oriented methods, the intensification of
pupil segmentation and exclusion, stronger hierarchical school environments and managerial systems
of control, and an increased management focus on school marketing and quick and visible solutions,
leaving thorough and long-term changes aside.
This paper not only offers an overview of these effects, but also contributes to the
interpretation of the results. From a critical sociology perspective, these effects are not only concrete
changes in school practices or 'undesired' or 'collateral' consequences that can be limited or
discouraged by 'correct incentives'. The described mixed policy formula is changing the way
schooling and teaching are understood and experienced. They involve an overall ethical transformation,
as performance and competition become overriding purposes, marginalizing critical thinking, social
inclusion values, and democratic principles.
The paper is divided into four sections. Firstly, I develop an analysis of the prevailing policy
configuration, addressing a post-welfare educational model and the multiple pressures and
regulations under which the performing school operates. Secondly, I examine the research findings,
referring to the effects of market and accountability policies within schools. Thirdly, I examine a
conceptualization of the performing school in the new policy scenario, and finally, I present a summary
of the paper and concluding thoughts.
The Performing School in the Post-Welfare Era
Educational reforms around the world have entailed the almost synchronous emergence of
similar discourses and rationales.1 Although there are variations in policy at the local level, influenced
by specific settings and country history, it is possible to identify shared trends.2 To varying degrees,
market-logic has been introduced into the social provision of education, entailing public-private
partnerships, self-managed schools, parental choice programs, and competing-fund systems (e.g.,
vouchers or per capita plan). Diverse entities from the public and private sector come into play,
providing educational services and competing with each other in order to attract ‘clients’ and sell
their services as a product in a market.
At the same time, many countries have created new ways to maintain state power and
regulation over a dispersed market network of public and private school managers. The state, for
See, for example, Ball, 1998; Ball and Youdell, 2008; Burbules and Torres, 2000; Daun, 2004; Falabella,
2007; Maroy, 2004; Whitty, Power, and Halpin, 1998; van Zanten, 2002.
2 However, it is important to note that these are solely general policy trends; the combination of these policies
and their aims, extensions and philosophies vary significantly between countries. So, for instance, countries
such as Belgium, Holland, and Sweden have expanded parental choice policies with low levels of state
curriculum standardization, while countries such as the United States have strongly emphasized high-stakes
tests with slower expansion of the private sector (although charter schools have increased, encouraged by ‘No
1
However, it is important to note that these are solely general policy trends; the combination of these policies
and their aims, extensions and philosophies vary significantly between countries. So, for instance, countries
such as Belgium, Holland, and Sweden have expanded parental choice policies with low levels of state
curriculum standardization, while countries such as the United States have strongly emphasized high-stakes
tests with slower expansion of the private sector (although charter schools have increased, encouraged by ‘No
Child Left Behind’ and ‘Race to the Top’ policies). On the other hand, countries such as Chile, England, and
New Zealand have heavily enhanced both market and accountability policies. Certainly, there are also
countries where these policy trends have been applied very scantily, such as in Finland, France, and Portugal,
or not fulfilled at all, as in the case of Cuba.
2
The Performing School
5
instance, controls national curriculum and standards, sets school targets, and delivers school
assessments and inspections. Meticulous specifications of school processes and outputs are
established, maintaining a bureaucratic and controlling state locus. Moreover, countries increasingly
publish school rankings, offering apparently neutral and irrefutable information for parents. Schools
and teachers are held accountable to the state for performance outcomes, and these results are
linked to school dis/incentives, such as performance-based salaries, dismissal of school staff, or
closure of schools.
The meaning and role of schools dramatically change in this new market-accountability
policy configuration. Schools are positioned in a ‘local competitive arena’, as Woods et al. (1998) call
it, or among ‘local spaces of competitive interdependencies’ as conceptualized by Maroy (2009). In
this setting, policy regulations are diversified, not only emanating from the central state, but also
from the market, local state, and private sector. Institutions are continuously constrained by the
threat of withdrawal of financial and staff resources if they do not attract students. Meanwhile, they
are publicly watched, assessed, classified and ranked according to measurable and comparative state
standards.
Hence schools have a double task; to compete in order to attract parental preference and, at
the same time, to compete in terms of state performance rankings in order to position themselves
favorably in relation to other schools, in addition to delivering daily managerial-bureaucratic
obligations required by the public and/or private sector (see Diagram 1). It is believed that this dual
pressure, market + state, when added to external support (e.g., teacher training, curriculum
materials, professional support), will enhance quality provision, and that low-performing schools will
assumedly disappear because of low enrolment (‘natural selection’) or owing to state regulations and
penalties.
This configuration has given rise to the performing school, with the mission to constantly act
and perform for others in order to compete, remain attractive, and position itself advantageously in
the marketplace (Ball, 2001, 2003; Gleeson & Husbands, 2001). Under this model, an
entrepreneurial rationale is injected into public educational service, placing cost-benefit analyses and
‘quality measurable evidence’ at the center of schools’ attention.
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Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 22 No. 70
DIAGRAM 1
The Performing School
________________________________________________________________________
Performance
Competition
Market
competition
Vouchers, parental
choice, voice &
exit
School
State assessments,
audits, rankings,
dis/incentives
New public management,
resources & external
support
Authors’ own elaboration
______________________________________________________________________________
This educational arrangement involves a complex policy nature that cannot be reduced to a
market neoliberal hegemony. The prevailing reforms and discourses shift from a welfare model to a
‘post-welfare model’ (Gewirtz, 1996, 2002), or from a ‘bureaucratic–professional’ scheme to a ‘postbureaucratic schema’ (Maroy, 2004, 2009; Vandenberghe, 1999). On one hand these new
denominations are an attempt to express that education is still a welfare service and remains subject
to state control and bureaucracies (laws, rules, decrees).3 However, on the other hand, these
conceptualizations also indicate that the relationship between the state and schools has been
transformed significantly. The state has changed its role from being a direct universal provider of
education to being a school subsidizer and evaluator.
In effect, school education is compulsory for all pupils, is mostly financed by the state, and it is a key arena
for countries’ economic development and cultural formation, which makes the educational market unique in
comparison with other markets.
3
The Performing School
7
This combined policy formula of market devolution and state governance has emerged as a
common rationale for a variety of governments, interest groups and political parties, including rightwing and ‘renewed’ left-wing policymakers. The underpinning rationale is not the idea of the state
assuring welfare services for all in a homogeneous manner, nor a free market without any state
intervention. Both the ‘state monopoly model’ and the ‘mean market’ schema are criticized. The
prevailing policy discourse, instead, has suggested an ‘ideal balance’, referring to a ‘synergy’ between
the market and the state, the public and the private, the local and the global (see, for example,
Arregui et al., 2006; di Gropello, 2004; World Bank, 1995).
