ERIC Number: EJ1090256
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016-Mar
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0311-6999
EISSN: N/A
The Problem of Simplification: Think-Tanks, Recipes, Equity and "Turning around Low-Performing Schools"
Loughland, Tony; Thompson, Greg
Australian Educational Researcher, v43 n1 p111-129 Mar 2016
Non-government actors such as think-tanks are playing an important role in Australian policy work. As governments increasingly outsource policy work previously done by education departments and academics to these new policy actors, more think-tanks have emerged that represent a wide range of political views and ideological positions. This paper looks at the emergence of the Grattan Institute as one significant player in Australian education policy with a particular emphasis on Grattan's report "Turning around low-performing schools". Grattan exemplifies many of the facets of Barber's "deliverology", as they produce reports designed to be easily digested, simply actioned and provide reassurance that there is an answer, often through focusing on "what works" recipes. "Turning around low-performing schools" is a perfect example of this deliverology. However, a close analysis of the Report suggests that it contains four major problems which seriously impact its usefulness for schools and policymakers: it ignores data that may be more important in explaining the turn-around of schools, the Report is overly reliant on NAPLAN data, there are reasons to be suspicious about the evidence assembled, and finally the Report falls into a classic trap of logic--the post hoc fallacy.
Descriptors: Organizations (Groups), School Turnaround, Educational Policy, Low Achievement, Best Practices, Information Utilization, Research Problems, Evidence, Misconceptions, Foreign Countries
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A