Education Outcomes
The Process of Developing a National Institute of Excellence in Education in Québec
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Martin Maltais
On June 21, 2017, the Quebec Minister of Education, Recreation and Sports, in Canada, unveiled his policy on educational success after a large consultation where 15 000 people contribute. One of the first tangible actions is the creation of a national institute of excellence in education. On this orientation, the Minister had given a working group the mandate to advise him, following a consultation held in the fall of 2017, on how to design this institute and create it. The actual and effective dynamics of these consultation processes remain little known to university researchers, who often approach them from interviews, documentary analyzes or speeches. This paper proposes to discuss the dynamics of such a process from the perspective of the journey experienced by one of the participants in the consultation process of the working group on the creation of the National Institute of Excellence in Education and to relief, beyond the stakes involved, the architecture of the dynamics of actors and ideas that struggle in the development of this element of a broader educational policy.
School Autonomy in Finland According to the PISA Report: The key Success Factors at Schools in Finland
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Pablo Ortega Rodríguez
In recent years, the management of school autonomy in Finland has become a central issue for the improvement of students learning outcomes. Most studies in the field have only focused on case studies in primary schools that carried out few innovative practices sporadically. Little is known about how school autonomy is managed in large teacher and principal samples and it is not clear what factors guarantee the students success. This study aims to analyze the percentages, means and correlations among the variables that affect the management of pedagogical autonomy at schools in Finland. The results of PISA school and general teacher questionnaires from the 2015 data collection were analyzed with the statistical analysis program SPSS. The findings of this study show a significant and positive relationship between the capacity of the principal for ensuring teachers involvement in decisión making and the level of teachers satisfaction with their performance in the school. Findings also suggest that the type of school (public/private) where principals are working is related to their responsibility for providing staff with opportunities to participate in school decision-making. The conclusions of this research support the idea that the school autonomy in Finland plays a vital role in the quality of education. The study ends with the explanation of key success factors that improve the school autonomy at schools in Finland.
A University Role in Developing Progressive Governmental Policy
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Samuel Henry, Kimberly Ilosvay, Anita Bright
Based on participation in the State of Oregon on the Oregon Education Investment Board, OEIB, political leadership for a pre-K through post-doctoral system suggested that an economic return on investment including calculations and wider discussion of the growth for communities. Here, despite a renewed sense of populism in Europe and the US, this case suggests that the efficacy of academia in purposefully building social capital should remain a goal of the university and faculty scholarship. It challenges held ideas that the benefit and gain of post-secondary education accrues mainly[solely] to the individual and perhaps family; suggesting that public support is a significant aspect of the interaction between higher education and local communities. By cohesively examining university participation, regional innovation and capacity-building as an illustration of adjusting public policy through the building of social capital, this case addresses multiple challenges as the means to alter the traditional roles and structures which ultimately change both policy and action within the university and in the local region. In the US, a major obstacle in K-12 school reform has been in getting and maintaining the transformational leadership for sustaining change. This case details the participation of the academy through providing institutional support for faculty to serve in leadership roles with local/state government change, which resulted in more than 300 public policy changes, increased services to children and youth and structuring reforms to increasing educational opportunity for children of communities of color.