It is a model that is assumed to maintain the benefits of the market, and, at the same time,
create solutions for its failings through state interventions and regulations. Thus, on the one hand,
the market schema is expected to encourage school diversity, parental free choice (in spite of
housing location), efficiency, and individual ‘effort’ and responsibility. On the other hand, state
regulations are equally seen to assure national quality standards, to offer public and standardized
information about school quality, and to generate ‘positive action’ programs for those in
disadvantaged positions. This is the ‘dualistic nature of the neoliberal project’, as Gordon and Whitty
express it (1997, p. 455).
These are shared policy trends, although certainly, according to specific local settings, there
are different policy combinations and emphases among liberal market formulae and state
performance-accountability tools, as well as welfare and universal policies. However, the common
axis of a post-welfare model in education (what makes it different from a welfare model) is that the
fusion of these policies places schools in a predominantly unstable and competition-led field. The
aim of the policy schema is not to make all schools produce the same service and achieve the same
benchmarks, but is rather the contrary; that is, to generate an ongoing system of differentiation and
ranking in order to trigger competition and thus make the model work. This perspective assumes
that a market + performance competition-based schema will motivate and put pressure on school
professionals to provide a ‘good quality school’. These competition mechanisms are believed to be
key driving forces for triggering continuous educational improvement.
In this model, state governance or governmentality, in Foucault’s terms, modifies its power
technologies from direct and centralized mechanisms to control in indirect and omnipresent ways
(Foucault, 1991). In other words, there has been a move from ‘government control’ to ‘governance
by results’ (Newman, 2001, 2005), also conceptualized as the ‘evaluative state’ (Neave, 1988), or
‘governing by numbers’ (Ozga, 2011). The state shifts its efforts from supplying school inputs,
prescription and interventions, to controlling measurable outcomes.
This new setting does not imply that the state has weakened or diminished its power.4 The
policy configuration makes evident that the neoliberal dream of a free and diverse market together
with a minimal state has not existed in practice as, for instance, Friedman (1962), Chubb and Moe
(1990), and Tooley (2000) have advocated.5 Instead, the state has preserved or even increased its
power. As Newman (2001) argues, policies of privatization and devolution do not signify the
‘hollowing–out’ of the state. Rather, the state takes on new forms of power and influence, related to
governance and managerialism, attempting to ensure its control ‘at a distance’ over multiple
Harvey (2005) provides evidence that, under neoliberal capitalism, the state has performed a key role in
enhancing capital accumulation. In his words, the state is “actively interventionist in creating the
infrastructure for a good business climate” (p. 72). Subsequently, the author emphasizes that the belief that
neoliberalism leads to freedom, democracy and a reduced state is a false expectation.
5 For instance, Tooley (2000) is critical about state standardization policies and claims that education should
be ‘returned back’ to the private sector. Also, Chubb and Moe (1990) claim that ‘bureaucratic control’ should
be ended along with any forms of state evaluations so schools can dedicate themselves ‘to please their clients’.
4
Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 22 No. 70
8
educational providers (such as the local state, the entrepreneurial sector, religious entities, NGOs, or
individual owners).
Clarke and Newman (1997) claim that the state has even expanded and deepened its
discursive power within today’s dispersed networks, as it coordinates an extensive pool of public and
private institutions. The state permeates civil society and non-state agents, such as the
entrepreneurial sector, religious institutions and voluntary organizations. Consequently, devolution
policies enable the state to increase and spread its control into new sectors, since new technologies
of power are extended to a much larger segment of the society. As the authors state, the
phenomenon of dispersion “engages more agencies and agents into the field of state power,
empowering them through its delegatory mechanisms and subjecting them to processes of
regulation, surveillance and evaluation” (p. 30). This is the exercise of ‘meta-governance’, since the
state sets “the rules of the game within which networks operate and steers the overall process of
coordination” (Newman, 2005, p. 6).
In this setting there is a paradox. Neoliberalism offers a political rationale in which subjects
appear as empowered ‘autonomous choosers’, ‘self-managers’ and ‘responsible’ for their decisions.
Meanwhile, schools and teachers are constrained by state audits and judgments, market competition
and managerial work. Consequently, even though schools are supposedly autonomous, they are
driven by subtle, yet permanent, ways of control and regulation. So, in spite of devolution policies,
educational institutions must be subject to external commands and constraints. As Peter et al. (2000)
suggest, schools “will not only be governed but also, and more important, be self-governed. They will
be self-governed because they believe that they are autonomous choosers” (p. 120). This form of
control is the most economic and pervasive effect of governance on institutions and subjects.
It is important to note that within this post-welfare model, involving market and
accountability policies, the institutional responsibility of education shifts from the central state to the
school. Therefore, the performing school has to demonstrate and account for good market attainments
and state testing outcomes, yet in a constrained context over which it has little control and real
autonomy; meanwhile, this policy setting obscures the responsibility of state policy and intervention.
In the words of Whitty et al. (1998), this is ‘devolution of the blame’ (p. 113). Also, as Ball (1994)
comments, “The state is left in the enviable position of having power without responsibility” (p. 81),
while schools manage broad responsibilities with little power. This paradox is maybe the most
stressful aspect of this policy setting, producing what Blackmore (1997) calls ‘institutional
schizophrenia’.
Policy Effects: Encountering the Expected Challenges?
There have been heated debates about the benefits and implications of market and
accountability policies in education. In this section, the analytical focus is on the consequences of
these policies within schools, and therefore, how the performing school is practiced and experienced. I
explore what, in the literature, has been called the living markets, developed by critical sociology-informed
scholars, such as Gewirtz et al. (1995) and Lauder and Hughes et al. (1999). This concept suggests
that educational markets do not function in predefined ways according to neoclassical dogmas.
Markets are socially, economically, politically, and even emotionally imbricated in the social space in
which they take place. Therefore, it is fundamental to study, in concrete and comprehensive
manners, how educational markets and accountability policies work in practice.
In this framework, core research questions arise within educational research concerning:
how schools respond to market and accountability policies, the kinds of school practices that are
commonly triggered by these policies, and whether or not these policies motivate schools to
9
The Performing School
improve the quality and equity of teaching and learning. In order to answer these questions, as
explained previously, I mainly bring into account critical sociology literature, although when relevant I
refer to other pieces of research that concur with similar findings (in the conclusions I attempt to
make some distinctions between the literature). The literature reviewed is focused on in-depth
qualitative studies and mixed-method research, looking at institutional practices that provide
evidence of what happens ‘inside schools’ within a competition-based schema.
