By Charles Barone
(From Education Sector, January 18th, 2012)
Craig Jerald’s “On Her Majesty’s School Inspection Service” is a compelling and informative piece that has given this skeptic of the model, at the very least, some pause for thought. I’m not sold that it’s a replacement for current accountability systems. But it is arguably a potentially useful complement.
Part of the model’s attractiveness stems from Jerald’s characteristic thoroughness in describing how the model works and where, in anticipation of certain flaws or obstacles, the designers built-in standards, safeguards, and countervailing forces to maintain rigor and protect against ideologues. My worries about the model’s application in the United States stem less from the model per se and more from the cultural and political uniqueness that separates public education in the U.S. from that of other countries like England, where it was developed.
Complex Educational Governance Structure. Having inspectors emanate from a national office in London and disperse throughout England is more logistically realizable culturally congruent undertaking than it would be in the United States. Here, the number of education policymaking bodies from national to local is long, labyrinthine, and prone to in-fighting. In a large U.S. state, the capital (e.g. Sacramento) is farther away from its biggest district (e.g., Los Angeles) than London is from Paris or Amsterdam.
Furthermore, the United States has far more intervening bodies – quasi-governmental bodies like the National Assessment Governing Board, the government-blessed Common Core Standards Initiative, various state and local entities – plus formal government entities like state education agencies, county and local boards of education, Educational Service Agencies, locally elected school boards, etc. – each with specific roles to play and turf areas to defend.
It’s actually a wonder that any policy that starts at the top of the hierarchy can have any impact at all after it negotiates the intervening levels. Of course, we know that such entities can and do work in sync as part of a system. So while a School Inspection Service would have its work cut out for it, it is by no means out of the realm of possibility that it could have an impact, and a potentially significant one at that.