The Rise of External Actors in Education: Shifting Boundaries Globally and Locally 9781447359029

Table of contents :
Front Cover
The Rise of External Actors in Education: Shifting Boundaries Globally and Locally
Copyright information
Table of contents
List of figures and tables
Notes on contributors
Foreword
References
Introduction
References
1 Collective parental involvement: an in-between actor
Introduction
Parental involvement
Collective parental involvement
Parental collective involvement in Israel
The position of liminality
Case 1: Parents collectively organising within a school
Motives/targets
Activities
In school
Out of school
Influences
Case 2: Parents’ involvement at the locality level
Motives/targets
Activities and strategies
Within the movement: building a community
Relations with external actors
Influence
Conclusion
References
2 When teachers become the external actor: private tutoring and endogenous privatisation in Cambodia
Introduction
Privatisation and neoliberal mindsets: discussion of key concepts
Context: Cambodia and private tutoring
Findings
Motivations to Participate in Rien Kuo
Impact on curriculum and pedagogy
Shifts in teacher-student relations
Teachers self-entrepreneurship
Students’ self-responsibilisation
Discussion
Conclusion
Notes
References
3 Cross-sectoral alliances in charter schools: the role of boards of directors from for-profit and non-profit sectors
Introduction
Theoretical perspectives on for-profit and non-profit involvement in charter schools
Data and classification of directors
School boards’ role in creating cross-sectoral affiliations
For-profit and non-profit expertise on charter school boards: director-level statistics
Representation of for-profit and non-profit sectors on charter school boards: school-level statistics
Directors’ sectoral affiliations and charter school characteristics
Academic outcomes
Discussion and directions for future research
Note
References
4 A communitarian framework for understanding the relations between schools and NGOs
Introduction
The importance of community
School-NGO relations: a communitarian view
NGOs need to differentiate between global and local spheres of influence
Why communities should become involved in education reform and provision
Community involvement in NGOs and ways to ensure their public legitimacy
Promoting the communitarian approach to NGO work in countries across Africa: its necessary application
References
5 PISA for sale? Creating profitable policy spaces through the OECD’s PISA for Schools
Introduction
Contextualising the OECD’s education work
OECD’s PISA for Schools
Theoretical framework: policy networks and power-topologies
PISA for Schools and third-party actors: findings
‘Building capacity’: enhancing OECD engagement with stakeholders
‘Voluntary contributions’: promoting a user-pays approach
Conclusion
Notes
References
6 Historical reconfigurations of internal/external actors in Danish educational testing practices
Introduction
Pursuing a historical perspective
Identifying a relevant case
Methodology and chapter structure
The interwar period
Actors of the Danish testing agenda
The discursive landscape
Aiming to reconfigure the Danish field of education
Organisational infrastructure and support
Cold War period
An international outlook
A shifting discursive landscape and new opportunities for testing practices
Concluding discussion
Note
References
7 A short history of external agency involvement within education in contemporary Poland
Introduction
The legacy of the old order and the decentralisation of education in Poland
From homogeneity to diversity
External actors as reformers of education
External agents and marketisation of schooling
Preserving rural schools or improving educational standards
Homeschooling and quasi-schooling: a new phenomenon in Polish education
Conclusion
Notes
References
8 New philanthropy in the heterarchical governance of education in Brazil
Introduction
New philanthropy in the heterarchical governance of education
How new philanthropy works in the Brazilian heterarchical governance of education
Discursive work: changing meanings in education
Relational work: connecting business, philanthropy, and education
Institutional work: formalising discourses and relationships in heterarchies
Final remarks: new philanthropy and the blurring of lines between external and internal actors
References
9 Venture philanthropy and the rise of external actors in Australian education
Introduction
Setting the context for the rise of external actors: Australia as a useful case study
Following policy: philanthropy in schooling
Following the person: the corporate lawyer and mobilising education reform
Theorising external actors and networks as currency
Concluding discussion
Appendix
Note
References
10 Power struggle in education policy change: the role of knowledge actors in structural reforms in Chile
Introduction
Theoretical framework
Institutional change
The role of knowledge actors in institutional change
Modes of knowledge utilisation
Methodological strategy
Chilean context: the national ecosystem of research, development, and innovation
National ecosystem of research, development, and innovation in education
Two public policies: the Preferential Student Subsidy Law and the Inclusion Law
Results and findings
Final remarks and research implications
Notes
References
Conclusion: Complexity and intentionality of external actors in education
Questions, significance, and future directions
References
Index
Back Cover

Citation preview

THE RISE OF EXTERNAL ACTORS IN EDUCATION Shifting Boundaries Globally and Locally Edited by Christopher Lubienski, Miri Yemini and Claire Maxwell With a foreword by Gita Steiner-Khamsi

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by Policy Press, an imprint of Bristol University Press University of Bristol 1–​9 Old Park Hill Bristol BS2 8BB UK t: +​44 (0)117 374 6645 e: bup-​[email protected] Details of international sales and distribution partners are available at policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk © Bristol University Press 2022 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-4473-5900-5 hardcover ISBN 978-1-4473-5901-2 ePub ISBN 978-1-4473-5902-9 ePdf The right of Christopher Lubienski, Miri Yemini and Claire Maxwell to be identified as editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Bristol University Press. Every reasonable effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material. If, however, anyone knows of an oversight, please contact the publisher. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the editors and contributors and not of the University of Bristol or Bristol University Press. The University of Bristol and Bristol University Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Bristol University Press and Policy Press work to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design by Liam Roberts Design Front cover image: iStock-507281220 Bristol University Press and Policy Press use environmentally responsible print partners. Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Contents List of figures and tables Notes on contributors Foreword Gita Steiner-​Khamsi

v vi xii

Introduction Miri Yemini, Claire Maxwell and Christopher Lubienski

1

1

Collective parental involvement: an in-​between actor Audrey Addi-​Raccah

10

2

When teachers become the external actor: private tutoring and endogenous privatisation in Cambodia Hang M. Le and D. Brent Edwards, Jr

31

3

Cross-​sectoral alliances in charter schools: the role of boards of directors from for-​profit and non-​profit sectors Charisse Gulosino and Elif Şişli Ciamarra

50

4

A communitarian framework for understanding the relations between schools and NGOs Izhar Oplatka

80

5

PISA for sale? Creating profitable policy spaces through the OECD’s PISA for Schools Steven Lewis and Bob Lingard

91

6

Historical reconfigurations of internal/​external actors in Danish educational testing practices Christian Ydesen

113

7

A short history of external agency involvement within education in contemporary Poland Mikołaj Herbst

133

8

New philanthropy in the heterarchical governance of education in Brazil Marina Avelar

150

9

Venture philanthropy and the rise of external actors in Australian education Emma Rowe

167

iii

The Rise of External Actors in Education

10

Power struggle in education policy change: the role of knowledge actors in structural reforms in Chile Dante Castillo-​Canales and Javier González Díaz

184

Conclusion: Complexity and intentionality of external actors in education Christopher Lubienski, Claire Maxwell and Miri Yemini

212

Index

220

iv

List of figures and tables Figures 1.1 3.1 7.1 7.2 9.1

Suitable areas for parental participation via the parents’ 14 representative body in schools, according to school principals Charter school directors from the non-​profit and for-​profit sectors 64 Number of public and non-​public schools run by entities other 138 than local governments (1995–​2018) Percentage of students in public and non-​public schools, 143 by tier (2018) A snapshot of Gonski’s evolving network capital: connected to 177 Australia’s richest men, corporations, and institutions

Tables 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 5.1 5.2 5.3 7.1 7.2 7.3 9.1 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7

Directors from for-​profit and non-​profit sectors on charter 61 school boards in Massachusetts (2001–​14) Industry representation of directors from non-​profit and for-​profit 62 sectors on charter school boards in Massachusetts (2001–​14) Directors from for-​profit and non-​profit sectors (2001–​14) 64 School characteristics of for-​profit-​dominated boards and 66 non-​profit-​dominated boards School characteristics of boards with representation from the 67 education (non-​profit) sector Academic performance 68 PISA for Schools ‘voluntary contributions’ 104 ‘Optional extras’: PISA for Schools support activities offered by 105 the OECD Secretariat User-​pays: PISA for Schools services offered by Janison as the IPP 106 Division of roles within Poland’s education system in 2021 136 Changing regulations on funding non-​public education with 142 public money Transfers of schools between agents in Poland (2008–​12) 144 A timeline of key events 173 Number of participants in legislative public hearings 192 Features of the Preferential Student Subsidy Law and the Inclusion Law 197 Participants by type of official classification (%) 201 Participants by type of role (%) 201 Participants by type of institution (%) 202 Participants by whether they are a knowledge producer 202 (% and number) Participants by type of knowledge actor (%) 203 v

Notes on contributors Audrey Addi-​Raccah is an associate professor at the School of Education, Tel Aviv University (Israel). She is Vice Dean for Academic Affairs at the Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities, Tel Aviv University, as well as leading the Sociology of Education and Community research group. Her research is related to the sociology of education and education management with a focus on educational inequality, school effects and improvement, teachers’ and school principals’ work, and parental involvement in education. In her research, she uses mixed method approaches including large-​scale data. She has published in education and sociology journals. In addition, Addi-​Raccah has served on various national committees and currently chairs the committee appointed by the Ministry of Education to formulate research–​policy relations. Marina Avelar completed her PhD at the UCL Institute of Education (UK) and is Assistant Professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil). Her research is focused on education policy and privatisation, with a special interest in the roles of new philanthropy. She has published journal papers and book chapters on these topics and is the author of Disrupting Education Policy: How New Philanthropy Works to Change Education (Peter Lang, 2021). Dante Castillo-​Canales is Director of Innovative Policies and Practices at SUMMA (Chile). He has a PhD(c) from the Education programme of Universidad Diego Portales and Universidad Alberto Hurtado (Chile). He holds a degree in Sociology from the Universidad de Chile and an MSc in Culture and Society from the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK). He has coordinated programmes and done research in areas of educational innovation, digital technologies in education, and the role that knowledge and evidence play in education public policies. Previously, he was a researcher at the Centre for Policy Analysis of the Universidad de Chile and a research project officer at the University of Cambridge. D. Brent Edwards, Jr is an associate professor of theory and methodology in the study of education at the University of Hawai‘i (US). His work focuses on the global governance of education as well as education policy, politics, and political economy, with a focus on low-​income countries. Within these two areas of research, Edwards has focused on investigating the rise of global education policies and the influence of international organisations, as well as trends related to educational privatisation (for example, charter schools, low-​fee private schools), decentralisation, and community participation. The third general area of Edwards’ research focuses on critical engagement with vi

Notes on contributors

and democratic alternatives to dominant education models. Geographically, these three areas of focus have led to research in Latin America (Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras), Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines), and Africa (Zambia). In addition to his work appearing in such journals as Comparative Education Review, Comparative Education, the Journal of Education Policy, the International Journal of Educational Development, Prospects: Comparative Journal of Curriculum, Learning, and Assessment, and the Education Policy Analysis Archives, he has five books on the themes of global education policy, the global governance of education, the politics of knowledge production, decentralisation, school-​based management, and community participation in education. Javier González Díaz is an economist with a PhD from the University of Cambridge (UK). He is Director of SUMMA (Chile) and an affiliated lecturer in the Centre of Development Studies at the University of Cambridge (UK). He is also a member of the International Advisory Board of Brookings Institution’s Millions Learning initiative and a researcher at COES (the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies), Universidad de Chile. Dr González has been a member of UNESCO’s Advisory Board for the Global Education Monitoring Report and co-​editor and co-​author of UNESCO’s 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report for Latin America with a focus on social inclusion. He has also been a senior consultant for UNESCO, the World Bank, and the Inter-​American Development Bank, and a cabinet advisor on education and innovation policies in the Ministry of Finance of Chile. Charisse Gulosino is an associate professor in the Leadership and Policy Studies Program at The University of Memphis (US). She received her doctorate in education from Columbia University and pursued postdoctoral training at Brown University’s Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy. Her research focuses on the evaluation of educational policies and programmes, with a specific interest in school choice that enhances education access, equity, efficiency, and results-​based accountability. She also is a faculty research affiliate of the Center for Research in Education Policy at The University of Memphis College of Education. She previously served as a visiting researcher/​professor at the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. Mikołaj Herbst is an economist and professor in the Centre for European Regional and Local Studies at the University of Warsaw (Poland). He specialises in economics of education, human capital, and regional development. Herbst is author of numerous research articles and books. He is the founder and leading author of the expert blog Knowledge-​based vii

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Policy. A member of the Regional Studies Association and the European Expert Network on Economics of Education, Prof Herbst has participated in several consultancy projects serving the public administration in Poland, Ukraine, Montenegro, and Bulgaria, and he is a former member of the Prime Minister of Poland’s Strategic Advisors Unit. Hang M. Le (Lê Minh Hằng) is a doctoral candidate in international education policy at the University of Maryland (US). Her research interests revolve around the global mobilities of education discourses, policies and practice, critical development studies, and global citizenship education. Her dissertation examines the racial grammar of development through a case study of South–​South education cooperation between Vietnam and Mozambique. Previously, she worked with the Aspen Institute’s Agent Orange in Vietnam Program, the Inter-​Agency Network for Education in Emergencies, Save the Children, and Theirworld. Originally from Vietnam, she holds a BA with High Honors in Educational Studies and Political Science from Swarthmore College and an MA from the University of Maryland. Steven Lewis is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education at the Australian Catholic University and recipient of an Australia Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA). As an education policy sociologist, his research interests are concerned with exploring new spaces and relations of educational governance. Specifically, these include emergent forms of digital governance via data infrastructures and software platforms; data-​driven modes of educational accountability; the education policy work of the OECD and other ‘non-​state’ actors; and how these developments collectively shape the understanding and practice of education and expertise at the teacher, school, and schooling system levels. In 2019, Steven commenced an ARC DECRA fellowship entitled Globalising School Reform through Online Teacher Professional Learning (2019–​22). His most recent monograph is PISA, Policy and the OECD: Respatialising Global Educational Governance Through PISA for Schools (Springer, 2020). Bob Lingard is a professorial fellow at the Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education at the Australian Catholic University and an emeritus professor at The University of Queensland (Australia). He researches and publishes in the sociology of education. His most recent books include Digital Disruption in Teaching and Testing (Routledge, 2021), Globalizing Educational Accountabilities (Routledge, 2016), and Politics, Policies and Pedagogies in Education (Routledge, 2014). Bob is a fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in the UK. viii

Notes on contributors

Christopher Lubienski is a professor of education policy at Indiana University (US). He is also a fellow with the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, a visiting professor at East China Normal University in Shanghai, China, and an adjunct professor at Murdoch University in Western Australia, where he has served as the Sir Walter Murdoch Visiting Professor. He is co-​leader and convener of the Scholar Strategy Network’s K-​12 Working Group at Harvard University. His research focuses on education policy, reform, and the political economy of education, with a particular concern for issues of equity and access. His current work examines organisational responses to competitive conditions in local education markets, including geospatial analyses of education opportunities and research on innovation in education markets for the OECD; and policymakers’ use of research evidence as influenced by advocacy organisations. After earning a PhD in education policy and social analysis at Michigan State University, Lubienski held postdoctoral fellowships at the National Academy of Education and the Advanced Studies Program at Brown University. He was recently named a Fulbright Senior Scholar for New Zealand, where he studies school policies and student enrolment patterns. He has authored both theoretical and empirical journal articles on questions of innovation and achievement in school choice systems, including peer-​reviewed articles in top journals such as the American Journal of Education, the Oxford Review of Education, the American Educational Research Journal, the Journal of Education Policy, Educational Researcher, Educational Management Administration & Leadership, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, and CQ Researcher. Claire Maxwell is a professor of sociology at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark). Her work focuses on social class, education, gender, and mobility. In particular, her work has examined how privilege, agency, and affect are mutually co-​constitutive. Having initially focused her research on the English context, Maxwell now does internationally comparative work, examining how family, education systems, and state policies shape the opportunities for social mobility across national contexts and how processes of internationalisation and mobility are reconfiguring understandings of the purpose of education and the imagined futures of young people. Maxwell has published extensively across sociological, educational, and interdisciplinary journals, and she has authored and edited several books on elite education and internationalisation of education. Her most recent book is Nurturing Mobilities: Family Travel in the 21st Century (with Miri Yemini and Katrine Mygind Bach; Routledge, 2022). Izhar Oplatka is a professor of educational administration and leadership at the School of Education, Tel Aviv University (Israel). Prof Oplatka’s ix

The Rise of External Actors in Education

research focuses on the lives and careers of schoolteachers and principals, educational marketing, emotions and educational administration, and the foundations of educational administration as a field of study. His most recent books include Reforming Education in Developing Countries (Routledge, 2019), Emotion Management in Teaching and Educational Leadership: A Cultural Perspective (with Khalid Arar; EMERALD Publishing, 2019), and Project Management in Schools (with Miri Yemini and Netta Sagie; Palgrave-​ Macmillan, 2018). He has published extensively in major journals in the fields of education, educational administration, comparative education, and education policy. Emma Rowe is a senior lecturer in the School of Education, Deakin University (Australia) and Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar (2020). Emma is a recipient of the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (2021–​24). Her research interests include policy and politics in education. She serves as an associate editor for Critical Studies in Education and has published in peer-​reviewed journals such as the Journal of Education Policy and Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. Her book, Middle-​class School Choice in Urban Spaces: The Economics of Public Schooling and Globalized Education Reform (Routledge, 2017) explores the marketisation of the public school. Elif Şişli Ciamarra is an associate professor of finance in the Meehan School of Business at Stonehill College (US) and an adjunct associate professor in The Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University (US). Her research and teaching interests include corporate finance, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, entrepreneurship, and financial technology. Elif received a BS from Boğaziçi University (Turkey), an MBA from the International University of Japan, and a PhD from the Stern School of Business at New York University. Christian Ydesen is Professor at the Department of Culture and Learning, Aalborg University (Denmark). He is the principal investigator of The Global History of the OECD in Education project, funded by the Aalborg University talent programme, and the Education Access under the Reign of Testing and Inclusion project, funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark. He has been a visiting scholar at the University of Edinburgh (2008–​09, 2016), the University of Birmingham (2013), the University of Oxford (2019), and the University of Milan (2021). He has published several chapters and articles on topics such as educational testing, international organisations, accountability, educational psychology, and diversity in education from historical and international perspectives. He currently serves as an executive editor of the European Educational Research Journal. x

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Notes on contributors

Miri Yemini is a comparative education scholar tenured at Tel Aviv University (Israel). Her interests are the internationalisation of education in schools and higher education, global citizenship education, and education in conflict-​r idden societies, with a particular focus on the learning experiences of children. She has also made a strong research contribution around the involvement of external actors in schools. In addition, Dr Yemini is an active member of the Comparative & International Education Society, the Comparative Education Society in Europe, and the British Association for International & Comparative Education, and she is President Elect of the Israeli Comparative Education Society. Dr Yemini has published extensively, including in: Educational Administration Quarterly, Educational Management Administration & Leadership, Comparative Education Review, Teaching and Teacher Education, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, Journal of Studies in International Education, Globalisation, Societies and Education, Urban Education, and Educational Review.

xi

Foreword Gita Steiner-​Khamsi Teachers College, Columbia University

‘Breaking the state monopoly’ was the rallying call of those parties and interest groups of the 1980s and 1990s that, first in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and the US, and soon after in every corner of the world, advocated for fundamental reforms in the public sector. Theirs was a coherent yet highly contested approach to improving the quality of education: incite schools to compete over student enrolment by regularly testing students’ learning outcomes, make the test results publicly available, enforce choice, and put a funding formula in place that finances schools based on student enrolment, regardless of whether the school is run by the state or a non-​ state entity. Announced with great fanfare, the revamping of education systems was supposed to unleash the innovation potential of schools, boost community participation, bleed out poorly performing schools, and hold teachers and schools accountable for the learning outcomes of their students. Today, three or four decades later, the time of disillusionment has arrived. There is agreement that the neoliberal reforms have led to excessive testing, exacerbated social inequality between schools, and opened the floodgates to private providers. What is less clear is how these neoliberal reforms, in particular the incorporation of the private into the public sector, has been ‘translated’ into various national settings. Rather than reiterating the obvious –​the dramatic increase of non-​state actors in the education sector –​this edited volume, written by some of the most prolific thinkers on privatisation in education, disaggregates private sector providers and zooms in on how the various types of ‘external’ actors run schools, how they manage to stay or, rather, grow their business, and how some of them have managed to expand their influence by transitioning from being merely a supplier to a government partner in agenda setting and policy formulation. The fundamental reforms implied a new role for the state, new ways of regulating the education system, and new tools for generating or alleviating reform pressure. From the myriad of fascinating phenomena illuminated in this book, I would like to highlight two that, on closer examination, are intertwined: the demise of public education as a good public good and the blurred line between external and internal actors in education.

xii

Foreword

First, what OECD countries are experiencing now is what education systems of the Global South have had to endure dating back to colonial times: the flight of elites into private schools and their contempt for the schooling of the masses in public schools. Once the middle class exited the public education system, political support and public funds for good or quality public education started to dissipate, further deteriorating the public education system. Of course, no analogy is perfect. In this case, private schools are nowadays not labelled ‘private’, because they receive vouchers, are paid per enrolled student, or draw on a public-​private charter enabling them to receive the same level of funding as public schools. The similarity, however, lies in the downward spiral that public education is currently experiencing. The negative trend is a result of two competing systems, or suppliers, of education: the traditional public provider (the state) and the new private provider. From the perspective of sociological systems theory (Niklas Luhmann), one could say that these two systems or segments are ‘environment’ to each other and, therefore, eager to constantly differentiate and distance themselves from each other (see Steiner-​Khamsi, 2021). However, the two types of providers have become unequal competitors. Private sector suppliers are associated with innovation, technology, and –​in non-​anglophone countries –​English as a language of instruction and, hence, cosmopolitanism. In contrast, the traditional public sector is negatively associated with all that is antiquated, nationalistic, and ordained by the state. Newness has a high priority in capitalist world systems. As Immanuel Wallerstein eloquently puts it: One principal consequence of this reality is the enormous emphasis placed within the modern world-​system on the virtues of ‘newness.’ No previous historical system has ever been based on a theory of progress, indeed a theory of inevitable progress. But the emphasis on newness, and its constant implementation … raises precisely the question of legitimacy –​legitimacy of the historical system in general; legitimacy of its key political institution, the various sovereign states, in particular. (Wallerstein, 1990, 37) In concert with Wallerstein, the historical system of public education is under siege. The discursive power lies with the new actors; in our case, with the private non-​state, or ‘external’, actors. What we are witnessing today in many countries is a self-​inflicted, gradual destruction of public schools. The neoliberal agenda has prevailed: with the argument of improving the quality of education, the state’s role was curtailed and transformed from being the sole provider of schools to merely serving as the standard setter and monitor of student learning outcomes. At the same time, neoliberal legislature was passed to incentivise private sector actors to enter and operate in the newly xiii

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created, booming education market. Once private actors flocked into the public sector, the ecosystem of two unequal competing actors took on a life of its own: the new (private) actors relentlessly criticised public education for lagging behind the innovations that the private sector, both non-​profit and for-​profit enterprises, promised to generate. ‘Disruption’ became positively associated with the private sector; notably with Silicon Valley’s technology companies (Avelar & Patil, 2020). Words have consequences. The persistent talk about the crisis of public education led to a redistribution of taxpayers’ money in the direction of the new privately funded initiatives, thereby further diminishing the notion of education as a good or high-​quality public good. Second, who is ‘external’ in an environment where the ‘internal’ is no longer the norm? Even though there exist different pathways to privatisation, the number of non-​state actors has grown exponentially in the education sector to the extent that we now encounter a huge variety of partnerships and hybrid forms of public-​private enterprises. Rarely is the state the sole provider of a school. In some countries more than in others, it is common that schools outsource parts of their programmes (for example, remedial services, after-​school programmes) to the private sector or buy goods and services from private providers (for example, digital teaching resources, library systems). Several authors in this book have shown compellingly that the lines between the public and the private have become blurred, rendering it problematic to conceive of private providers as ‘external’ actors. For all the reasons mentioned, the cannibalisation of public actors by the more powerful, innovative new private actors is not unexpected. Without any doubt, the privatisation agenda has travelled across the globe. Globalisation is both an economic reality and a political rhetoric. The latter has helped boost fears of falling behind in a global economy. Such rhetoric has been perpetuated and rendered visible by the method of international comparison. In the absence of real power, global actors have resorted to international comparison, ranking, scoring, and naming and shaming. More often than not, one forgets that the authority of the OECD and other global agents of international comparison are ‘internally’ induced at a particular moment in a policy process when national policy actors are in need of additional authorisation by a source that is supposedly neutral or external to the internal political process. It is for this reason that I propose to conceive of OECD and other global norm setters as an internally induced, quasi-​external source of authorisation, instrumentalised and mobilised at particular moments of national agenda setting. Needless to say, the COVID-​19 pandemic has further tilted the power balance between public and private actors in education. For the general public, the global technology companies rescued education at a time when national governments shut down schools and sent children and youth home. The salvation is likely to come at a price: an enormous pressure on xiv

Foreword

public education to continue buying goods and services from technology businesses and other private providers for more effective digital teaching and learning. The fallout of the pandemic on future public services is a topic of great academic curiosity. These new types of coerced internal-​external or public-​private partnerships are without any doubt fertile ground for intense academic scrutiny over the coming years. References Avelar, M. & Patil, L. (eds) (2020) New Philanthropy and the Disruption of Global Education, NORRAG Special Issue 4, Geneva: NORRAG. Steiner-​Khamsi, G. (2021) ‘Externalisation and structural coupling: Applications in comparative policy studies in education’, European Educational Research Journal, 20 (6): 806–​20. Wallerstein, I. (1990) ‘Culture as ideological battleground of the modern world-​system’, Theory, Culture & Society, 7 (2–​3): 31–​55.

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Introduction Miri Yemini, Claire Maxwell and Christopher Lubienski

Across the globe, public schooling systems are experiencing the growing influence of external agents shaping articulation, provision, policies, and outcomes of education. Academies and charter schools, parental choice, contracting out, public-​private partnerships, for-​profit providers, benefit corporations, heterarchical governance, venture philanthropies, and many other ­examples –​most of which are new in either form or the extent of their influence permeability –​all speak to increasing permeability of public policy making to private interests. This is typically designed by policy elites and is directly aligned with the global movement toward liberalisation, the increasing privatisation of state-​dominated sectors, and a general encouragement of private enterprise to solve societal challenges (for example, Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). And most observers would note the growing scale of these players. Trends such as the remarkable growth of privately funded think tanks and philanthropies have fuelled policy networks that promote private, non-​state actors in education, whether through structural adjustment policies, public-​private partnerships, the proliferation of low-​fee schools, charter chains, and multi-​academy trusts, or wholesale transference of state schools to private hands (Rich, 2004; Reckhow, 2013; Srivastava, 2016; Verger et al, 2016; Reckhow & Tompkins-​Stange, 2018). While we are not so naïve as to imagine a previous era of democratically run schools provided by a beneficent state, few would doubt the remarkable rise of the role and influence of these actors in recent times. Just as the growth of these actors and their influence deserves attention, so too does the diversification of the range of such actors. While traditionally these ‘external actors’ were distinguished as belonging either to the for-​ profit or the non-​profit sectors (Ball & Junemann, 2012), this book raises questions as to whether such categorisations can still capture the diversity of external actors in the field of education. Even as the increasing role of private, non-​state actors in public policy making is immensely significant, the diversification of types of actors to include myriad forms –​quasi-​state agencies, subsidised community groups, impact investors and philanthropies, and so on –​also represents an increasingly important area of inquiry. As the array of actors involved in the funding, development, and direct delivery of education increases, it has become more difficult to neatly characterise and capture differentiated approaches, especially across contexts. However, given the growing salience and proliferation of the external actors 1

The Rise of External Actors in Education

in education, we must more deeply examine their work, the principles driving them, the partnerships they form, they ways they are reconfiguring relationships, and the outcomes they achieve. And all these issues need to be understood within the different contexts –​geographic, demographic, institutional, political, historical, and so on –​in which external actors are operating, since those contextual factors inform the existence, influence, and operations of those actors. This is what our book sets out to achieve. For the purposes of the book, we define ‘external actors’ as entities, people, and organisations that are not directly managed by the state/​government, but are working in the field of public education and therefore have some degree of control over education governance or policy, in contrast to default control by the state. This definition therefore takes up the distinction often made in political sciences between government and governance (Gunter et al, 2015), highlighting the myriad ways public services are offered and the state’s more hybrid approach to delivering on its responsibilities. The broad collection of chapters in this volume examines how the lines demarcating the various ‘players’ in the education field have become more blurred, how relations of power between actors is shifting (Mahony et al, 2004; Lingard et al, 2015; Yemini et al, 2018), and how these have resulted in quite different constellations of organisations and power operating across the machinery of the education system (Lubienski, 2018). Indeed, we note that it is not just new types of actors that are penetrating public sectors. Significant too is that some actors such as teachers, parents, and evaluation modes, have a dual role as both internal and external actors. While the earlier drive for outsourcing provision in education beyond the state was motivated by the desire to address state failures in public services (for example, Friedman, 1962; Osborne & Gaebler, 1992), today this continuing trend is rationalised and justified in many more ways. In the chapters collected for this book, we witness a variety of approaches used by external actors to engage in education and increasingly how external actors from the private sector are centrally involved. Privatisation is understood here as outsourcing of provision, funding, control, and delivery of education, and as the penetration of business-​like procedures, modes of governance, and states of mind within public education domains (Whitty & Power, 2000; Lubienski, 2006; Ball, 2009a). Such privatisation is shaped not only by for-​ profit entities directly seeking out opportunities to increase their revenues, but also by various foundations and non-​profit organisations that position themselves under the umbrella of philanthropy (Saltman, 2010; Avelar, 2020). In that context, the increasing numbers and expanded involvement of these actors is both an outcome and a driver of the ‘neoliberal turn’ in education. Such processes, in general, complicate the traditional reliance on the state for funding and oversight in the provision of public education, but 2

Introduction

also require us to examine very closely the role the private business sector is increasingly playing as a ‘necessary’ alternative to government failures in delivering quality education. The growth of these various external actors’ involvement in schooling is possible because policymakers are generally developing more market-​oriented policies and allowing for the creation of (new) mechanisms of relationality that alter how existing actors interact and collaborate within the various fields of education. This trend also enables the involvement of new actors and interests, thus further reshaping the boundaries between private and public, for-​profit and non-​profit, internal and external actors. While the term has been overused to the point of meaninglessness (Lubienski, 2018), in this edited collection we refer to ‘neoliberalism’ as a complex and multidimensional phenomenon, an apparatus dedicated to the interests of free market-​based economics that engages various macro and micro processes promoting privatisation and decentralisation (Rowe et al, 2019). Neoliberalism is a very broad term, and in this book, most authors employ it as meaning a technology of governance and/​or self-​explained economic logic that sets the context in which external actors are thriving. In other words, neoliberalism is understood as an assemblage of policies that differentially shape many of the contexts in which external actors are becoming increasingly active, across all parts of the globe, today. In much of the literature (Ball & Junemann, 2012; Lubienski, 2018), the participation of external actors in public schooling is criticised, seeing this move as increasing the commercialisation and commodification of public education, increasing the competition between schools, and resulting in rising inequality in terms of access and outcomes. This is felt to be particularly pronounced due to the profit-​seeking behaviour engaged in by private external actors, including, to some extent, non-​profits that start to act as profit maximisers when faced with competitive pressures (Sinitsyn & Weisbrod, 2003, 2008; Lubienski & Lee, 2016). On the other hand, external actors’ growing influence in education is often praised as a manifestation of individual agency, community control, freedom to choose, and ‘voice’, allowing citizens to organise and shape their relationships with the state. All of these points are deeply informed by contextual issues such as local and national policies, institutional, historical, and demographic contexts, and so on. Through our focused look at developments in different parts of the world, the reader will be able to see how the increasing involvement of external actors in education today, their diversity, and the blurring of boundaries between them can be seen, at times, as a positive development and, at other times, as a more negative influence, often varying across contexts. The various interests of these diverse external actors play a role in shaping how education is conceived, delivered, and evaluated. Thus, there is a need 3

The Rise of External Actors in Education

to understand the size, nature of involvement, and reach of: non-​profit or for-​profit organisations; foundations; intermediary organisations; non-​ governmental organisations (NGOs); assessment frameworks; philanthropies; parent organisations; and non-​institutionalised interest groups. Critically, it is important to examine whether and how these various actors might, within specific sites, form alliances and work in concert to further their goals. In recent decades, the influence of these actors has been observed in Northern as well as Southern contexts. In proceeding from the extant literature on the emergence of extra-​state actors in education, this volume benefits from the substantial contributions of eminent scholars who have pushed the field forward in recent decades. For instance, Stephen Ball’s application of the concept of heterarchies in education governance, documented through the novel use of network ethnography, has helped us move past older models of public/​private distinctions and ‘iron triangles’ to consider the complex networks of myriad actors in education policy and provision (Ball, 2009a; Ball, 2009b; Ball, 2016; Ball & Junemann, 2012). Likewise, Helen Gunter and her colleagues’ notion of consultocracies enables researchers to think through the movement of individual actors across and between systems, as well as the impact of such movement on the nature of the systems themselves (Gunter et al, 2015; Gunter & Mills, 2016). And Bob Lingard and colleagues have offered invaluable insights on the growing influence of the testing sector, including for-​profit companies, in reconfiguring education policy (Lingard et al, 2013; Lingard et al, 2014; Sellar & Lingard, 2014; Hogan et al, 2016). These and many other insights have offered a strong foundation for future work in this area. The contributions in this volume do not seek to replicate those insights. We do not seek to extend universalistic conceptions of the external actors or to re-​(or over-​)theorise issues like privatisation which have already received extensive treatment in the theoretical literature (with diminishing returns, we would argue). Instead, this volume is meant to enhance our understanding of the role and influence of external actors by looking at the issue across contexts to see how factors such as differences in policies, political structures, institutional environments, and global standpoints can provide more insights into the rising influence of eternal actors in education. Thus, this edited volume has three objectives. (1) It seeks to explore the way we understand the concept of external actors in education, beyond the market or the third sector, non-​profit organisation, to consider other entities and interests that can be observed to be shaping schooling in different contexts. We argue that new frameworks and conceptualisations are needed to go beyond the current definitions and delineations of boundaries between actors, to better understand the spaces within which schools must operate today. Thus, the book also (2) identifies the various contexts in which different kinds of external actors emerge and considers the factors 4