In this section, the consequences discussed refer to: i) educational quality and diversity; ii)
social justice; and iii) organizational school life and teachers. The research outcomes reviewed mostly
elude to both market and accountability reforms; however, reference is also made to the specific
consequences of each separate policy.
Educational quality and innovation
Relevant studies examine whether testing and standardization, parental choice and school
privatization actually enhance educational quality, innovation and diversity. Lubienski (2009),
looking at research from over 20 countries, yet focusing especially on the US, concludes that schools
are not responding to incentives based on competition, as expected. Rather than innovating within
classrooms, schools are reinforcing traditional and uniform practices. Changes are mainly found in
marketing and management strategies, but not in improving teaching and learning processes.
Moreover, schools fear innovation because of the risk of diminishing enrolment. Surprisingly,
innovation and diversification occur when government intervention takes place, that is, not through
competition and choice. In the words of the author:
Based on evidence reviewed in this analysis, it appears that there is no direct causal
relationship between leveraging quasi-market mechanisms of choice and competition
in education and inducing educational innovation in the classroom. In fact, the very
causal direction is in question in view of the fact that government intervention, rather
than market forces, has often led to pedagogical and curricular innovation. (Lubienski,
2009, p. 45)
Extensive and insightful studies carried out in England by Gewirtz (1996, 2002) and a
longitudinal study (Bagley, 2006; Woods et al., 1998) show that a market + accountability schema
triggers a privileging of academic and traditional pedagogic regimes and the reinforcement of
authoritarian styles of teaching and management, giving less prominence to personal and social care.6
In Gewirtz’s (2002) words, schools are adopting “a more utilitarian, exam–oriented approach to
teaching, with less emphasis on responding to the interests of the children, the cultivation of
relationships and the process of learning, and more emphasis on learning outcomes” (p. 81, original
emphasis).7 This occurs within an atmosphere that praises tested cognitive skills (mainly language,
mathematics, and science), narrowing the meaning and aims of education. Meanwhile, qualitative
The first research conducted by Woods et al. (1998) was based on school and parent responses in three local
markets over three years. Ten years later, this research was followed up by further research, by Bagley (2006),
in one of the three market areas.
7 Gewirtz (1996) notes that a traditional approach is not only market-generated, but as she says “welfarism did
enable pockets of progressivism to develop and thrive … what our evidence does indicate, however, is that
post-welfarist structures and discourses have produced a climate which is extremely hostile to progressivism”
(p.19).
6
Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 22 No. 70
10
processes and unmeasurable achievements are left aside. Subsequently, increased curricular
uniformity and homogeneity occur, contrary to expected educational liberty and diversity.
Researchers using different research approaches who have examined school responses to the
American accountability policy ‘No Child Left Behind’ (NCLB) and ‘Race to the Top’ (R2T)
converge with similar results. Extended and robust research prove that while these accountability
policies may have produced positive effects in limited cases, they have broadly triggered ‘teaching to
the test’ methods (see, for example, Booher-Jennings (2005), Firestone, Schorr, & Monfils, 2004;
Hamilton et al., 2007; Linn, 2000; Looney, 2009; Popham, 2001, 2002; Menken, 2006; Stecher,
2002). Test examinations tend to dominate daily teacher and student practices (especially in schools
attending poor communities), leaving aside more progressive and creative teaching (Firestone et al.,
2004). Hence, for instance, teachers increasingly employ textbook-driven methods, drilling exercises,
rote learning, and frequent assessments similar to standard examination formats. Also, teachers, in
order to increase examination scores, reallocate time and resources, reduce non-assessed subjects,
and coach students in test-taking skills.8
Chile has one of the most deregulated educational schemas in the world, led by marketoriented mechanisms (with a private sector that covers more than half of school enrolment).9 Since
the late 1990s, a set of accountability policies have been introduced gradually (e.g., school rankings
tests, teacher salary-performance-payment, and school sanctions for low performance).10 My own
work in the country (Falabella, 2013), using case study methods in four public schools, confirms
similar results. I find that accountability policies within an open market schema impoverish teaching
practices, pushing them towards mechanical, repetitive, and directive methods, together with a kind
of obsession for constant pupil assessment; while teachers leave aside creative, reflexive-thinking
and enriching learning experiences. These policies have a saturating effect on school staff, and, as I
have noted, “Boosting test outcomes occupies an overriding priority in individuals’ minds” (p. 279).
Moreover, these kinds of policies stimulate an instrumental rationale, in which school actors tend to
calculate their strategies and ‘teaching investments’ in order to attain the test-score targets.
In a following study (Falabella & Opazo, 2014), based on seven public and private schools,
the authors conclude that the effects of accountability policies work differently depending on how
institutions are positioned in the marketplace, the ‘school ethos’, and the type of policy
interpretation and mediation delivered by the local government. As a result, schools perceive and
respond to pressure variously, according to these factors. While advantaged schools hardly sense
external pressure and are positively reinforced by them, schools with ‘alternative’ curriculum plans
and, especially, disadvantaged schools serving poor areas, are in much greater tension between
responding effectively to external demands and attending local necessities and collective projects.
These two studies, together with other insightful pieces of research carried out in the
country (Acuña, Assaél, Contreras, Peralta, 2014; Carrasco, 2010), show that teaching effects are
particularly problematic in disadvantaged schools, which serve pupils with a greater range of learning
Well-known US education intellectuals such as Darling-Hammond (2004, 2007, 2010), Hargreaves and
Shirley (2009), Lipman (2004), MacBeath (2006, 2009), and Ravitch (2010), have also critically analyzed these
policies, arguing that top-down curriculum prescriptions and high-stakes testing are inappropriate for
promoting professional development, classroom quality, and attention to pupil diversity.
9 Similar effects are also found in other countries around the globe, such as in Holland (Ehren, Machteld, &
Swanborn, 2012), Australia (Klenowski & Wyatt-Smith 2012), Macau, (China) (Morrison and Tang 2002) and
New Zealand (Thrupp 2013).
10 Currently, the creation of a new institutional schema is taking place in the country, which is made up of a
‘Quality Agency’ and a Superintendence of Education, responsible for setting standards and inspecting
schools.
8
The Performing School
11
abilities11. Teaching-staff tend to speed-up pupils’ learning processes and have difficulties teaching
and assessing pupil diversity. Test preparation demands work on the basis of abstract exercises,
while it is precisely these pupils that require concrete learning tasks linked to meaningful and
context-based situations. Carrasco notes, “reform is inspired by principles of homogenisation,
standardisation, control, and targets, in cases where schools facing challenging circumstances actually
need differentiation, more identification, flexibility, and contextualised responses” (p. 266).
