Introducing competition between schools involves a lot of work and major costs
IMAGE:
STEFAN ARORA-JONSSON, PROFESSOR OF BUSINESS STUDIES, DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS STUDIES, UPPSALA UNIVERSITY, SWEDEN
view moreCREDIT: DAVID NAYLOR/UPPSALA UNIVERSITY
After the introduction of the freedom to choose between upper secondary schools in 1992, it took nearly ten years for upper secondary school heads in a municipality to start seeing themselves as competitors for school students. Any analysis of change from a later perspective needs to bear in mind that a transition of this kind takes a good deal of organising, costs a lot of money and takes many years to become established. This is shown by a new study of the introduction of competition between upper secondary schools, published in the journal Socio-Economic Review.
“It was surprising that it took such a long time for a reform to promote competition to take effect. In the municipality we studied it took roughly ten years. We had expected it would be a matter of a couple of years at the most,” says Stefan Arora-Jonsson, Professor of Business Studies at Uppsala University, one of the authors behind the study.
One of the ideas behind the 1992 school choice reform in Sweden, when free school choice was introduced, allowing upper secondary students to choose which school to attend, was that upper secondary schools would begin to compete for students. In a new research study, researchers in business studies have examined how the process went. Unlike previous studies of introducing competition, where the assumption has been that competition arises as soon as there are several schools to choose between, this study set out from interviews with school heads and managers in the municipal education system, along with analysis of archive materials to determine how the introduction of competition had played out. In their research, the authors interviewed 24 current and former school heads and employees in the education system in a medium-sized municipality. One question for future research is the extent to which the findings can be generalised to apply to other municipalities, particularly in the metropolitan regions.
The study shows that nearly ten years passed before the school heads felt they were in competition with one another. The new competitive approach required many years of far-reaching reorganisation of the municipal school system, training for teachers and school heads, and a change in the admission rules for students. When the school heads did see one another as competitors, further reorganisation was needed to enable them to compete while still cooperating in certain areas.
One of the conclusions is that the introduction of competition can entail significant costs, require radical organisational changes, take several years to work out and lead to further reorganisations. These costs should be viewed in the light of numerous international and Swedish studies that show that introducing competition between schools leads to marginal changes in students’ learning opportunities.
“Our research shows that introducing competition involves a far greater disruption of ongoing activities than was previously thought. People usually think about the changes that occur once competition has been established, but we show that major changes are needed for competition even to become established. When the effects of introducing competition are evaluated, the costs of these changes also need to be included in the analysis,” says Arora-Jonsson.
Article: Stefan Arora-Jonsson, Peter Edlund, Teaching schools to compete: the case of Swedish upper secondary education, Socio-Economic Review, 2024; mwad074, https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwad074
For further information:
Stefan Arora-Jonsson, Professor of Business Studies, Department of Business Studies, Uppsala University, email: stefan.jonsson@fek.uu.se, phone: 018-471 3959
JOURNAL
Socio-Economic Review
ARTICLE TITLE
Teaching schools to compete: the case of Swedish upper secondary education
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
7-Feb-2024
New book helps school leaders focus on what they can do without getting weighed down
'Focused' gives strategies, examples of how leaders can do what only they can do
Book AnnouncementLAWRENCE — No one can do everything. Yet that is exactly what many school leaders feel like they must do. A new book from a pair of school leaders and scholars aims to help those who often feel overwhelmed focus on what they can and should do and how to help teachers and students lead schools to reaching their full potential.
“Focused: Understanding, Negotiating, and Maximizing Your Influence as a School Leader,” by Jim Watterston and Yong Zhao, aims to help educational administrators guide schools to success without getting weighed down by things they can’t control. The book shares stories of leaders from around the world.
“The basic idea we wanted to give school leaders is that there are many things you can do, but you have to focus on the things that only you can do,” said Zhao, Foundation Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of Kansas. “You can’t do everything, and you need to empower others to do the things that they can do. We look at the issue of, ‘How do you carve out a space for yourself?’”
Watterston, dean of the faculty at the University of Melbourne, and Zhao have starkly different backgrounds in education. The former started as a classroom teacher in a rural Indigenous school in Western Australia and rose to lead several schools before taking his current post.
Zhao has spent a career in higher education researching and writing about schools around the world and improving the educational experience.
In working together previously, they realized their unique experiences with education suited them to a collaboration.
“I said, ‘You’ve got to write that book. Because I want to know what you did in going from a small, rural school to probably the best university in Australia,’” Zhao said of his co-author. “That was fascinating to me, his journey.”
Zhao’s respective journey took him from his native China to study how schools operate there to the United States, putting him in contact with thousands of teachers and school leaders.
Both have seen many school leaders who felt like they had to be in charge of everything in a school, including curriculum, teachers, students, extracurricular activities, budgets, community relations and more, the authors said. In “Focused,” they aim to help school leaders excel in their roles while empowering others.
The book is presented in three stages:
- How to build a leadership paradigm for outstanding schools.
- What are the most influential elements for collective success?
- How to avoid the pitfalls that prevent success.
The book’s opening chapters provide guidance on how principals can focus on what they can do to be the most effective principal possible without trying to also be the best teacher or best person in any other role. Stage I shares chapters on how leaders can use a system the authors call “the inverted triangle of influence” and creating game plans for success and leading a renewed purpose of education.
Stage II focuses on how leaders can achieve collective success by leading students, teachers and other players in the school environment. The authors point out that students can be given a larger role as school leaders than that with which they are usually entrusted.
“Students are not only learners, they are also leaders of learning for others,” Zhao said. “Schools rarely treat them as leaders of their own learning. We have organized schools so students are only considered learners, but they are and can be change-makers.”
Teachers are also learners, and the book’s second stage contains vignettes and examples of leaders who have successfully engaged teachers as self-determined individuals who can help shape the vision for a school.
Stage III shares strategies to avoid pitfalls that can prevent success, including leading through formative accountability and sustainability. Action steps are included to help leaders embrace hope instead of fear or risk aversion and how to innovate without simply making changes for the sake of change.
“As a principal, do you want to focus on the past, present or future?” Zhong asked. “We propose school leaders invest in a new future. But you can’t wait for the system. Systems don’t innovate; they follow and respond. People and leaders innovate.”
Watterston and Zhao wrote that if leaders trust and empower all the players within their institution, they can guide the kinds of change and improvements that enable all students to succeed.
“You are the bus driver, but you’re not the bus, as Jim often says,” Zhao said. “The idea with this book is to use examples to inspire people. The stories all come from people we’ve met and the successes we’ve seen them have.”
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