Introduction

that facilitate or limit the influence they can have on understanding the purpose(s) of education, who is best placed to provide such education, and the kinds of outcomes that are possible or likely. Finally, this volume (3) examines how different external actors work strategically to form alliances within and across contexts to more successfully achieve their aims. Such a line of inquiry is sorely needed regarding who the key actors are, how they have emerged, what alliances have facilitated this, and what are the potential outcomes –​especially as so many education systems around the world now rely on, or are directly impacted by, these various actors and interests operating globally, nationally, or locally. The innovation offered by this book goes beyond a simple analysis of external actors in education working in different countries and at different scales. The authors who have contributed to this edited volume examine these questions from different theoretical and methodological stances. The collection is comprised of ten chapters by leading scholars in the field, who examine different forms of external actor involvement in education in different parts of the world. It is bookended by a foreword by Prof Gita Steiner-​Khamsi and introduction and concluding chapters by the editors. The Introduction sets out the purpose of the book, the questions besetting the field, and a summary of the chapters to follow. The Conclusion outlines the key themes which emerge across the chapters and the innovations offered, and it then responds to the questions posed at the beginning of the book. Chapters 1 to 5 rethink the roles of traditional actors in schooling, drawing on data from Israel, Cambodia, the United States, and examples from across parts of the Global South, including sub-​Saharan Africa, thereby providing a rich account of the variety of external actors found in education today and examining the work they do and their influence. These chapters also problematise the distinction between external and internal actors, showing us how parents, teachers, school boards, and communities at large can play a multidimensional role in schooling. In Chapter 1, Audrey Addi-​Raccah analyses collective parental involvement in education in Israel. She argues that parents, because of their liminal position within the education system, as neither internal nor external actors, can, through collective action, effect relatively important changes within schools and localities. This chapter makes the case that parents should be re-​conceptualised an important ‘actors’ within education, who, when they collectively organise, can be seen to yield political and social power to demand change. Hang M. Le and D. Brent Edwards, Jr (Chapter 2) describe the case of private tutoring in Cambodia, which is generally offered by public school teachers to their own students. This adds a fascinating dimension to the literature by addressing a situation where actors internal to the school system (teachers) are incentivised to act in external capacities, thus creating a hybrid (public-​private) form of education provision. The authors argue 5

The Rise of External Actors in Education

that the introduction of market-​oriented mindsets and mechanisms have reshaped the relations between students and teachers, changing their respective roles and authority and introducing new agendas shaping these relationships. Moreover, this chapter addresses how privatisation processes have taken on a variety of forms in different contexts and countries despite neoliberal influences within education often being depicted as uniform and homogenising. Chapter 3, by Charisse Gulosino and Elif Şişli Ciamarra, extends the way we understand the concept of ‘cross-​sectoral affiliation’ by introducing the public-​private partnerships formed in the creation of boards of directors for charter schools. The prominent presence of various stakeholders on their boards is revealed and discussed, suggesting that private/​public distinctions are blurred and reshaped by the circumstances of these mutual engagements. Then, Chapter 4 by Izhar Oplatka situates external actors’ involvement across the Global South, but with a focus on sub-​Saharan Africa, suggesting that communitarianism may act as a useful theoretical framework for understanding how school-​NGO partnerships should be developed in these various local contexts. Chapter 5, by Steven Lewis and Bob Lingard, focuses specifically on one of the largest and most influential testing regimes –​the OECD’s PISA for schools. The chapter shows that the way PISA for Schools is integrated into education systems demonstrates that the OECD is an external policy actor in its own right and not merely the voice of member countries. Chapters 6 to 10 take up the subject of policies and alliances to more closely examine the role of external actors in multiscale settings. The first of these chapters, by Christian Ydesen (Chapter 6), takes a historical perspective, analysing the introduction, development, and renegotiation of the testing regime in Danish education. Through his careful analysis, Ydesen shows how local opportunities, relations with international partners, and broader political and social developments led to the institutionalisation of the promoters of testing, thereby shifting these actors from peripheral external actors to state-​sanctioned internal actors. Mikołaj Herbst (Chapter 7) provides an overview of the legislative, social, and political developments that have facilitated the movement of non-​state providers to take up particular spaces within the Polish education landscape since the fall of communism. Marina Avelar (Chapter 8) and Emma Rowe (Chapter 9) examine the phenomenon of new philanthropy as an increasingly important actor within education, using the cases of Brazil and Australia, respectively. Avelar draws on the concept of heterarchies to analyse the ways these philanthropic actors create and manage networks of influence within local education systems. Meanwhile, Rowe illustrates how new philanthropists in Australia have come to gain significant influence over the last decade. By using the example of a major nodal actor –​David Gonski –​as 6

Introduction

a sociological and methodological device, Rowe shows how policy ‘moves’ through various interconnected networks, which have completely reshaped the provision of public education in Australia today. These two chapters offer insights into how new philanthropy is working within education heterarchies to support the revision of governance practices, but with the support of actors who were previously more critical of such types of involvement, such as unions, teachers, and parents. Finally, Chapter 10, by Dante Castillo-​Canales and Javier González Díaz, provides us with an interesting account of the emerging role of knowledge production actors in the education spheres in Chile. The concluding chapter, from the volume’s editors, reviews some of the important and recurring themes from the chapters. It reminds readers of the overall context in which external actors are seeing their influence ascend, points to the multiple complexities in the patterns and strategies we are seeing, and sets out some considerations for future research on this issue. References Avelar, M. (2020) Disrupting Education Policy: How New Philanthropy Works to Change Education. Oxford: Peter Lang. Ball, S.J. (2009a) ‘Privatising education, privatising education policy, privatising educational research: network governance and the “competition state”’, Journal of Education Policy, 24 (1): 83–​99. Ball, S.J. (2009b) ‘Academies in context: politics, business and philanthropy and heterarchical governance’, Management in Education, 23 (3): 100–​3. Ball, S.J. (2016) ‘Following policy: networks, network ethnography and education policy mobilities’, Journal of Education Policy, 31 (5): 549–​66. Ball, S.J. & Junemann, C. (2012) Networks, New Governance and Education. Bristol: Policy Press. Friedman, M. (1962) Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gunter, H.M. & Mills, C. (2016) ‘Knowledge production and the rise of consultocracy in education policymaking in England’, in A. Verger, C. Lubienski & G. Steiner-​Khamsi (eds) World Yearbook of Education 2016: The Global Education Industry, New York: Routledge, pp 125–​41. Gunter, H.M., Hall, D. & Mills, C. (2015) ‘Consultants, consultancy and consultocracy in education policymaking in England’, Journal of Education Policy, 30 (4): 518–​39. Hogan, A., Sellar, S. & Lingard, B. (2016) ‘Corporate social responsibility and neo-​social accountability in education: the case of Pearson plc’, in A. Verger, C. Lubienski & G. Steiner-​Khamsi (eds) World Yearbook of Education 2016: The Global Education Industry, New York: Routledge, pp 107–​24. Lingard, B., Martino, W. & Rezai-​Rashti, G. (2013) ‘Testing regimes, accountabilities and education policy: commensurate global and national developments’, Journal of Education Policy, 28 (5): 539–​56. 7

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Lingard, B., Sellar, S. & Savage, G.C. (2014) ‘Re-​articulating social justice as equity in schooling policy: The effects of testing and data infrastructures’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 35 (5): 710–​30. Lingard, B., Sellar, S. & Baroutsis, A. (2015) ‘Researching the habitus of global policy actors in education’, Cambridge Journal of Education, 45 (1): 25–​42. Lubienski, C. (2006) ‘School choice and privatization in education: an alternative analytical framework’, Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 4 (1), www.jceps.com/​archives/​511 Lubienski, C. (2018) ‘The critical challenge: policy networks and market models for education’, Policy Futures in Education, 16 (2): 156–​68. Lubienski, C. & Lee, J. (2016) ‘Competitive incentives and the education market: how charter schools define themselves in metropolitan Detroit’, Peabody Journal of Education, 91 (1): 64–​80. Mahony, P., Hextall, I. & Menter, I. (2004) ‘Building dams in Jordan, assessing teachers in England: a case study in edu-​business’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 2 (2): 277–​96. Osborne, D. & Gaebler, T. (1992) Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector. New York: Plume. Reckhow, S. (2013) Follow the Money: How Foundation Dollars Change Public School Politics. New York: Oxford University Press. Reckhow, S. & Tompkins-​Stange, M. (2018) ‘Financing the education policy discourse: philanthropic funders as entrepreneurs in policy networks’, Interest Groups & Advocacy, 7 (3): 258–​88. Rich, A. (2004) Think Tanks, Public Policy, and the Politics of Expertise. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rowe, E., Lubienski, C., Skourdoumbis, A., Gerrard, J. & Hursh, D. (2019) ‘Templates, typologies and typifications: neoliberalism as keyword’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 40 (2): 150–​61. Saltman, K. (2010) The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Sellar, S. & Lingard, B. (2014) ‘The OECD and the expansion of PISA: new global modes of governance in education’, British Educational Research Journal, 40 (6): 917–​36. Sinitsyn, M. & Weisbrod, B.A. (2003) Nonprofit Organization Behaviour in For-​Profit Markets. Unpublished manuscript, Department of Economics, Northwestern University. Sinitsyn, M. & Weisbrod, B.A. (2008) ‘Behavior of nonprofit organizations in for-​profit markets: the curious case of unprofitable revenue-​raising activities’, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 164 (4): 727–​50.

8

Introduction

Srivastava, P. (2016) ‘Questioning the global scaling-​up of low-​fee private schooling: the nexus between business, philanthropy and PPPs’, in A. Verger, C. Lubienski & G. Steiner-​Khamsi (eds) The Global Education Industry, London: Routledge, pp 248–​63. Verger, A., Fontdevila, C. & Zancajo, A. (2016) The Privatization of Education: A Political Economy of Global Education Reform. New York: Teachers College Press. Whitty, G. & Power, S. (2000) ‘Marketization and privatization in mass education systems’, International Journal of Educational Development, 20 (2): 93–​107. Yemini, M., Cegla, A. & Sagie, N. (2018) ‘A comparative case-​study of school-​LEA-​NGO interactions across different socio-​economic strata in Israel’, Journal of Education Policy, 33 (2): 243–​61.

9

1

Collective parental involvement: an in-​between actor Audrey Addi-​Raccah Introduction The dominance of neoliberal policies across education systems means that states do not necessarily see themselves as being the exclusive authority responsible for financing and providing all necessary educational services (Harvey, 2005; Ball & Youdell, 2008). This change is sometimes referred to as a ‘meta social change’ that redraws the traditional boundaries of social categories (Beck, 2000) and, along with decentralisation, requires schools to adapt to multi-​contextual environments (for example, cultural, political, social) that shape their provision and status (Hallinger, 2018). Being integral to their communities, schools, in these neoliberal times, need to develop and sustain relationships within a web of diverse external stakeholders (for example, non-​governmental organisations (NGOs), the business sector, political bodies; see Addi-​Raccah, 2006; Hoy & Miskel, 2008), many of which are not formally affiliated with schools but influence the environment in which they operate (Hoy & Miskel, 2008). Following Honig (2009), I refer to external actors/​stakeholders as non-​ system actors who ‘work with, but [are] distinctly outside public educational systems’ (p 394). This stands in contrast to system actors, who, according to Coburn (2005), ‘constitute state and local governance of schooling, including state departments, county offices, school districts, and schools’. Collaboration with external stakeholders is perceived by researchers and practitioners, such as school principals, as influencing school provision and culture and contributing to school improvement (Keddie, 2015; Keddie et al, 2018; Ni et al, 2018). Building a partnership with diverse external stakeholders is therefore acknowledged as a significant component of successful school leadership today and a key priority emphasised across education policy worldwide (for example, Hargreaves & Harris, 2015; Scott & Halkias, 2016; Simkins et al, 2019). As school collaboration with external stakeholders emerges as a norm for school success and improvement, school principals adopt such practice with the aim of securing their legitimacy (Desai, 2018; Shuffelton, 2020).

10

Collective parental involvement

One pivotal group of stakeholders within education is parents, as they have an obvious interest in being involved in their children’s education. Parents’ investment in their children’s education is promoted by policies designed to facilitate partnerships between schools and parents, which has the effect of intensifying parents’ responsibilities towards their children’s education (Ball, 2012). Research has demonstrated that parents’ involvement is diverse and multidimensional (for example, Bakker & Denessen, 2007: Boonk et al, 2018). One dimension on which parental involvement can be differentiated is at the individual and collective levels. At the individual level, parents’ relations with schools are based on one-​ to-​one interactions with teachers and the school leadership over matters related specifically to their own children’s education. This individual-​level involvement may also include volunteering in schools when needed (for example, being escorts on field trips or participating in social events). At the collective level, parents might organise themselves to influence the school or local/​state educational decision-​making processes. In such cases, parents represent interests that go beyond their children’s own needs. There is a dearth of research on parental collective action compared to studies on individual parental involvement (see, for example, Ng & Yuen, 2015; Posy-​Maddox et al, 2016). Thus, in this chapter, I draw on two case studies of parental collective action in order to examine more closely how we might conceptualise such involvement and understand its effects. Parents are not usually recognised as being external actors, but neither are they seen as internal actors. We could therefore argue that they occupy a liminal position vis-​à-​vis the education system. In what follows, I review the scholarship on parents’ collective involvement and discuss this in relation to Israel –​the focus of my empirical work. I then introduce the concept of liminality as a framework for understanding parents’ position within the education system. After presenting two cases of collective parental actions in Israel, I use my findings to argue that parents’ liminal position enables them to be catalysts for change who also have the power to legitimise or delegitimise other education actors.

Parental involvement Following the ideal of the democratic ethos (Dewey, 2004), parental involvement in the education system is now understood in most parts of the world as an integral component of public education (Gerrard, 2018). This is based on the inherent logic that parents, as individuals, are the guardians of their children and hold the primary responsibility for their development and education. Therefore, they should collaborate with educators for the benefit and well-​being of their children. According to Epstein’s (2010) model of sphere of influence, the school and family may have shared 11

The Rise of External Actors in Education

responsibilities over a child’s education. In this case, parents’ interactions with schools should be proactively driven –​by both the schools and the parents (Rattenborg et al, 2019). In some cases, parents may be positioned as co-​educators (Schaub, 2010; Ule et al, 2015). In reviewing the situation in the United Kingdom, Ball (2013) points to the expanding power of middle-​class parents in determining their children’s education, signalling a transfer of functions, activities, and responsibilities from institutions to the individual parent. While individual parental involvement is increasingly seen as necessary and promoted by various policies and structures within the education system, there is also a growing awareness of the role of collective parental involvement (OECD, 2019; Murray, 2020).

Collective parental involvement Parents’ collective involvement within schools, in which parents are invited and/​or expected to take part in school decision-​making and policymaking, occurs via different configurations, such as school councils (for example, Shatkin & Gershberg, 2007), school boards (Okaya, 2015), advisory councils, parent advocacy groups lobbying for school improvement, networks that link families to parent representatives (Epstein et al, 2018), or parent-​teacher governing bodies (for example, parent-​teacher associations [PTAs]/​parent-​teacher organisations [PTOs]) (Murray et al, 2019). Yet the literature provides little detail about how these various configurations work and their effects (Murray et al, 2019). The PTA/​ PTO structure is found in many countries, and it has shown that parents can assist in problem-​solving within schools, mobilise resources, and act as a bridge between the school and the parent community (Ozmen & Canpolat, 2010; Boro, 2015). Parents’ activities within the PTA/​ PTO often include organising fundraising events or cultural gatherings, planning extracurricular activities, and writing petitions (Lareau & Muñoz, 2012). PTAs/​PTOs have also been found to: place pressure on local and state politicians, ensuring that schools receive what they are entitled to according to state/​local regulations; write legal and financial contracts for services; and take an active part in leading significant changes in schools and their communities (Ball, 2012; Posey-​Maddox et al, 2014). Apparently, the range of the assets –​that is, the legal, financial, social, and cultural perspectives and knowledges –​that parents have are central to the added value they bring to the school community (Adler & Goggin, 2005; Cucchiara & Hovart, 2009; Ekundayo & Alonge, 2012; Gofen & Blomqvist, 2014; Posey-​Maddox et al, 2014). In many of the contexts that have been studied, parental involvement has been found to be focused on non-​academic issues, while mainly leaving educational decisions and curriculum planning in the hands of educational 12

Collective parental involvement

staff (Tatlah & Iqbal, 2011; Lareau & Muñoz, 2012). This is not to say that parents do not wish to become involved in influencing these pedagogical decisions, but that school staff have been shown to resist such moves. Parents’ collective involvement within schools is thus often dependent on the opportunities provided by school principals, as studies in the United States (US) (Lareau & Muñoz, 2012; Ng, 2013; Drake & Goldring, 2014; Epstein, 2010) and Hong Kong (Ho, 2009; Ng & Yuen, 2015) have shown. Parents’ collective involvement also varies across countries, depending on the formal responsibilities and roles they can hold (Troan, 2004; Tatlah & Iqbal, 2011; Borgonovi & Montt, 2012; Nir & Bogler, 2012). In a number of countries (for example, Austria, Finland, Germany, and Norway), parents are involved in ‘key aspects of the overall running of the education system, including for example, the allocation of the school’s budget, determination of the proportion of teaching and non-​teaching staff, the recruitment of staff (in some cases, also the selection of the head teacher), and the determination of curricula and teaching methods’ (Eurydice, 1997, p 16). Meanwhile, in other countries (such as Italy, the Netherlands, and Sweden), parents’ collective influence is much weaker because the formal structures do not insist on it. Beyond the school level, at the community or locality level, much less research has been done. Here too we can find diverse types of collective parental involvement. For example, Lawson and Alameda-​Lawson (2012) examined the work of community-​based organisations for low-​income Latino parents. These organisations were found to be tailored to the unique strengths, needs, and challenges of these communities and focused on enhancing the development of these parents’ social capital in their relationship with education institutions. These community-​based organisations sought to identify and build on their skills and desire for engagement so that this group of parents could also become involved in school-​based activities (such as the PTA/​PTO) and be agentic in their interactions with education staff and other school officials (see also Alameda-​Lawson & Lawson, 2019). Hence, parents can receive support from community organisations to learn how to organise, to address community-​level needs and barriers to their engagement with their children’s education (Alameda-​Lawson, 2014). Another type of collective parental involvement found in the literature is more ad hoc organised initiatives by parents, mostly from the affluent middle classes, who seek to demand change in policy. For instance, Avigur-​Eshel and Berkovich (2018) examined the mobilisation of middle-​class parents through social media as they sought to change education policies around providing better or free educational services for toddlers. A second example, highlighted by a national survey of 47 states in the US (Pizmony-​Levy & Saraisky, 2016), involved parents organising to challenge federally mandated educational assessments. 13

The Rise of External Actors in Education

Parental collective involvement in Israel In Israel, parents began to gain more power in schools during the 1990s following the decentralisation of education provision and the decision to increase parental ‘choice’ over which school they send their child to (Goldring & Shapira, 1993). However, in contrast to other countries (such as Denmark, Germany, and Ireland), collective parental involvement through the work of PTAs/​PTOs is not mandatory and has never been fully institutionalised within the education system in Israel (Shechtman & Busharian, 2015). Rather, parents have the right to decide to form a representative body of the parental school community (hereafter, parent representative [PR] body), but to date there is a lack of clear regulations around the various roles and responsibilities such PR bodies may take up (Troan, 2004). Therefore, their responsibilities and spheres of involvement are usually determined by the school principals. Thus, parents’ involvement in school decision-​making processes ranges widely, as can be seen in Figure 1.1, which is based on 2015 data from the Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development’s (OECD’s) Programme for International Assessment (PISA) and presents school principals’ views on which aspects of decision-​making parents should participate in. Figure 1.1 shows that according to principals, parents may be involved in decision-​making in relation to disciplinary issues all the way through to influencing the allocation of school resources (though only in connection with parents’ school fees). This picture is confirmed to some extent by parents, with 39 per cent reporting that they feel they are ‘partners’ in their children’s schools (RAMA, 2017). However, overall, schools in Israel have much more limited collective parental involvement than seen in other countries, and it tends to be limited to particular domains, such Figure 1.1: Suitable areas for parental participation via the parents’ representative body in schools, according to school principals Establishing students’ disciplinary policies Deciding on budget allocations within the school Formulating the school budget Establishing student assessment policies Deciding which courses are offered Approving students for admission to the school Firing teachers Selecting teachers for hire Choosing which textbooks are used Determining course content Determining teachers’ salary increases Establishing teachers’ starting salaries 0% Source: PISA 2015 data

14

20%

40%

60%

Collective parental involvement

as organising social events, collecting parent fees, and disseminating school information, while excluding parents from being involved in other issues, primarily those related to pedagogical issues or teachers’ work (Addi-R ​ accah & Friedman, 2019). In relation to parental collective involvement that extends beyond the school, parents have organised ad hoc groups to advocate for particular policies, such as reducing school size or influencing zoning decisions that determine which schools children can be enrolled in. As Goldring (1996) indicates, ‘parents in Israel have gained a voice in education by forming action committees … initiated by small groups of parents who mobilise a wider group of interested people from the public-​at-​large and other parents … to press [for] change’ (p 51). This type of activity is becoming more prominent.

The position of liminality Formally, parents are non-​system actors within the education system, but they are also highly engaged in education, as they seek to ensure that the appropriate services are in place for their children. As such, parents hold a liminal position by being in-​between. They are ‘outside’ the system, holding no formal role, but closely connected to and concerned with internal school processes. The concept of liminality derives from the Latin word limen, meaning ‘threshold’. Liminality was originally employed in anthropology to describe the experience of individuals undergoing ‘rites of passage’ (van Gennep, 1960) in order to identify and describe the transition from one social status to another. The transition or liminal stage is a position of in-​betweenness in which one is perceived not to possess the capacity (for example, in the form of knowledge) to participate fully within one’s social milieu (Turner, 1987; Hayton, 2018). According to Turner (1987), individuals experience liminality when they are situated within a blend of structures where different institutional conditions occur at the same time and there is an overlap of formal and informal dimensions. This can create a generative combination of institutional and anti-​institutional elements (Lindsay, 2010; Rantatalo & Lindberg, 2018). Liminality has been re-​conceptualised for the present time (Ibarra & Obodaru, 2016), argued to provide a description of the permanent state of life we experience today under the conditions of late modernity (Beck, 2000). As claimed by Söderlund and Borg (2018), it is an ‘ongoing state of affairs’ (p 888) of everyday life that is ‘neither this nor that’ (p 887), and it could describe the locatedness of different types of workers in an organisation. Liminality thus describes where individuals have no formal role within an organisation (Roberts et al, 2014; Fisher et al, 2018), but nonetheless have an influence in its workings. Such a definition could well describe 15

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the status of parents’ collective involvement within the Israeli education system. As already mentioned, they are positioned as in-​between: they are deeply involved in the education system through their children but have no formal role –​making them formally non-​system actors, but stakeholders with agency nonetheless. Being in a position of liminality can be associated with experiences of ambiguity, feeling like a stranger in an organisation within which they have shallow interactions (Bauman, 1995) and having loose formal ties, limited access to opportunities, a weak sense of belonging, and a sense of powerlessness (Garsten, 1999; Swan et al, 2016). On the other hand, liminality offers parents flexibility and freedom from organisational commitments and constraints; it can be seen as space which affords them the opportunity for innovation, creativity, and agency. Following Turner (1987), actors in a liminal position are free from structural obligations, which can encourage them to explore new possibilities (Swan et al, 2016) and enhance their innovative thinking (Gustavsson, 2018). Furthermore, since parents are not fully internal or external system actors, they are arguably more free to challenge social arrangements within the organisation (Borg & Söderlund, 2015). To examine the possibilities and constraints of parents’ liminal position, in this chapter I focus on two cases of collective parental involvement surrounding the provision of education in Israel –​the first focuses on the school level, while the second looks at the broader community/​local school district level. The cases are based on secondary analyses of two case studies undertaken previously (Addi-​Raccah & Friedman, 2019; Mor-​Barak et al, 2019). Through these two case studies, three questions are posed: 1. What were parents’ motives/​aims for collectively organising? 2. What did these parental collective initiatives do and achieve? 3. What was the extent of their sphere of influence within the education system?

Case 1: Parents collectively organising within a school The first case focuses on the PR body within schools. Interviewed were carried out with 11 chairs and 7 members of the PR bodies in 11 affluent elementary Jewish secular schools located in the centre of Israel, and PR body meetings were also observed (Addi-​Raccah & Friedman, 2019). The findings are presented in the remainder of this section. Motives/​targets Parents’ main motive for joining the PR body in their children’s schools was to gain benefits and preferential treatment for the children. However, as 16

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parents became more engaged in the PR body, motives based on self-​interest changed to a broader concern for the school. It “gradually became more and more significant” for them to seek to “affect the entire schools’ spirit” or to “have an impact on all school activities”. Their individual ambitions, therefore seemed to converge around developing a common vision that would make their school a better place for all children (also found by Posey-​ Maddox, 2013, for the US). Activities In school A central role of the PR body was representing the parents’ voice. The PR body was seen to provide a bridge between the school principal and parents, primarily through maintaining ongoing communication. To enable this function, the PR body organised meetings and initiated more informal gathering of views and dissemination of information, via conversations and occasional updates on WhatsApp or in emails, so that “everyone will have the opportunity to be updated as if he/​she were a member of the parents’ representative body”. Furthermore, parents were encouraged to contact the PR body regarding issues such as learning conditions (for example, class size), maintenance (for example, lighting, cleanliness), and the social climate in school (for example, the level of violence and bullying). Mediating between the school principal and parents required collaboration: “We do what we want … but we will not do anything against the school. We have to be together, make changes together.” The PR body also asked the school principal to respond to parents’ demands and critiques. In this context, the PR body “alerted” the school principal to emerging and problematic issues: “We try to alert the principal about them [the issues], but not to solve them … and [we] demand solutions.” For example, in one school, the PR body received information from different parents regarding their dissatisfaction about how an English teacher was instructing the children. The PR body informed the school principal and asked her to solve the problem, but did not intervene further on this pedagogical issue. The PR body was also found to manage parents’ resources. The PR body took charge of handling the fees paid by parents for the students’ welfare and extracurricular activities, and determined their allocation. In this respect, the PR body had some financial resources to facilitate its activities. The PR body also worked to identify other types of resources parents might be able to offer the school. As one parent explained: “I opened a professional phone book on Google Drive with the intention of mapping the parents and their professions, to see what they could contribute to the community.” In this context, parents’ resources served as a platform for parental initiatives and for introducing diverse projects, from additional extracurricular activities 17

The Rise of External Actors in Education

to road safety projects. In these circumstances, it can be argued that the PR body was proactive in leading changes within schools, but it did this without challenging prevailing school structures and power relations, since all actions needed to be approved by the school principals. We found no evidence that parents intervened in issues related to pedagogy. Although parents initiated and carried out a range of activities for the benefit of the school (such as setting up a library) or for the children (social activities), the scope for innovation was always under the direct control of the school principal. Out of school Despite the constraints experienced within schools, the PR bodies appeared to provide a power base from which to act, often together with other external agencies, to expand their own role beyond the school walls, where school principals could no longer determine the scope of their work. All PR bodies reported collaborating with the larger community by organising various community events, such as fundraising for charity, and initiating voluntary social projects, such as assisting disadvantaged groups. Several PR bodies mentioned that their vision was to create a larger community that their school would be part of. They considered it their role to make contributions that would benefit not only the children and their parents in school, but also their local neighbourhoods, the community at large, and other public spaces: “Our children are walking around in the communal public space, and therefore it is not relevant to the school.” In this context, the PR body took a communitarian approach and perceived the parents’ role as being for the advancement of all the children in the school: “I am on the committee because I know I can better promote things, I know I can bring more to the school and it is actually for the children”; “we want to connect the parents together so that the community will be better connected”. The PR bodies also engaged in political work through engaging with local educational authorities (LEAs). The PR bodies surveyed tended to mobilise and create alliances with LEAs. These relations were found to be critical for schools. As residents of the locality, members of the PR bodies often had “an open door” to local authority officials and could wield pressure on the LEAs: “It is more effective when it comes from a resident rather than from a school principal … we [the PR body] are comprised of 500 families, thus we can demand things [from the LEA] that schools cannot.” These relations with LEAs could be useful for schools in terms of raising funds for special projects or demanding upgrades to services, such as planting gardens or improving road safety. Moreover, school principals often asked for assistance from PR bodies when they were negotiating with LEAs, since parents, as residents, held political sway. At the same time, by appealing to senior officials in LEAs, the members of the PR bodies were in a position to advance their 18

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own interests, which sometimes differed from those of the principals. These practices are in line with findings from prior studies (Wanat, 2010) showing that the PR body does not “rubber stamp” the decisions of the school principal. Rather, relations with external stakeholders can become sources of information, knowledge, support, and power for parents. Influences Our analysis reveals that the PR bodies had a dual nature. First, they maintained close relations with the school principals, who set constraints over the role they can play and the influence they can have. PR body members acknowledged that they did not act against the school or without the school principal’s approval. That is, the PR body was co-​opted into the school and, thus, subordinate to the school principal’s authority (as argued by Malen & Cochran, 2008, for instance). This meant that most PR body members felt they were supportive but not central stakeholders within the school. They acknowledged that their influence was small, second to those who did the skilful professional work, namely the schoolteachers and school staff: “We support the school from the margins … we will not credit ourselves for the achievements.” Other members of the PR bodies wanted more influence in the schools: “I would have been happy to see the PR [body] as a central axis –​have more influence, set agendas in advance, state ‘this is what we want to achieve.’ ” Second, the PR body members had their own resources and drew on social networks to leverage power for their interactions with school principals and external school agencies (Alameda-​Lawson & Lawson, 2019). In this context, the PR body members demonstrated significant freedom to promote initiatives and manage their own relations with a diverse set of external agencies. By being situated both in and out of schools, that is, by holding a liminal position with few clearly demarcated and set responsibilities, the PR bodies served to bolster the schools’ resources and activities –​both internally, by providing additional capacity, and externally, as intermediaries between schools and diverse agencies, which could wield significant sway within the political arena of the local authorities/​school districts.

Case 2: Parents’ involvement at the locality level In Israel, there have been a few instances of parents investing efforts to affect policy change in education at the local or state levels (Gofen & Blomqvist, 2014; Avigur-​Eshel & Berkovich, 2018). To examine these relatively rare occurrences, I present a case study of Choosing Education (CE), a social movement established by parents in one locality. The CE movement was established in an ad hoc manner against the backdrop of local elections, when parents saw an opportunity for exercising political pressure around educational 19

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provision for children with special needs. Interviews were conducted with ten of the parents who had founded the movement (Mor-​Barak et al, 2019). Motives/​targets As with the members of PR bodies, parents decided to join the CE movement for personal reasons, motivated by the challenges their children encountered in seeking a good education. They were frustrated at the education system’s inability to respond to their children’s special needs and concerned that the teaching and learning methods used in schools appeared to be decreasing their children’s curiosity and motivation to learn. As the father of a Grade 1 student explained: “He [the child] decided that school was boring, he didn’t want to go to school … so I said, if this happens after a month in first grade, something here, something is not good.” Parents argued that there was a gap between their expectations of schools and what was actually being provided. However, as well as voicing their personal concerns, parents also reflected critically on the education system more broadly. They argued that teaching and learning methods were out of date, focused mainly on transmitting knowledge, and that present-​day schools were not relevant enough to the 21st century and the skills and knowledge their children needed now. As one participant said: “education has gone bankrupt, [parents] understand that education must undergo change”. Parents were also disappointed with the LEA. They did not feel that the LEA invested enough in innovating their education provision. They indicated that for a long time they had appealed to the LEA to open more progressive schools in the community; however, the LEA had turned them down or suggested minor or negligible changes to the provision. Hence, organising the movement served to address the LEA’s lack of action and was an opportunity to become more involved in their children’s education. One parent explained, “Education begins at home and it is not separated from school”; another added, “it is impossible to make a complete separation between home and school”. On this matter, parents reflected on their ambiguous position in the education system and their feeling of being in-​between: “The school limits parents from being involved … while its operation is based on the fact that I am sending my child there.” Overall, parents expressed the need for a significant change: “We want a real revolution, a paradigm shift, and that’s huge”; “a revolution must be made here, it cannot be that it continues like this, so that is the goal”. Activities and strategies The members of the CE movement engaged in two strands of activity –​ one within the movement itself and the other with actors outside of the movement, particularly the LEA.

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Within the movement: building a community Within the movement, parents aimed to collaboratively develop a new educational agenda for the local schooling provision, framing it as a new educational vision. They were seeking a paradigm change, wishing to promote a more progressive education that incorporated the development of skills relevant for the 21st century. To aid them in this process, the parents established a learning community to share knowledge, ideas, and information so as to learn about educational theory, read educational research, and hear about progressive education practices. One parent reported: “I actually got into some kind of serious research trying to figure out what’s, like what’s going on here. I also researched education to hear what is good and what is not good.” The parents also invited experts in education to meet with them, and they “travelled to visit different schools in Israel and met with education leaders”. Building such a learning community enabled the members of the movement to gain knowledge around educational innovations that was needed to develop their vision, and a shared commitment to delivering on this (King, 2008). Although this process involved conflicts, feelings of resentment, and heated debates, there was a consensus among parents about the need to help deliver a profound educational change in their locality. In this case, parents also defined their role vis-​à-​vis the local education system and schools: ‘the role of parents in schools is to demand the kind of education they want to receive, not to dictate to the schools how they are supposed to achieve it. … Parents cannot know what it means to teach in a classroom. … On the other hand, as parents, they have the right to demand the type of education they want their children to receive … after all, children belong to their parents first, and then to the school; and it is something that education staff find very difficult to accept.’ This argument reinforced the liminal position of parents. They had the ability to bring about change but did not have the professional capacity to implement it. By constructing a community, they hoped at least to equip themselves with the necessary knowledge to be able to make a detailed, evidence-​based, informed proposal for educational change. An additional, but critical, hallmark of the movement was its flat structure, encouraging everyone to have a voice. By employing an informal network structure, it was possible to mobilise parents to take part in the movement, create an alliance among them, and enhance their sense of belonging to the movement (King, 2008).