In relation to market effects among schools in particular, English and American research
finds that schools spend more time, energy, and money on promotional and marketing activities
(see, for example, Gewirtz, 2002; Lubienski, 2009; Whitty et al., 1998). Bagley (2006) shows that
these efforts become more intense and sophisticated over time, with a more receptive response to
parents, yet employing a stronger ‘consumerist style’.12 Subsequently, rather than concentrating on
substantive teaching curriculum changes, school managers have intensified their focus on school
reputation, image and use of symbols (e.g., performance results, school uniform, the school façade,
marketing materials).
Ball (2006) suggests that this market atmosphere “encourages organizations to become more
and more concerned with their style, their image, their semiotics, with the way things are presented
rather than with the way they actually work” (p. 12). This ‘semiotics shift’ cannot be reduced to
adding more school propaganda. These shifting efforts and desires profoundly change head
teachers’ and teachers’ lives and the way they understand and constitute themselves. It involves a
concern with calculating and investing in easy and visible targets, practicing a ‘quick-fix mentality’, as
Gewirtz (2002) notes, while paying less attention to real work (e.g., pupil needs, teachers’ pedagogical
questioning, misbehavior concerns) and long-term aims.
In sum, literature focused on inner changes in schools, triggered by market and
accountability policies, shows that there is no conclusive evidence to prove the positive effects on
educational quality and diversity. Whilst there may be specific positive results, such as more
responsiveness towards parents or higher expectations for pupil academic achievements, these are
limited in general. Meanwhile, there is a substantial body of research that identifies problematic
consequences, such as: curriculum uniformity and reduction; intensification of academic and
traditional pedagogical approaches; expanding employment of ‘teaching to the test’; major
investment in school image, reputation, and quick and visible solutions, instead of profound and
long-term changes.
Furthermore, scholars, such as Ball (2006) and Gewirtz (2002), emphasized that these
changes within schools do not only involve institutional and classroom practices, but in the ways
individuals think of themselves and the school. Policies entail a discursive power, transforming the ways
school actors constitute the ‘good’, the ‘desirable’ and the ‘failing’ school, teacher, and also student.
For instance, test scores, parents’ school preferences, and official school quality classifications,
represent the value of educational providers, working, in Foucault’s terms, as a regime of truth
(Foucault, 1977). These prevailing discourses significantly impact school priorities, behaviors,
meanings, and most importantly, individuals’ subjectivities; although they are undoubtedly not free
of tensions, doubts, and resistance, as demonstrated by Ball and Olmedo (2012).
In effect, Acuña et al. (2014) use the metaphor of “the sick body” for these kinds of schools, as policy
places an alarm on the “illness”, understood as an isolated problem. Meanwhile, the conditions under which
teachers work within these institutions and the inequities of the whole system are made invisible.
12 The study, carried out in England, shows that school staffs are being more welcoming and attentive to
families in general and are more responsive to parental concerns, such as safety and transport. However, it is
argued that these are formal or superficial changes rather than substantive ones.
11
Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 22 No. 70
12
Social in/justice matters
A second matter, and probably one of the most problematic matters of the market +
accountability formula, is related to social justice issues. The key point is that the model is based on
a competitive rationale, which accepts, and moreover, requires the existence of a hierarchical unequal
field with institutions that are differently positioned. As Lazzarato (2012) explains, markets require
the production and nourishing of inequity. In the author’s words: “only inequality has the capacity to
sharpen appetites, instincts and minds, driving individuals to rivalries” (p. 117). School rankings are,
for instance, a core policy technology that incarnate this policy ideology; schools are hierarchically
ordered and thanks to these differences they are called upon to compete and supposedly improve. If
all schools were to attain the same benchmark, the model would not work. Perpetual differentiation
is the key source of competition and is thus necessary to make the market-performance project
function.
In terms of social justice matters, under a competition-based model a first policy
consequence is that children and their families become strategic resources for school competition.
Ball, Maguire, and Macrae (1998) call this phenomenon the ‘economy of student worth’. Schools
attempt to shape their student social intake towards upper/middle class parents and more ‘able’
pupils, while excluding those ‘disruptive’ pupils coming from more underprivileged backgrounds.
This has produced a ‘pupil commodification’. Rather than being seen as subjects with needs,
interests and potentials, children are valued, recruited, selected and excluded according to their
ability to produce positive school outcomes. As Gewirtz et al. (1995) write: “The emphasis seems
increasingly to be not on what the school can do for the child but on what the child can do for the
school” (p. 176).
In effect, educational markets, based on a competitive schema with a standardized
parameter, penalize schools that receive mixed ability pupils, and award those that exercise selective
practices (‘cream skimming’). This practice turns out to be one of the most powerful contemporary
school improvement strategies. Selective schools guarantee good test results and institutional
reputation in a more efficient and rapid manner. On the other hand, unpopular schools attract the
remaining, non-selected students. Consequently, researchers find that market environment
exacerbates differences between schools on the basis of pupil class, race and ethnicity, but does not
encourage diversity in terms of student intake, curriculum or pedagogy. As Whitty et al. (1998) claim,
these policies reinforce “a vertical hierarchy of schooling types rather than producing the promised
horizontal diversity” (p. 42). What predominate are not pedagogical divergences, but class, race, and
test result differences, based on a homogenizing curriculum and comparative evaluations on a onedimensional scale.
Basing his evidence on an analysis of school marketing materials in two US urban areas,
Lubienski (2003) finds that schools employ subtle symbolic forms of institutional differentiation,
targeting more ‘capable’ students coming from middle-class families. Hence, within a market-scheme
model curriculum diversification and school innovations are too risky and costly, as Lubienski
(2009) argues. So schools distinguish themselves through symbolic representations of social class
designed to shape enrolment demographics into “a safer and more certain route to strengthening
their market position” (Idem, p. 339).
Other pieces of research have shown that segregation not only occurs among schools, but
also within schools. Senior managers and teachers reproduce and intensify competition and selective
policies within the microsphere of the school. Students, for instance, are habitually examined, sorted,
publicly ranked and labeled. For example, Gewirtz (2002), and Broccolichi and van Zanten (2000),
referring to England and France respectively, indicate that mixed pupil ability grouping has
The Performing School
13
diminished, and has been replaced by pupil ability grouping, along with courses for ‘gifted’ and
‘talented pupils’. These school groupings disproportionately place minority groups and working class
pupils in those groups classified as underachievers. This exclusionary strategy is used to concentrate
efforts on enhancing school test outcomes in a more focused and directive manner, and as a way to
attract upper/middle class parents to public schools with mixed social intake.