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Relations with external actors To gain influence over the education sphere and mobilise additional support, the members of the movement sought to raise awareness among parents across the locality and among policymakers, about their concerns and proposals for change. They disseminated the knowledge they had accumulated to the community through social media –​WhatsApp groups and Facebook –​ diverse publications, and home meetings: “We work with the parents … we want the public in the locality to know what education is about, and we go from house to house doing dozens of home meetings until everyone speaks education.” Furthermore, the movement members sought to maintain with both the LEA and the locality’s residents a process of public dialogue that prioritised education and enhanced a collective sense of responsibility for education: “we really try to work from a place of dialogue … we want to work hand in hand, and that’s how we believe things will happen”. In this context, the movement succeeded in developing a bottom-​up education agenda (Flecha, 2011). The vision developed by CE through their research and debates was subsequently presented to the LEA. At the same time, parents used their political power during a critical election period to establish the need for educational reform to be a central platform for all the political candidates. As a member of the movement said: “The greatest achievement for me … is the fact that in the election campaign, the issue of education was the main agenda.” Another member reported, “we worked to make this issue very, very significant in the election, I think we prepared the ground”. Indeed, education turned out to be a “strong card” during the municipal election campaign. This was an opportunity for parents to demand and put pressure on the locality to lead and implement educational reforms and innovations. The parents in the movement emphasised that their goal was to offer the educational authorities an innovative set of education policies, which the local education officials should then determine how to implement, because, as they explained: “We cannot, we are not professionals. … We need to provide the backup, platform and pressure. We have raised the issue of education and it is really now in the hands of the professionals. … The role of parents is not to change the system, the role of parents is to reach out to someone who has the knowledge to do it, and who will do it.” Influence Although parents were not in a position to formulate policy, they had the political power to have a voice. In this regard, parents in the movement were a catalyst for change who put pressure on those responsible for the delivery of innovations within education. They “put 22

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effort into convincing the LEA to lead the change in the locality”, and “they spurred the locality to do things”. This approach stemmed from their liminal position. They dared to expose the problems within the education system and were also able to suggest new educational directions that could be pursued while, at the same time, not having to take responsibility for implementation. The movement was able to directly influence the election by shaping the key agenda over which it was ultimately fought. The election led to a new mayor, who supported the movement’s proposals. According to the parents in the movement, “We have recognised that it is possible to think of a different education”, and “the discourse has changed unequivocally, the local authority is completely committed to it”. Such outcomes have been recorded in other parts of Israel as well (Yair, 2004). I argue that in this case, the parents who formed the collective took on a legitimate role as an external actor and were able to directly shape local educational policy.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have argued that, as observed in Israel, once a group of parents who are motivated to improve education provision for their children come together and work collectively, they can be conceptualised as an external actor, or a non-​system actor (Coburn, 2005). That is, parents collaborate with but are not formal actors in public educational systems. Parents tend to support the work of educators (for example, that of school principals) or to advocate for or against particular educational agendas, but they do not have a formal role within the school system (Honig, 2009), and they do not always have the necessary power to demand or implement desired changes. Because they do not hold a formal position within schools or within the localities as recognised formal stakeholders, they actually operate within a liminal space –​being both within and on the outside. Their liminal status enables parents to act as a catalyst for educational change. While pursuing change occurs with varying degrees of success, this group of actors have the flexibility, based on this position of liminality, to respond to different contextual conditions. The first case study –​examining the work of PR bodies across 11 schools –​found that parents as a group are able to instigate ‘first-​order change’ (Watzlawick et al, 2011), where change occurs within an existing structure or the focus is on making an existing process better and/​or making an incremental change. In the second case study –​collective organisation at the locality level –​parents were invested in developing a new vision for the provision of education, thus demanding a more fundamental, or ‘second-​ order’, change, which is more profound than first-​order change. When parents act as a collective outside the boundaries of the school, they can have 23

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a larger impact, because in these contexts they take the role of an external actor with less constraints than those operating in schools. Across both contexts –​within schools and outside of schools –​parents liminal position allowed them to play a ‘brokering role’ in asking for change either within or outside of current provision (DeBray et al, 2020; Yemini & Maxwell, 2020). Their liminal role appeared to have the most influence when they sought to operate outside the individual school structure, as they had fewer constraints and could bring their potential political power to bear as they organised themselves collectively. Although this required far more work to be successful, when it was, large changes were possible. In contrast, the brokering role within schools –​between the parents and the principals –​led to more modest changes, but these were swifter in their impact and required less effort. Critical in both case studies was that the parents’ power lay in their right to vote and elect local governments (Yair, 2004) and to their professional and social networks across the community. At the school level, parents’ political power and networks enabled them to mediate and create alliances between schools and external agencies, such as the LEA, through which schools could gain resources or policy change could be achieved to benefit the school. At the locality level, collective parental political power was able to shape the educational agenda more broadly, in this case affecting the outcome of the local election. Here, parents acted to delegitimise incumbent local politicians and to elect individuals willing to deliver on the parents’ vision for a new type of education. Central to both cases was parents’ understanding of and support for the notion that the educators are the professionals and should be responsible for implementing change. While the parents’ liminal position enabled them to instigate the need for discussion, it did so without parents having to commit themselves to seeing their proposed changes through to implementation (Söderlund & Borg, 2018). Thus, parents become a source of inspiration and stimulated ideas, and they might, as in the PR bodies, do some of the work; but ultimately it is the school principals and local policymakers that have to agree to and deliver on new ideas. Understood in this way, we can see how parents can be conceptualised as external actors –​having power but not the ultimate responsibility to deliver education (see also Gali & Schechter, 2020 for NGOs). Unlike many other external actors (for example, NGOs or business interests), parents are ‘here to stay’ because of their ongoing involvement in their children’s education. Parents, it could be argued, are permanent external actors in relation to schools. What really sets parents apart from many other external actors, and what embeds their potential power to determine education provision, is their access to political power, which they can draw on to position themselves and to leverage their continuous relations with 24

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the schools. However, as a caveat to this power, these actors –​the parents –​ often lack the appropriate professional knowledge to propose solutions and to see through the implementation of innovations (Lubienski & Perry, 2019). Thus, their liminality continues to set them apart from other kinds of external actors, both facilitating their role and limiting it –​that is, unless they organise collectively and invest significant time in becoming expert and drawing on their social and professional networks to become legitimate (external) actors within education. References Addi-​Raccah, A. (2006) ‘School leaders’ collaboration with external school agencies’, International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management, 6 (2): 27–​36. Addi-​Raccah, A. & Friedman, N. (2019) ‘A liminal approach to parents in leadership positions in schools with students of high socioeconomic background in Israel’, Journal of Educational Administration, 58 (1): 111–​96. Adler, R.P. & Goggin, J. (2005) ‘What do we mean by “civic engagement”?’, Journal of Transformative Education, 3 (3): 236–​53. Alameda-​Lawson, T. (2014) ‘A pilot study of collective parent engagement and children’s academic achievement’, Children & Schools, 36 (4): 199–​209. Alameda-​Lawson, T. & Lawson, M.A. (2019) ‘Ecologies of collective parent engagement in urban education’, Urban Education, 54 (8): 1085–​120. Avigur-​Eshel, A. & Berkovich, I. (2018) ‘Who “likes” public education: social media activism, middle-​class parents, and education policy in Israel’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 39 (6): 844–​59. Bakker, J.T.A. & Denessen, E.J.P.G. (2007) ‘The concept of parent involvement: some theoretical and empirical considerations’, International Journal about Parents in Education, 1: 188–​99. Ball, S.J. (2012) The Micro-​politics of the School: Toward a Theory of School Organization. London: Routledge. Ball, S.J. (2013) Policy and Politics in the Twenty-​first Century: Education Debate (2nd edn). Bristol: Policy Press. Ball, S.J. & Youdell, D. (2008) Hidden Privatization in Public Education. Brussels: Education International. Bauman, Z. (1995) Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality. Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell. Beck, U. (2000) The Brave New World of Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boonk, L., Gijselaers, H.J.M., Ritzen, H. & Brand-​Gruwel, S. (2018) ‘A review of the relationship between parental involvement indicators and academic achievement’, Educational Research Review, 24: 10–​30.

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Gali, Y. & Schechter, C. (2020) ‘NGO involvement in education policy: principals’ voices’, International Journal of Educational Management, 34 (10): 1525–​9. Garsten, C. (1999) ‘Betwixt and between: temporary employees as liminal subjects in flexible organizations’, Organization Studies, 20 (4): 601–​17. Gerrard, J. (2018) ‘Whose public, which public? The challenge for public education’, Critical Studies in Education, 59 (2): 204–​17. Gofen, A. & Blomqvist, P. (2014) ‘Parental entrepreneurship in public education: a social force or a policy problem?’, Journal of Education Policy, 29 (4): 546–​69. Goldring, E.B. (1996) ‘Environmental adaptation and selection: where are the parents and the public?’, in R.L. Crowson, W.L. Boyd & H.B. Mawhinney (eds) The Politics of Education and the New Institutionalism, Washington, DC: The Falmer Press, 43–​53. Goldring, E.B. & Shapira, R. (1993) ‘Choice, empowerment and involvement: what satisfies parents?’, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 15 (4): 396–​409. Gustavsson, T.K. (2018) ‘Liminal roles in construction project practice: exploring change through the roles of partnering manager, building logistic specialist and BIM coordinator’, Construction Management and Economics, 36 (11): 599–​610. Hallinger, P. (2018) ‘Bringing context out of the shadows of leadership’, Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 46 (1): 5–​24. Hargreaves, A. & Harris, A. (2015) ‘High performance leadership in unusually challenging educational circumstances’, Eesti Haridusteaduste Ajakiri. Estonian Journal of Education, 3 (1): 28–​49. Harvey, D. (2005) Neoliberalism: A Brief History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hayton, J. (2018) ‘“They do treat us as a bit normal now”: Students’ experiences of liminality and communitas whilst volunteering on a sports-​ based outreach project’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 53 (7): 869–​89. Ho, E.S.C. (2009) ‘Educational leadership for parental involvement in an Asian context: insights from Bourdieu’s theory of practice’, School Community Journal, 19 (2): 101–​22. Honig, M.I. (2009) ‘“External” organizations and the politics of urban educational leadership: the case of new small autonomous schools initiatives’, Peabody Journal of Education, 84 (3): 394–​413. Hoy, W.K. & Miskel, C.G. (2008) Educational Administration: Theory, Research, and Practice. Boston: McGraw-​Hill. Ibarra, H. & Obodaru, O. (2016) ‘Betwixt and between identities: liminal experience in contemporary careers’, Research in Organizational Behavior, 36: 47–​64. 27

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When teachers become the external actor: private tutoring and endogenous privatisation in Cambodia Hang M. Le and D. Brent Edwards, Jr

Introduction In Cambodia, the majority of students participate in private tutoring provided by public school teachers to their own students –​a phenomenon called rien kuo. In a survey of 1,274 students in grades 9 and 12, Bray and colleagues found that 75 per cent of Grade 9 students and 89.8 per cent of Grade 12 students were attending rien kuo (Bray et al, 2016; Bray et al, 2018). For these students, private tutoring is just as essential as formal schooling. Without tutoring, students would not be able to pass crucial exams and advance in the education system. Given that rien kuo functions as a natural extension of the mainstream public schooling system, Brehm and Silova (2014) argue that Cambodian education can be accurately described as a hybrid public-​ private education system. The rien kuo phenomenon is an interesting but under-​examined example of the ongoing neoliberalisation and privatisation of education worldwide, especially the growing and complex influence of ‘external actors’ on educational policy, provision, governance, and outcomes (Ball & Junemann, 2012; Verger et al, 2016; Lubienski & Perry, 2019). The case of private tutoring in Cambodia addresses a situation where actors internal to the school system (teachers) are incentivised to act in ways that are considered typical of ‘external’ actors; that is, engaging in profit-​seeking behaviour by charging fees to their students. While the literature on the growing influence of external actors in education has often focused on for-​profit businesses or non-​profit and third-​sector organisations, this chapter extends the concept of ‘external actor’ by introducing this hybrid case where the teacher operates in both an internal and external capacity. It identifies the context and factors giving rise to this dual role by describing the integral nature of private tutoring to student progression in school and the ‘endogenous privatisation’ (Ball & Youdell, 2009) this has prompted. Our findings demonstrate how teachers acting in external capacities can have great impact on teacher and student motivation, curriculum and pedagogy, assessment, and broad 31

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expectations of public schooling through the introduction of market-​oriented mindsets and mechanisms into education and, more specifically, the teacher-​ student relationship. This chapter draws on data collected in a two-​and-​a-​half-​year study of student retention and dropout in Cambodia. This followed students as they transitioned from primary school (Grade 6) to lower secondary school (Grade 9) –​a period when private tutoring is increasingly important for academic success. The study included three rounds of data collection in ten communities (three urban, three rural, and four remote). In each community, ten student-​parent pairs were interviewed once at the end of Grade 6, once in the middle of Grade 8, and for a final time in the middle of Grade 9. Narrative methods were used to understand both the role of private tutoring in students’ schooling experience and the implications of private tutoring in students’ lives more generally. Cross-​case analysis was then used to generate insights about private tutoring practices that are common across study participants.1 As the original study did not include interviews with teachers, we supplemented our findings with other studies that have examined the voices and perspectives of Cambodian teachers (for example, VSO Cambodia, 2008; Brehm, 2015; Ogisu & Williams, 2016).

Privatisation and neoliberal mindsets: discussion of key concepts In recent years, the literature on privatisation in education has acknowledged not only its explosion worldwide but also the diverse and context-​specific mechanisms through which this process has been unfolding (Ball & Youdell, 2009; Ball & Junemann, 2012; Verger et al, 2016; Edwards & Means, 2019; Potterton et al, 2020). Forms of privatisation can be distinguished according to the categories of ‘endogenous privatisation’ (privatisation in education), which encourages the adoption of market and business logics and practices in education, and ‘exogenous privatisation’ (privatisation of education), which opens up education as a marketspace for private actors to explicitly join as service providers (Ball & Youdell, 2009). Recent research has shown an increasingly complicated landscape of education governance in which the lines between public and private are more and more blurred and there is a growing ‘third space’ of actors independent from the government and at least partially oriented towards the social good (Lubienski & Perry, 2019). Some assumptions driving privatisation include that: the traditional approach to public education needs to be disrupted; competition, innovation, and other logics derived from the private sector can spur educational improvement; and collaboration and partnership must be strengthened to resolve issues when states do not have enough resources to invest in education. In different contexts, these ideas are mediated by diverse actors and processes (agentic 32

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and structural, global and local, material and ideational, and so on), creating distinct processes of privatisation, with geographically different manifestations between the Global North and Global South (Verger et al, 2016). The literature on privatisation in low-​income contexts in the Global South has often focused on the rise of low-​fee private schools and new public-​private partnerships based on provision of school vouchers or access to charter schools (Menashy, 2013). A much less commonly examined dimension of education privatisation is the rapid growth worldwide of supplementary education, often called ‘shadow education’ (Mori & Baker, 2010; Bray & Kwo, 2013). Although ‘shadow’ might be an imperfect label, it captures how this system of private tutoring activities mimics, draws on, and extends the curriculum of the official school system while remaining generally unnoticed in discussions of education policies and practice (Bray, 2017). Supplementary education manifests in diverse forms around the world, including East Asian ‘cram’ schools (Dierkes, 2013), in-​person and online tutoring franchises (Ventura & Jang, 2010), coaching colleges (Doherty & Dooley, 2018), and private tutoring classes offered by public school teachers to their own students (common in places such as Myanmar, India, and Cambodia) (Gupta, 2019; Kobakhidze, 2020). The global growth of private tutoring has been linked to two central dynamics: eroding trust in mainstream education and intensification of academic competition through high-​stakes testing and heightened social competition at large (Silova, 2009; Bray & Kwo, 2013). In low-​resource contexts like Cambodia, an additional driver is the influence of international actors and global educational agendas. Donors have pushed for the rapid universalisation of access to schooling, driven by Global Education for All imperatives, while still enforcing neoliberal policies of reducing government expenditure and promoting privatisation. This has led to double shifting in schools, low teacher pay, low quality, and the transfer of educational costs to households (Brehm & Aktas, 2019). These structural dynamics have incentivised teachers to provide private tutoring classes to their own students before or after school hours, a form of endogenous privatisation as conceptualised by Ball and Youdell (2009). In these cases, the interweaving of public and private interests has been linked to the rise of commodification, competition, individualisation, and self-​entrepreneurship (Gupta, 2019; Kobakhidze, 2020). This observation necessitates a grounding of this phenomenon within the impact of neoliberalism as a whole. In education, the concept of neoliberalism is often used to refer to policies that promote a small state bureaucracy, reduction of government budgets, elimination of trade barriers, and the transfer of state control and financing of public sector activities such as education to the private sector (Klees, 2008). In that private tutoring in the education sector follows a market logic, and in that it can be seen as a means for transferring costs to private 33

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citizens, rien kuo can indeed be labelled a neoliberal practice in Cambodia (Edwards & Klees, 2015). However, in this chapter, we see neoliberalism not only as a set of policies but also as an unfolding process operating at the level of everyday action and subjectivities by spreading neoliberal mindsets as commonsensical strategies for survival and thriving in life (Ong, 2007; Ball & Olmedo, 2013; Ball, 2016). Aihwa Ong (2007) argues that neoliberalism is above all a technique of (re)directing individual and social behaviour for global capitalism’s optimisation of profits. As such, one of its main sites of power and struggle would be at the level of human subjectivities, where neoliberalism encroaches on mindsets, decisions, beliefs, and moral values, toward the enactment of a ‘new type of individual’, the ‘enterprising subject’ (Lazzarato, 2009; Ball & Olmedo, 2013). The mechanism of power here is not direct pressure but rather ‘governmentality’, meaning that key neoliberal principles such as individualisation, insecuritisation, depoliticisation, and the transformation of social values into economic ones exert their power through guiding the ‘conduct’ of individuals from a distance (Rose & Miller, 1992; Ball & Olmedo, 2013). Taking this perspective, rien kuo is not only a product of but also a site and a driver for the incursion of market-​oriented mindsets into education, where it reshapes existing relationships and values toward the prioritisation of self-​interest and self-​responsibility. In private tutoring, neoliberal governmentality can manifest in the following ways. First, it is the appearance of entrepreneurial mindsets as teachers find new ways to make additional money from their role, such as using their public teacher credentials to offer private tutoring classes, either to their own students or via contracts with tutoring centres (Gupta, 2019; Kobakhidze, 2020). Dawson (2009) documents the various ‘tricks of the trade’ that teachers in Cambodia use, ranging from withholding curriculum content in official school hours to offering more applied exercises in the rien kuo classes. Second, the prevalence of private tutoring depends on and also perpetuates an instrumental perspective of education as a means of investment in the self in order to compete in the future labour market (Kelly, 2006). Indeed, attending rien kuo is often explicitly framed as an ‘investment’ by parents and students (Bray et al, 2016). Third, engaging in private tutoring is dependent on the idea of self-​responsibility for one’s education and life, and the optimisation of choices. This self-​responsiblisation is conditioned by the neoliberal transformation of the collective understanding of who is the main actor responsible for ensuring a good education, with the shift being from the state to the individual. In this case, the private tutoring market is where both students and teachers address the failures of the mainstream education system by taking the matter into their own hands; students use it to further their academic competitiveness, while teachers use it to solve their professional precarity (Doherty & Dooley, 2018; Gupta, 2019). Fourth, the everyday educational experience is reshaped into one 34

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full of calculative rationality, managerialism, and performativity, where everyone is proficient at calculating costs and benefits and measuring up to benchmarks, but unable to make sense of the meaning and purpose of their actions (Ball & Olmedo, 2013). Fifth, this has major consequences on the students’ and teachers’ subjectivities and relationships, particularly through the desacralisation of the teaching profession and the transformation of the teacher-​student relationship into a commercial one between service providers and customers (Kobakhidze, 2020). This chapter contributes to the literature on privatisation, private tutoring, and external agents in education by describing the specific manifestation of neoliberalism and neoliberal mindsets in this hybrid public-​private phenomenon, where teachers have also become a hybrid internal-​external actor.

Context: Cambodia and private tutoring While in recent decades Cambodia has had successes in expanding access to schooling, it still faces substantial issues in terms of retention, quality, equity, and student achievement (Brehm et al, 2012; Ogisu & Williams, 2016). For example, in the 2014 Grade 12 national examination, which had strict anti-​cheating controls, only 26 per cent of candidates were able to pass first time (Kelsall et al, 2016). These issues can be linked to low government spending on education. Total government expenditure on education in 2018 accounted for only 2.16 percent of gross domestic product, considerably lower than the general target of 6 percent (UNESCO, 2020). In 2013, public spending only covered about 40 percent of total education costs, and households had to shoulder the remaining expenses, which were mainly informal fees (Brehm, 2016). This translates to low teacher salaries –​on average, these are only about 60 percent of the income of other professionals with similar qualifications –​and many teachers in Cambodia take on second jobs to support their basic livelihoods (Tandon & Fukao, 2015). Accordingly, many teachers supplement their livelihoods by offering rien kuo lessons. These lessons can be expensive, especially for families in rural areas. Previous studies have reported that the average per-​student monthly cost for attending rien kuo is KHR 50,000 (US$12.25), which is about 15 percent of the average monthly per capita income in Cambodia, though this amount of course represents a much larger percentage for students from the most marginalised families (Bray et al, 2018). Even so, for most parents and students, whether to attend rien kuo or not is not a real choice given that it is widely considered to be a necessary extension of the public education system (Brehm & Silova, 2014). Rien kuo classes are important to prepare the students for multiple high-​stakes examinations throughout their schooling trajectory, including monthly in-​class examinations, semester examinations held twice a year in grades 35

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6, 9, and 12, and national examinations at the end of Grade 9 to enter high school at the end of Grade 12 to graduate from high school. Many students believe that they must attend their teachers’ rien kuo classes in order to succeed academically. There is some truth to this. Brehm et al (2012) have found that on average, students who attend rien kuo tend to score twice as high on the monthly exams as those who do not. In general, previous research has attributed the dominance of rien kuo to the intersection of varied dynamics: (1) low teacher salaries; (2) competitive exam systems; (3) parents seeing education as an ‘investment’; (4) peer pressure (as there is a social class stigma attached with not participating); (5) large class sizes, short school days, and overloaded curriculums (private tutoring offers instruction in smaller groups and allows the teacher to cover the parts of the curriculum that do not fit in public class time); (6) teacher absenteeism (often due to the need for a second job); and (7) student demand for rote drills to prepare for exams, which can only be provided during private tutoring sessions (Bray et al, 2016; Brehm & Aktas, 2019). Some of these are common in other contexts, especially the desire to increase academic competitiveness and to prepare for national examinations. This chapter demonstrates how, in Cambodia, these dynamics incentivise the transformation of education into a hybrid marketspace governed by the neoliberal mindset among teachers, students, and parents alike. In particular, we show the serious consequences on the educational experience as Cambodian teachers become internal-​ external actors in this hybrid marketspace.

Findings This section first provides an overview of rien kuo and why these private lessons are so important to students and parents in Cambodia. Then, we document the impact of this system on curriculum and pedagogy, teacher-​ student relationships, and the rise of self-​entrepreneurship among both teachers and students. Although the findings are presented here under different themes, these mechanisms of influence are mutually constitutive and work together to reshape the entire educational system. Motivations to Participate in Rien Kuo The importance of attending rien kuo was taken for granted by students and their parents. The closer students got to key transitional points in their education (in grades 9 and 12), the more private tutoring classes they attended. By the time they reached Grade 9, they were typically in two to six lessons per week, and the lessons also extended from one to two hours a day to three hours daily. In lower grades, most students focused on English, Math, and Khmer, but older students tended to emphasise science 36

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courses. Some families invested in rien kuo for all subjects, but even among those who did not, there was recognition of the importance of all subjects. One parent said, “I told [my child] to take the important course only but all the course[s]‌are important” (LHR2P2).2 Private tutoring classes for transitional grades tend to be more expensive, about double the cost of lessons for other grades. One common sentiment among respondents was that if you did not attend private tutoring, you would not be able to keep up in school. One student said, “In Grade 7, if we don’t study private class, we cannot catch up” (LHR2P1). Another student said that in the rien kuo classes, “We can learn more and understand what we don’t pick up in public classes” (LHR3S7). These private tutoring lessons are deemed essential to students’ grasp of the materials: “it is hard to understand if we do not take private class” (LHR3S6). As students and parents expressed repeatedly, in private tutoring information is presented more clearly and teachers explain the content in more detail. Teachers also use the time afforded by private tutoring to provide practice problems for which they do not have (or do not make) time in public class. As another study by Ogisu (2016) found, class time in public schools is often taken up by students copying a few lines, distilled from textbooks, from the chalkboard while teachers provide some lecturing. The importance of rien kuo lies also in the advantages it gives to students when taking exams. According to one respondent, “all students know” that when they participate in private tutoring, they will get higher grades, because teachers provide similar exercises in the private lessons (LHR2S1). There is a widespread perception that students who do not attend rien kuo will not do well in their exams; for example, one student observed that “students who did not take the private tutoring class mostly failed the exam” (LHR3S2). While public classes use government textbooks, in private tutoring lessons, teachers give out practice problems that will appear in or be adapted for the monthly exams, which are written and administered by the teachers. In the words of a student from a remote area, “[the teacher] only adjusts [the exercise] and then it appears on exam day. It is just an adjustment to make it easy to follow for students” (LHR2S10). Impact on curriculum and pedagogy Other studies on private tutoring in Cambodia have found that ‘entrepreneurial’ teachers employ certain ‘tricks’ to increase the importance of rien kuo, such as only covering parts of the official curriculum in the private lessons or offering more content relevant to the exams in these classes (Dawson, 2009). Brehm and Aktas (2019) argue that this is not necessarily an example of teacher self-​entrepreneurialism; rather, because of the structural issue of double-​shifting in Cambodia, with schooling for only 37

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half-​days, teachers have to shift parts of the curriculum to rien kuo classes to ensure that they are covering all the required content. Nevertheless, many participants in this study did note distinct differences in curriculum and pedagogy between public and private classes. For example, teachers did withhold some of the information from standard classes and only covered this in their rien kuo classes. According to one student, in private tutoring their physics teacher would give out the formulas needed to solve exercises, but in public school classes he would “tell [a few formulas] but not much” (LHR3S5). Another consistent theme is that teachers tend to be more patient in explaining the materials until the students understand: “She/​he explains us until we [could] well understand” (LHR2S10). A student elaborated on how one teacher would provide more detailed explanation in the rien kuo classes than when teaching at school: “He explained more than [in] the public class and sometimes he explained [for] more than one hour [though] the time we studied was only one hour” (LHR3S5), whereas at school, this same teacher provided little explanation because of limited time. In addition, the materials used in private tutoring classes were more diverse than those available in schools. The content and practice problems, especially those used for exam preparation, were taken not only from the textbooks but also from other sources. One respondent said, “When the teacher taught [in public school] he won’t teach the student except from the public book … [the] tutor class has the exam in addition to this” (LHR2S1). Most of the applied learning, including practice problems, is also shifted to private tutoring lessons. “In public class, they do a little exercise and in the private class they do more exercise that can make the students more understand” (LHR2P3). Instead of focusing on the content of exercises, teachers would emphasise the ‘methods’ for solving them and the key information that students should remember (LHR2P1). One parent explained that even if the same topics are covered in the schools and private sessions, ‘when you study in the public class it has only 40 minutes to study and learn the lesson, then if you go to study in the private class, you can get one more exercise that can make you more understanding. … In the public class, it has the short time; in the public class he does one exercise at 40 minutes to 50 minutes, and when he studies at the private class, he does another 40–​50 minutes or one hour, so he gets more.’ (LHR2P3) Some teachers also choose to teach ahead in the rien kuo classes, covering material before it comes up in public school classes. One student said, “In the public class, he put [up] the same exercise as in the private class, 38

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so I can understand it” (LHR2S4). In this way, teaching in public schools can become a purely performative exercise, with the real learning already having been achieved in private tutoring sessions. This would also mean that students attending rien kuo appear better able to grasp the materials and have higher academic performance, because they are effectively studying the same materials twice (LHR3P5). Shifts in teacher-​student relations One interesting effect of this hybrid situation is the changing relations of authority and power, as students become less afraid of teachers in rien kuo contexts. Many students reported feeling more comfortable with asking questions: “During the private tutoring, the students can ask many questions and the teacher provides a detailed explanation and [it is] clearer than [in] the public hours” (LHR3S2). Even when they had questions while in school, some participants said they would choose to wait until the private tutoring classes to approach the teachers: “when you have questions, you don’t raise them immediately [in public class] and you ask them in your private tutoring classes” (LHR3S4). As mentioned, in private tutoring, teachers tended to be much more patient and provided explanation until the students understood, even if they went beyond class time. Indeed, one student stated that teachers may not provide additional explanation in public classes, even when students have the courage to ask questions: “In class in public school, [the teacher] only explains some of the exercises he gives. Only clever and outstanding students can keep up, and for those who don’t understand and ask him to explain again, he doesn’t. But in his private tutoring class … he does” (LHR3S4). In the words of another student, “During the private tutoring class, students dare to ask questions, but in public they don’t. … They’re afraid of the teacher, so they don’t have the courage to talk with the teacher” (LHR3S5). Another study has also found that in school, students know that the teachers may punish them for having the wrong answer (Brehm et al, 2012). In the example here, it is interesting to note that this was the same teacher the student was interacting with in the private tutoring session. There is something about the contextual shift from the public school setting to a private lesson that makes students less afraid of talking to the teachers. There appears to be a sense that when teachers offer private tutoring, students and parents have more right to place demands on teachers (this is discussed in the next section). In some cases, private tutoring also leads teachers to show preferential treatment to selected students in their public classrooms. Some students reported that teachers would be biased in their grading of exams, favouring those who attend rien kuo. “Even for the outstanding students, the teacher 39

The Rise of External Actors in Education

give bias score to them if they do not take private class” (LHR3S2). Another student elaborated, ‘Yes, the teacher did bias. For example, during the examination of Geography, the teacher allowed the students who take private tutoring class [to] open the book and answer sheets, but he did not allow [the same] for the students who did not take the private tutoring class. Teachers [are] also biased with the score. The students who take private tutoring class get the full mark of 50 … while the students who did not take the private tutoring class get around 20 or 25.’ (LHR3S2) Preferential treatment can also be more general and mundane. One parent commented that “when students do not take private class, [the teacher] cares less about those students” (LHR2P2). Specifically, they may pay less attention to helping these students understand the materials. As another participant said, there is bias “because the teacher in the private class thinks that the students want to study [and that is] why they spend their money for this, so he must concentrate on the clear explanation” (LHR2P4). In other words, for parents and students, there can be a perception that directly links preferential treatment to the market transactional nature of rien kuo lessons, where the teacher as the service provider must satisfy the needs of the student as the consumer. Of course, not all teachers give preferential treatment. One student said their teacher did not have any bias toward students who did not attend his private tutoring class; instead, “he treats all students fairly” (LHR3S4). Teachers self-​entrepreneurship When participation in rien kuo becomes normalised, it can affect the teachers’ professional identities, their sense of responsibility, and their norms of conduct. When teachers adopt this hybrid public-​private role in the education system, their professional commitments are accordingly distributed between their work in public school hours and in their rien kuo lessons. Most participants in this study commented that the teachers work harder in rien kuo than in public school. In public school, sometimes the teacher can choose not to teach at all and just let the students read the textbooks in silence. As one student recounted, “Sometimes [the teacher] asks us to read and says ‘if there are any questions, ask me’. But in his private tutoring class, he explains everything” (LHR3S4). A parent said, “I heard from [my daughter] that the teacher is rarely absent, unlike [in public school]. … Teachers are corrupt. They give [more] attention to their tutor course than normal” (LHR2P7). Their professional identities also change to normalise, perhaps even encourage, the rise of self-​entrepreneurship. The provision of rien kuo classes 40

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can be considered an act of self-​entrepreneurship by which the individual teacher can take responsibility for their own income level, indirectly solving the structural issue of low teacher salaries. In addition, and similar to findings from other studies on private tutoring in Cambodia, participants shared stories about teachers selling answer sheets for exam preparation. Some teachers would also hold special tutoring sessions just before the monthly exam for the explicit purpose of exam preparation. Answer sheets can be sold to students in private tutoring, though it is common for teachers to sell them to all students, even those who do not attend private tutoring. These answer sheets are meant to be reviewed at home and are not generally permitted as an aid during the exam itself, though some students do sneak them in. Students who cannot afford the sheets borrow them from friends and make photocopies. However, as one participant reported, teachers tried to crack down on this practice as they want students to buy from them (LHR3P3). Yet teachers’ motivations are multifaceted, and for many it is not a cold calculation to profit as much as possible from their positions of authority. For example, some teachers refuse to sell answer sheets; instead they give out the questions beforehand on the whiteboard, telling students to prepare ahead of time. Neither do most teachers use their professional status to encourage students to attend rien kuo. They can inform students that private tutoring is an option and that it is important for passing exams, but many do not encourage students to take them. Some teachers even work privately with students who cannot afford to pay for rien kuo; as one participant said, “Yes, teacher wants us to learn. He can skip money” (LHR2P10). Students’ self-​responsibilisation Both teachers and students enter into this market-​mediated relationship as agentic participants who will benefit from this hybrid arrangement. Students (and their parents) recognise the importance of investing in their future through education in general and, specifically, the benefits of bettering their performance through rien kuo. This is especially the case where the student wants to be highly ranked in a competitive education context. The common assumption is that if students do not attend private tutoring, they might still pass the exams, but they will not get the top marks. As one parent shared, “The mark is ok, they can pass but they cannot get the good rank like rank number 1, number 2, or 3” (LHR2P3). Moreover, attending rien kuo is not only about improving one’s grades in school; it is also increasingly recognised as an investment for future employability, and the private English lessons are especially valued. As one parent said, “Nowadays, they need people who know English … I think that in the future many foreign companies will be opened, so she can communicate with them” (LHR3P4). 41

The Rise of External Actors in Education

When market-​oriented mindsets are normalised, students become skilled at navigating this ‘market’ and exerting their own demands for more ‘services’. As an example, students can take the initiative to ask teachers for answer sheets or questions on the whiteboard. One participant said, “students asked teacher to sell because they [are] lazy” (LHR3S5). In another example, as a way to overcome the limited options available to them due to their rural location and to counter their teacher’s lack of incentive to offer tutoring, a group of students took the initiative to gather a group of willing peers to petition the teacher to offer extra classes on the weekend. As one parent described, “It is like this: When students are free [that is, when they have free time], they discuss to have class on the weekend. They collect their friends and invite the teacher to open class [at a nearby school]. Around ten students attend this class” (LHR3P4). Just as teachers take self-​responsibility for their livelihoods by offering rien kuo, students take self-​responsibility by making a crucial investment in rien kuo –​a considerable sacrifice that many are willing to make. This should not be surprising, however; as Jessop (2001) notes, in his strategic-​relational approach to understanding agency, structurally constrained individuals survey the options available to them and then respond accordingly. One thing that students sacrifice is their time, since students have to make themselves available when the private sessions are offered by teachers, before and/​or after their regular public classes. This can mean long days and long weeks for the students, as private sessions are frequently offered until 7 pm, if not later, during the week (students in Grade 9 can have three or more hours of private tutoring daily), and these are complemented by additional sessions on Saturdays and sometimes Sundays. Some students are often confronted with a choice between private tutoring lessons and eating. Many times, the importance of private tutoring for their education and future lives leads students to spend their allowances for food on private tutoring for themselves or their friends. As one student shared, “Sometimes, I eat nothing. … [And] sometimes I lend [a]‌friend my money to study tutor course” (LHR2S10).

Discussion The findings presented in this chapter demonstrate how neoliberalism manifests differently in different contexts. Rien kuo is a form of endogenous privatisation of education rather than being driven by narratives of the superiority of the private sector or a particular policy package. In fact, in Cambodia there have been several policy attempts to curb the growth of private tutoring and to provide more funding to public schools (Brehm, 2015). Nevertheless, the prevalence of private tutoring shows how all actors (students, parents, teachers) have come to rely on the ‘shadow’ market instead 42

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of the public education system to achieve their goals, whether a decent livelihood for teachers or better chances of success for students. The commodification of education via this hybrid public-​private system is made possible by the emergence of a new type of individual who takes it as a given to ‘invest in the self ’ for a better future –​the quintessential neoliberal subject (Ball & Olmedo, 2013). Private tutoring is a part of that investment for individual returns, as demonstrated by the students’ motivations to take rien kuo classes in order to achieve better grades, be more competitive academically, and gain a better future. The performativity of this system is also revealed in the normalisation of ‘cheating’ or ‘collusion’ practices between teachers and students to ensure higher grades for the latter. Other studies have found that teachers are under constant pressure from school-​or district-​level administrators to ensure that a high percentage of their students pass exams, which incentivises providing exam questions and answer sheets as well as encouraging students to attend rien kuo (Brehm, 2015). Many parents also encourage cheating, or, at the very least, they accept cheating as a common and ‘fair’ practice for success (Maeda, 2019). The act of learning is not the main point of educational activities; rather, the objective is to get ahead. This hybrid public-​private system, stemming from inadequate public resources and intensifying neoliberal competitiveness, places teachers in a dual internal-​external role within the education system. These dynamics introduce new market-​oriented mindsets and mechanisms that change all aspects of the educational experience. Ball (2003) notes that one effect of neoliberalism and performativity on teachers is the emergence of ‘inauthenticity’ between teachers and students, meaning that the former are no longer driven by caring relationships with the latter. Indeed, in Cambodia, this inauthenticity is revealed in the stark differences in how teachers and students behave during official school hours and in the private rien kuo classes. The present study’s findings suggest that teachers hold a certain authority in the formal classrooms that simply vanishes in private tutoring. Indeed, Brehm (2015) mentions a similar phenomenon: he found that there is much more formality in school settings, whereas in private tutoring classes, students feel free to talk in the middle of the lessons or arrive late. The teacher in Brehm’s (2015) study specifically expressed that she had to act differently in the private classes to make sure that students would keep coming: she could not be as strict, she had to act in ways that were inviting, friendly, and welcoming. Which is the ‘real’ teacher? Which is the ‘real’ student? It can be suggested that this relationship is simultaneously authentic and inauthentic. Given the constant transition between different teacher personas or performances, especially with the same audience, a key question is how this affects teachers’ subjectivities –​specifically, their sense of identity. The teacher in Brehm’s (2015) study discussed the moral dilemma that she had to negotiate in offering rien kuo, where she had to emphasise the educational 43

The Rise of External Actors in Education

value of private tutoring so that families would not view her as being selfish and greedy for offering this service. In Myanmar, where private tutoring by one’s own teacher is also prevalent, Kobakhidze (2020) found that the marketisation of education has led to transformation of the symbolic identities of teachers, turning them from sacred moral authorities, as is traditional, into profane beings tainted by their money interests. It is reasonable to assume that in Cambodia the value of a teacher’s work is no longer based on their status as a ‘moral guide’, but rather rooted in being a provider of a commodity, who is then answerable to their ‘clients’, the students. Other research has found that Cambodian teachers are increasingly stressed by their relationship with students, who are perceived as being increasingly disinterested in their studies, thus reducing teachers’ motivation to work (VSO Cambodia, 2008). This is a serious issue given the existing stressors, especially low pay, and the high teacher attrition rate in Cambodia, where it has been estimated that one third of the newly trained teaching force will quit within a few years after graduation (Williams et al, 2016). Everyone involved in this private tutoring system recognises the problems with it, in particular the potential for corruption, competition, and inequalities. However, they all consent to keep participating in this shadow market. Such is the convergence of interests that propel private tutoring as a form of endogenous privatisation in Cambodia and the unfolding of neoliberalism in this particular context. It may not have started as an intentional project, but the effects fit with how the nature of educational spaces globally have been reconfigured to align with neoliberal tenets. In Cambodia, private tutoring has not emerged from the efforts of traditional external actors, but rather from the strategies that teachers have pursued –​and to which students and parents have reacted –​as they attempt to survive within an insufficiently resourced education system. It is important to recognise these structural constraints and not simply blame and demonise teachers for being ‘entrepreneurial’, ‘corrupt’, and even ‘criminal’ by providing private tutoring, as is often the case in existing studies on these teachers (Duong & Silova, 2021).

Conclusion A growing body of research on external actors in education has documented the shifting roles, responsibilities, and understandings of education in the context of rising privatisation, commodification, and marketisation. The literature thus far has primarily analysed new entrants into the world of education policies and practice, from global conglomerates, edu-​businesses, philanthropies, and NGOs to parental associations and other special interest groups (for example, Verger et al, 2016; Yemini et al, 2018; Kolleck & Yemini, 2019; DeBray et al, 2020). In other words, it has tended to emphasise 44

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one approach to public-​private partnerships: the increasing integration of external actors into the public education system. This chapter has engaged with the reverse phenomenon, where traditional, ‘internal’ public education actors take on roles typically associated with ‘external’ –​here meaning profit-​seeking –​actors. From our study of the teachers’ role in driving endogenous privatisation in Cambodia through private tutoring, we have shown the importance of looking at how teachers, as traditional internal actors, can adopt external interests and subjectivities as the result of working in an underfunded system where they experience the need to generate additional income.3 This suggests that ‘internal’ and ‘external’ are not just spatial descriptors of an actor, based on his or her formal position vis-​à-​vis the traditional public education system; they are also (or can be) descriptors that imply something about the subjectivities or motivations of individuals within the system. In other words, in analysing contemporary education landscapes, significance is given not only to new players external to the system and their engagement with the public education sector, but also to actors who are internal to the system but have external interests. This indeed demonstrates the blurring of boundaries and the increasingly complex interests of actors that now make up contemporary education assemblages. In the hybrid case where the teacher operates in both an internal and external capacity, the system reflects a fundamental reworking of the roles and responsibilities of both teachers and students. In the literature more broadly, neoliberalism’s impact on the demand-​side rationalities of parents and students have been the subject of debate and have received some substantive attention (for example, Bonal, 2018). Likewise, on the supply-​side there has been some examination of how principals (Yemini et al, 2015) and school counsellors (Sattin-​Bajaj & Jennings, 2020) respond to marketised contexts. However, in debates about privatisation, it is less common to attend to how teachers experience and are transformed by these contexts, let alone to shed light on how the transformations we discuss here then affect students. To be sure, some scholars, such as Anderson and Cohen (2015), have drawn attention to ‘new professionalism’ and how teacher identities in other locations (for example, the United States) have changed as they are subjected to new public management techniques in schools, including standardisation and test-​based accountability. But this study goes further in this regard by moving beyond the effects of new professionalism and neoliberalism on teachers to also examine the contexts –​inside and outside the classroom –​that incentivise the development of markets driven by teachers themselves. Notes For more detail on the study, refer to Edwards et al (2014) and Edwards et al (2020). Direct quotes from interviewees are followed by identifiers that ensure participant anonymity.

1 2

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The Rise of External Actors in Education While economic factors may be the immediate drivers of the rien kuo phenomenon, we also acknowledge the influence of other historical and cultural dynamics, such as patronage payments in the traditional social structure of Cambodia, and the fact that, traditionally, education was provided through individual tutoring by Buddhist monks (Brehm & Silova, 2014).

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Cross-​sectoral alliances in charter schools: the role of boards of directors from for-​profit and non-​profit sectors Charisse Gulosino and Elif Şişli Ciamarra

Introduction In recent years, there has been a growing body of work that has sought to analyse the complex web of external actors that are collectively playing a growing role in education reform, such as the expansion of venture capital in education (Reckhow & Snyder, 2014; Ferrare & Setari, 2018; Ball, 2019). The proliferation of external actors (that is, philanthropic venture capitalists and education entrepreneurs) in education has, in part, been an outcome of privatisation and deregulation of institutions around the world (Apple, 2006; Ball, 2012; Buras et al, 2013). Scholars have been drawn to these external actors as it has become clear that the interconnected web of organisations and initiatives with aligned missions and coordinated strategies can play an influential role in education reform, particularly around various forms of public school choice, such as charter schools (Au & Ferrare, 2014; Kretchmar et al, 2014; Castillo, 2020; Stahl, 2020). The robust charter school movement, conceived in 1991 in Minnesota, reflects a broader politics of education empowered to challenge the status quo of the top-​down approach to education governance, bureaucratic administration, and uneven progress in student performance. (Wohlstetter & Smith, 2006; Toma & Zimmer, 2012). Charters have since expanded into a nationwide phenomenon that spans 44 US states plus the District of Columbia, with over 7,000 schools serving three million students (National Center for Education Statistics, 2020). In just over three decades, charter schools have shifted from the fringe of school reform to become one of the fastest-​growing education reform efforts (Hesla et al, 2019). The rise in support for charter schools has taken shape alongside financial support from venture philanthropy, the targeted presence of both non-​profit and for-​profit organisations geared up for opening a network of charter schools in many low-​income communities, and a mix of federal, state, local government, and private sector support for using the charter school model in turning around chronically underperforming public schools (Bulkley & Henig, 2015; Glazer 50

Cross-sectoral alliances in charter schools

et al, 2019). While charter schools are not the only schooling option in the US educational system, the charter school sector provides a rich setting for exploring strategic alliances with a wide variety of players (Morley, 2005) and a decentralised system of public school governance featuring a board of directors (Vergari, 2007). Charter schooling exemplifies government’s effort to rely more on competition-​driven contractual transactions in public-​private delivery mechanisms for providing education services and may be categorised as “quasi-​public” or “hybrid public schools” (LoTiempo, 2012). Charter schools in the United States (US) are publicly funded yet privately managed. They operate under performance contracts, which are subject to renewal based on fiscal solvency and student achievement (Bulkley & Fisler, 2003). As a discrete segment of the K-​12 education field, charter schools fit in a niche between traditional public schools and independent private schools. Since they are privately managed, they have more flexibility than traditional public schools when it comes to forming cross-​sectoral alliances with external actors. Hence, charter schools are a good case study to explore the influences of external actors in education. In this chapter, we describe the alliances formed between charter schools and external actors (both for-​profit and non-​profit) through the board of directors. Once authorised, a charter school appoints a board of directors, which is then charged with the overall governance of the school, ensuring the school’s sustainability by approving capital assets, setting an operating budget, and closely monitoring the school’s fiscal solvency during the length of the charter. Another key role of the board is to ensure that the charter school achieves year-​to-​year improvement in academic performance. Day-​ to-​day operations of the school are left to charter school principals and other leaders, who must regularly report to the board. As the main governing body of the charter school, the board of directors involves individuals with varied backgrounds and experience in both for-​profit and non-​profit sectors. Little is known about the dynamic interplay between a charter school, its board of trustees, and its environment. In this chapter, we seek more insight into the charter schools and their boards of director in the context of cross-​sectoral collaborations. Researchers characterise cross-​sectoral collaborations as strategic alliances in which different parties mutually adapt to serve and influence the common public agenda (Eyal & Yarm, 2018). Other commonly used terms are ‘partnerships’, ‘coalitions’, ‘strategic alliances’, ‘interorganisational relationships’, and ‘networks’ (Schmid & Almog-​Bar, 2019). Engagement with a wide variety of collaborative alliances has been viewed as an effective way to enhance organisational capacity and address a variety of issues facing public schools, such as: investing in high-​quality education for students from disadvantaged backgrounds; utilising cross-​sectoral solutions to vexing social and educational problems; 51

The Rise of External Actors in Education

leveraging resources and expertise for shared purposes; supporting shared problem-​solving or goal attainment based on mutual benefits; and inducing organisational learning, legitimacy, reputation, and status (Wohlstetter et al, 2004b; Wohlstetter & Smith, 2006). Applied to our research, we utilise the charter school context as a vivid site for the study of cross-​sectoral alliances that cuts across education and non-​education industries. At the heart of charter school governance is the understanding that the school’s governing board serves first and foremost to carry out a very public purpose: holding ultimate responsibility for ensuring that the school meets the terms of its charter contract and contributes a high-​quality education option to public school students. Unlike any other school type, the charter school movement brings forth a panoply of external actors involved in the expansion of private sector participation and influence in public sector education (Smith & Wohlstetter, 2001; Smith & Wohlstetter, 2006; Henig et al, 2003). Charter schools remain at the forefront of these types of cross-​ sectoral alliances in education, especially those from differing industries and sectors (Wohlstetter et al, 2004a; Wohlstetter et al, 2005). Thus, we distinguish between cross-​sectoral alliances formed with for-​ profit and non-​profit organisations because different benefits, opportunities, activities, and expertise exist for each type. The empirical research on the increasing role of for-​profit or non-​profit entities in charter schools tends to be focused on third parties such as education management organisations (Miron & Horn, 2003; Bulkley, 2005; Bulkley & Hicks, 2005; Patrinos & Sosale, 2007), new educational intermediary organisations, or institutional entrepreneurs such as venture philanthropies and foundations (Scott, 2009; DeBray et al, 2014; Quinn et al, 2014; Scott & Jabbar, 2014; Ferrare & Reynolds, 2016), with little on the cross-​sectoral representation on charter school boards. The representation of specific industries and sectors on charter school governing boards has not been systematically examined in research studies. The research inquiry on charter school boards of directors documented here is intended to be exploratory, useful for uncovering trends and identifying different types of charter school cross-​sectoral alliances, with both for-​profit and non-​profit organisations, from most to least prevalent. Our varied theoretical perspectives on for-​profit and non-​profit involvement in charter schools attempt to make the language and discourse of cross-​ sectoral alliances more accessible to education reformers and practitioners. Although our descriptive analysis constrains causal conclusions, the results provide some support for resource dependence theory in that charter school governing boards are dominated by a limited set of actors from specific industries in both the for-​profit and non-​profit sectors as a strategic response to resource-​based pressures. Given the extent to which charter school reform has become dependent on support from external actors, these findings thus have direct implications for researchers, stakeholders, and policymakers. 52

Cross-sectoral alliances in charter schools

In the next section, we review the literature documenting the involvement of for-​profit and non-​profit organisations in charter schools. We also discuss theories that help understand how to create impactful cross-​sectoral alliances through charter school boards. Following this, we review our data and present results of our descriptive analysis from a sample of 89 charter schools operating in Massachusetts from 2000 to 2014. Massachusetts provides an ideal research context to study charter school boards, because unlike other states, its state law does not mandate that charter school boards follow specific requirements on who can and cannot serve on the school’s governing body (Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, nd). Each of the charter schools has the autonomy to determine the composition of the governing board. The state law explicitly allows charter school boards to be involved in cross-​sectoral alliances to enhance their financial capacity and improve educational services. For-​profit management companies are not allowed to hold a charter in Massachusetts. Charter schools are operated by private non-​profit entities. Thus, the institutional context in Massachusetts exemplifies the fact that charter schools offer hybrid public-​private and cross-​sectoral forms of collaboration. Finally, we discuss the conclusions and implications of our study for future research and for the charter school governance and cross-​sectoral collaboration literatures.

Theoretical perspectives on for-​profit and non-​profit involvement in charter schools Since cross-​sectoral alliances or collaboration have been studied extensively in areas outside of education (Gray & Wood, 1991; Wood & Gray, 1991), we draw on the available theories to gain a better understanding of how to explore the phenomenon of cross-​sectoral alliances in charter schools. The two leading theories put forward in the literature are resource dependence theory (Gray & Wood, 1991) and institutional theory (Rigg & O’Mahony, 2013). According to resource dependence theory, cross-​sectoral alliances are crucial resource streams, professionally (that is, providing contacts and professional status) and intellectually (that is, providing specialised knowledge), and this may lead to enhanced legitimacy and acceptance in the face of external pressures. Resource dependence theory is useful in explaining charter school governing board composition, whether non-​profit or for-​ profit, that is responsive to resource-​based pressure (Dowling & Pfeffer, 1975; Middleton, 1987; Miller-​Millesen, 2003). This theory argues the need for representation from a variety of sectors on charter school boards of directors. Following resource dependence theory, the expertise of both for-​profit and non-​profit sectors is needed on charter school governing boards. Previous studies have noted that the non-​profit and for-​profit combination can offer a different set of stakeholders directed toward varied incentives, 53

The Rise of External Actors in Education

values or norms, and problem definitions, bringing to bear a distinct set of resources, institutional characteristics, and goal orientations (Henig et al, 2005). The non-​profit sector is presumed to have less exposure to the pressures of free markets and, hence, to be less likely to develop objectives that lead to the financial prosperity of the organisation (Hull & Lio, 2006). A board of directors affiliated with non-​profit organisations (that is, grassroots community-​based organisations) may be characterised as more mission oriented (Henig et al, 2005). Therefore, directors affiliated with the non-​ profit sector may rely on their organisation’s mission as a long-​term objective, which makes them more likely to prioritise educating socio-​economically disadvantaged students. This in turn may make them more likely than their for-​profit counterparts to respond to the socio-​economic characteristics and the extent and depth of poverty in a neighbourhood. This contrasts with charter school boards of directors affiliated with the for-​profit sector, which are more likely to focus on maintaining the financial sustainability of the charter school. Although no prior empirical studies on charter school boards exist to support these assertions, resource dependence theory can be used to support the argument that charter schools bring different types of board of directors to capitalise on the collective skills, abilities, and expertise in the for-​profit and non-​profit sectors for the schools’ survival and sustainability. Institutional theory, too, would predict that collaboration with both for-​ profit and non-​profit organisations could lead to survival and sustainability of charter schools. This theory describes how cross-​sectoral alliances are inclined to achieve legitimacy from the institutional environment by structurally adjusting to institutional directives, by mimicking others’ responses to institutions, or by conforming to institutional rules, norms, and values (Meyer & Rowan, 1977; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Applied in a charter environment, charter schools are particularly amenable to alliance formation to increase their legitimacy to the state education departments and the local school districts, the primary entities responsible for the authorisation and renewal of charters. The rules and consequences set by these regulatory agencies are expected to help shape the nature of cross-​sectoral alliances. Considering that the institutional environment defines effective and legitimate charter school performance based on financial and academic outcomes, the governing boards of charter schools are likely to include members from the financial services industry and the education industry. Thus, institutional theory provides an explanation for the role of institutional incentives and would predict that charter school boards would have the representation of specific types of people; for example, those with expertise in budgeting and fundraising, valued by institutional actors. Resource dependence theory and institutional theory describe how organisations (here, referring to charter school boards) are constrained by multiple external pressures and show that by engaging in cross-​sectoral 54

Cross-sectoral alliances in charter schools

alliances, organisations (schools) can draw on the wide variety of expertise needed to meet their survival and sustainability. When exploring cross-​ sectoral alliances and charter schools, scholars have focused predominantly on relations between charter schools and the non-​profit sector (Smith & Wohlstetter, 2006). Specifically, Henig et al (2005) identify several distinct types of non-​profit organisations that have been involved with charter schools during their start-​up, growth, or maturity phases. First, Henig et al (2005) identify human service organisations (also known as social services), which are oriented around a mission of providing services to people in need. Some long-​standing social service agencies, such as the Community Day Care Center of Lawrence and Martin Luther King, Jr Family Services (MLK Family Services) in Massachusetts, were quick to recognise that charter school legislation provided opportunities for them to expand the range of services they could offer to children, youth, and families and, simultaneously, to support cross-​sectoral partnerships involving education and social services. For example, MLK Family Services in Springfield, Massachusetts, was established by a human service (social assistance) non-​profit with a larger mission of providing an array of educational, cultural, and basic needs supports to the community. The MLK Center, based in the Mason Hill neighbourhood, has served the local community for over 30 years, offering after-​school programming, literacy retention, multicultural programmes, community outreach initiatives, and cultural experiences. The Martin Luther King, Jr Charter School of Excellence, about three miles away from the Martin Luther King Community Center (MLK Centre), draws on its partnership with MLK Family Services to help close early learning opportunity gaps. Second, Henig et al (2005) identify ‘professionally-​defined organizations’ (such as healthcare professional associations and health network institutions) that seek to embody the mission, body of knowledge, and preferred practices of a profession (such as health professionals) into a model of community-​ based education. For example, the Center for Community Health Education Research and Service, housed in Northeastern University’s nursing and pharmacy colleges, has straddled boundaries to connect an academic research institution, professional advocacy support, and partner community health centres, and it has assisted in the establishment of the Health Careers Academy Charter School in Boston for students interested in pursuing a career in the health professions. The involvement of healthcare professionals and non-​ profits in the charter school sector is predicated on launching a rigorous college-​preparatory school in hopes of producing the next generation of healthcare workers. Charter school students are expected to be immersed in an innovative health sciences curriculum supported by health professionals and community health centres. Finally, Henig et al (2005) notes that the ‘grassroots community-​based organizations’ –​especially non-​profits engaged in housing and community 55

The Rise of External Actors in Education

improvement, youth development non-​profits, and other groups with local community support –​have played a vital role, on different levels, in neighbourhood life. Supporting charter schools is a logical focus for grassroots community-​based organisations because charter schools, in addition to affecting educational quality, are also part of a neighbourhood’s physical and civic assets and should therefore be part of broader neighbourhood planning processes (Martinelli, 2001; Joassart-​Marcelli & Wolch, 2003). Grassroots community charter schools supported by neighbourhood leaders who are discontented with traditional public schools might be linguistically, culturally, or ethnically oriented schools, such as Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School, the first foreign-​language immersion charter school in Massachusetts. Other grassroots community-​based organisations at the forefront of neighbourhood revitalisation initiatives are also well placed to advocate for appropriate siting, facilities planning, and development issues in relation to charter schools (that is, back office support, construction versus leasing facility, renovations support). Such was the case with Neighborhood House Charter School in Dorchester, Boston, where Federated Dorchester Neighborhood Houses (now College Bound Dorchester) supported the vision of operating a neighbourhood-​based system of education and wrap-​ around services. The involvement of the for-​profit sector in charter schools runs the gamut from involvement at arm’s length in the form of corporate donations, to whole-​school operation services by educational management organisations, to more strategic collaborative involvement by business leaders to engage with public policy debates over high-​stakes standardised testing and charter school expansion (Kirst, 2007). In Massachusetts, local strategies to expand charter schools include business-​led coalitions such as Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, Citizens for Public Schools, and The Alliance for Business Leadership. More recently, corporate-​style charter school chains have appeared, such as the one by leading Silicon Valley business entrepreneur Reed Hastings, of Netflix, who co-​founded the Aspire network of charter schools (Bennett, 2008). According to a report by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform (Dingerson & Ross, 2016), similar networks of charter schools managed by the Minnesota-​based for-​profit corporation SABIS currently exist in Massachusetts (Holyoke Community Charter School, Collegegiate Charter School of Lowell, and SABIS International Charter School). The theoretical case for involvement of for-​profits in charter schools is based on market notions of venture capital, utility maximisation, market efficiency, and competition (Henig et al, 2005; Baker & Miron, 2015). In the business literature, the leading theory of performance outcome and access to private capital is microeconomic theory. An application of microeconomic theory to organisations, particularly in the form of agency theory, tends 56

Cross-sectoral alliances in charter schools

to examine the performance consequences (achieving efficiency) of an organisation’s relationships with other organisations (Gray & Wood, 1991). The implicit assumption is that when a charter school has board members from a variety of sectors, this brings a combination of expertise and strengths that allow the school to achieve academic success while at the same time overcoming financial constraints. Exploring charter schools’ collaborative alliances from an agency theory perspective is interesting because this theory provides an explanation as to why installing a charter school board of directors belonging to a certain industry or sector may prove effective in reaching specific performance requirements, such as a positive effect on academic performance, financial health, and viability, or serving students from lower socio-​economic backgrounds. For example, a prior study by Gulosino and Şişli Ciamarra (2019) shows a positive impact on charter school financial performance when board memberships are formed with the finance sector. Indeed, the efficiency claims of agency theory seem to be relevant when applied to corporate interest and influence in education. Business establishments see education reform as a key to stronger economic growth and/​or a well-​educated workforce. While many business leaders pulled back from K-​12 education when political and social fissures were running through the nation in the 1960s and 1970s, the for-​profit sector began to re-​engage in the 1980s in response to a landmark report (A Nation at Risk –​National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) about the public education system and international economic competitiveness, which focused attention on the quality of the nation’s workforce (McGuire, 1989; Hansen et al, 2008; Bulkley & Burch, 2011). The reinvigorated involvement of business with the public school system throughout the 1990s and up to the present has been accompanied by a shift in emphasis on education reform around market-​ driven models of competition and choice, accountability for outcomes, higher standards, and restructured schools (Stitzlein, 2013; Williamson, 2017; Fontdevila et al, 2019). More recently, descriptive evidence for the direct involvement of for-​profits in the charter sector has been manifested through representation on the charter’s board of directors. The Annenberg Institute for School Reform (see Dingerson & Ross, 2016) documented that one third of charter school boards of directors in Massachusetts are associated with large companies in the financial industry. Some top strategy consulting businesses with a history of involvement in education –​including Strategic Grant Partners, McKinsey & Company, the Parthenon Group, Bain & Company, and District Management Group –​ have representation on charter school governing boards in Massachusetts. For example, Kathy Choi is Managing Editor and co-​founder of District Management Group’s District Management Journal and has served as board chair of the Edward Brooke Charter School (District Management Group, nd). District Management Group is one among many consulting firms that 57

The Rise of External Actors in Education

have crowded the education consulting market over the past two decades, providing technical assistance to districts and schools through a wide variety of services. Boards of directors affiliated with Bain & Company are represented in 7 out of 81 charter schools in Massachusetts, including KIPP Academy Boston Charter School, UP Academy Boston, Bridge Boston Charter School, Boston Prep, Boston Renaissance Charter Public School, City on a Hill Charter Public School, and Conservatory Lab Public School. Bain & Company, co-​founded in Boston in 1973 by William Bain Jr (see Mittelman, 2018), started business as a private equity fund and has since acquired a diversified portfolio in consulting services to non-​profits in areas of healthcare, poverty, education, environment, and sustainability. Bain & Company and its spin-​off firm, Bridgespan, are among the most prominent and sought-​after strategic advisors for education programme officers in the major philanthropic foundations (for example, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation). It is one of the leading venture capital firms that has dedicated private equity investments to growing charters into ‘multi-​school networks’ –​ charters that could scale up through rapid replication (Quinn et al, 2016). The policy environment in which charter schools are situated, with increased autonomy and less regulation, has facilitated the development of cross-​sectoral alliances with both for-​profit and non-​profit organisations (Wohlstetter et al, 2004a). Some argue for the need for cross-​sectoral involvement because one sector alone cannot accomplish or will have difficulty accomplishing the common goal (Schmid & Almog-​Bar, 2019). As this argument goes, the establishment of multiple cross-​sectoral alliances might parallel those found in non-​educational settings in that fledgling organisations are likely to develop alliances to access valuable skills/​expertise and enhance their capacity through different stages of development. Both scholars and practitioners have noted that charter schools are choosing strategic partners who can offer facilities and capital funding (for example, local business groups); partners with knowledge about innovative educational programmes and effective management (for example, management consultancies, universities); and partners who can strengthen their involvement in the surrounding community (for example, non-​profits focused on youth programmes and preventing crime and promoting community safety activities). Prior research has indicated that charter schools often have no option but to foster relationships with a variety of strategic alliances to meet capacity and leverage expertise at each stage of growth –​start-​up, expansion, and maturity (Hill et al, 2001). The different theoretical perspectives on collaborative alliances can be tested and applied to contribute to our empirical knowledge on the nature and extent of the role played by for-​profit and non-​profit organisations in charter schools’ boards of directors. As no well-​developed literature exists yet on charter school board governance, and no theoretical framework has been developed to examine the optimal representation of specific sectors 58

Cross-sectoral alliances in charter schools

and industries on charter school boards, the goal of this chapter is for our empirical work (descriptive study) on charter school board composition to offer a heuristic inquiry into the potential applicability of theories on collaborative alliances in charter school board governance.

Data and classification of directors In this section, we describe the cross-​sectoral alliances formed though charter schools’ boards of directors. With this aim, we assembled a hand-​ collected data set of director characteristics for the 89 charter schools that were operational in Massachusetts between 2001 and 2014. Massachusetts has been a fertile environment for charter schools –​the number operating throughout the state almost doubled from 41 in 2001 to 81 in 2014. During this period, 2,696 separate individuals served on the boards of these schools. The average (mean) board consisted of 11.59 directors, and we recorded a total of 9,968 observations at the school director level. Our main source of information was the annual reports submitted to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Office of Charter Schools and School Redesign. These provide biographical information (names, job titles, and affiliations) on charter school directors. To achieve data triangulation, each charter school board director’s workplace affiliation was cross-​checked and supplemented by biographies on company websites and professional networking sites such as LinkedIn and ZoomInfo. Data on the non-​profit designation of charter board members’ primary affiliation were obtained from two leading sources of information on non-​ profit organisations in the US, namely GuideStar and Charity Navigator. Both sources categorise non-​profits according to the various types of services they provide, following the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) classification, a widely accepted system of categorising non-​profits that is recognised by the Internal Revenue Service and the National Center for Charitable Statistics. The 26 major groups in the NTEE classification were used to examine the non-​profit representation on charter school boards. The industry groups included, but were not limited to, Arts, culture and humanities, Education, Healthcare, and Human services. Data on the for-​profit designation of charter board of directors’ primary affiliations were drawn from Dun & Bradstreet, ZoomInfo, and SICCODE. com, which compile comprehensive business data. We used the two-​digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, nd) to group establishments into industries based on their primary activities. The industry groups included, but were not limited to, Information, Finance and insurance, Professional, scientific, and technical services, Administrative and support services, Educational services, Healthcare and social assistance, and Arts, entertainment, and recreation. We 59

The Rise of External Actors in Education

performed cross-​database queries from Dun & Bradstreet and ZoomInfo to identify each for-​profit business establishment that was associated with a charter board of directors. To classify the affiliations of board members, we identified the primary employer of each director using the biographical information we collected. We classified the sectoral affiliation of each board member according to the NAICS codes and the NTEE codes (GuideStar, nd) of their primary employer. For example, James M. Walsh was a board member of the Abbey Kelley Foster Charter Public School from 2005 to 2014. During the same years, according to his LinkedIn profile, he was the co-​founder and managing principal at Walsh Advisors, LLC. The NAICS code for his firm was ‘52: Finance and insurance’. His primary employer had no NTEE code associated with it. As a result, we classified the primary affiliation of Walsh as belonging to the For-​profit and Financial sectors. To give another example, Danielle Colvert was a board member of Abby Kelley Foster Charter Public School between 2004 and 2009. During that period, she acted as the principal of St Anna Catholic School. The NAICS code for St Anna Catholic School was ‘61: Educational services’, and its NTEE code was ‘B: Education’. Thus, we categorised Colvert’s primary employer as belonging to the Non-​profit and Education sectors. In the coming sections, we describe the sectoral affiliations of charter school board members. We then review the representation of for-​profit and non-​profit directors on individual charter school boards and seek to relate their presence to the academic outcomes of the charter schools.