Another phenomenon identified is that educational managers strategically classify and rank
schools, classrooms or students in terms of the possibility of them succeeding on national tests and
in educational markets in general. As Youdell (2004) suggests, in an atmosphere of competition and
sense of scarcity, individuals constantly calculate where and when to invest in order to boost school
performance.13 The author, based on ethnographic school research in England, finds that three
groups are set within classrooms (named as the ‘educational triage’). This classification serves to
decide the kind of investment and effort delivered in each group. The order is: the ‘safe cases’, that
is, with high performance, non-urgent for investment; ‘underachievers’, that is, with borderline
performance, suitable for investment; and those ‘without hope’, that is, with low performance,
unsuitable for investment. Hence, school staff usually give priority to intermediate level achievers
near the proficiency score, while giving less attention to those with learning difficulties, as well as
those who attain state benchmarks. Similar results are also found in other pieces of research in Chile
(Falabella, 2013), England (Gewirtz et al., 1995; Levačić 2001; Woods et al., 1998) and the United
States (Hamilton et al., 2007; Vasquez & Darling-Hammond, 2008). Overall, these micro-policies
show that individuals move towards calculative and strategic thinking in order to effectively increase
their school’s market and performance advantage, while matters related to social commitment and
equity are marginalized.
The converging evidence outlined above refers to general policy effects that appear in the
literature. Nevertheless, it is vital to take into account that schools act and experience educational
markets in different ways according to their position in a hierarchical field. In effect, authors such as
Ball and Maroy (2009), based on a mixed-method European comparative study, note that market
pressure tends to reinforce institutional differences, offering pupils unequal experiences and learning
opportunities. According to schools’ market positions, schools are likely to produce certain kinds of
school ethos (although in complex and hybrid ways). So, whilst some schools carry out exclusionary
practices within a challenging academic environment, other schools are designated to serve diverse
pupil social intake and the most underprivileged sectors of the population, giving prominence to
caring relationships with lower academic expectations.
Research using case study methods, such as in Chile, Carrasco (2010); Falabella (2013);
Sweden, Bunar (2010); England, Gewirtz (2002), Reay (1998), Woods and Levačić (2002), and
Lupton (2005, 2006); France, van Zanten (2002); and New Zealand, Thrupp (1999, 2013), confirm
that schools that do not control pupil intake, serving more mixed or underprivileged pupils, have
greater difficulties and limitations for responding competitively, improving school attractiveness, and
implementing innovative changes. These institutions experience the impact of contextual influences
and market hierarchies, facing accumulated pupil learning, behavioral, and social problems, in
addition to poor market reputation and stigmatization. Moreover, under a performance competing
schema, schools serving poor communities are usually punished by state labels of ‘failure’,
reinforcing their disadvantaged position, rather than being motivated to improve. Meanwhile, key
school contextual features are neglected by state judgments and classifications, such as broader
school inequities and pupil social and ethnic composition. Power and Frandji (2010) claim that these
school labeling policies are an ‘injustice of misrecognition’.
13
See also Gillborn and Youdell (2000).
Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 22 No. 70
14
In brief, the findings reviewed evidence that market and performance-accountability policies
have not only failed to reduce inequities and social segmentation, but have even produced and
intensified it. Schools placed within the market-oriented scenario tend to sort, select and exclude
pupils as a core strategy for competing. Additionally, the effects of social inequity and segmentation
among institutions reinforce schools’ advantaged or disadvantaged position in the marketplace and
therefore reduce pupils’ educational opportunities.
Organizational school life and teachers
A third matter emerges from the literature review regarding the transformation of school
organization, including heads’ management style, internal staff relationships, and teachers’
professional autonomy. In general terms, diverse pieces of research conclude that there is little
evidence of more democratic relationships and redistributed power resulting from market-oriented
reforms. On the contrary, scholars, such as Wrigley (2003), referring to the English system, point
out that inspection, competition and public comparison policies are deeply undemocratic, entailing
teacher surveillance, a low-trust culture and superficial school responses. Similarly, from the
American context, Darling-Hammond (2004, 2007) claims that these policies are based on
‘hierarchical accountability’ and reduce professional autonomy, creativity and community reflections
and debates.14 Overall, the author states that the policy logic of the model is based on threat, rather
than on professionalism, vocation, and moral responsibility. It reflects an overall deep distrust of
those who work in schools and assumes that they will only perform satisfactorily due to ongoing
potential punishments or rewards.
Studies, such as Gewirtz (2002) and Reay (1998), examine the micro-politics within four
London public schools positioned in the educational markets (based on parental free choice, perpupil funding, and league tables). These pieces of research show diminishing collaboration and
socialization within school communities, while individualism, competition and fragmentation are
enhanced among senior managers and teachers, and among departments. Staff relationships are
predominantly vertical, with a growing division between teachers and senior staff. Gewirtz (1996)
explains that accountability and market regimes produce ‘labor intensification’ and pressure schools
to act quickly, in ‘responsive’ ways. This scenario mitigates teachers’ collective reflection and
participation, exacerbating instrumental thinking and the division of labor among senior managers
and teachers. Findings also demonstrate a shifting focus as school managers emphasize
administration and financial aspects, and focus less on learning and teaching matters. Nonetheless,
these are not straightforward changes. Gewirtz (2002) refers specifically to the stress and dilemmas
head teachers have to face, caught between school social contexts (e.g., local demands, pupils’ needs,
teachers’ views) and having to respond to market, performative targets and bureaucratic pressure.
Additionally, studies have reported damaging effects on teacher identity and work in
Australia (Klenowski & Wyatt-Smith, 2012), England (Ball, 2001, 2003; Elliot, 2001; Fielding, 2001)
and the United States (Finnigan & Gross, 2007; Valli & Buese, 2007). It is argued by various scholars
that these policies are leading towards stress, demotivation, de-skilling and loss of professional
autonomy. Woods and Jeffrey (2002) developed a profound study based on in-depth interviews with
English teachers and observations gleaned from national inspections (delivered by OFSTED15). The
study concludes that inspection and standardization policies have produced feelings of insecurity
Similarly Hargreaves and Shirley (2009) refer to the ‘soulless standardization’ reforms that push schools
into ‘performing training sects’.