School boards’ role in creating cross-​sectoral affiliations For-​profit and non-​profit expertise on charter school boards: director-​level statistics We start our analysis of the cross-​sectoral affiliations formed through boards of directors by describing the characteristics of the director pool. In Table 3.1, we dichotomise the directors as: (1) directors from the non-​profit sector and (2) directors from the for-​profit sector. Between 2001 and 2014, the composition of school boards was, on average, 43 per cent employed primarily in the non-​profit sector and 57 per cent employed primarily in the for-​profit sector. The relative shares of for-​profit and non-​profit directors evolved over time. In 2001, 38 per cent of the directors were from the non-​profit sector, and by 2014, their representation increased to 46 per cent. The representation of the for-​profit sector declined from 62 per cent in 2001 to 54 per cent in 2014. The Education sector, as expected, is the most widely represented non-​profit industry sector on charter school boards –​36 per cent of the directors were employed in an Education non-​profit. The Education sector was followed by Public and societal benefit, with a 5 per cent share 60

Cross-sectoral alliances in charter schools Table 3.1: Directors from for-​profit and non-​profit sectors on charter school boards in Massachusetts (2001–​14) Year

2001

Number of Number of Number of Percentage of directors directors from directors from directors from the for-​profit the non-​profit the for-​profit sector sector sector 481

298

2002

531

2003

588

2004

Percentage of directors from non-​profit sector

183

61.95

38.05

332

199

62.52

37.48

361

227

61.39

38.61

654

388

266

59.33

40.67

2005

674

402

272

59.64

40.36

2006

690

393

297

56.96

43.04

2007

703

376

327

53.49

46.51

2008

710

390

320

54.93

45.07

2009

719

396

323

55.08

44.92

2010

722

391

331

54.16

45.84

2011

836

467

369

55.86

44.14

2012

853

464

389

54.40

45.60

2013

908

492

416

54.19

45.81

2014 2001–​14

899

486

413

54.06

45.94

9,968

5,636

4,332

56.54

43.46

(Table 3.2). Healthcare had a 3 per cent share, and Human Services had a 2 per cent representation among the directors. Arts, culture and humanities, Crime and legal related, and Philanthropy, voluntarism and grantmaking foundations had shares over 1 per cent. The rest of the non-​profit sectors had a representation on charter school boards of less than 1 per cent. We observe a lack of board members who have expertise in Youth development, Housing and shelter, Mental health and crisis intervention, Recreation and sports, and Food, agriculture, and nutrition. Given the sizable number of disadvantaged students in charter schools, directors with expertise in these non-​profit sectors could make meaningful contributions to the well-​being of the charter school community and beyond. The dominant for-​profit sectors are Professional, scientific, and technical services, comprising 14 per cent of all directors, and Finance and insurance with an 11 per cent representation. Gulosino and Şişli Ciamarra (2019) show the positive impact of financial connections formed and maintained through charter school boards on schools’ financial stability and academic performance; thus, the cross-​sectoral affiliations formed with the finance sector can be argued to be valuable and worth encouraging. Other sectors 61

The Rise of External Actors in Education Table 3.2: Industry representation of directors from non-​profit and for-​profit sectors on charter school boards in Massachusetts (2001–​14) A. Directors from the non-​profit sector NTEE code

Description

Number of Percentage of directors directors

B

Education

3,618

36.30

W

Public and societal benefit

531

5.33

E

Healthcare

333

3.34

P

Human services

241

2.42

A

Arts, culture, and humanities

168

1.69

I

Crime and legal-​related

149

1.49

T

Philanthropy, voluntarism, and grantmaking foundations

103

1.03

S

Community improvement and capacity building

89

0.89

X

Religion-​related

80

0.80

O

Youth development

41

0.41

J

Employment

38

0.38

L

Housing and shelter

36

0.36

C

Environment

31

0.31

R

Civil rights, social action, and advocacy

28

0.28

F

Mental health and crisis intervention

23

0.23

D

Animal-​related

11

0.11

V

Social science

10

0.10

N

Recreation and sports

8

0.08

K

Food, agriculture, and nutrition

5

0.05

U

Science and technology

5

0.05

Q

International, foreign affairs, and national security

4

0.04

G

Diseases, disorders, and medical disciplines

3

0.03

B. Directors from the for-​profit sector NAICS code Description

Number of directors

Percentage of directors

54

Professional, scientific, and technical services

1,385

13.89

52

Finance and insurance

1,125

11.29

31–​33

Manufacturing

402

4.03

53

Real estate rental and leasing

271

2.72

51

Information

245

2.46

44–​45

Retail trade

199

2.00

62

Healthcare and social assistance

158

1.59

62

Cross-sectoral alliances in charter schools Table 3.2:  Industry representation of directors from non-profit and for-profit sectors on charter school boards in Massachusetts (2001–14) (continued) B. Directors from the for-​profit sector NAICS code Description

Number of directors

56

Administrative and support services

23

Construction

72 42

Percentage of directors

157

1.58

91

0.91

Accommodation and food services

59

0.59

Wholesale trade

54

0.54

61

Educational services

49

0.49

48–​49

Transportation and warehousing

46

0.46

22

Utilities

27

0.27

81

Other services (except public administration)

23

0.23

71

Arts, entertainment, and recreation

22

0.22

11

Agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting

6

0.06

55

Management of companies and enterprises

3

0.03

with representations greater than 1 per cent were Real estate and leasing, Information, Retail trade, Healthcare and social assistance, and Administrative and support services. We note the near absence of directors from the for-​ profit sector with expertise in Educational services, Transportation and warehousing, Utilities, and Arts, entertainment, and recreation. Last, in Figure 3.1, we show the evolution of the charter school director pool over our study period. As the figure shows very clearly, there was a decline in the proportion of for-​profit directors over this period, with of course the reverse holding for non-​profit directors. This is an important point to highlight, because as we discussed in the theory section, alliances with the for-​profit and non-​profit sectors are both valuable for the continued success and sustainability of charter schools. Representation of for-​profit and non-​profit sectors on charter school boards: school-​level statistics As reviewed in the previous section, overall, charter boards had more directors with expertise in the for-​profit sector than directors with expertise in the non-​profit sector. However, the director pool was not distributed evenly among the schools. Hence, the individual charter schools in our study sample exhibited considerable variations with respect to their utilisation of the expertise from the for-​profit and non-​profit sectors on their governing boards. In Table 3.3, we document these differences. The size of boards ranged between 4 and 28 directors during 2001–​14, with the mean (median) 63

The Rise of External Actors in Education Figure 3.1: Charter school directors from the non-​profit and for-​profit sectors 65% 60% 55% 50% 45% 40% 35% 30%

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Percentage of directors from for-profit sector Percentage of directors from non-profit sector

Table 3.3: Directors from for-​profit and non-​profit sectors (2001–​14) A. Number of directors from for-​profit and non-​profit sectors Mean

Median

Minimum

Maximum

Directors from the for-​profit sector For-​profit directors (Professional services)

1.64

1

0

7

For-​profit directors (Financial services)

1.32

1

0

7

6.55

6

0

19

Non-​profit directors (Education services) 3.92

3

0

15

11

4

28

Directors from the non-​profit sector Non-​profit directors Total board size

11.59

B. Percentage of directors from for-​profit and non-​profit sectors Mean

Median

Minimum

Maximum

For-​profit directors

44.63

43.30

0

100.00

For-​profit directors (Professional services)

14.62

12.50

0

62.50

For-​profit directors (Financial services)

11.63

9.09

0

71.43

55.37

56.70

0

100.00

Non-​profit directors (Education services) 31.92

30.77

0

100.00

Directors from the for-​profit sector

Directors from the non-​profit sector Non-​profit directors

64

Cross-sectoral alliances in charter schools

charter school having 11.59 (11) directors on its board (Panel A). The median school used the services of five directors with for-​profit expertise and six directors with non-​profit expertise. Fifty-​six per cent of the schools had more directors from the non-​profit sector than from the for-​profit sector. On the median school’s board, there was one director from the Professional services sector (for-​profit), one director from the Financial services sector (for-​profit), and one director from the Education services sector (non-​profit). In Panel B, we divide the number of for-​profit and non-​profit directors by the total number of directors on each school’s board (that is, board size) and calculate the percentage representations of for-​profit and non-​profit sectors. We observe for the median school in our sample, 43.3 per cent of directors were from the for-​profit sector and 56.7 per cent were from the non-​profit sector. In terms of industry, again for the median school, 12.5 per cent of the directors were employed in Professional services (for-​profit), 9.09 per cent were employed in Financial services (for-​profit), and 30.77 per cent were employed in Education services (non-​profit). Directors’ sectoral affiliations and charter school characteristics Analysis of the charter school boards reveals that the schools utilised the services of directors from the non-​profit sector more heavily than the services of directors from the for-​profit sector. Next, we investigate the characteristics of charter schools that are dominated by non-​profit and for-​profit directors. Data on school characteristics include composition of the student body, characteristics of the teachers, and school size (enrolment), and these were compiled using the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education School and District Report Cards for 2001–​14. We describe the variables and the data sources in the Data appendix. Non-​profit expertise on boards is more prevalent in smaller schools with lower enrolments (Table 3.4). The average enrolment in schools that have more non-​profit expertise on their boards was 339 students compared to 509 students in schools that have more for-​profit expertise on their boards. Director affiliation was somewhat correlated with the racial composition of the charter schools. In schools with more non-​profit affiliations, 26 per cent of the student body was identified as Hispanic, while in schools with more for-​profit affiliations, the percentage of Hispanic students was significantly lower, at 22 per cent. There was, however, a lower percentage of Asian students when the board was dominated by directors with non-​profit affiliations (4 per cent versus 6 per cent). There was no notable difference in the number of African American students. We also examine the educational needs of charter school students and how this correlates with for-​profit and non-​profit involvement in board governance (Table 3.4). We found that in schools where non-​profit directors 65

The Rise of External Actors in Education Table 3.4: School characteristics of for-​profit-​dominated boards and non-​profit-​dominated boards For-​profit dominated Number of students enrolled

509

Percentage of African American students

Non-​profit dominated 339

p-​value 0.000***

26.06

27.32

5.66

4.30

0.0418**

22.48

25.63

0.0687*

0.40

0.30

Percentage of female students

42.13

45.35

0.0835*

Percentage of students who are non-​native English speakers

15.66

18.84

0.0291**

Percentage of students with limited English proficiency

3.71

6.63

0.0002***

Percentage of special education students

13.19

14.53

0.0065***

Percentage of low-​income students

42.29

52.77

0.000***

Percentage of students receiving free lunch

37.18

47.07

0.000***

9.25

9.03

Percentage of licensed teachers

62.55

68.40

0.0001***

Percentage of qualified teachers

86.88

85.36

0.2389

Student-​to-​teacher ratio

12.41

11.72

0.0003***

Percentage of Asian students Percentage of Hispanic students Percentage of Native American students

Percentage of students receiving reduced lunch

0.5291

0.0098***

0.607

were the majority, 19 per cent of students were non-​native English speakers, compared to 16 per cent of students in schools where for-​profit directors were the majority. In charter schools with boards that relied more heavily on non-​profit expertise, there was a higher percentage of students with limited English proficiency (7 per cent versus 4 per cent in schools with boards with more for-​profit members) and special education needs (15 per cent versus 13 per cent) (these two findings were statistically significant). Directors with non-​profit expertise were also more prevalent on boards in schools with more economically disadvantaged students. The percentage of low-​income students was 53 per cent in schools with more non-​profit expertise on the board, while it was 42 per cent in schools with more for-​ profit expertise. The proportion of students who qualify for free lunch tells a similar story –​there was higher non-​profit representation in school governance where a larger proportion of students were eligible for free lunch (47 per cent versus 37 per cent). We also investigate teacher characteristics. In charter schools with more expertise in non-​profit work, 68 per cent of the teachers were licensed. In schools with more for-​profit expertise on their boards, the percentage of 66

Cross-sectoral alliances in charter schools Table 3.5: School characteristics of boards with representation from the education (non-​profit) sector No director At least one from the director from education the education (non-​profit) (non-​profit) sector sector Number of students enrolled

594

387

p-​value

0.000***

Percentage of African American students

17.18

28.18

Percentage of Asian students

5.95

4.74

0.2232

21.65

24.63

0.2466

0.21

0.36

Percentage of female students

41.87

44.24

0.3889

Percentage of students who are non-​native English speakers

10.59

18.45

0.000***

Percentage of students with limited English proficiency

2.79

5.73

0.010***

Percentage of special education students

16.03

13.64

0.001***

Percentage of low-​income students

39.21

49.51

0.000***

Percentage of students in receipt of free lunch

38.18

43.27

0.059*

7.79

9.34

0.013**

59.38

61.62

0.6519

Percentage of Hispanic students Percentage of Native American students

Percentage of students in receipt of reduced lunch Percentage of high-​needs students

0.000***

0.006***

Percentage of licensed teachers

65.42

65.90

0.827

Percentage of qualified teachers

82.72

86.51

0.048**

Student-​to-​teacher ratio

12.42

11.96

0.107

licensed teachers was lower, at 63 per cent. In addition, student-​teacher ratios were lower in charter schools with more non-​profit affiliation on boards versus those with more for-​profit affiliation (11.72 students per teacher versus 12.41 students per teacher). Next, in Table 3.5, we investigate the non-​profit affiliation in more detail and reclassify the charter schools into two groups: (1) schools with at least one director affiliated with the Education (non-​profit) sector and (2) schools with no directors affiliated with the Education (non-​profit) sector. We focus on the Education sector because this was the largest group represented in our sample: 87 per cent of the charter schools had at least one director from the Education sector. These schools had significantly lower enrolments (387 versus 594 in schools with no directors affiliated with the Education sector), a larger percentage of African American students (28 per cent versus 17 per cent), a higher percentage of non-​native English speakers (18 per cent versus 11 per 67

The Rise of External Actors in Education Table 3.6: Academic performance

Math Score Index Composite Performance Index (Math) ELA Score Index Composite Performance Index (ELA)

For-​profit dominated

Non-​profit dominated

p-​value

81.23

73.08

0.000***

2.72

2.42

0.000***

88.48

83.90

0.000***

2.81

2.65

0.000***

No director from At least one the education director from the (non-​profit) education (non-​ sector profit) sector Math Score Index Composite Performance Index (Math) ELA Score Index Composite Performance Index (ELA)

p-​value

77.60

76.87

0.6554

2.58

2.55

0.6116

85.52

86.18

0.5654

2.72

2.73

0.8629

cent), and a higher percentage of low-​income students (49 per cent versus 39 per cent). Affiliation with the non-​profit Education sector was also associated with a higher percentage of qualified teachers (86 per cent versus 83 per cent). Academic outcomes In Table 3.6, we present comparisons of means for academic achievement. We use school-​level average achievement scores as a proxy for academic performance. Following the existing research, we analyse Math and English language arts (ELA) test scores (for example, Carnoy & Loeb, 2002).1 We measure academic performance with two measures calculated using the ELA and Math scores: (1) Composite Performance Index, a state-​generated measure of the extent to which students are progressing toward proficiency, and (2) an academic performance index (see Data appendix) based on the distribution of student scores in the various performance categories (Gulosino & Şişli Ciamarra, 2019). We found that the academic performance in charter schools was significantly lower in both ELA and Math when the boards had more non-​profit affiliations (Panel A). This finding does not, however, establish any causal relationship and is not surprising given the underlying differences in school characteristics. Given the dominance of the Education sector, in Panel B we investigate the differences between schools with and without affiliations with this particular non-​profit sector. We found that the negative association between non-​profit affiliation and academic achievement disappeared when we consider this subset of non-​profit directors.

68

Cross-sectoral alliances in charter schools

To summarise these findings, non-​profit involvement in school governance at the board level is higher in schools that serve a higher fraction of socio-​ economically disadvantaged students. A closer look into types of non-​profit affiliation reveals that the Educational services sector affiliation is most prominent in these higher-​need school environments. Such affiliations, in addition to helping serve higher-​need students, also seem to help to secure more resources (more qualified teachers, lower student-​teacher ratios) in the charter schools. While we observe significantly poorer academic outcomes when boards are dominated by non-​profits, alliances with the Education sector seem to help economically disadvantaged students by securing educational resources. We acknowledge that our findings are at best suggestive, and an econometric analysis which corrects for self-​selection bias is needed to establish a causal relationship.

Discussion and directions for future research This chapter examined board composition in one of the fastest-​growing forms of school in the US –​public-​private hybridity in school governance of charter schools. The representation of for-​profit and non-​profit sectors on charter school boards is set against the backdrop of a larger movement toward the expanding role of external actors in education. The roles and influence of these external actors are examined in other chapters in this book. Using multidisciplinary theoretical perspectives on collaborative alliances and hand-​collected data on charter school boards, this chapter explored the relative importance of external environment, board affiliations, and charter school characteristics in cross-​sectoral alliances among charter schools. We documented for the first time the extent of cross-​sectoral affiliations based on service on the boards of directors of charter schools. Our analysis of boards shows that charter schools establish cross-​sectoral alliances with both for-​profit and non-​profit sectors by granting them board seats. Among directors affiliated with the non-​profit sector, the majority are from the Educational Services sector. These directors are more common on boards of charter schools which serve higher-​need communities. We present some evidence that the directors from the Education sector help overcome resource constraints: schools with a higher board representation from this sector employ more qualified teachers and maintain lower student-​teacher ratios. We observe that there is very limited representation of other non-​ profit sectors on charter school boards. Charter schools may potentially benefit from the expertise found in a more diversified set of non-​profits, such as ones that focus on youth development, mental health, nutrition, and sports. Charter schools also establish cross-​sectoral affiliations with the for-​profit sector through their boards. Professional Services and Finance are the two most frequently represented sectors on charter school boards. 69

The Rise of External Actors in Education

Representation from other for-​profit industry sectors is scarce, and charter schools may benefit from the expertise of underrepresented sectors such as Educational services, Arts, entertainment, and recreation, and Healthcare and social assistance, to name a few. Future research is needed to give our findings a broader empirical foundation. Several avenues seem particularly fruitful. Linking our findings with relevant theoretical perspectives on cross-​sectoral alliances would allow us to generate broader insights into the influence of external actors in the governance of charter schools. Nevertheless, our descriptive results provide some support for resource dependence theory: charter school governing boards are dominated by a narrow set of actors from specific industries in both the for-​profit and non-​profit sectors as strategic response to resource-​ based pressure. Charter school boards of directors are characterised as performing a resource-​dependence role wherein they serve to link schools with key constituencies in their external environment. In this way, a board of directors may add to the legitimacy of the charter school and its position. However, further research is needed to examine the degree of dependence of charter schools on these external actors, and what specific skills, experiences, and forms of capital (social and cultural) these actors have leveraged to influence or control charter school board decisions and affect organisational performance. The limited range of industries within the for-​profit and non-​profit sectors represented on charter school boards can be considered within the frame of institutional theory. According to institutional theory, conformity to institutional norms would create similarities in collaborative alliances, or isomorphism, across charter school boards. Future research could seek to provide insight into the actual impact on school performance of organisational behaviour (specifically, of charter school boards) that follows the logic of institutional theory. Scholars of institutional theory have long argued that actions leading to isomorphism are not necessarily efficient. Thus, while institutional theory supports the notion that institutional prescriptions shape the collaborative alliances of charter school boards and the composition of boards of directors, the implications on school performance remain unknown. In addition, more empirical evidence is needed to examine broader institutional forces, such as venture capitalists and hybrid social enterprises in education, that may have important implications for shaping the specific characteristics of cross-​sectoral alliances of charter school boards. For example, an examination of charter school board members’ network ties to investment groups and venture capitalist firms focused solely on education reform should enhance our understanding of the role of institutional processes and prescriptions and their power to influence the overrepresentation of certain industries in charter schools’ boards. 70

Cross-sectoral alliances in charter schools

Our initial analysis of academic outcomes associated with the dominance of charter school board directors from a particular industry and sector is suggestive and does not imply a causal relationship. Future research should aim to establish whether causal relationships exist between different types of alliances formed through boards of directors and school outcomes, both academic and financial. Such research would provide additional insight into the performance outcomes of charter school boards that aligns with agency theory. The agency role of directors charges them with the responsibility of representing the interests of charter schools. Future work may seek to examine the strategic priorities and specific performance outcomes that are associated with charter school boards’ relationships with other organisations. For example, charter school boards that are dominated by actors in educational non-​profits may prefer a mission-​responsive curriculum and pedagogy, advocate for increases in school spending, or target the most disadvantaged students –​consistent with the mission-​driven orientation in the non-​profit space. The performance implications of adding a charter board director tied to a certain industry and sector require further empirical testing. Our empirical findings help sharpen the focus for future research to address critical questions pertaining to charter school governance in the context of increased diversity within cross-​sectoral alliances; that is, more alliances that combine education and non-​education industries. A key question should be: In what ways does more plurality (diverse representation by industry and sector) on the charter school board of directors affect charter school sustainability, productivity, and quality? We think this line of inquiry is important for several reasons. First, while there is consensus among scholars on the importance of board diversity, the effect of industry and sector diversity on organisational performance has not been thoroughly examined. Second, the relationship between the inclusion of more plurality on boards of directors and measures of organisational performance and survival is not frequently studied. Addressing this research gap is important for the study of industry representation on charter schools’ governing boards. Acknowledging the variety of relationships that can be leveraged by charter school boards improves our understanding of the potential for productive and strategic alliances as related to the school’s survival and growth. More research can focus on pinpointing features of board composition that have the most robust connection to advancing charter school productivity, establishing how increasing plurality in a charter school’s governing board may enhance school goals and priorities, and identifying which industries within the for-​profit and non-​profit sectors are most effective in this respect. As examples: A charter school board member with expertise in the health sector would have a role to play in ensuring safe learning environments and productive practices for education in a time of health crisis. A director with experience in the construction industry may help provide critical leadership 71

The Rise of External Actors in Education

and knowledge for construction or maintenance of a charter facility, such as offering technical expertise in modifying the facility to mitigate the impact of COVID-​19. A director with a background in the arts, media, and entertainment industry could help foster a vibrant learning environment centred on learning and achieving through the arts. Theorising and examining the variety of industries and sectors that are represented on charter school boards have important normative repercussions. Recent studies point to the rising influence of alliances created among those in the business/​financial sector, major philanthropic foundations, and education policy networks (the latter includes K-​12 educators, higher education professionals, research institutes, advocacy coalitions) (Saltman, 2010; Reckhow & Snyder, 2014; Ferrare & Reynolds, 2016). Research also highlights the declining power of other types of stakeholders to participate in public school choice that reflects local needs and preferences (Warren, 2005; Warren et al, 2009). These two seemingly antipodal forces provide the foundation for differentiated empirical, theoretical, and policy-​related concerns about the significance and scope of different external actors’ influence over education policies, dubbed by experts as the ‘new’ politics of education, to gain greater influence in school choice and school governance in the US (Scott & Jabbar, 2014; Reckhow et al, 2015). The descriptive findings from our analysis provide important insights for policymakers and researchers paying attention to the extent of industry and sector influence in charter school governance. Thus, we argue in closing that more work is needed to capture the determinants driving the variation in charter school governance, especially as they relate to the variety of cross-​sectoral alliances that exist with charter boards. The need for collaborative strategic alliances is more necessary than ever in an era of intensifying private sector participation in education. Data appendix Variable

Definition

Data source

A. School characteristics Percentage of low-​income students

The percentage of students who meet any one of the following definitions of low income: the student is eligible for free or reduced price lunch; or the student receives Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children benefits; or the student is eligible for food stamps

72

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education charter school profiles (retrieved from http://​profiles.doe.mass.edu)

Cross-sectoral alliances in charter schools

Variable

Definition

Percentage of students receiving free lunch

The percentage of students who qualify for free lunch

Percentage of students receiving reduced price lunch

The percentage of students who qualify for reduced lunch

Percentage of African American students

The percentage of charter school students who are African American

Percentage of Asian students

The percentage of charter school students who are Asian/​ Pacific Islanders

Percentage of Hispanic students

The percentage of charter school students who are Hispanic

Percentage of Native American students

The percentage of charter school students who are Native American/​Alaska Natives

Percentage of female students

The percentage of charter school students who are female

Percentage of non-​native English speakers

The percentage of charter school students whose first language is a language other than English

Percentage of students with limited English proficiency

The percentage of charter school students whose first language is a language other than English and who are unable to perform ordinary classroom work in English

Percentage of special education students

The percentage of charter school students with an individualised education programme

Percentage of licensed teachers

The percentage of teachers licensed in teaching assignment

Percentage of qualified teachers

The percentage of core academic classes taught by teachers who are highly qualified

Student-​teacher ratio

The ratio of full-​time equivalent students to full-​time equivalent teachers

Data source

(continued)

73

The Rise of External Actors in Education

Definition

Variable

Data source

B. Academic achievement variables ELA Score Index

The index score is equal to four times the percentage of students in the advanced category plus three times the percentage of all students in the proficient category plus two times the percentage of students in the needs improvement category plus one times the percentage of students in the warning category. Total points are divided by the number of students to calculate school averages.

Composite Performance Index (ELA)

A measure of the extent to which students are progressing toward proficiency. The Composite Performance Index is a 100-​point index that combines the scores of students who take standard MCAS tests (the Proficiency Index) with the scores of those who take the MCAS-​Alternate Assessment (MCAS-​Alt) (the MCAS-​Alt Index)

Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education: Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) charter school accountability reports (retrieved from http://​ profiles.doe.mass.edu/​state_​ report/​mcas.aspx)

Note Beginning in 1998, the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) was administered annually to eligible students enrolled in grades 3 through 8 and in high school, including students with disabilities and those with limited English proficiency.

1

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Hull, C.E. & Lio, B.H. (2006) ‘Innovation in non-​profit and for-​profit organizations: visionary, strategic, and financial considerations’, Journal of Change Management, 6 (1): 53–​65. Joassart-​Marcelli, P. & Wolch, J. (2003) ‘The intra-​metropolitan geography of poverty and the nonprofit sector in Southern California’, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 32 (1): 70–​96. Kirst, M.W. (2007) ‘Politics of charter schools: competing national advocacy coalitions meet local politics’, Peabody Journal of Education, 82 (2–​3): 184–​203. Kretchmar, K., Sondel, B. & Ferrare, J.J. (2014) ‘Mapping the terrain: Teach For America, charter school reform, and corporate sponsorship’, Journal of Education Policy, 29 (6): 742–​59. LoTempio, C. (2012) ‘It’s time to try something new: why old precedent does not suit charter schools in the search for state actor status’, Wake Forest Law Review, 47: 435–​62. Martinelli, F. (2001) ‘Charter schools’, in How Community-​Based Organizations Can Start Charter Schools, St Paul, MN: Charter Friends National Network. Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (nd) ‘Education laws and regulations’, www.doe.mass.edu/​lawsregs/​603cmr1. html?section=​all McGuire, K. (1989) ‘Business involvement in education in the 1990s’, Politics of Education Association Yearbook, 4 (5): 107–​17. Meyer, J.W. & Rowan, B. (1977) ‘Institutionalized organizations: formal structure as myth and ceremony’, American Journal of Sociology, 83 (2): 340–​63. Middleton, M. (1987) ‘Nonprofit boards of directors: beyond the governance function’, in W.W. Powell (ed) The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 141–​53. Miller-​Millesen, J.L. (2003) ‘Understanding the behavior of nonprofit boards of directors: a theory-​based approach’, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 32 (4): 521–​47. Miron, G. & Horn, J. (2003) Evaluation of Connecticut Charter Schools and the Charter School Initiative: Final Report. Kalamazoo, MI: The Evaluation Center, Western Michigan University. Mittelman, M. (2018, January 18) ‘Bill Bain, Bain & Co. founder, Mitt Romney’s mentor, dies at 80’, Bloomberg News, www.bloomberg.com/n ​ ews/a​ rticles/​ 2018-0​ 1-1​ 8/b​ ill-b​ ain-b​ ain-c​ o-f​ ounder-m ​ itt-​romney-​s-​mentor-​dies-​at-​80 Morley, J. (2005) ‘For-​profit and nonprofit charter schools: an agency costs approach’, The Yale Law Journal, 115 (7): 1782–​1821. National Center for Education Statistics (2020) Public Charter School Enrollment, https://​nces.ed.gov/​programs/​coe/​pdf/​2021/​cgb_​508c.pdf National Commission on Excellence in Education (1983) A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform, Washington, DC: US GPO. 77

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Patrinos, H.A. & Sosale, S. (eds) (2007) Mobilizing the Private Sector for Public Education: A View from the Trenches, Washington, DC: The World Bank. Quinn, R., Tompkins-​Stange, M. & Meyerson, D. (2014) ‘Beyond grantmaking: philanthropic foundations as agents of change and institutional entrepreneurs’, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 43 (6): 950–​68. Quinn, R., Oelberger, C. & Meyerson, D. (2016) ‘Getting to scale: ideas, opportunities, and resources in the early diffusion of the charter management organization, 1999–​2006’, Teachers College Record, 118(9): 1–​44. Reckhow, S. & Snyder, J.W. (2014) ‘The expanding role of philanthropy in education politics’, Educational Researcher, 43 (4): 186–​95. Reckhow, S., Grossmann, M. & Evans, B.C. (2015) ‘Policy cues and ideology in attitudes toward charter schools’, Policy Studies Journal, 43 (2): 207–​27. Rigg, C. & O’Mahony, N. (2013) ‘Frustrations in collaborative working: insights from institutional theory’, Public Management Review, 15 (1): 83–​108. Saltman, K. (2010) The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy, New York: Springer. Schmid, H. & Almog-​Bar, M. (2019) The critical role of the initial stages of cross-​sector partnerships and their implications for partnerships’ outcomes’, Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, https://​doi.org/​10.1007/​s11266-​019-​00137-​0 Scott, J. (2009) ‘The politics of venture philanthropy in charter school policy and advocacy’, Educational Policy, 23 (1): 106–​36. Scott, J. & Jabbar, H. (2014) ‘The hub and the spokes: foundations, intermediary organizations, incentivist reforms, and the politics of research evidence’, Educational Policy, 28 (2): 233–​57. Smith, A.K. & Wohlstetter, P. (2001) ‘Reform through school networks: a new kind of authority and accountability’, Educational Policy, 15 (4): 499–​519. Smith, J. & Wohlstetter, P. (2006) ‘Understanding the different faces of partnering: a typology of public-​private partnerships’, School Leadership & Management, 26 (3): 249–​68. Stahl, G.D. (2020) ‘Corporate practices and ethical tensions: researching social justice values and neoliberal paradoxes in a “no excuses” charter school’, British Educational Research Journal, 46 (4): 878–​93. Stitzlein, S.M. (2013) ‘Education for citizenship in for-​profit charter schools?’, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 45 (2): 251–​76. Toma, E. & Zimmer, R. (2012) ‘Two decades of charter schools: expectations, reality, and the future’, Economics of Education Review, 31 (2): 209–​12. US Bureau of Labor Statistics (nd) ‘North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) at BLS’, www.bls.gov/​bls/​naics.htm Vergari, S. (2007) ‘The politics of charter schools’, Educational Policy, 21 (1): 15–​39.

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Warren, M.R. (2005) ‘Communities and schools: a new view of urban education reform’, Harvard Educational Review, 75 (2): 133–​73. Warren, M.R., Hong, S., Rubin, C.L. & Uy, P.S. (2009) ‘Beyond the bake sale: a community-​based relational approach to parent engagement in schools’, Teachers College Record, 111 (9): 2209–​54. Williamson, B. (2017) ‘Educating Silicon Valley: corporate education reform and the reproduction of the techno-​economic revolution’, Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 39 (3): 265–​88. Wohlstetter, P. & Smith, J. (2006) ‘Improving schools through partnerships: learning from charter schools’, Phi Delta Kappan, 87 (6): 464–​7. Wohlstetter, P., Malloy, C.L., Hentschke, G.C. & Smith, J. (2004a) ‘Improving service delivery in education through collaboration: an exploratory study of the role of cross-​sectoral alliances in the development and support of charter schools’, Social Science Quarterly, 85 (5): 1078–​96. Wohlstetter, P., Malloy, C.L., Smith, J. & Hentschke, G. (2004b) ‘Incentives for charter schools: building school capacity through cross-​sectoral alliances’, Educational Administration Quarterly, 40 (3): 321–​65. Wohlstetter, P., Smith, J. & Malloy, C.L. (2005) ‘Strategic alliances in action: toward a theory of evolution’, Policy Studies Journal, 33 (3): 419–​42. Wood, D.J. & Gray, B. (1991) ‘Toward a comprehensive theory of collaboration’, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 27 (2): 139–​62.

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A communitarian framework for understanding the relations between schools and NGOs Izhar Oplatka

Introduction Since the 1970s, the number of non-​governmental organisations (NGOs) has increased substantially in many sectors, including education (Hoff & Hickling-​Hudson, 2011; Yemini et al, 2018). As part of this trend, NGOs have gradually become critical actors in many educational systems. Facilitated by neoliberal policies that seek private solutions to public problems (Dvir & Yemini, 2017), many NGOs have become involved in the creation and provision of education, often as an alternative to public schooling (Kamat, 2004; Resnik, 2011). It is commonly argued by neoliberal advocates that NGOs, unhindered by sectarian interests, may be better placed to promote the welfare and education of the most vulnerable members of our societies (Lubienski & Perry, 2019). This development has in many places led to a ‘rolling back’ of states’ responsibilities for education, or a situation where the government ‘buys’ services from NGOs and other providers to deliver on its education commitments. NGOs’ visibility and roles have spread into virtually all educational systems across the world, taking various forms within Global North and Global South contexts, but they are particularly prominent across parts of the African continent (Miller-​Grandvaux et al, 2002). Yet whether and how NGOs can contribute to the development and provision of education is shaped by cultural, national, and social context. Thus, in this chapter, I propose and defend a conceptual framework for promoting a communitarian approach to support educational developments between local communities and NGOs. The chapter draws on recent scholarship on the concept of ‘communitarianism’, developed in the last quarter of the twentieth century, which emphasises the importance of collectivism, particularism, and communalism (Etzioni, 1995; Studdert, 2005; Oplatka, 2019). The focus of my contribution is to argue that in many local contexts, schools are likely to manage their external relations with NGOs through particular cultural, social, and organisational approaches that are tightly entwined to their own 80

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cultural frames of reference, which may be quite different to those of the broader nation state within which they are located. Put another way, I argue that effective partnerships between schools and NGOs in many contexts, especially across parts of the Global South, critically depend on the extent to which global and local NGOs draw on cultural scripts and educational ideologies that have values within the local community where the schools are located. My argument provides researchers with a communitarian view to analyse the works of NGOs in African educational systems and, in turn, sheds some light on the complex relations between local contexts, local arrangements, and NGOs for managers of these organisations in Africa. In the following sections, I present the concept of communitarianism and discuss its applicability in the context of school-​NGO partnerships.

The importance of community Community is understood as the basis of human experience and as facilitating the identification of the self as a social being. Nancy (1991) explains that it is ‘what takes place always through others and for others’ (p 15), and communitarian scholars have emphasised the critical role of the community in creating bonds of social solidarity and a sense of responsibility to others. As Selznick (2002) notes: ‘The communitarian ethos is not mainly about sympathy, benevolence, or compassion. It is about meeting our obligations as responsible parents, children, employees, employers, officials, and citizens’ (pp 6–​7). Communitarian scholars promote an emphasis on community interests and public goods, rather than a focus on the needs of individuals. Etzioni (2002), for example, defines community as ‘A web of affect-​laden relationships among a group of individuals, relationships that often crisscross and reinforce one another … and second, a measure of commitment to a set of shared values, norms, meanings, and a shared history and identity –​in short, to a particular culture’ (p 23). Drawing on this definition, community refers to any group of people that have a shared social, cultural, religious or ethnic interest. Communitarian scholars highlight the centrality of community in the formation of individuals’ values, identity, and moral behaviour, which binds them into long-​lasting relations. Here, the community is seen as a space of emotional relationships through which individual identities, values, and norms for interacting are shaped (Etzioni, 2004; Taylor, 2011). This understanding emphasises that members of a community commit to their civic obligations, seeking to promote the ‘common good’, a set of goals or values collectively developed and held by the community (Tan, 2013). Notably, the community is never a fixed entity, always an outcome of ongoing relations of sociality (Studdert, 2005). Therefore, community implies solidarity, a feeling of collectivity, and mutual attachments (Delanty, 81

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1998, p 37). Given communities’ focus on collective needs and the promotion of public goods, and their role in the socialisation of members, such as children and young people, a communitarian approach should be used when seeking to examine how external actors, such as NGOs, become involved in the provision of (education) services within contexts that have strong communitarian values.

School-​NGO relations: a communitarian view A communitarian framework to analyse school-​NGO relations is outlined here as a means to better understand why and how NGOs should work together with local education professionals and other community stakeholders. NGOs need to differentiate between global and local spheres of influence Many NGOs take part in debates on education, seeking to offer insights and innovations that should be taken up by policymakers (Scott & Jabbar, 2014; Lubienski et al, 2016; Kolleck, 2017; Lubienski & Perry, 2019). Many international education NGOs have, arguably, conceptualised ‘value’ in economic terms, drawing on notions such as efficiency, benefits, outputs, and the like rather than using moral or educational terms (Dvir & Yemini, 2017). Kolleck (2017) further explains: ‘The criteria which decide whether the education is ‘correct’ are often viewed by foundations as the extent to which specifically qualified people are fit to a globalized, technological world’ (p 258). While such discourses may have traction in the global sphere of policymaking, for local educators and community members, such suggestions may feel alien and even potentially in contradiction to their own cultural and social educational beliefs. For instance, in many communities across the Global South, education is often perceived as a means for preserving local cultural heritage and current social structures (Kelly, 1991) and/​or as a means through which to ensure communities have the necessary skills in agriculture, conservation of scarce biological resources, trade, and the like, for their future growth and sustainability (Omolewa, 2007). Thus, NGOs seeking to work at various levels (global, national, and/​or local) must consider how to develop their own positions and how to negotiate these across the different spheres they seek to influence. Some education priorities put forward by an NGO might be supported by local value systems; others might be incompatible, meaning little or no change is likely to occur in the local schools. As already stated, countries across the Global South have experienced a huge growth in third-​sector involvement in the last decades. This has often been in response to underfunded, ineffective, and underperforming state-​led 82

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educational systems. In a number of nations, such as Liberia and India, governments and edu-​businesses have formed public-​private partnerships to expand subsidised access to various alternative school options that are beyond the traditional state or private sectors (Olmedo, 2016; Srivastava, 2016). Similarly, across many countries in sub-​Saharan Africa with donor-​ supported programmes for their education sectors, NGOs play a significant role in delivering education (Miller-​Grandvaux et al, 2002). Furthermore, NGOs in these contexts have also been involved in lobbying and promoting educational reforms and facilitating policy initiatives and dialogues. Some international NGOs also act on behalf of intergovernmental organisations, implementing reforms around education provision. Whereas NGOs’ involvement in policymaking and reform implementation might be accepted by donors and philanthropic foundations, it has been argued that externally imported reform fails if it is disconnected from local contexts (Philips & Schweisfurth, 2014). In this sense, any successful reform should be grounded in local traditional understandings of education so that the knowledge facilitated and pedagogical approaches used work in concert with local values and practices. In other words, communitarianism can provide a useful framework for understanding if and how external actors become involved in education work and reform at the local level, and it offers an outline for how local communities should become involved in policy and practice reforms. Why communities should become involved in education reform and provision There are four key reasons why communities should become involved and centrally integrated into efforts to reform local education provision. First, the community should be able to express shared aspirations for their own futures and how they should move towards these. Therefore, every reform initiative should commence with the question: is it meaningful to the local community? The focus should be on discussing the kind of future the community is seeking for its younger generation. When, for instance, a suggested reform promotes career aspirations and opportunities for local students that may contradict common values in the community, the NGO’s role would ideally be to negotiate with local community leaders and find a way to combine the new reform within the norms legitimated in the community, according to a communitarian approach. Second, given the nature and structure of the community (for example, solidarity, reciprocity, mutuality, emotional bonds, and shared meanings and goals) (Taylor, 2011; Reese-​Schafer, 2015), it is unlikely that curriculum reform, new teaching methods, and innovative technologies imposed by external actors will be implemented effectively without the community’s 83

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involvement and approval. Third, teachers, the target of many reforms, are expected to modify their teaching practices, integrate new technologies, or learn new curricula. But, in many countries, teachers come from the same community in which they teach (Lacey & Frazer, 1994), so if they are unable to align their own norms with what they are expected to teach, this will complicate the process of teaching. Fourth, although people in some more hierarchical societies tend to obey orders imposed by those ‘in power’, every community has its own structures of governance. This means that community involvement in schooling can be critical to ensuring proposed changes are implemented effectively within classrooms. Community involvement in NGOs and ways to ensure their public legitimacy When the role and tasks of NGOs in the educational sector are analysed, it is widely accepted that they create and develop educational inputs (for example, textbooks, curriculum materials, teaching methods, learning resources, professional development training) and provide funding and support to schools (Lubienski & Perry, 2019). For example, some NGOs put pressure on governments in countries of the Global South to fulfil their commitments to the Education for All agenda (Mundy & Murphy, 2001), while others support the improvement of quality education through ‘school adoption programs’. Many NGOs focus on providing educational opportunities to children who have dropped out of public education, have been child soldiers, live in post-​conflict areas, and so forth (Miller-​Grandvaux et al, 2002). Regardless of provision developed and/​or provided by an NGO, according to the communitarian view, the local community should be involved in developing the work of the NGO. This is particularly important in cases where governments are unable to sustain comprehensive education provision and NGOs and other external actors are involved in the delivery of basic education. Community participation may range from basic forms of support to more active involvement in management and planning of an NGO’s work. Put another way, according to the communitarian point of view, the community is, and should be, a critical partner in the education of its children. In practical terms, the involvement of communities in developing school-​ NGO partnerships should take the shape of deep and respectful dialogues and participative decision-​making. Community leaders should be members of the teams established to plan and run these partnerships, because their local knowledge and leadership roles are critical to ensuring educational change. From the very few studies conducted on NGOs and community participation, we know that NGOs’ contributions towards community development can be significant when the communities are properly engaged 84

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as a partner. For example, NGOs working in Indian villages with the aim of mobilising and empowering communities to exercise their community forest resource rights have been critical in promoting sustainable use of forests and, therefore, their conservation (Gupta et al, 2020). Community participation in development has gained recognition as an important tool for mobilising local resources and organising people to take proactive action to promote their own welfare in many Global South countries, including Bangladesh, Jordan, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Uganda (Ibem, 2009). This approach seeks to ensure that local people are empowered and involved in community development by developing their self-​belief and capacity to bring about positive alterations in their environment, prioritise community needs, develop solutions that conform with their own values and norms, and implement programmes aimed at meeting these needs (Taylor, 2011). As far as education is concerned, in Malawi, as in other parts of sub-​ Saharan Africa, communities have traditionally played an important role in educational provision, including supplementing the insufficient resources available for school construction and teacher recruitment, as well as making people more involved in their own children’s education (Rose, 2010). In 1995, Malawi’s Ministry of Education even encouraged communities to manage some aspects of the school programmes, assuming this would ensure commitment and ownership of the school. Notably, the acceptance of NGO programmes and reforms by educators and community members in different places relies heavily on the public’s perception of NGOs’ legitimacy to be involved in the local educational system (Kolleck, 2017). NGOs working in some African countries (for example, Ethiopia; Guinea, Malawi, and Mali) have employed basic strategies to increase their public legitimacy and affect policy (Miller-​Grandvaux et al, 2002). For example, NGOs have established dialogic processes in which they engage in ongoing discussions with local community decision makers and relevant stakeholders to reach a consensus or, at least, integrate their perspectives within reforms. Preparing the ground for such dialogue, it is likely that neoliberal-​type priorities around testing and efficiency are likely to be less comprehensible or acceptable to local communities. From the framework, outlining a communitarian approach (Etzioni, 2004; Tan, 2013), I would like to propose a few practical suggestions for NGOs to actively consider. First, NGOs would benefit from involving local teachers in reform developments (not only their implementation) and, for example, encouraging them to include local stories and histories within the curriculum. Second, any initiative should rely, though not exclusively, on local knowledges, skills, values, and perspectives so that local teachers and students can integrate their own cultural and social understandings and identities into their learning and future aspirations. Third, processes of 85

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evaluation and assessment should integrate local understandings of value and knowledge accumulation.

Promoting the communitarian approach to NGO work in countries across Africa: its necessary application Sub-​Saharan Africa is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse regions in the world (Martin & O’Meara, 1995; Bangwayo-​Skeete & Zikhali, 2011). Ways of life vary dramatically, even within the same country; differences are evident between rural and urban areas, and across different regions of a country (Karp, 1995; Alesina & Ferrara, 2005). Generally speaking, in spite of the ravages wrought by colonialism, many communities across the African continent remain very distinctly shaped by indigenous systems of social organisation (Jackson, 2011; Namazie & Venegas, 2016). Thus, many educational concepts widely accepted in the Global North are not easily transferable to local communities elsewhere. See, for instance, research on school choice in Tanzania: Choice in its western meaning refers to freedom, access and equity, all of these concepts and ideas have little influence upon the context of educational opportunities in Tanzania. In this country, opportunities for secondary schooling are rarely ‘open’. … While ‘choice’ implies that at some given moment one is faced with a number of paths, educational opportunity in Tanzania is embedded in a range of complicated and complicating relationships in which deliberate timing and accumulated leverage mean everything. (Philips & Stambach, 2008, p 210) Notably, the collective nature of many societies in sub-​Saharan Africa, coupled with the hierarchical character of their social structures, mean school leaders have quite different roles. For example, school principals might have relatively limited autonomy (Bush, 2008) in communities governed by kinship ties (Karp, 1995). Meanwhile, in other places (for example, some communities in Botswana, Ghana, and Nigeria), the school leader is seen first and foremost as holding a public position, rather than serving to improve student achievements (Oplatka, 2004). National governments and NGOs appear to have increasing awareness of and determination to work with cultural and structural mechanisms. The Ugandan government, for example, has devolved financial management to schools (Verspoor, 2008). Similarly, the provision of compulsory education has become the concurrent responsibility of federal, regional, and local movements in Ethiopia (Berry & Bogale, 2011). The role of the federal government in Ethiopia has been to set standards and provide policy guidance, mentoring, and evaluation, while the role of the nine regional 86

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state governments has been to devise regional policy, adapt the national curriculum for each region, and ensure students sit exams at the end of primary school. Unfortunately, many areas and communities across Africa are still struggling to meet the educational needs of all their students (Oplatka, 2019). There are reports of shortages of classroom teaching and learning aids, very large numbers of students per classroom, unskilled teachers, poor health among teachers and learners, illiteracy among parents, high rates of student dropout (particularly among girls) (Johnson & Beinart, 2008; Kainuwa et al, 2017), students unable to pay school fees or to buy textbooks, and high levels of school violence (Otunga et al, 2008), not to mention inadequate water, toilet, and sanitation facilities (Earnest, 2006). These problems make the challenge of improving student attainment all the more difficult (Philips & Schweisfurth, 2014; UNESCO, 2014). Given these ongoing challenges, I propose that the communitarian approach can help ensure the success of much-​needed educational reforms. As international NGOs continue to contribute to the development of education systems all over the world –​in particular, playing a vital role in the provision of education across the Global South –​we need to carefully assess their effectiveness. Given our understanding of how local communities have their own social structures, cultural belief systems, and knowledge schemes, NGOs wishing to work in these communities should take a communitarian approach (Selznick, 2002; Oplatka, 2019). As I have argued, an NGO whose work draws on theoretical concepts and frameworks developed in the Global North may overlook and even contravene many cultural and social aspects of the Global South, which will directly impact their ability to improve and further develop local educational systems. References Alesina, A. & La Ferrara, E. (2005) ‘Ethnic diversity and economic performance’, Journal of Economic Literature, 43 (3): 762–​800. Bangwayo-​Skeete, P.E. & Zikhali, P. (2011) ‘Social tolerance for human diversity in Sub-​Saharan Africa’, International Journal of Social Economics, 38 (6): 516–​36. Berry, C. & Bogale, S.S. (2011) ‘Quality education reform and aid effectiveness: Reflections from Ethiopia’, International Education, 40 (2): 76–​90. Bush, T. (2008) Leadership and Management Development in Education, London: Sage. Delanty, G. (1998) ‘Reinventing community and citizenship in the global era: a critique of the communitarian concept of community’, in E.A. Chrstodoulidis (ed) Communitarianism and Citizenship, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp 33–​52. 87

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Dvir, Y. & Yemini, M. (2017) ‘Mobility as a continuum: European commission mobility policies for schools and higher education’, Journal of Education Policy, 32 (2): 198–​210. Earnest, J. (2006) ‘Science education reform in a transitional society: the case of Rwanda’, in, J. Earnest & D.F. Treagust (eds) Education Reform in Societies in Transition: International Perspective, Rotterdam/​Taipei: Sense Publishers, pp 129–​42. Etzioni, A. (1995) The Spirit of Community, London: Fontana Press. Etzioni, A. (2002) ‘The good society’, Seattle Journal for Social Justice, 1 (1): 7. Etzioni, A. (2004) From Empire to Community: A New Approach to International Relations, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Gupta, D., Lele, S. & Sahu, G. (2020) ‘Promoting a responsive state: the role of NGOs in decentralized forest governance in India’, Forest Policy and Economics, 111: 1–​14. Hoff, L. & Hickling-​Hudson, A. (2011) ‘The role of international non-​ governmental organizations in promoting adult education for social change: a research agenda’, International Journal of Educational Development, 31 (2): 187–​95. Ibem, E.O. (2009) ‘Community-​led infrastructure provision in low-​income urban communities in developing countries: a study on Ohafia, Nigeria’, Cities, 26: 125–​32. Jackson, T. (2011) ‘From cultural values to cross-​cultural interfaces: Hofstede goes to Africa’, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 24 (4): 532–​58. Johnson, D. & Beinart, W. (2008) ‘The changing landscape of education in Africa: quality, equality and democracy’, in D. Johnson (eds) The Changing Landscape of Education in Africa, Oxford: Symposium Books, pp 7–​12. Kainuwa, A., Najeemah, M.Y. & Jamalsafri, S. (2017) ‘Relationship between parental economic factors and students’ dropout from government secondary schools of Zamfara, Nigeria’, Asia Pacific Journal of Educators and Education, 32: 29–​43. Kamat, S. (2004) ‘The privatization of public interest: theorizing NGO discourse in a neoliberal era’, Review of International Political Economy, 11 (1): 155–​76. Karp, I. (1995) ‘African systems of thoughts’, in P.M. Martin & P. O’Meara (eds) Africa, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indian University Press, pp 211–​22. Kelly, W.W. (1991) Directions in the anthropology of contemporary Japan. Annual Review of Anthropology, 20 (1): 395–​431. Kolleck, N. (2017) ‘How (German) foundations shape the concept of education: towards an understanding of their use of discourses’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 38 (2): 249–​61. Lacey, N. & Frazer, E. (1994) ‘Blind alleys: communitarianism’, Politics, 14 (2): 75–​81. 88

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Lubienski, C. & Perry, L (2019) ‘The third sector and innovation: competitive strategies, incentives, and impediments to change’, Journal of Educational Administration, 57 (4): 329–​44. Lubienski, C., Brewer, T.J. & Goel La Londe, P. (2016) ‘Orchestrating policy ideas’, Australian Education Researcher, 43 (1): 55–​73. Martin P.M. & O’Meara, P. (1995) ‘Africa: problems and perspectives’, in P.M. Martin & P. O’Meara (eds) Africa, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, pp 3–​9. Miller-​G randvaux, Y., Welmond, M. & Wolf, J. (2002) Evolving Partnerships: The Role of NGOs in Basic Education in Africa, Washington, DC: Academy for Educational Development. Mundy, K. & Murphy, L. (2001) ‘Transnational advocacy, global civic society: emerging evidence from the field of education’, Comparative Education Review, 45 (1): 85–​126. Namazie, P. & Venegas, B.C. (2016) ‘Cultural perspectives in human resource management in the Middle East and North Africa’, in P.S. Budhwar & K. Mellahi (eds) Handbook of Human Resource Management in the Middle East, Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp 5–​34. Nancy, J.L. (1991) The Inoperative Community, Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press. Olmedo, A. (2016) ‘Philanthropic governance’, in A. Verger, C. Lubienski & G. Steiner-​Khamsi (eds) World Yearbook of Education, New York: Routledge, pp 44–​62. Omolewa, M. (2007) ‘Traditional African modes of education: their relevance in the modern world’, International Review of Education, 53: 593–​612. Oplatka, I. (2004) ‘The principalship in developing countries: context, characteristics and reality’, Comparative Education, 40 (3): 427–​48. Oplatka, I. (2019) Reforming Education in Developing Countries: From Neoliberalism to Communitarianism, London: Routledge. Otunga, R., Serem, D.K. & Kindiki, J.N. (2008) ‘School leadership development in Africa’, in J. Lumby, G. Crow & P. Pashiadris (eds) International Handbook on the Preparation and Development of School Leadership, New York: Routledge, pp 367–​82. Philips, D. & Schweisfurth, M. (2014) Comparative and International Education (2nd edn), London: Bloomsbury. Philips, K.D. & Stambach, A. 2008. ‘Cultivating choice: the invisible hands of educational opportunity in Tanzania’, in M. Forsey, S. Davies & G. Walford (eds) The Globalisation of School Choice? Oxford: Symposium Books, pp 145–​64. Reese-​Schafer, W. (2015) ‘Communitarianism’, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (2nd edn), Volume 4, Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp 308–​10.

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Resnik, J. (2011) ‘The construction of a managerial education discourse and the involvement of philanthropic entrepreneurs: the case of Israel’, Critical Studies in Education, 52 (3): 251–​66. Rose, P. (2010) ‘Achieving education for all through public–​private partnerships?’, Development in Practice, 20 (4–​5): 473–​83. Scott, J. & Jabbar, H. (2014) ‘The hub and the spokes’, Educational Policy, 28 (2): 233–​57. Selznick, P. (2002) The Communitarian Persuasion, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press. Srivastava, P. (2016) ‘Questioning the global scaling-​up of low-​fee private schooling’, in A. Verger, C. Lubienski & G. Steiner-​Khamsi (eds) World Yearbook of Education, New York: Routledge, pp 248–​63. Studdert, D. (2005) Conceptualizing Community: Beyond the State and Individual, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Tan, C. (2013) ‘For group, (f)or self: communitarianism, Confucianism and values education in Singapore’, The Curriculum Journal, 24 (4): 478–​93. Taylor, M. (2011) Public Policy in the Community (2nd edn), New York: Palgrave Macmillan. UNESCO (2014) EFA global Monitoring Report: Teaching and Learning: Achieving Quality for All (2013/​14), Paris: UNESCO. Verspoor, A.M. (2008) ‘The challenge of learning: improving the quality of basic education in sub-​Sharan Africa’, in D. Johnson (ed) The Changing Landscape of Education in Africa, Oxford: Symposium Books, pp 13–​43. Yemini, M., Cegla, A. & Sagie, N. (2018) ‘A comparative case-​study of school-​LEA-​NGO interactions across different socio-​economic strata in Israel’, Journal of Education Policy, 33 (2): 243–​61.

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PISA for sale? Creating profitable policy spaces through the OECD’s PISA for Schools Steven Lewis and Bob Lingard

Introduction We find ourselves in a moment where the unprecedented need for, and generation of, performance data in education is drastically reshaping schooling. Alongside demands for increased accountability and transparency in public schooling, these data have produced new urgencies around finding ‘evidence-​informed’ (Lingard, 2013, 2021) solutions to putative problems of policy and practice, or, put differently, to identify and implement ‘what works’ (Auld & Morris, 2016; Lewis, 2017a). This desire for solutions has produced a new market for policy populated by new providers of services, with efforts to identify ‘what works’ occurring in tandem with the increased presence of non-​governmental organisations in education, both within and beyond the territorial boundaries of the nation-​state. As such, powerful transnational private policy networks –​which encompass intergovernmental organisations, for-​profit businesses, non-​profit agencies, and the philanthropic sector –​now contribute towards a ‘global education industry’ that exceeds $4 trillion annually (Verger et al, 2016). This has relocated much schooling evidence and expertise from more traditional sources –​such as the nation-​ state, state agencies, academics in universities, and teachers –​to the private sector, including providers outside of government, the public sector, or, as is now common, outside of education itself (for example, statistical or technology companies) (Lewis & Holloway, 2019; Holloway, 2020). Such opportunities for private policy networks to produce ‘universal’ forms of evidence and expertise, often with little regard for local contexts, make a compelling case to seek to understand how attempts to reconstitute and govern professional knowledge, learning, and practice are being realised locally (that is, at the teacher, school, and schooling system levels). Given these recent developments, our chapter focuses on the Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development’s (OECD’s) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Schools, an instrument designed to assess individual school performance in reading, mathematics, 91

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and science against the national (and subnational) schooling systems measured by the main PISA test. Scores on PISA for Schools are situated on/​against the PISA main scale, meaning that comparisons of PISA performance are made possible between the school and the nation, as well as between the school and other nations across the globe. Such an extension of PISA to new national and local schooling spaces has required the close cooperation of the OECD with a broad array of for-​profit and non-​profit agencies. In this respect, we would see PISA for Schools as typifying the increasing presence and complexity of the role now played by so-​called ‘external’ actors in education policy and policymaking processes, especially as these diverse actors often seek to forge strategic alliances to further their own respective policy goals. In light of an emergent global governance of education (see Meyer & Benavot, 2013; Lewis & Lingard, 2015; Lewis, 2020a), PISA for Schools arguably opens up new local schooling spaces to the direct influence of various external actors, but without, or at least with reduced, political mediation by the nation-​state. PISA for Schools also provides one of the first instances where an intergovernmental organisation (the OECD) has collaborated with international edu-​businesses, non-​profit agencies, and philanthropic foundations to co-​develop education policy and administer tests. In many ways, these collective developments reflect two emergent realities of education policymaking globally: (1) it is no longer the sole purview of national governments, involving instead a diverse, and ever-​ changing, array of actors and organisations from the public, private, intergovernmental, and voluntary sectors, including edu-​businesses; and (2) the policy cycle is no longer confined within the traditional territorial boundaries of the nation-​state. Edu-​businesses, which see education primarily as a profit-​making concern, are now also taking an increasingly prominent role in policy production and service delivery (Ball, 2012; Au & Ferrare, 2015; Hursh, 2016; Thompson et al, 2016). We would further suggest that the networked modes of governance actually help to open up new, ‘profitable’, spaces for edu-​business involvement across the policy cycle, including agenda setting, policy production, enactment, evaluation, and the production of support materials. This is especially so with the move to standardised, data-​driven modes of accountability (Lingard & Lewis, 2016) and associated data infrastructures (Sellar, 2015; Gulson & Sellar, 2019), which provide edu-​ businesses with myriad opportunities, across multiple jurisdictions and scales, to construct and/​or implement tools for diagnosis and intervention. PISA for Schools is clearly an example of one such ‘innovation’ being developed at the policy interface of the OECD, philanthropic foundations, and edu-​ business, reflecting the increasing relevance of such non-​state agencies across the policymaking cycle in education. We would also suggest that 92

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the expansion of private education service providers is tied not only to the funding made available by philanthropic foundations but also, arguably, by the opportunity for profit. PISA for Schools in its current functioning, which we document in the section OECD’s PISA for Schools, can thus be seen as an exemplar of non-​ state actors and agencies combining to create private educational ‘solutions’, addressing a social domain that has been construed, at least traditionally, as inherently public and subnational and national in orientation. Moreover, the emergence of such diverse policy networks –​drawing from the market, the third sector, and intergovernmental organisations –​helps to emphasise the increasing diversity of external actors who are contributing to privatisation in and for schooling (Ideland et al, 2020), as well as how policy sociology needs to attend to such empirical considerations and developments. In what follows, we provide a brief outline of the OECD’s education agenda, focusing on its testing regime with main PISA as the prototype for the development of a broader range of tests, including PISA for Schools, the specific focus of this chapter. We then consider how power-​topologies, as well as networked and heterarchical governance, provide a generative theoretical lens through which to view and better understand these emergent processes. This is followed by the empirical focus of the chapter, in which we account for the changing management of PISA for Schools, the involvement of an Australian for-profit edu-​business in the management of the test, and the various ways this exemplifies third-​party involvement in the work of the OECD. Specifically, the OECD now also plays a different role in relation to PISA for Schools; for instance, their involvement is managed by the OECD Secretariat rather than the PISA Governing Board, and the OECD now also stands to benefit financially from PISA for Schools. Our analysis will also demonstrate that the way PISA for Schools now works is an example of networked or heterarchical governance, but one that is stretched globally (Ball & Junemann, 2012).

Contextualising the OECD’s education work There is a vast literature that documents the history of the now 38-​member OECD (for example, Woodward, 2009; Carroll & Kellow, 2011) and, more specifically, the OECD’s education work (Henry et al, 2001; Ydesen, 2019). Suffice to say here that the education work of the OECD has taken on greater significance in the overall work of the organisation since the end of the Cold War and the framing of education policy in human capital terms. The OECD established the Directorate of Education in 2002, and this transitioned to the Directorate of Education and Skills in 2012, coinciding with the release of the OECD Skills Strategy. This strategy was to unify all of 93

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the OECD’s policies and was another signifier of the enhanced importance, both internally and externally, of the organisation’s education work. Testing, here main PISA, is now central to the global presence of the OECD in education policy, with PISA now arguably the most significant international large-​scale assessment (ILSA). Enhanced computational capacities and datafication have also given impetus to the OECD’s broadening testing regime. PISA was administered first in 2000 and then every three years, with the main focus of the test on reading literacy, scientific literacy, and numeracy of 15-​year-​old students. Since the first administration of the PISA test, increasing numbers of nations are participating; for example, 76 nations and economies participated in the 2018 test, and this included more non-​OECD members than OECD members. PISA is a sample test that compares the performance of schooling systems, and it has become highly influential globally, as well as in national policymaking. Its success has seen it become the prototype for the ongoing expansion of the OECD’s testing regime. One such example of this expansion is the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, a kind of PISA for 16–​64-​year-​olds that was first administered in 2011–​12. There is also PISA for Development (first administered in 2014), which is a PISA offering focused on low-​and middle-​income nations and will be used as one outcome measure for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (2015–​30). There is also ‘Baby PISA’, the OECD’s early learning assessment. Seen as part of these broader developments, PISA for Schools was first trialled in 2012 and initiated by United States (US) philanthropic funding organisations and the support of various non-​profit agencies. As the name implies, it assesses students in individual schools using a PISA test that is aligned with main PISA and the PISA proficiency standards. More recently, the traditional policy focus of the OECD has expanded in different directions via ventures into teacher professional development, including an online professional learning platform and community called PISA4U (see Lewis, 2020b). Taken collectively, this is an extensive testing regime that has become central to the education work of the OECD. PISA for Schools differs from the other tests in that it sees the OECD reaching inside nations in a topological manner to subnational schooling systems and individual schools. The OECD has been attempting to extend the scope, scale, and explanatory power of these tests (Sellar & Lingard, 2014). Across this testing regime, there is evidence to suggest that in addition to being a node in a network of influence, the OECD has also taken on a policy role in its own right (Henry et al, 2001; Lewis, 2020a). In this chapter, we focus on changes in the management and reach of PISA for Schools since its instigation and the important role that third-​party actors now have in respect of it, as well as the changing relationships between the test and the OECD. While the other 94

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component parts of the OECD’s testing regime have helped constitute a global education policy field, PISA for Schools functions in a topological way, reflecting the new spatialities of globalisation (Amin, 2002).

OECD’s PISA for Schools As noted, the success of PISA has seen it become something of a prototype for the OECD’s development of a broad range of related educational testing initiatives. One of the programmes that best exemplifies the evolution of PISA, as well as the broader re-​spatialisation of educational governance and policy, is the OECD’s PISA for Schools. This instrument is similar in format and design to the main PISA, comprising a two-​hour written test that assesses students’ ability to apply their acquired knowledge in reading, mathematics and science to ‘real-​world’ situations. Unlike the triennial PISA test undertaken by national and subnational schooling systems, PISA for Schools is conducted on demand (with a maximum of one test per year) by individual schools to assess their performance and compare themselves against schooling systems assessed by the main PISA.1 Furthermore, schools volunteer (and pay) to participate in the PISA for Schools assessment, whereas the relevant national (or subnational) educational authorities may mandate a school’s inclusion in the national sample for the main PISA. In addition to assessing student performance, the test contains student and principal questionnaires to generate contextual information about particular ‘in-​school’ and ‘out-​of-​school’ factors that influence student learning. These are construed in terms of: the student population, such as the socio-​ economic background of students, parental occupations, and student attitudes towards their learning of reading, mathematics, and science; and the school environment, including school funding and resourcing, student enrolment, school type (for example, public, private, charter), and the organisation of school governance structures. Development of the programme began in 2010, with schools and districts invited by the OECD in late 2011 to participate in a pilot study. This was designed to equate the new school-​based test with the main PISA so that direct comparisons could be made between school (PISA for Schools) and schooling system (main PISA) performance. PISA for Schools test items were developed according to the relevant PISA assessment frameworks for reading, mathematics, and science (see OECD, 2018) and equated to the existing PISA scales (Level 1–​Level 6) by simultaneously anchoring them with the main PISA ‘link items’ against a common PISA metric.2 This process enables PISA for Schools scores for reading, mathematics, and science to be reported against the established PISA proficiency scales and against the performance of schooling systems as measured by the main PISA. The pilot was conducted from May to October of 2012. It included 95

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a total of 126 secondary schools across the US (105 schools), the United Kingdom (UK) (18), and the Canadian province of Manitoba (3). A later Spanish pilot covering 225 schools was conducted in 2013. Following a successful field trial, PISA for Schools was officially launched in the US in April 2013 and made available to all eligible schools and districts throughout the country. Since this time, PISA for Schools has experienced a significant expansion in terms of its availability and administration. As of February 2022, it is available in 15 languages across 15 countries, and it has been administered cumulatively in more than 2,200 schools globally (OECD, 2018).3

Theoretical framework: policy networks and power-​topologies A central feature of contemporary processes of education policymaking has been the enhanced level of interdependence between a diverse network of autonomous policy actors and organisations, both inside and outside of government as well as within and beyond nations. Locating the locus of authority away from hierarchical bureaucracy does not imply a total loss of control for government. However, it does suggest a different kind of governing that acts in the shadow of hierarchy (Jessop, 1998), where the state seeks to achieve its political objectives through horizontal partnerships and delegation to private providers. Indeed, this export of ‘state work’ or ‘statecraft’ is frequently evident in the contracting out of services, performance monitoring, and target setting (Ball, 2012). Recent policymaking activities have occurred in the context of moves towards such forms of governance in education, involving a range of non-​government organisations combining to sponsor policy and provide services. This can be viewed as developing out of existing national-​and state-​level data infrastructures (Sellar, 2015; Gulson & Sellar, 2019; Sellar & Gulson, 2019), enabling schools and districts to respond to new accountability regimes driven by government legislation, such as the Obama Administration’s Race To The Top in the US (Mintrop & Sunderman, 2013; Lingard & Lewis, 2017). Acknowledging this retention of hierarchical elements alongside non-​state agents within processes of policy production and delivery, Ball and Junemann (2012) define such policy networks as a form of heterarchy: ‘an organisational form somewhere between hierarchy and network that draws upon diverse horizontal and vertical links that permit different elements of the policy process to cooperate (and/​or compete)’ (p 138). These combinations of new horizontal and older vertical relationships, and modes of organisation, enact a diverse, and often geographically dispersed, array of policy actors and organisations (Mok, 2011; Olmedo, 2014), which facilitates a variety of ‘flows’ between them –​of ‘people, information and ideas, language, 96

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methods, values and culture’ (Ball & Junemann, 2012, p 139). It is worth noting here, too, how these flows for education have increasingly come to encompass large amounts of data, in both schools and schooling systems, for the purposes of measuring and governing performance. In the context of educational accountability and governance, these developments also reflect the relevance of numbers (Grek, 2009; Lingard, 2011; Ozga, 2016) and data (Ozga, 2009; Williamson, 2017; Lewis & Holloway, 2019), and a growing sense of policy and governance by numbers. Moreover, as policy has been constituted through numbers and metrics, non-​state actors –​such as edu-​businesses, philanthropic foundations, non-​ profit agencies, and intergovernmental organisations –​have also taken on an enhanced role in educational governance and policymaking (Ball, 2012; Au & Ferrare, 2015; Lingard et al, 2016; Verger et al, 2016; Thompson & Hogan, 2020), with these agencies offering services related to the collection, analysis, and management of such system and schooling data. In particular, we would situate the education policy work of the OECD as exemplifying the intersection between the increasing prevalence of policy networks and the rising significance of data for ‘knowing’ and governing schooling systems. Indeed, it has been noted that the OECD, rather than just being a ‘node in a network’, is now very much a policy actor in its own right (Henry et al, 2001; Lewis, 2020a), playing a central role in the global governance of education through constituting the globe as a commensurate space of PISA-​enabled measurement. Collectively, these networked, or heterarchical, arrangements represent what have been described as ‘global infrastructures’ (Sassen, 2007) and as facilitative of ‘cultural circuit[s]‌of capitalism’ (Thrift, 2005, p 6), and the material and discursive flows they enable are a central characteristic of a globalised world (Appadurai, 1996). These global networks and flows help to bridge traditional public/​private, state/​non-​state, and national/​global divides by facilitating the formation of ‘epistemic communities’ (Haas, 1992) with shared values and norms, which in turn help to govern how education might be thought and practised: These networks contain flows of ideas as well as flows of people, and ideas are carried back and forth across the boundaries between the public and private sectors. These are discursive or epistemic communities. … They structure, constrain and enable the circulation of ideas and give ‘institutional force’ to policy utterances, ensuring what can count as ‘sensible’ policy and limiting the possibilities of policy. (Ball & Junemann, 2012, p 11) As such, these discursive and material assemblages of education policy have the ability to normatively define ‘what counts’ by favouring particular 97

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policies, practices, and values while simultaneously marginalising, or even excluding, alternative discourses and possibilities for action. In a similar vein, we would also note here that a relational, or ‘topological’, understanding of spaces associated with globalisation (see Amin, 2002) has implications for helping us re-​theorise modes of educational governance and relations of power. Harvey (2012) suggests that such a framework allows one to analyse how ‘particular spatial configurations facilitate the exercise of power’ (p 77), especially in the context of emergent topological spaces and continuities between actors. To this end, a topological conception of power, or ‘power-​topologies’ (Allen & Cochrane, 2010), has proved a useful heuristic to theorise how power is exercised across traditional scalar and new spatial relations and political boundaries in contemporary governance processes. While Euclidean space provides the a priori backdrop against which power relations are situated and exerted, power-​topologies instead constitute the very spaces in which their effects and influence are exerted: Power is not so much exercised over space or transmitted across it, as composed relationally through the interactions of the different actors involved. Reach, rather than something which implies the extension of powers over space, is exercised in a variety of intensive ways to dissolve the gap between ‘near’ and ‘far’. (Allen, 2009, p 207) By this reasoning, it can be argued that governing or steering ‘at a distance’ (Kickert, 1995; Rose, 1999) is in fact somewhat of a misnomer, an artefact from a strictly Euclidean mindset in which power has defined coordinates of both origin and extension. Instead, the topological folding of space brings relations of power into direct contact with those on whom it acts, assembling new geographies of power and possibilities for action. In this sense, power relationships are ‘not so much positioned in space or extended across it, as they compose the spaces of which they are a part’ (Allen, 2011, p 284). In addition to constituting the very sites in which such power is exercised, power-​topologies also express how policy actors are able to overcome physical distance to ‘make their presence felt in more or less powerful ways’ (Allen, 2011, p 291). Given that topological space is constituted through situated relations and connections, it is perhaps not surprising that modern power relations and modes of governance can themselves be relationally construed in terms of spatial ‘reach’, establishing a direct presence with actors, organisations, and localities through ‘mediated and distanciated forms of reach’ (Allen & Cochrane, 2010, p 1082). Governing power can thus now no longer be conceived as emanating ‘outwards’ from its central origin to pervasively ‘fill’ the territory of the nation-​state, nor as being coextensive within fixed national boundaries. Rather, it is forged through dynamic processes of connection and negotiation between people and places. We 98

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thus see these notions of reach and power as especially useful for explaining the topological continuities enabled by PISA for Schools, including the performance comparisons of schools and schooling systems and, relatedly, the emergent mechanisms of governance that involve reaching through, into, and out of different schooling spaces. Methodologically speaking, these reorientations also enable policy sociology research to move beyond currently prevalent definitions and delineations of boundaries (that is, territorial, focused on the nation-​state) in order to better understand the actual spaces and contexts within which schools and policy actors operate (Lewis, 2021; Lingard, 2021).