15 Office for Standards in Education.
14
The Performing School
15
among teachers and a sense of powerlessness and moral decline, in addition to exhaustion, irritability
and overwork. Moreover, the researchers provide evidence that the ‘technologization of teaching’
has fragmented and weakened teacher identity and motivation. Teachers perceive that these policies
are producing less creative teaching jobs, reducing their skills, and deteriorating their vocation and
the attractiveness of the profession. They also state that, previously, a holistic teaching approach,
involving warm and caring relationships with pupils, meant core values tied to the meaning of their
profession, yet they recognize that current pressures have led to a less emotional, sensitive and
empathetic practices. This reconfiguration of teacher identity is described by the authors:
The teacher’s personal identity in the new order is partial, fragmented, and inferior to
that of the old in that teachers retain a sense of the ideal self, but it is no longer in
teaching. The personal identity of work has become a situational one, designed to meet
the instrumental purposes of audit accountability. Teachers’ real selves are held in
reserve, to be realized in other situations outside school or in some different future
within (p. 238).
All in all, market and accountability policies are transforming school life and the teaching
profession in complex and profound ways. Contrary to policy assumptions, these arrangements have
not led to more empowered, creative and democratic organizations. The literature provides evidence
of diminishing collaborative work and staff participation, along with an increase in the number of
control systems and competition within schools, and heavier workloads for managers and teachers.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that research results show a ‘space of indeterminacy’, as Woods
and Jeffery (2002) put it. School actors confront these policies in different ways, employing reactions
and strategies of resignation, struggle, adjustment and negotiation, regarding personal ethics, school
targets, and management pressures.
The Performing School: An Ethical Transformation
These identified policy effects are not merely changes in the daily routines of school
managers and teachers, they are practiced and justified along with a profound ethical transformation
of the way schooling is understood and experienced. As Gewirtz (2002) claims, “the market
revolution is not just a change of structure and incentives. It is a transformational process that
brings into play a new set of values and a new moral environment” (p. 47). This has entailed a shift
from a comprehensive culture towards an instrumental efficiency rationale, concerned with
individual competition, efficiency and performance indicators, over pedagogical criteria and issues of
social justice matters. This atmosphere and institutional ethos is also conceptualized by Apple (2007)
as the proliferation of an ‘audit culture’ that colonizes school life, shaping consumer-driven and
overly-individualistic cultures, while eroding collective values and ‘thick’ democratic organizations.
These transformations within schools show the pervasive and extensive effects of market
and accountability policies. Following Foucault (1991), these policies function as governmentality
tactics over dispersed public and private providers. Policy discourses and technologies steer
institutional priorities and practices, penetrating into institutional daily life and individuals’
rationality, conducting their ‘freedom’ within a neoliberal era. As Rose (1992) notes, the most
powerful effect of this kind of policy technology is that, rather than repressing individuals, it shapes
‘political mentalities’.
The prevailing model is a new mode of social and moral regulation, as Ball states (2001,
2003), which outlines a new practice oriented towards performativity. The author states that,
“Performativity is a technology, a culture and a mode of regulation, or even a system of ‘terror’, in
Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 22 No. 70
16
Lyotard´s words, that employs judgments, comparisons and displays as means of control, attrition
and change.” (Ball, 2001, p. 210). Performativity occurs when individuals or organizations focus
their main aims and daily work on calculating, planning, and investing their efforts and resources in
exhibiting themselves successfully. Schools and their staff are pressured to devote their best efforts
into satisfying external standards, criteria and tasks in order to produce a favorable and profitable
image, thus creating the performing school.
Ball (2001) asserts that there is a profound ‘process of exteriorization’, where “professional
judgment is subordinated to the requirements of performativity and marketing” (p. 222). Individuals
have to calculate, construct and advertise themselves in an efficient way and according to a
predefined project of ‘excellence’. Institutions are pushed to be eager to compete, demonstrate ‘their
best’, and position themselves favorably in comparison to others, shaping individuals into
‘enterprising selves’ (Rose, 1992) and ‘greedy organizations’ (Blackmore & Sachs, 1997)16.
Ball (2003) argues that these practices produce opacity and inauthenticity instead of the
promised transparency and objectivity. It is, according to the author, a ‘paraphernalia of quality’
(1997, p. 260) and an ‘investment in plasticity’ (2003, p. 10). Teachers do not perform as they are;
they perform in a way in which they suppose they will be positively judged. As Blackmore and Sachs
(1997) point out: “Performativity is as much about being seen to perform—like a simulacrum in that
the actual substance or original is lost” (original underline, sec.2). Schools and teachers, in Ball’s
terms, ‘fabricate’ themselves in artificial ways, leaving aside the professional priorities and contextual
needs. The effects of these occurrences are complex and profound. Anxiety, insecurity and guilt
grow among school staff.
We become ontologically insecure: unsure whether we are doing enough, doing the
right thing, doing as much as others, or as well as others, constantly looking to
improve, to be better, to be excellent. And yet it is not always very clear what is
expected (Ball, 2003, p. 5).
These policy effects are profound, “it changes who you are” (Ball, 2003, p. 215). However,
these are not simple and linear changes; they produce intense professional and moral dilemmas,
between market pressure, performance competition and cost-benefit norms, and, on the other hand,
school members’ educational projects, professional criteria, contextual needs, and personal beliefs. It
is a “struggle over the teacher’s soul” (Idem, p. 217).
Final Thoughts
Market and accountability policy combinations are shaping the performing school, as school
staff must continuously compete, advertise and perform in order to assure a thriving institutional
and professional future. The new policy model places schools within a competitive schema, altering
school life and the teaching profession in profound ways. The studies reviewed, which look at inner
school processes and changes using mostly qualitative and mixed-method studies, show that there is
scant evidence of the expected benefits of these policies, such as continuous school improvement,
educational innovation and diversity, and high standards for all. On the contrary, there is a growing
body of studies carried out in different parts of the world that converge on similar results showing
harmful consequences, such as: increasing use of an exam-led curriculum and a traditional
pedagogical approach, rather than providing enriching, diverse and innovative learning experiences;
See also Webb (2006) who, following a similar approach, studies the fabrications and the practices of pedagogic
simulation in two ‘low-performing’ USA schools.
16
The Performing School
17
greater educational inequalities and social segregation between and within schools; management
focus on marketing and visible results, employing ‘quick-fix’ thinking; and a decrease in school
collaboration and teacher autonomy and participation.
These changes are produced within a performative school ethos, as institutional practices and
political rationales are shifting towards an instrumental-efficiency discourse and performative
competition purposes, leaving aside comprehensive welfare ethics, and civic and community
engagement. In effect, the enhancement of social justice matters, innovative and constructivist
pedagogical approaches, and a democratic management style conflict with the dominant model.
These educational aims act against an institution’s ability to compete in the market and acquire
privileged positioning.