PISA for Schools and third-​party actors: findings Given a topological approach to policy sociology emphasises how relations between actors help to constitute new policy spaces that elide the traditional territorial boundaries of the nation-​state, we now consider the specific example of PISA for Schools. In particular, we show how different external actors –​the intergovernmental OECD, but also private for-​profit corporations serving as the National Service Providers (NSPs) and International Platform Provider (IPP) –​work strategically to form alliances within and across contexts to more successfully achieve their respective policy aims via PISA for Schools. While these policy networks are ostensibly for the purpose of providing PISA for Schools to participating schools and school networks, it is equally important to consider the varied commercial arrangements that exist between the OECD and its partner organisations. These arrangements are not only indicative of an increasingly complex set of horizontal relations between different policy actors, but arguably also suggest a much broader purpose of PISA for Schools that extends well beyond facilitating school-​ level assessment and reform. Specifically, these purposes are associated with (1) building capacity for stakeholders outside of the participating schools, including NSPs and educational authorities, and, relatedly, (2) providing ongoing revenue streams from both core and optional service provision. ‘Building capacity’: enhancing OECD engagement with stakeholders As we have both noted in earlier research (see Lewis et al, 2016; Lewis, 2017b, 2020a; Lingard & Lewis, 2017), the development, funding, and delivery of PISA for Schools has long been a collaborative venture between the OECD and its various non-​national partner organisations. This has included (largely US-​based) philanthropic foundations that funded the development and ongoing maintenance of the programme; non-​profit agencies that assisted with the piloting of the programme and school recruitment; and various edu-​businesses appointed as the accredited NSPs 99

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for PISA for Schools in the various national jurisdictions (for example, Spain, the UK, the US). The inclusion of these actors is additional to the schools and schooling systems, and their associated authorities, that have voluntarily participated in the programme since 2012. In many respects, PISA for Schools arguably represents a distinctly new way for the OECD to pursue its education policy agendas, existing as one ‘node’ among many within a broader policy network, but still retaining an overwhelming influence among its many partner organisations across multiple countries (Lewis, 2017b). Even as PISA for Schools seemingly affirms the increased relevance of heterarchies in the creation and delivery of education policy, it also underscores how these horizontal networks of external actors are constitutive of, and constituted by, asymmetric power relations and topological policy spaces. However, more recent developments have helped consolidate PISA for Schools services in the hands of a few key stakeholders. Foremost among these external actors is the Janison Education Group (hereafter ‘Janison’), an Australian for-​profit education technology company.4 Janison was announced in 2019 as the exclusive IPP of the software platform (known as Janison Insights) on which the online version of PISA for Schools is hosted and delivered to participating schools. Since then, it has signed multiple agreements to serve as an NSP in addition to its global IPP role, delivering the test in Australia, the UK, and the US. Janison has thus developed a considerable global footprint as a provider of online assessment services to schools and schooling systems, including testing other than PISA for Schools. For instance, more than 70 per cent of Australian schools are currently using the Janison Insights assessment platform in 2020, and more than 4.6 million assessments (including PISA for Schools) were delivered during 2019–​20 across 100-plus countries. Perhaps unsurprisingly, such global reach has provided Janison a rather lucrative market position within the annual $4 trillion ‘global education industry’ (Verger et al, 2016). In a 2019 press announcement made by Janison to the Australian stock exchange, it was noted that the roughly 32,000 secondary schools in the US (that is, those schools eligible to sit PISA for Schools) represent a potential US$160 million annual market if all eligible schools participate (Janison, 2019).5 While in no way assuming the motivations or actions of Janison and its employees, we see it valid to emphasise the dangers inherent in any such private interest being involved in the delivery of public education, especially when profit motives are so palpably present. Despite Janison’s considerable role as both a multiple NSP and a global IPP, it is worth noting the OECD as an enduring presence and authority in the oversight and provision of PISA for Schools. In a recent publication outlining the broader PISA for Schools project, the respective roles and responsibilities of partner organisations relative to the OECD were remarkably telling. 100

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Ultimately, all services and actors are deemed wholly accountable to the OECD Secretariat: The PISA-​based Test for Schools (PBTS) is co-​ordinated in each territory by an accredited National Service Provider (NSP), which is responsible for implementing the project. The OECD is responsible for selecting the NSP and for informing the PISA Governing Board representative for the country about progress with the project, as needed. If the NSP does not have all the capacities required for carrying out the [PISA for Schools] project, it can outsource some of the responsibilities to one or several other External Contractors accredited by the OECD. (OECD, 2020b, p 4) By contrast, consider the stated role of the OECD: The OECD’s responsibility is to provide technical advisory services, support and oversight and the continued development of the PISA for Schools project. The OECD’s task includes providing test material, leading the translation and adaptation of the test, verification of translations and adaptations, developing reporting templates, etc. (OECD, 2020b, p 4) What we see here indicates the OECD, and the OECD Secretariat in particular, operating as a policy actor in its own right, with its own agendas and policy outcomes, rather than merely responding to the wishes and requests of its member countries. The centrality of the Secretariat is demonstrated by the PISA Governing Board –​the body within the OECD notionally representing member countries and PISA participants –​ only being required to provide approval in principle to new prospective countries and schooling systems (OECD, 2020a). Thereafter, the OECD Secretariat assumes full responsibility for oversight relating to PISA for Schools, including the authorisation and accreditation of the NSPs and the IPP (and, if necessary, external contractors), as well as evaluating the NSP to determine whether additional capacity building is required by the service provider (OECD, 2020b). Beyond the ability of the OECD to authorise all of its partner organisations, the issue of capacity building is especially significant here. Indeed, we would argue it suggests an evolution in the putative role of the OECD, moving beyond the provision of policy advice to actual service delivery. While the triennial main PISA test has proven itself to be something of a prototype for a range of PISA-​based products (for example, PISA for Development, PISA for Schools, PISA4U), the purpose of such instruments has largely been to advise policymakers, as well as system and school leaders. However, 101

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this most recent iteration of PISA for Schools is primarily concerned with capacity building, not just for participating schools but also, importantly, for the NSPs and education authorities in their respective jurisdictions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is the OECD positioned as the sole expert who will determine and provide these services: Building capacity for educational improvement is one of the main aims of the PISA for Schools project. Capacity building activities can be broadly addressed either to participants (for example, school staff) or to other stakeholders (for example, National Service Provider staff, analysts from educational authorities and other interested parties). For both groups, the OECD will provide networking opportunities for peer-​to-​peer learning from international partners. (OECD, 2020b, p 3; emphasis added) This is particularly significant for a variety of reasons. First, it helps to reinforce the OECD’s role as the global expert in education for school-​ and schooling system-​level audiences, with the OECD being the source of accreditation for both schooling performance (that is, PISA and PISA for Schools) and the organisations who help to provide these PISA-​related services. On the other hand, it also indicates an increasing willingness on the part of the OECD to directly engage in opportunities to enhance the impact and relevance of its more traditional policy advice. While this might take the form of new PISA-​related services, such as online professional learning for teachers via PISA4U (see Lewis, 2020b), we can also see the OECD expanding its role within existing products, such as offering capacity building activities for the NSPs and other PISA for Schools stakeholders (see Table 5.2 for a complete list of the capacity building services offered by the OECD). Lastly, the impact of the OECD as capacity builder is especially relevant if one considers the intended audiences of the PISA for Schools project. While PISA for Schools was initially taken up by more schools within countries that were OECD member countries (for example, the US, the UK, Spain), there has been a more recent expansion in participating countries. As of December 2020, PISA for Schools is available in 15 countries. This includes many that are neither regular PISA participants nor OECD member countries, such as Andorra, and those that are not OECD member countries, such as Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, the People’s Republic of China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates. We can see here both the expanding scope and scale of the OECD’s educational work (Sellar & Lingard, 2014) and the re-​spatialisation of PISA to incorporate new potential users, especially –​with PISA for Development and PISA4U –​among countries and communities that are 102

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less economically developed (Addey, 2020; Lewis, 2020b; Xiaomin & Auld, 2020). In the sense that PISA for Schools might be considered ‘PISA-​lite’, or the first limited engagement of some jurisdictions and users with PISA, we would thus see OECD efforts to build capacity via PISA for Schools as a key means to promote awareness of the PISA brand and build local competency in delivering ILSA-​type assessments: National Service Provider staff will acquire hands-​on experience in competence-​based educational assessment, from implementation to post-​assessment activities. Staff will apply the principles of survey management, digital test administration, validation studies, data analysis and processing, and item analysis and development, drawing from the expertise and experience of the OECD. (OECD, 2020b, p 4) Given the explicit capacity building focus present in PISA for Development and the attempt to adapt the successful PISA policy instrument for the context of developing countries (Auld et al, 2019), it is perhaps reasonable to assume that the capacity building efforts present in PISA for Schools reflect an intentional strategy on behalf of the OECD. Although it remains to be seen, this seeming alignment between PISA for Schools and PISA for Development to make PISA more useful and applicable to non-​traditional countries may well help provide the OECD with a likely future clientele for the main PISA test, even though PISA for Development effectively functions as a kind of main PISA for developing nations. ‘Voluntary contributions’: promoting a user-​pays approach Another significant development with the most recent iteration of PISA for Schools is the move to a private funding model, as opposed to the OECD’s earlier reliance on philanthropic foundation funding to sustain the development and administration of the programme (see Lewis, 2017b, 2020a). Similar to the ongoing explicit opportunities for capacity building, there are equally many opportunities for both the OECD and the IPP to develop considerable financial relationships with the NSPs in each national jurisdiction. PISA for Schools is arguably an example of one such ‘innovation’ being developed at the policy interface of the OECD and various external actors, reflecting the increasing relevance of such non-​government agencies across the policymaking cycle. This is especially so with the move to standardised, data-​driven modes of accountability, which provide edu-​ businesses with myriad opportunities, across multiple jurisdictions and policy spaces, to construct and provide tools for diagnosis and intervention. Given the growing market for services associated with school testing and improvement, we would also suggest that the expansion of such external 103

The Rise of External Actors in Education Table 5.1: PISA for Schools ‘voluntary contributions’ Number of participating schools

Annual participation cost per school

1–​99

€350

100–​299

€300

300–​499

€250

500–​999

€200

≥1,000

Not available

Source: Adapted from OECD (2020b, p 5)

actors in education is tied, to a greater or lesser extent, to the opportunity for profit. Because previous versions of PISA for Schools were funded entirely by philanthropic sources, the only ‘user-​pays’ fees were those incurred by participating schools and schooling systems. While schools are still required to pay to cover the cost of their participation, the current model is underwritten by a further, extensive programme of fees and charges, which are somewhat euphemistically referred to as ‘voluntary contributions’ (OECD, 2020b, p 5). These fees are associated with three distinct components of PISA for Schools, including: (1) payments by the NSP to the OECD; (2) payments by the NSP to the IPP; and (3) payments by the participating school to the NSP. The most significant payment schedule is that paid by the NSP to the OECD, with these costs associated with the OECD adapting PISA for Schools for use in new jurisdictions. These core services, including an in-​ country validation study and the country’s language adaptation verification, are charged at a fixed amount of €90,000. In subsequent years, the NSP is required to pay the OECD an ongoing fee of €40,000, in addition to a variable rate determined by the number of participating schools in the jurisdiction (see Table 5.1). For instance, in a jurisdiction seeking to have 200 participating schools (a commonly cited baseline figure), the NSP will be liable to pay the OECD voluntary contributions amounting to €90,000 in the first year and then €100,000 in each subsequent year. By contrast, previous versions of PISA for Schools saw the OECD and NSP sign no contract and exchange no money, as financial obligations only existed between the NSP and participating schools (Lewis, 2017b). An OECD policy analyst we spoke with described this earlier situation as follows: “Everything that is paid here is paid directly from the schools to the service provider [NSP]. So, we don’t pay the service provider; the service provider doesn’t pay us.” We can thus see a significant shift in how the NSP is positioned relative to the OECD, and how the relationship between the two parties is now far more explicitly stated and formalised. 104

PISA for sale? Table 5.2: ‘Optional extras’: PISA for Schools support activities offered by the OECD Secretariat Support activities for the NSP provided by the OECD Secretariat

Year 1

Year 2

Initial workshop (approximately two days on-​site)

€10,000

Not applicable

Data coding training, quality check, and double marking

€20,000

€20,000

Sampling framework design for representative sampling

€20,000

€20,000

Tailored data analysis and report

To be discussed

To be discussed

Group report

€35,000

€35,000

Dedicated capacity building activities

To be discussed

To be discussed

OECD mission visit to provide on-​site initial workshop (see above)

Varies by location Varies by location

Country customisation of PISA for Schools Online Community

€10,000

Not applicable

Post-​assessment workshop

€10,000

€10,000

Source: Adapted from OECD (2020b, p 5)

In addition to these considerable financial obligations, the OECD will also conduct a ‘needs assessment’ to determine whether further capacity building services are required to bring the NSP to the standard deemed appropriate by the OECD (see Table 5.2 for a complete list of support activities). As noted in the PISA for Schools project outline, ‘The OECD will conduct a needs assessment to ascertain whether the NSP requires additional support activities to successfully implement the project. These activities may be provided by the PISA for Schools team and associated experts’ (OECD, 2020b, p 5; emphasis original). While some situations will require an NSP to undertake additional capacity building activities for the purpose of maintaining accreditation, the OECD has also made these ‘dedicated capacity building activities’ available on request, across topics including survey management, test design, psychometrics, validation studies, and secondary analyses (OECD, 2020b, p 11). While these situations are framed as more voluntary in nature, they nevertheless position the OECD as the ultimate arbiter of ‘what works’ regarding the delivery of PISA for Schools in particular, as well as the provision of ILSA-​related services more generally. This is also a substantive shift from earlier approaches of the OECD, when PISA for Schools was framed as professional learning for participating schools rather than a product that the OECD could sell for its own financial benefit (see Lewis, 2020a, p 83).6 Despite this focus on the role of the OECD, this is not to downplay the considerable financial relationships and obligations that exist between 105

The Rise of External Actors in Education Table 5.3: User-​pays: PISA for Schools services offered by Janison as the IPP Additional user-​pays services for the NSP provided by the IPP (Janison)

Cost

Year 1: Charges associated with network specification, validation, €75,000 platform customisation to the respective national language, hosting on the IPP platform, and a base provision of 200 participating schools Year 2 and onwards: Charges associated with hosting on the IPP platform, test maintenance, and a base provision of 200 participating schools

€60,000

Translation services to reconfigure the Janison Insights platform if the national language is not English, Russian, Portuguese, or Spanish.

€15,000 for each additional language translation

Inclusion of additional schools over the base provision of 200 schools

€150

Any additional testing cycles (that is, additional test provision) in a given year

€15,000

Initial on-​site workshop

€5,000

Preparation of a group report (that is, an aggregate analysis and report of multiple participating schools in a given jurisdiction)

€10,000

Source: Adapted from OECD (2020b, pp 5–​6)

the NSP and the IPP, and between participating schools and the NSP. For instance, there is an equally significant schedule of fees payable by the NSP to the IPP (presently, Janison) that are associated with configuring and hosting PISA for Schools on their online platform, as well as voluntary user-​pays services that NSPs may undertake at their own initiative (see Table 5.3). At the same time, participating schools are obligated to pay the NSP for administering PISA for Schools and providing related services (for example, data analysis, producing school reports). In the US, where Janison is both the IPP and the NSP, schools are charged at the rate of US$5,000 per school. Taken collectively, we can see how there now exist multiple overlapping relations of financial obligation: participating schools pay the NSP for the provision of PISA for Schools, and the NSP pays both the OECD and the IPP for associated support services. There are also many more opportunities for paid services delivered by the IPP and the OECD, especially around mandatory (and some voluntary) capacity building activities for the NSP and education authorities in a given jurisdiction. Whereas PISA for Schools was previously largely supported by philanthropic funding, the current model appears to be much more oriented towards a marketised model and the provision of user-​ pays services. What distinguishes this model most significantly from previous modes of delivery is that the OECD explicitly benefits financially from the PISA for Schools test; that is, there are hard(er) financial benefits to the OECD, 106

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in addition to the soft(er) benefits that are more readily apparent. This is also a significant departure from earlier instances of ILSAs that often obscured the costs of participating in PISA-​related testing services (see, for instance, Lewis, 2017b, 2020b; Engel & Rutkowski, 2020). Now, these payments, and especially the recipients of these payments, are clearly stated on PISA for Schools documents. The logic of user-​pays –​be it a participating school or an NSP encouraged or compelled to undertake a capacity building ­exercise –​ seemingly undergirds the entire PISA for Schools programme.

Conclusion We have demonstrated the changing nature of PISA for Schools from its earliest sponsorship by philanthropic agencies in the US but with the imprimatur of the OECD to its enhanced global reach, reflecting new topological spaces of globalisation but also being more closely incorporated into the OECD’s range of testing products as part of their broader and seemingly ever-​expanding educational testing regime. On this latter point, think of how PISA for Development and PISA for Schools measures have been incorporated into the main PISA scale of measurement. This signifies the further constitution of the globe as a commensurate space of educational measurement with individual schools as well as systems now being made commensurate in these ways. Furthermore, we have demonstrated the significant involvement of third-​party actors in developments and expansions in respect of PISA for Schools, especially the Australian for-​profit edu-​ business Janison and other NSPs. We have pointed out how the OECD now benefits financially from the functioning and expansion of PISA for Schools. We see a user-​pays approach for participation in PISA for Schools, but with the status and reputational capital of the OECD being used to ‘sell’ and ‘market’ this product and the solutions it proffers. The involvement of non-​state third-​party actors demonstrates the reality of heterarchic governance in education stretched globally, reflecting the new spatialities of globalisation and the OECD working well beyond merely responding to agendas set by its members and the PISA Governing Board. This is further confirmation of the OECD continuing to expand the scope, scale, and explanatory power of PISA, not to mention its broader testing regime (Sellar & Lingard, 2014). To reiterate, we would argue that the way PISA for Schools now functions demonstrates quite clearly that the OECD is now a policy actor in its own right, and not merely the ventriloquised voice for what the 38 member countries want. The centrality of the OECD’s Secretariat and its actor role are also demonstrated by the PISA Governing Board only authorising new participating countries and schooling systems. The Secretariat does everything else in respect of PISA for Schools; for example, authorising NSPs 107

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and presumably IPPs, and evaluating NSP capacity and the need for further capacity building. Capacity building is also an important focus of PISA for Development. There is thus a capacity building focus in the workings of both PISA for Development and PISA for Schools, which demonstrates a move in the OECD’s work from a major focus on data for policy to actual service delivery. The inclusion of both tests on the main PISA scale, including much more fine-​grained proficiency levels at or below Level 1 of PISA for Development, also potentially extends the possible take-​up of PISA for Schools in non-​ traditional and least developed countries. This is further evidence of the OECD seeking to expand the scope, scale, and explanatory power of their testing regime with main PISA as the prototype, with third-​party involvement being critical to these broader developments. Notes For instance, a US school that participated in PISA for Schools in 2018 would have their performance benchmarked against 16 schooling systems: Australia, Brazil, Beijing-​ Shanghai-​Jiangsu-​Guangdong (China), Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong (China), Ireland, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, the UK, and the US. 2 The three domains of reading, mathematics, and science are assessed in the main PISA and PISA for Schools via an ascending six-​level PISA proficiency scale (Level 1–​Level 6), with Level 2 considered to be equivalent to a baseline level of student proficiency in the given subject, whereas students at levels 5 and 6 are notionally ‘top performers’ when compared with their global peers. Given the equating of PISA and PISA for Schools, these PISA proficiency levels and scores putatively provide a common framework for comparing student performance at the local (school) and international (schooling system) level. 3 PISA for Schools is now available in the following 15 jurisdictions: Andorra, Australia, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, People’s Republic of China, Colombia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, and the US. It is deliverable in the following 15 languages: Arabic, Basque, Catalan, English, French, Galician, German, Japanese, Kazakh, Mandarin Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, and Welsh. 4 Janison services more generally include online assessment and online learning, with PISA for Schools falling under the umbrella of online assessment. Within a broader suite of services, other prominent examples of prominent K-​12 online assessments include Australian state-​level testing (Best Start Year 7 literacy and numeracy exam; Validation of Assessment for Learning and Individual Development science exam in New South Wales) and national-​level testing (NAPLAN Online literacy and numeracy exam); as well as Singaporean standardised school exams (O-​Levels and A-​Levels). 5 Emphasising the financial opportunities associated with being an NSP of PISA for Schools, Janison also noted in the same press release that it expects ‘further significant growth’ (Janison, 2019, p 1) in coming years as additional schools are signed to participate in PISA for Schools. 6 Consider the following quote from a conversation had with an OECD policy analyst during 2014, when PISA for Schools was still funded exclusively by philanthropic donations: “It’s not like these organisations are helping us [the OECD] promoting this. It’s actually more us helping the schools and the organisations in these countries use the instrument, I would rather say. Because, as such, it’s not a product that we are selling. For the moment, we are not, the OECD is not getting anything out of this” (emphasis added). 1

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Sellar, S. (2015) ‘Data infrastructure: a review of expanding accountability systems and large-​scale assessments in education’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 36 (5): 765–​77. Sellar, S. & Gulson, K.N. (2019) ‘Becoming information centric: the emergence of new cognitive infrastructures in education policy’, Journal of Education Policy, https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​02680939.2019.1678766 Sellar, S. & Lingard, B. (2014) ‘The OECD and the expansion of PISA: new global modes of governance in education’, British Educational Research Journal, 40 (6): 917–​36. Thompson, G. & Hogan, A. (eds) (2020) Privatisation and Commercialisation in Public Education: How the Public Nature of Schooling is Changing, London: Routledge. Thompson, G., Savage, G.C. & Lingard, B. (2016) ‘Introduction: think tanks, edu-​businesses and education policy: issues of evidence, expertise and influence’, The Australian Educational Researcher, 43 (1): 1–​13. Thrift, N. (2005) Knowing Capitalism, London: Sage. Verger, A., Lubienski, C. & Steiner-​Khamsi, G. (eds) (2016) World Yearbook Of Education 2016: The Global Education Industry. New York: Routledge. Williamson, B. (2017) Big Data in Education: The Digital Future of Learning, Policy and Practice, Los Angeles: Sage. Woodward, R. (2009) The Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development (OECD), Abingdon: Routledge. Xiaomin, L. & Auld, E. (2020) ‘A historical perspective on the OECD’s “humanitarian turn”: PISA for Development and the Learning Framework 2030’, Comparative Education, https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​ 03050068.2020.1781397 Ydesen, C. (ed) (2019) The OECD’s Historical Rise in Education: The Formation of a Global Governing Complex, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Historical reconfigurations of internal/​ external actors in Danish educational testing practices Christian Ydesen

Introduction For centuries, policymakers, planners, economists, and educationalists working in global, national, and local settings have concerned themselves with the organisation, development, and improvement of education. Education is widely regarded as a fulcrum for societal change and improvement (Popkewitz & Lindblad, 2004; Depaepe & Smeyers, 2008; Labaree, 2008; Tröhler, 2020). Today, education policy hinges on projections, future goals, and the achievement of internationally defined benchmarks and standards. National and local education provisions operate in a global space which to a large extent is defined –​or conveyed –​by international organisations, philanthropic foundations, private edu-​businesses, and powerful governments (Mundy et al, 2016; Lewis, 2020). A core feature of this development has been the growing role of non-​state actors in the transnational policymaking landscape (Menashy, 2016). In effect, modern education is defined by a complex host of programmes, technologies, data, and actors, each claiming to make education a stepping stone and a catapult for a better, more effective, more competitive, richer, and/​or more sustainable society (Lewis et al, 2016; Verger, 2019). In line with these initial observations and the theme of this edited volume, there is a need to investigate the workings and configurations of the various contexts in which different kinds of actors emerge, interact, and struggle to shape education. One way of doing that is to map the different stakeholders engaged in and with education, which helps to illuminate the different interests, conditions, and knowledge at play in key contexts shaping education, including actors’ engagement with programmes, technologies, and data. Such an analysis allows us to extend the way we understand actors’ modus operandi in particular contexts and the likely implications of this in terms of which agendas, understandings, and practices are promoted in education. It also allows us to openly explore the reconfigurations of actors across time and space, and thus move beyond classical distinctions 113

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between internal and external actors. As demonstrated by the editors in the introductory chapter, the classical distinctions between actors in education have become blurred. Next, I argue that a historical perspective on the shifting configurations of actors in education policy spaces offers an opportunity to move beyond classical distinctions and inform the way we approach education policy formation today. Pursuing a historical perspective The workings and constitutions of contemporary education systems are historically constructed as amalgams of multiple –​and often competing –​ agendas, actors, technologies, and materialities (Popkewitz, 2013; Sobe, 2013; Tröhler, 2020). The implication is that today’s understandings, concepts, and priorities in education have distinct historical trajectories, precursors, and antecedents. Certainly, the actors, partnerships, agendas, programmes, and technologies shaping education in the past were different from those today; even so, unravelling the historical compositions of actors, their agendas, and the means they employed in shaping education constitutes a relevant platform for contemporary research on the shifting configurations of actors, their interactions, and power dynamics in different contexts. A historical perspective also offers insights into a reservoir of communalities and analogies between the past and the present as well as the contingencies that shape historical change and impose both temporal and explanatory order on contemporary events. In this sense, a historical perspective can provide critical awareness of how and why contemporary education has come to function and be understood as it is, but it also enables us to reflect on lost opportunities and unexplored paths and to problematise accepted truths (Bourdieu, 1994; Tilly, 2011; Westberg, 2021). In this sense, a historical analysis carries emancipatory potential that offers fresh re-​readings of contemporary paradigms, power structures, and practices. Identifying a relevant case Starting from the observation that testing in various forms has proven to be a very influential and often even a determining factor in the shaping of education across space and time (Stobart, 2008; Au, 2009; Madaus et al, 2009; Lindblad et al, 2015; Carnoy, 2019), this chapter zooms in on the historical formations of educational testing practices in Denmark in the interwar years and the Cold War period. Historically, the development and implementation of testing practices in Denmark has been the result of influence from a diverse and shifting group of public intellectuals, transnational networks, organisations, and professionals, such as educational psychologists, psychometricians, statisticians, economists, 114

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teachers, headmasters, and university psychologists. The first traces of such communities, connections, and alliances were formed around World War I (Lawn, 2008; Ydesen, 2012; Ydesen & Andreasen, 2020). Today, the promotion of testing practices is led by some of the same groups, but also by international organisations (for example, the Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development (OECD) and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, edu-​businesses (for example, McKinsey & Pearson), philanthropic institutions (for example, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), and politicians keen to orient education to operate along accountability and performance measures. Although some of these networks, organisations, and individuals work from within education systems and some are external to the education system, they are all linked by an ambition to introduce testing practices to improve education practices and outcomes. Critically, however, drawing on a historical perspective, the discourses used to promote testing practices are shown to subscribe to different assumptions, priorities, and understandings associated with and promoted by different actors inside and outside the education system and sometimes even those moving across the inside/​outside boundaries. The chapter’s empirical focus is Denmark, situated firmly in the Nordic family of education systems and tied to an essentially universal welfare state model that has been moderated in recent decades by neoliberal reforms (Wiborg, 2013). Historically, the Danish education system has not embraced high-​stakes testing practices for all students as was the case, for instance, in England with the 11 Plus test introduced in 1944 to stream all students at age 11 (see Lowe, 1997). Instead, the Danish education system has pursued a comprehensive education model, while high-​stakes testing and streaming practices were confined to children unable to follow the standard curriculum; that is, determining the line between standard and special education. But this historical path was not uncontested, and actors within and outside the education system were engaged in debates and struggles over the very potential of testing and the right uses and placements in the education system. I therefore focus on Denmark as a case for exploring how testing practices have been promoted in general and which interactions, struggles, and strategising efforts have lain behind these in order to gain influence and shape schooling. The focus is on the complexities and interactions arising in the field, including the tensions and alliances between bottom-​up and top-​down actors, and between internal and external actors of the education system. In this sense, the case offers significant insights into how we can understand shifting configurations of actors and the implications in terms of education policy formation. More specifically, this lens allows me to uncover how schooling in Denmark has interacted with, and been historically influenced by, global and local testing agendas and a complex composition of actors at various levels (Ydesen et al, 2013; Ydesen et al, 2018; Hamre et al, 2019). By examining 115

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the growth of the testing sector in Denmark in a historical perspective, this chapter allows for a deeper examination of how bottom-​up and top-​ down actors, and internal and external actors, work in alliances and change locations over time, offering new insights into understandings of the role of ‘external’ actors in education.

Methodology and chapter structure The methodological approach drew on the archival material and analysis presented in my PhD dissertation (Ydesen, 2011); parts of the historical sections were therefore rewritten passages. The archival documents were from the Danish National Archives, the Historical Pedagogical Study Collection held at Denmark’s pedagogical library at Aarhus University, the Frederiksberg City Archives, and the New Education Fellowship/​ World Education Fellowship Archive at the UCL Institute of Education in London. The analyses also drew on historical publications. For a fresh inquiry in this analysis, the empirical data were reread and analysed anew, focusing specifically on the actors promoting testing and the shifting historical configurations in the historical compositions of actors. With the goal of conducting a historical analysis of shifting actors crafting the Danish education system, with a focus on testing, this chapter’s structure is chronological, allowing the analysis to identify continuities and ruptures in the composition of actors and their discourses and agendas. The analysis first addresses the interwar period, when testing in Danish education was promoted due to bottom-​up and local initiatives drawing on transnational connections, networks, and inspiration. Testing advocacy was often propagated by actors associated with the progressive education movement, who saw testing in general and IQ testing in particular as an objective tool holding the promise of pursuing child-​centred pedagogical ideals. The relevant connecting spaces for this analysis comprise the Education Psychology Study Commission [Udvalget for Skolepsykologiske Undersøgelser], founded in 1924, and connections between the Danish educational field and the New Education Fellowship, formally institutionalised in May 1926 with the formation of The Free School [Den Frie Skole] as an official Danish branch of the organisation. The second analytical focus is the Cold War period. Here, the interactions between the Danish educational field and the international community were explored as a core space for actors promoting testing to exert their influence. The Education Psychology Study Commission decommissioned itself on 15 December 1955, when its ongoing work, copyrights, and money were transferred to the newly founded Danish Pedagogical Institute [Danmarks Pædagogiske Institut; DPI]. This institute served as a hub for interactions about testing in the Danish field of education and employed 116

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several researchers in the development of educational tests, one of the most well-​known being the statistician Georg Rasch (1901–​80). The two chronological analyses together establish a historical platform underpinning the concluding discussion. The discussion first fleshes out the historical patterns and trajectories in terms of compositions, discourses, and agendas of actors promoting testing and, second, explains how education agendas are regularly shifting and mobilising across different actors and in different organisational and institutional contexts, sometimes leading to external actors becoming more internal or taking up a hybrid position.