This paper invites readers to rethink dominant policy doxai and to interrogate the market +
accountability formula utopia for solving countries’ educational problems. In no case do I argue that
public policies such as state standards, national tests and parental choice inherently bring damaging
effects. The key issue is to study how these policy devices are laid out and combined in different
settings. The problematic effects identified are not produced because of separate policies in isolated
terms. It is the policy concatenation and interlocking functions between testing, dissemination of
results, and institutional and individual awards/sanctions based on a market-led formula that
generate harmful consequences for both school quality and equity.
The literature review developed in this paper and the overall analytical understanding of the
performing school provides arguments against scholars who have advocated that market solutions and
high-stake tests bring greater provisional liberty, quality, diversity, and equity (see for e.g., Bruns,
Filmer, & Patrinos, 2011; Hanushek & Woessmann, 2010; Mourshed, Chijioke, & Barber 2010;
Winkler, 2006). I do not discuss the specific data results of these mostly quantitative-based studies
(for this debate see Dupriez & Dumay, 2011; Waslander, et al. 2010), yet I raise conceptual and
empirical arguments from a different angle.
I also interrogate the claims of authors that show problematic policy effects (e.g., ‘teaching
to the test’), suggesting that these are ‘undesired consequences’ that vary among teachers, and
depend on professionals’ commitments and abilities (see for e.g., Hamilton & Stecher, 2006;
Hamilton et al., 2007; Koretz, 2005; Looney, 2009; Popham, 2002). Although the research findings
converge with other critical reviewed studies, I question the interpretation of these results. These
scholars neglect that schools' ‘unexpected responses’ are consistent and effective strategies for
competing and surviving within the prevailing model. The authors place the problem at the
individual level, and it is believed to be solved through emending ‘incorrect’ policy incentives; or
from the perspective of school improvement theory, the policy matrix needs to move towards a
‘balanced accountability’ (Hopkins, 2008, 2010) or a ‘positive pressure’ (Fullan, 2010).
This previous analytical framework tends to separate the ideological nature of the policy and
the ‘implementation problems’. From the critical perspective developed in this paper, the whole
meaning of education, colonized by a neoliberal rational, must be rethought. It is fundamental to
interpret the research findings addressing the meaning and implications of the market and
accountability technologies and discourses that place schools within a hierarchical field, dominated
by a competition-based logic. In this sense, I do not wish to take a deterministic perspective or to
deny teachers’ agency. The research challenge is to understand how school members rework policies
in the local sphere in both disciplinary and creative ways, and the ways in which individuals confront
everyday tensions between market and state pressures, contextual needs, professional criteria and
personal beliefs.
Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 22 No. 70
18
In terms of policy recommendations, devising solutions for low-performance and inequities
in schools is undoubtedly a complex task.17 However on the basis of the research evidence I argue
that the maintenance of today’s market and accountability policies will not solve these educational
problems; on the contrary, they may intensify them. Although, the reduction of testing and sanction
measures may lessen the ‘undesired effects’, this does not necessarily remove the competing
paradigm that is at the heart of the studied model.
From a more radical perspective, a holistic change is required that entails an alternative noncompetitive educational model that situates schools within a different philosophical and ethical
paradigm. The policy horizon under this schema is comprehensive quality education for all, where
market competition and rankings are removed. The suggestion is that state curriculum, assessment
tools, and parental participation serve to support and improve schools, rather than working as
market technologies for intensifying school differentiation and competition.
Following Ranson (2003), the policy challenge is to shift the understanding of consumerperformance accountability to communicational accountability in order to build a democratic public sphere
within schools, enabling participation, open discussion, collective argumentation and decisionmaking. From this perspective, schools are accountable to the public based on reciprocal engagement
between institutions, professionals and the school community in general. The core issue here is the
construction of trust and responsibility based on collaborative, critical and dialogical relationships
among members of the school community. As Ranson (2003) writes: “responsibility is primarily a moral,
not a technical or contractual notion, it both elicits and requires a felt and binding mutuality” (p. 700, my
emphasis).
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25
The Performing School
APPENDIX
CHART 1:
Comparison between Research Approaches that Study School Accountability Policies
Research
Approach
Research
Objective
Pro-Accountability
School Improvement
Measures
policy
‘efficiency’, i.e. the impact
of accountability policies
on student test results.
Studies the benefits and
disadvantages
of
accountability policies over
internal school improvement
processes.
Research
Focus
Policy efficiency, test score
increase,
parental
information and choice.
Methodological
strategies
Quantitative
studies,
comparative
studies
between countries based
on
standardized
test
scores.
Favorable or no reference
to these policies.
The fortification of internal
school improvement factors,
such
as
instructional
leadership, capacity building,
and
effective
teaching
practices.
Mixed
quantitative
and
qualitative studies.
Vision of
Market
Policies
Main
Findings
Positive impact on student
test scores; ‘secondary
effects’ are recognized as
an
implementation
problem.
Policy
Recommendations
Pressure
from
both
parents and the state
(“double accountability”);
improvement in parental
information; amendment
of negative incentives.
Theoretical
Sources
School
Effectiveness
Research, Rational Choice
Theory
Barber,
Di
Gropello,
Mourshed,
Woessmann,
Winkler
Examples of
Authors
Ambiguous; these policies are
usually
considered
less
frequently.
Over-testing and high stakes
policies produce negative
impact on school quality. If
school management is robust
and mature these effects are
less marked or null.
External data must be
complementary to internal
data
serving
school
improvement.
Balance between professional
development, support, &
external pressure (‘intelligent’
or ‘balanced’ accountability).
School
Improvement
Research;
Management
Theory, Action Theory
Darlind-Hammond,
Fullan,
Hargreaves,
Hopkins,
MacBeath, Mintrop
Critical Sociology of
Education
Studies the effects of
accountability policies among
schools with different market
reputation
and
student
admission/selection practices.
Analyses how these policies
are practiced at the local level
(‘micro-policy’).
Critical analysis of neoliberal
policies, special concern for
social
in/exclusion,
democracy
and
transformations of public
schooling.
Mostly qualitative studies
(case
studies
and
ethnographic studies).
Critical vision, market and
accountability policies are
studied together.
School-staff are tensioned by
market/competition rational.
Policy
effects
are
transforming not only school
practices, but also institutional
values and ethics.
A holistic reform is required
to
remove
competition
mechanisms as the basis of
the
school
system.
Fortification
of
public/comprehensive
schooling
and
local
management.
Post/ Critical sociology (e.g.
Bourdieu, Buttler, Gramsci,
Foucault)
Apple, Ball, Gewirtz, Lipman,
Maroy, Ozga, Thrupp
Authors’ own elaboration
26
Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 22 No. 70
About the Author
Alejandra Falabella
Universidad Alberto Hurtado
afalabel@uahurtado.cl
Alejandra Falabella (PhD. in Sociology of Education, IOE, University of London) is an assistant
professor at Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo Educacional (CIDE), Universidad Alberto
Hurtado. Falabella’s scholarship focuses on the ways market-oriented and accountability policies are
practiced among Chilean schools. Lately, she also has studied parent’s social class identity, school
choice, and child rearing practices.
education policy analysis archives
Volume 22 Number 70
July 21nd, 2014
ISSN 1068-2341
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The Performing School
education policy analysis archives
editorial board
Editor Gustavo E. Fischman (Arizona State University)
Associate Editors: Audrey Amrein-Beardsley (Arizona State University) Rick Mintrop, (University of California,
Berkeley) Jeanne M. Powers (Arizona State University)
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Sarah Lubienski University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign
Samuel R. Lucas University of California, Berkeley
Maria Martinez-Coslo University of Texas, Arlington
William Mathis University of Colorado, Boulder
Tristan McCowan Institute of Education, London
Heinrich Mintrop University of California, Berkeley
Michele S. Moses University of Colorado, Boulder
Julianne Moss University of Melbourne
Sharon Nichols University of Texas, San Antonio
Noga O'Connor University of Iowa
João Paraskveva University of Massachusetts,
Dartmouth
Laurence Parker University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign
Susan L. Robertson Bristol University
John Rogers University of California, Los Angeles
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Cally Waite Social Science Research Council
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Springs
Kevin Welner University of Colorado, Boulder
Ed Wiley University of Colorado, Boulder
Terrence G. Wiley Arizona State University
John Willinsky Stanford University
Kyo Yamashiro University of California, Los Angeles
28
Education Policy Analysis Archives Vol. 22 No. 70
archivos analíticos de políticas educativas
consejo editorial
Editor: Gustavo E. Fischman (Arizona State University)
Editores. Asociados Alejandro Canales (UNAM) y Jesús Romero Morante (Universidad de Cantabria)
Armando Alcántara Santuario Instituto de
Investigaciones sobre la Universidad y la Educación,
UNAM México
Claudio Almonacid Universidad Metropolitana de
Ciencias de la Educación, Chile
Pilar Arnaiz Sánchez Universidad de Murcia, España
Xavier Besalú Costa Universitat de Girona, España
Jose Joaquin Brunner Universidad Diego Portales,
Chile
Damián Canales Sánchez Instituto Nacional para la
Evaluación de la Educación, México
María Caridad García Universidad Católica del Norte,
Chile
Raimundo Cuesta Fernández IES Fray Luis de León,
España
Marco Antonio Delgado Fuentes Universidad
Iberoamericana, México
Inés Dussel DIE, Mexico
Rafael Feito Alonso Universidad Complutense de
Madrid. España
Pedro Flores Crespo Universidad Iberoamericana,
México
Verónica García Martínez Universidad Juárez
Autónoma de Tabasco, México
Francisco F. García Pérez Universidad de Sevilla,
España
Edna Luna Serrano Universidad Autónoma de Baja
California, México
Alma Maldonado Departamento de Investigaciones
Educativas, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios
Avanzados, México
Alejandro Márquez Jiménez Instituto de
Investigaciones sobre la Universidad y la Educación,
UNAM México
José Felipe Martínez Fernández University of
California Los Angeles, USA
Fanni Muñoz Pontificia Universidad Católica de Perú
Imanol Ordorika Instituto de Investigaciones
Economicas – UNAM, México
Maria Cristina Parra Sandoval Universidad de Zulia,
Venezuela
Miguel A. Pereyra Universidad de Granada, España
Monica Pini Universidad Nacional de San Martín,
Argentina
Paula Razquin UNESCO, Francia
Ignacio Rivas Flores Universidad de Málaga, España
Daniel Schugurensky Arizona State University
Orlando Pulido Chaves Universidad Pedagógica
Nacional, Colombia
José Gregorio Rodríguez Universidad Nacional de
Colombia
Miriam Rodríguez Vargas Universidad Autónoma de
Tamaulipas, México
Mario Rueda Beltrán Instituto de Investigaciones sobre
la Universidad y la Educación, UNAM México
José Luis San Fabián Maroto Universidad de Oviedo,
España
Yengny Marisol Silva Laya Universidad
Iberoamericana, México
Aida Terrón Bañuelos Universidad de Oviedo, España
Jurjo Torres Santomé Universidad de la Coruña,
España
Antoni Verger Planells University of Amsterdam,
Holanda
Mario Yapu Universidad Para la Investigación
Estratégica, Bolivia
29
The Performing School
arquivos analíticos de políticas educativas
conselho editorial
Editor: Gustavo E. Fischman (Arizona State University)
Editores Associados: Rosa Maria Bueno Fisher e Luis A. Gandin
(Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul)
Dalila Andrade de Oliveira Universidade Federal de
Minas Gerais, Brasil
Paulo Carrano Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brasil
Alicia Maria Catalano de Bonamino Pontificia
Universidade Católica-Rio, Brasil
Fabiana de Amorim Marcello Universidade Luterana
do Brasil, Canoas, Brasil
Alexandre Fernandez Vaz Universidade Federal de
Santa Catarina, Brasil
Gaudêncio Frigotto Universidade do Estado do Rio de
Janeiro, Brasil
Alfredo M Gomes Universidade Federal de
Pernambuco, Brasil
Petronilha Beatriz Gonçalves e Silva Universidade
Federal de São Carlos, Brasil
Nadja Herman Pontificia Universidade Católica –Rio
Grande do Sul, Brasil
José Machado Pais Instituto de Ciências Sociais da
Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
Wenceslao Machado de Oliveira Jr. Universidade
Estadual de Campinas, Brasil
Jefferson Mainardes Universidade Estadual de Ponta
Grossa, Brasil
Luciano Mendes de Faria Filho Universidade Federal
de Minas Gerais, Brasil
Lia Raquel Moreira Oliveira Universidade do Minho,
Portugal
Belmira Oliveira Bueno Universidade de São Paulo,
Brasil
António Teodoro Universidade Lusófona, Portugal
Pia L. Wong California State University Sacramento,
U.S.A
Sandra Regina Sales Universidade Federal Rural do Rio
de Janeiro, Brasil
Elba Siqueira Sá Barreto Fundação Carlos Chagas,
Brasil
Manuela Terrasêca Universidade do Porto, Portugal
Robert Verhine Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brasil
Antônio A. S. Zuin Universidade Federal de São Carlos,
Brasil