The interwar period Widespread use of educational testing aimed at achieving scientific objectivity –​like IQ testing and other types of ability and proficiency tests adhering to strict standardisation methodologies –​arose in most Western countries around the time of World War I (Carson, 2014). Although the foundations of educational testing practices are found in the 19th century (Reese, 2013), testing quickly evolved into an international phenomenon in the early 20th century. Intelligence testing originated in Paris and then travelled to the rest of the world. This movement was highly supported by scientific standardisation, which enabled people to work across borders (Grek, 2009). Thus, in order to understand educational testing as a phenomenon in education, we must consider the international space in which the leading actors operated. As confirmed by Danish educational psychologist Ingvard Skov Jørgensen (1915–2000), the prerequisites for the development of Danish educational psychology and testing must be found abroad (Jørgensen, 1955). The actions and discourses adopted by the Danish testing protagonists in the interwar years must therefore be understood in a global context. In Denmark, progressive educationalists –​ who had often studied psychology –​propagated the idea that IQ tests could alleviate classroom challenges with so-​called ‘problem’ children by institutionalising the scientific categorisation of children into different streams (Bendixen, 2006; Ydesen, 2011; Hamre, 2012). While the sorting of children by abilities extends back to at least the mid-​19th century, it had mostly been based on teacher evaluations. Now, inspired by the use of IQ testing in mental care institutions since the 1910s, progressive educationalists sought to transfer this to the public education system, arguing that other nations were already following such a path with great success. Actors of the Danish testing agenda The Danish progressive education environment at the beginning of the 20th century mainly consisted of the folk high school movement, inspired 117

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by N.F.S. Grundtvig (1783–​1872) and Christen Kold (1816–​70), and the reform pedagogy movement (Nørgaard, 1977). In particular, the progressive education movement drew its inspiration from international pedagogical influences. This movement consisted of a diverse group of actors: some were teachers or even head teachers, some were university researchers and civil servants, and some were merely independent individuals with an opinion about education. However, they were united in their focus on child-​centred pedagogy, doing away with social inequalities in the existing education system, and using scientific methods to improve education. Unlike traditional examinations, scientific testing held the promise of delivering on all three aims. In the Danish education field, the progressive education movement –​and their testing agenda –​often found itself in opposition to the establishment (Ydesen, 2011). A good example of such tensions is the school experiment in Vanløse between 1924 and 1928, run by leading progressive educators and inspired by foreign school experiments, particularly the experimental classes in Hamburg (Næsgaard, 1928; Nørgaard, 1977). The Vanløse classes were the first sites where IQ testing was systematically used within a regular public school (Egeberg, 1983). However, the ten Vanløse experimental classes were suddenly terminated in 1928 by the Copenhagen School Directorate, a few days before the evaluative test agreed on in 1924 was scheduled. The leading hand in this decision was conservative Mayor of Education Ernst Kaper (1874–​1940), who wanted a uniform and effective school system in Copenhagen, one in which children could be easily moved from one school to another (Nørgaard, 1977; Henriksen & Nørgaard, 1983). Kaper was also the leading proponent of whole-​class teaching in Denmark, and he found no reason why a new and individualised teaching approach should gain a foothold in Copenhagen. Nevertheless, the progressive education movement found a conducive environment in the municipality of Frederiksberg, neighbouring Copenhagen. In 1918, Georg Julius Arvin (1880–​1962), a leading progressive educator, was appointed headmaster of the School at la Cours Vej [Skolen på la Cours Vej] in Frederiksberg, a position he held until 1939. Under Arvin’s leadership, the school became a hub for testing out and developing further international educational ideas and practices, not least because Arvin was given the freedom by the Frederiksberg School Directorate to implement many progressive ideas. Henning Meyer (1885–​1967), Scandinavia’s first educational psychologist, was also a member of this hub. Meyer worked as a teacher in the School at la Cours Vej, where he found a suitable platform for realising his ambitions in educational psychology. Meyer conducted numerous educational psychology experiments and investigations from the late 1920s, and in 1934 Meyer was formally employed as an educational psychologist. 118

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The discursive landscape In terms of discourse, many politicians and decision makers at the time believed in the ideas of social engineering and eugenics. This generated a political climate in which testing –​as a technology for governing education –​ could garner very broad political acceptance and support. The main political agendas feeding into the advancement of IQ testing were the promotion of meritocratic initiatives, determining the quality of pupils and schools, and increasing education opportunities for working class children. In Frederiksberg, a number of problems, such as the challenges for slow learners and troublesome children in classes, came to the attention of educational decision makers keen on modernising Frederiksberg’s educational system. The conditions of Frederiksberg’s educational system were thus amenable to the services of educational psychology, which seemed to offer a fair and scientific sorting of children based on intelligence testing. Testing validated the organisation of children into standard and remedial education tracks, as well as the overall streaming system centred on the concept of children’s innate abilities and giftedness. There was also the necessary political will to counter problems and introduce what was considered an improved and scientific selection technology. Nevertheless, many teachers remained sceptical about education psychology and IQ testing. This was mostly because educational psychologists were seen as representatives of the progressive education movement, which advocated for a free upbringing and freedom for the child and were understood as seeking to revolutionise the educational system. In addition, teachers were often sceptical regarding the introduction of new exams and tests, because they feared such initiatives would encourage lockstep conformance and inhibit their freedom and practice (Meyer, 1926). Moreover, these initiatives drained power from the teachers, who feared losing influence in determining whether a child was to be transferred into remedial education. In Frederiksberg, however, Meyer managed to overcome the scepticism among many of his teacher colleagues. Support from the teachers’ union and Frederiksberg’s leadership undoubtedly helped. Moreover, the ability of educational psychology to sometimes rid a teacher of a troublesome child in class could often counter the scepticism and create a community of interests between teachers and educational psychologists. When Meyer was first employed as an educational psychologist in 1934, head teacher Niels Eldahl (1934), who was also the head of Frederiksberg’s remedial classes, wrote: ‘There is every reason to welcome the new educational psychologist … in order to appreciate the results of educational experiments, it is necessary to have children’s intelligence examined. … Intelligence testing will be a big help for the teachers’ (p 198).1 119

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In 1940, the leading protagonists of testing from the progressive education movement successfully pushed to establish a one-​year educational psychologist training course at the Royal Danish School of Education, and, in 1944, a three-​year educational psychologist training course was established at the University of Copenhagen. This development signalled the state’s unequivocal recognition of testing practices as an effective, useful way of placing individual children according to what was believed to be their innate abilities, and that educational psychology provided a much-​desired justification and sense of legitimacy to this merit-​based sorting of children. Aiming to reconfigure the Danish field of education The ability of the leading testing protagonists to introduce changes to the organisation and principles of the Danish field of education rested on their formal degrees as psychologists –​which allowed them to operate with authority –​and the fact that they were very well versed in international research and could argue the successes of foreign education testing practices. An important hub for knowledge sharing –​and a source of inspiration –​was the New Education Fellowship, a global progressive education organisation founded in the wake of World War I. The New Education Fellowship was, however, a complex group consisting of both lay enthusiasts and major figures in the international educational scene, such as Montessori, Ferrière, Decroly, Jung, Piaget, and Dewey (Brehony, 2004). Thus, the New Education Fellowship contained myriad, not necessarily compatible, points of view, some rooted in theosophy and spiritual elements and some in psychology and positivistic science. The main principle of the organisation was, nevertheless, to optimise the potential of the individual human being (Ensor, 1929; Boyd, 1930), and members held the belief in new international education as preparation for a new human generation capable of creating a better world in the aftermath of World War I (Brehony, 2004). In August 1929, the New Education Fellowship held its largest conference at Kronborg Castle in Elsinore, Denmark, with around 2,000 participants from 43 nations (Fuchs, 2004). Both Meyer and Arvin were members of the conference committee. The conference was of utmost importance in the international educational field, and the report book stated, ‘It is no exaggeration to say that this book contains the truest account available anywhere of the various currents of progressive educational thought in the world at this critical time’ (Sadler, 1930, p xi). The Kronborg conference provided a massive boost for the Danish progressive education movement because it created a lot of attention. The Danish prime minister, Thorvald Stauning (1873–​1942), gave the opening address. But it also lent support to a key argument of the Danish testing protagonists, that traditional exams are subjective and essentially reproducing 120

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the education system, while scientifically based tests are scientific and objectively meritocratic. Educational psychological testing was included in the New Education Fellowship agenda precisely because it was considered a scientific way of overcoming the problems of examinations through objective educational measurement. It was optimistically considered a solution for the future and perceived as a far more just, efficient differentiation tool than examinations based on subjective teacher evaluations (Brehony, 2004). Danish testing protagonists often criticised the examination system and advocated that examinations be divided into two parts: an attainment and knowledge test and an ability and intelligence test. Referring to US research, Meyer (1926) argued that examination and grades were unreliable, inaccurate yardsticks of children’s attainment levels and that standardised tests could remedy that problem by measuring ability. Educational psychology research could provide scientific arguments for the promotion of testing and played into the norms and values of the progressive education movement. Intelligence testing served several purposes: it was the ultimate individualisation of the educational system, it put the child at the forefront, and it was seen as the only way of identifying the hidden potential of slow learners. Organisational infrastructure and support In 1923 the Danish Society for Experimental Pedagogy, founded in 1914, evolved into the Education Psychology Study Commission. This commission was an external and privately initiated body working in the Danish education field. The commission consisted of prominent members from educational institutions across the country and teachers’ unions. Most notably, its chair was R.H. Pedersen (1870–​1938), an associate professor who became head of the University of Copenhagen’s psychology laboratory in 1924. The commission’s self-​declared task was to devise various types of tests. In 1930 the commission produced one of its most important publications: a Danish standardisation of the Binet–​Simon intelligence test. However, the commission also developed standardised attainment tests and vocational tests, which it sold to schools and teachers (Torpe, 1949). Between 1925 and 1948, the commission published 24 works (Køppe, 1983), aiming to transfer new foreign educational psychology work methods to Denmark (Meyer, 1926). The commission’s success was rooted in its close connection to the teachers’ unions. The commission enjoyed their continuous support and made great efforts to cultivate a partnership with them, even becoming known popularly as ‘the teachers’ unions’ commission’. The commission thus rejected work that would entail the evaluation of individual schools or classes, since this could upset the teachers’ unions (Windmar, 1969). The teachers’ unions 121

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became the clientele of the commission, which wielded a de facto monopoly on all types of educational tests in Denmark. Analysis of the interwar period indicates how actors associated with agendas and ideas at the fringes of the Danish education field were able to make significant advances in order to carve out a more prominent position for themselves and even introduce new practices and technologies that would significantly alter the education landscape. The contextual modus operandi for achieving this result was the authority they commanded, based on their formal education degrees. But they also drew on their international connections and abilities to communicate knowledge. In this sense, the community of testing protagonists argued for the promise of introducing testing practices in response to perceived education problems and found considerable political resonance. The building of alliances (with, for example, the teachers’ unions) and the formal establishment of an external organisation populated with enthusiastic actors bound together by progressive education ideas and well-​connected with central hubs within the established education system (for example, the School at la Cours Vej) allowed the community to create fertile soil for education testing practices to become embedded and even for a new profession –​the educational psychologist –​to emerge. The analysis also shows that the distinction between so-​called internal and external actors becomes increasingly blurred as negotiations around testing and examinations unfolded. This is especially evident in the interplay between the progressive hub at Frederiksberg, the independent Education Psychology Study Commission, and the broad-​ranging Danish branch of the New Education Fellowship.

Cold War period The Cold War played a critical role in shaping contemporary education policies, because many of the agendas, mindsets, and programmes we know today were fostered in that antagonistic, competitive era (Bürgi, 2017, 2019; Grek & Ydesen, 2021). For instance, the Soviet H-​bomb in 1953 and the Sputnik shock in 1957 propelled education onto the OECD agenda and launched a trajectory centred on the development of international comparative indicators and economic understandings of education (Tröhler, 2014). Testing is a vital component of this trajectory, culminating with the launch of the Programme for International Student Assessment in 1997. A core concern in education during the Cold War era was the quality and delivery of education research. This is reflected already at the fourth United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) General Conference in 1949, when a clearing house service was established to provide member countries with comparative information about national education, such as statistics and student performance assessments, and with 122

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the school effectiveness movement of the late 1970s that focused on ‘effective schools’ and the identification of best practices in pedagogy and school leadership (Ydesen & Andreasen, 2020). In Denmark, actors affiliated with educational testing pushed to establish an education research institution, with arguments that reflected a strong sense of international competition and comparison. In 1953, Arvin –​who in the meantime had taken office as head of the Royal Danish School of Educational Studies –​argued: ‘In [education research], we are far behind the other Nordic and Western European countries, not to mention America. Our only consolation and what can save our pedagogical honour to some degree is the excellent work done by the Education Psychology Study Commission since 1923.’ In 1950, then Minister of Education Julius Bomholt formed a ministerial committee to establish an educational research institute. Arvin chaired the committee and was joined by Meyer and a number of other actors associated with the establishment of testing practices in the interwar years (Ydesen, 2011). The committee was tasked with laying the groundwork for what would be the DPI. This reflected and further embedded the reconfiguration of the Danish education field, with former external actors becoming inside actors. The DPI was largely a continuation of the Education Psychology Study Commission. In Køppe’s (1983, p 198) words, the new institute could be viewed historically as ‘an expanding institutionalisation of the Education Psychology Study Commission, since it inherits its tasks of preparing attainment tests, intelligence tests and the like, and a number of research tasks within the field of pedagogical psychology’. With the establishment of the DPI, the state took on formal responsibility for the development and practice of educational tests. The DPI’s formation was thus an expression of a governmental centralisation of testing. At the same time, this signalled the end of an external and privately initiated group working to promote and integrate testing in the Danish education field. An international outlook Already, in their preparatory work, the DPI establishing committee had gathered comprehensive information regarding pedagogical research institutions in Belgium, England, Finland, France, Holland, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, and the United States before making recommendations to the government (Ydesen, 2011). The DPI retained this international outlook and engaged in comprehensive international correspondence and exchange about testing. One example is a visit by leading test psychologist Børge Prien to Moray House in Edinburgh in 1959, which resulted in several exchanges about tests and extended contact. Another example 123

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is DPI’s written exchange with UNESCO in 1956 to obtain contact information for foreign educational research institutions. The Danish institute expressed a need for achievement tests and aptitude tests for learning languages. The DPI also received inputs from France, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and its staff visited foreign colleagues and hosted a number of international visits. The institute even received requests for its own tests from foreign institutes. Thus, educational testing and measurement were a vital area of focus for the DPI, and the new institute established a department dedicated to the development and revision of tests (Ydesen, 2011). In terms of understanding reconfigurations of the educational field and of actors, comprehensive international exchange and correspondence at this point are particularly striking. Institutionalisation provided actors with support that tended to promote the exchange of ideas and knowledge internationally, but which also gave the actors an edge on the domestic scene. Working for the DPI signalled recognition from the state, and with that followed the capacity to act competently, legitimately, and justifiably in the Danish educational field. A shifting discursive landscape and new opportunities for testing practices After the German occupation of Denmark ended, educational psychologists increasingly acknowledged that even the rather new 1943 standardisation of the Binet–​Simon intelligence test was rapidly becoming obsolete. An emerging criticism stemmed from circles mainly outside the public school system: pedagogues, psychologists, statisticians, and doctors in mental care institutions and hospital children’s wards (Ydesen, 2011). The concept of intelligence as something innate and fixed was being challenged by the idea that intelligence development is dynamic and subject to environmental factors. This contradiction concerning the nature of intelligence flourished among Danish post-​war educational psychologists. However, the ambiguity did not impact the widespread practice of testing. Testing had become an established practice among teachers in general and within the realm of education psychology in particular. As we have seen, significant antagonisms existed between different actors in the Danish interwar educational field. But the post-​war climate in the Danish educational field was generally one of reconciliation. The periodical Folkeskolen [The Public School] wrote that no one wanted ‘the battle lines of the interwar years with two belligerent school camps redrawn’ (Nørgaard, 1928, p 233). In alignment with these winds of thaw, the Danish educational field displayed greater capacity for school experiments than was the case during the interwar years. This new openness was 124

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particularly true in relation to experiments regarding educating children about democracy. The leading political parties in the decades after the German occupation saw the educational system as a hotbed for promoting democratic dispositions in the population (Juul, 2006). But this new orientation towards school experiments also offered new opportunities for education testing. Many experiments addressed the lopsided enrolment between the two streams in middle school, established with the 1937 Education Act. There was an examination tier for children continuing on to secondary school and a non-​examination tier for children going on to work. The labour market preferred individuals who had passed an exam, which led work-​bound children to enrol in the examination part instead of the non-​examination part (Nørr, 2009). Testing technology was an integral part of many of these endeavours (Ydesen, 2011), and the cities in which such experiments were conducted coincided with the presence of an educational psychology office. Knowledge of the intelligence levels of all children in a class was seen as a necessary condition for comparing tracked and untracked classes. Hence, testing technology played an important role in the debate about whether to keep the streamed system or whether to introduce comprehensive schooling. Even so, central actors working with education testing began to shift their orientation towards the end of the Cold War. Kaj Aage Spelling (1915–​94), a former educational psychologist and professor at the Royal Danish School of Education, wrote: ‘The worst aberration of the intelligence research and theories was the IQ. I admit that I have calculated thousands of IQs in the past, but today I regret every single one of them, if they were used for the evaluation of a child. ... The IQ was a dangerous weed in the garden of pedagogical psychology’ (1992, p 267). Spelling’s anguished statement represents the loss of faith experienced by some actors working as educational researchers within institutions like the Royal Danish School of Education and the severe criticism raised against the myriad forms of educational testing –​ of which IQ testing was but one component –​throughout Denmark from the late 1960s to the 1990s (Bendixen, 2006, p 89ff). Nonetheless, IQ testing continued to feature in Danish education, because its use had been institutionalised in education psychology and a whole new profession, the education psychologist, had become a feature of Danish education. In terms of actors, the picture emerging from the Cold War period is that those who had been affiliated with the progressive education movement gradually became part of the establishment and took up leading positions in new institutions that would guarantee their influence and authority. But becoming part of the establishment also meant that the community of testing protagonists became much less radical and idealistic compared to the interwar years; some even became critical of their former beliefs. 125

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Concluding discussion The analysis has shown that educational testing in Denmark emerged and was implemented within a political and educational space which held an international outlook; and this outlook became increasingly institutionalised in organisations like the DPI. The transnational community that emerged in the first decades of the 20th century brought together numerous progressive actors in Denmark’s educational and political spheres because they shared a discontent with the conservatism of the established system. Politicians and progressive educationalists joined forces amid a strong zeitgeist of foreign currents and developments in the educational field that was matched by a notion of developing the Danish educational field in light of the emerging welfare state, which called for efficiency, cultivation of the so-​called intelligence pool, and ideas about social engineering that could be used for ordering the populace. Investigating the historical compositions of actors shaping Danish educational testing practices, it is important to note that key actors –​both external and internal to the education system –​were bound together by progressive ideas and a belief that testing would offer scientific solutions to alleviate classroom challenges. Together, these interests formed important organisations such as the Education Psychology Study Commission and the Danish branch of the New Education Fellowship. This community of progressive actors sought to reform the Danish educational system in the 1920s and 1930s. At first, they were met with strong opposition from the establishment –​not so much because they propagated testing but because of their affiliation with the progressive education movement, a movement unacceptable to many school directories, school boards, and teachers subscribing to whole-​class teaching as the best way of ensuring curriculum homogeneity and the monitoring of progress. Nevertheless, they were able to wield authority based on their education degrees and their knowledge about foreign developments in testing. Slowly they gathered a constituency around a policy solution to a perceived education problem which had political resonance. The community of testing protagonists did, however, find support to experiment with their ideas in the Frederiksberg municipality, whose leadership was sympathetic to progressive ideas in education. Laying anchor in Frederiksberg, the University of Copenhagen Department for Applied Psychology and the self-​appointed Education Psychology Study Commission allowed these actors to launch a very successful dissemination strategy and to form alliances with politicians and teacher unions in a joint endeavour that promoted educational psychology and testing across the Danish educational field. Thus, educational psychology spread throughout the Danish educational system in the 1930s and 1940s. A one-​year course 126

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in educational psychology was established at the Royal Danish School of Education in 1940, followed by a comprehensive graduate-​level programme in educational psychology at the University of Copenhagen in 1944. With this ability to draw on international research, the community of actors was able to recontextualise foreign research and tests in a local setting. Testing was presented as a technology able to quantify and accurately measure the output of the educational system. Tests were claimed to be scientific, comparable, and empirical. These arguments played well in the political climate, where the effectiveness, modernisation, and optimisation of education were valued. This chapter describes a bottom-​up process that was initially met with openness at the political level. However, in the ensuing decades, politicians gradually assumed control and sanctioned the development of educational psychology and testing in Denmark by enacting supportive laws. This culminated in the establishment of the DPI in 1955, a move that the community of testing protagonists had long fought for. This development also meant the end of an external and privately initiated body working to promote testing in the Danish education field. The independent community of internal and external actors had thus become part of the establishment, and they would eventually hold top positions in the Danish educational field and function as advisors in important fora. After the German occupation of Denmark ended in 1945, new opportunities arose for the promotion of testing practices. Pedagogy rooted in psychology along with scientific experiments conducted by educational psychologists became the hegemonic educational mindset. Testing was thus seen as a prerequisite for educational experiments in the transition to comprehensive schooling. Towards the end of the Cold War, at least some actors who had previously worked to promote testing practices had a change of heart. Although this did not impact practice much, because IQ testing was already firmly embedded in education psychology, the change nevertheless demonstrates that the pendulum of testing had swung from optimism to criticism regarding its promise. The change also indicates that the theories of those working in progressive education spheres in the early years eventually hardened into an education orthodoxy, becoming a tool in the management of schooling and selection, which explains the new resistances that emerged. Looking beyond the two periods covered in this chapter, testing continued to maintain its stronghold in Denmark, not because of new bottom-​up initiatives but because top-​down agendas featuring testing were being rolled out globally. After 1989, Danish education increasingly affiliated itself with international organisations, especially the OECD, and what Sahlberg has termed the Global Education Reform Movement (Ydesen, 2021). This is an education reform approach that broadly follows the tenets of New Public 127

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Management and neoliberalism. It is structured around a common set of policy ideas including standards-​based management, performance evaluation, and accountability (Fuller & Stevenson, 2019). In terms of understanding the reconfigurations of actors in education contexts, the analysis has focused on the education testing agenda across historical periods. The main finding in relation to the focus of this book is that distinctions between internal and external actors often carries little meaning, because education agendas are regularly shifting and mobilising across different actors and in different organisational and institutional contexts. We have seen how actors associated with agendas and ideas at the fringes of the Danish education field were able to make significant advances in order to carve out more prominent positions for themselves and even introduce new practices and technologies that would significantly alter the education landscape. In the example of testing in Denmark, this also meant that previous ‘external’ actors became ‘internal’ agents within the education system. Another central finding with relevance for our understanding of policy formation is that the shaping of education systems is struggled over, since who is in a position to wield authority shifts as alliances are forged, connections with existing practices are created, and knowledge is carefully communicated and packaged to create political resonances that have value at a particular moment in time. An important condition for achieving these ends is the formation of a community and even formal organisations that cut across different branches of the education system and society, and even have international connections. In this sense, the chapter demonstrates that focusing on an education agenda, a policy instrument, or a technology in a historical perspective may give new insights into the shifting configurations of actors and the way they operate in different contexts; that is, their contextual modus operandi and the complexity of the spaces in which they operate. It offers the opportunity to move beyond the blurred distinctions between internal and external actors in education and holds strong potential to gain insights into the trajectories and antecedents that frame contemporary understandings of education and the host of actors who have sworn to shape it. Note All translations from Danish into English are by the author, unless stated otherwise.

1

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Hamre, B. (2012) Potentialitet og optimering I skolen: Problemforståelser og forskelssætninger af elever –​en nutidshistorisk analyse [Potentiality and optimising in school: Problem understandings and differences of students –​ a contemporary historical analysis], PhD dissertation, Aarhus Universitet. Hamre, B., Axelsson, T. & Ludvigsen, K. (2019) ‘Psychiatry in the sorting of schoolchildren in Scandinavia 1920–​1950: IQ testing, child guidance clinics, and hospitalization’, Paedagogica Historica, 55 (3): 391–​415. Henriksen, S. & Nørgaard, E. (1983) Vanløse-​dagbogen: En reformpædagogisk praksis. Copenhagen: Gyldendal. Jørgensen, I.S. (1955) Det skolepsykologiske arbejde i Danmark. Copenhagen: Skolepsykologisk forlag. Juul, I. (2006) ‘Den danske velfærdsstat og uddannelsespolitikken’ [The Danish welfare state and education policy], Uddannelseshistorie, 40: 72–​100. Køppe, S. (1983) Psykologiens udvikling og formidling I Danmark i perioden 1850–​ 1980 [The development and dissemination of psychology in Denmark in the period 1850–​1980], Copenhagen: Gads forlag. Labaree, D.F. (2008) ‘The winning ways of a losing strategy: educationalizing social problems in the United States’, Educational Theory, 58 (4): 447–​60. Lawn, M. (ed) (2008) An Atlantic Crossing? The Work of the International Examination Inquiry, its Researchers, Methods, and Influence, Oxford: Symposium Books. Lewis, S. (2020) PISA, Policy and the OECD: Respatialising Global Education Governance through PISA for Schools, Singapore: Springer. Lewis, S., Sellar, S. & Lingard, B. (2016) ‘PISA for Schools: topological rationality and new spaces of the OECD’s global educational governance’, Comparative Education Review, 60 (1): 27–​57. Lindblad, S., Pettersson, D. & Popkewitz, T.S. (2015) International Comparisons of School Results: A Systematic Review of Research on Large Scale Assessments in Education, a report from the educational research project SKOLFORSK, Stockholm: Swedish Research Council. Lowe, R. (1997) Schooling and Social Change 1964–​1990, London: Routledge. Madaus, G.F., Russell, M.K. & Higgins, J. (2009) The Paradoxes of High Stakes Testing: How they Affect Students, their Parents, Teachers, Principals, Schools, and Society, Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Menashy, F. (2016) ‘Understanding the roles of non-​state actors in global governance: evidence from the Global Partnership for Education’, Journal of Education Policy, 31 (1): 98–​118. Meyer, H. (1926) ‘Om standpunktsprøver’ [About position tests], Vor Ungdom, pp 37–​50. Mundy, K., Green, A., Lingard, B. & Verger, A. (2016) ‘Introduction: the globalization of education policy –​key approaches and debates’, in K. Mundy, A. Green, B. Lingard & A. Verger (eds) The Handbook of Global Education Policy, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, pp 1–​20. 130

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Næsgaard, S. (1928) ‘Verdenskongressen for den nye Opdragelse’ [World Congress for New Education], Den Frie Skole, 1 (9): 97–​100. Nørgaard, E. (1977) Lille barn, hvis er du? En skolehistorisk undersøgelse over reformbestræbelser inden for den danske folkeskole i mellemkrigstiden [Toddler, who are you? A school-​historical study of reform efforts within the Danish primary and lower secondary school in the interwar period], Copenhagen: Gyldendal. Nørr, E. (2009) ‘Hvorfor blev skoleloven af 1937 først gennemført i 1950’erne og 1960’erne?’ [Why was the School Act of 1937 first enacted in the 1950s and 1960s?] in E. Hansen & L. Jespersen (eds) Samfundsplanlægning i 1950’erne –​tradition eller tilløb?, Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, pp 153–​225. Popkewitz, T.S. (2013) Rethinking the History of Education: Transnational Perspectives on its Questions, Methods, and Knowledge, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Popkewitz, T.S. & Lindblad, S. (2004) ’Historicizing the future: educational reform, systems of reason, and the making of children who are the future citizens’, Journal of Educational Change, 5 (3): 229–​47. Reese, W.J. (2013) Testing Wars in the Public Schools: A Forgotten History, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sadler, M. (1930) ‘Introduction’, in W. Boyd (ed) Towards a New Education: A Record and Synthesis of the Discussions on the New Psychology and the Curriculum at the Fifth World Conference of the New Education Fellowship Held at Elsinore, Denmark, in August 1929, London: A.A. Knopf, pp xi–​xvii. Sobe, N.W. (2013) ‘Entanglement and transnationalism in the history of American education’, in T.S. Popkewitz (ed) Rethinking the History of Education, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 93–​107. Spelling, K. (1992) ‘Intelligensbegrebet under lup’ [The concept of intelligence under scrutiny], Psykologisk Pædagogisk Rådgivning, 4: 256–​71. Stobart, G. (2008) Testing Times: The Uses and Abuses of Assessment, London: Routledge. Tilly, C. (2011) ‘Why and how history matters’, in E. Godin (ed) The Oxford Handbook of Political Science, Oxford: Oxford University Press, doi: 10.1093/​ oxfordhb/​9780199604456.013.00 Torpe, H. (1949) ‘Skolepsykologien I Danmark’ [School psychology in Denmark], Nordisk Psykologi, 1 (3–​4): 86–​99. Tröhler, D. (2014) ‘Change management in the governance of schooling: the rise of experts, planners, and statistics in the early OECD’, Teachers College Record, 116 (9): 1–​26. Tröhler, D. (2020) ‘National literacies, or modern education and the art of fabricating national minds’, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 52 (5): 620–​35. Verger, A. (2019) ‘Partnering with non-​governmental organizations in public education: contributions to an ongoing debate’, Journal of Educational Administration, 57 (4): 426–​30. 131

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Westberg, J. (2021) ‘What we can learn from studying the past: the wonderful usefulness of history in educational research’, Encounters in Theory and History of Education, 22. https://doi.org/10.24908/encounters.v22i0.14999 Wiborg, S. (2013) ‘Neo-​liberalism and universal state education: the cases of Denmark, Norway and Sweden 1980–​2011’, Comparative Education, 49 (4): 407–​23. Windmar, T.H. (1969) Det skolepsykologiske arbejde –​empiri og essay [School psychological work –​ empirical and essay], Copenhagen: Danmarks Pædagogiske Bibliotek. Ydesen, C. (2011) The Rise of High-​stakes Educational Testing in Denmark, 1920–​1970, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Ydesen, C. (2012) ‘The international space of the Danish testing community in the interwar years’, Paedagogica Historica, 48 (4): 589–​99. Ydesen, C. (2021) ‘Globalization and localization in the shaping of the Danish public education system –​recontextualization processes in four historical educational reforms’, in W. Zhao & D. Tröhler (eds) 21st-C ​ entury Competency-​Based Curriculum Reforms: Cultural Views on Globalization and Localization, Singapore: Springer, pp 85–​110. Ydesen, C. & Andreasen, K.E. (2020) ‘Historical roots of the global testing culture in education’, Nordic Studies in Education, 40 (2): 149–​66. Ydesen, C., Ludvigsen, K. & Lundahl, C. (2013) ‘Creating an educational testing profession in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, 1910–​1960’, European Educational Research Journal, 12 (1): 120–​38. Ydesen, C., Hamre, B. & Andreasen, K. (2018) ‘Differentiation of students in the early Danish welfare state: Professional entanglements between educational psychologists and psychiatrists’, Nordic Journal of Educational History, 5 (1): 73–​96.

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7

A short history of external agency involvement within education in contemporary Poland Mikołaj Herbst

Introduction The vast majority of students in the contemporary educational system in Poland attend public institutions, funded and overseen by either the central or local government.1 Recently, however, an increasing share of the school market is slipping out of the hands of public administration bodies and into the purview of non-​governmental organisations (NGOs). Within research examining the effects of the increasing role of external agencies involved in the provision of education across the world, we see instances where they are brought in to tackle the perceived failure of public services (Tooley, 2004) or sought out for their innovative approaches to education (Gauri, 1998; Lubienski, 2003). Yet the benefits of an education sector which allows for new forms of involvement around the provision of education are not always evident. Some experts have argued that they contribute to increasing inequalities (Gonzalez, 2017) or that they do not necessarily improve educational standards, because the contexts that usually allow for greater external agency involvement –​a competitive market place –​are not necessarily synonymous with quality and equality of provision (Lubienski & Lubienski, 2014; Lubienski & Perry 2019). For decades, the Polish education system was entirely run by the state: centralised, underfunded, and aiming to provide equitable access and outcomes. The collapse of communist rule in 1989 led to a new era in Polish education, and the emergence of independent schooling became one of the symbols of the new order. Three major groups of external actors became active providers of education in the early 1990s: the Catholic Church, progressive educators, and private, profit-​oriented individuals or companies. Dynamic involvement of external agents in Polish education provide a unique opportunity to study these emerging educational powers in the context of the political and economic transformation which has taken place in Eastern Europe over the last 30 years. This chapter offers an overview

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of the contribution of external actors to Poland’s education system, with focus on the motivations behind the emergence of particular institutional forms, their place in the regulatory framework, and their role in respective local educational markets.

The legacy of the old order and the decentralisation of education in Poland Between 1945 and 1990, education policy in Poland was centrally planned and completely subordinated to the political ideology of the Polish United Workers’ Party. All schools were run and fully funded by the state. For most of this period, all school directors had to be members of the ruling party. By the end of communist rule, in 1989, the education system was in a bad state. A modernisation of teaching methods and curricula, a reduction in the size of the vocational education sector, and an increase in public spending on education were all sorely needed (Herczyński & Levitas, 2002). Following the victory of the democratic opposition (under the name ‘Solidarność’ Civic Committee) in the first quasi-​free parliamentary elections since World War II, the newly established government sought to overcome the traditional state monopoly in the education sector. At that time, however, external actors played a rather marginal role in government plans. The main focus was on re-​establishing local governments in Poland and on making them take over responsibility for preschools as well as primary and secondary schooling. The 1990s were a time of democratisation and massive decentralisation of power in all sectors, including education. The local governments gradually took over primary education (in 1996) and then secondary education (in 1999). The first phase of decentralisation began in 1991, when municipal governments became responsible for providing preschool education within their territories. From 1993, the local authorities could voluntarily take over primary schools (grades 1–​8). In 1996, all primary education institutions became subordinated to municipal governments, and since 1999, local authorities at county level have been responsible for running all secondary schools in Poland. As this timeline shows, the consecutive decentralisation reforms with respect to education were introduced within a relatively short period. They were in fact part of the profound reconstruction of the state after the collapse of the communist system. The reformers’ goal was to take public tasks away from state administration, which was still to a large extent controlled by the old elite. Education was just one such task (Regulski, 2003). Despite the wide decentralisation processes, it is important to emphasise that the reforms referred mostly to managerial and financial competencies, and not to pedagogical matters, which remained largely under the central

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regulation of the Polish government. This division was a compromise between experts concerned with the quality and uniformity of the system and the supporters of radical decentralisation, who wanted to remove as much control from the central state as possible. Thus, curricula and pedagogical standards remained under the control of the national government. They were monitored and enforced through regional agencies of the Ministry of Education, called Kuratoria (Herczyński & Levitas, 2002). The central government became responsible for providing local governments with the funding necessary to pay for the operating costs of primary and secondary schools. The local authorities, in turn, directly ran the schools, determined catchment areas, and hired the teaching staff. They were also responsible for all investment in the school infrastructure. The duties of local governments included subsidising those schools run by external actors in their area. In these latter cases, a subvention is received from the state budget, calculated on the basis of the total number of local students, which includes all those in non-​municipal institutions. Local authorities are obliged to subsidise each non-​state school with an amount equal to or higher than that which it receives from the central budget (in per-​student terms). An important regulatory role in Poland’s education system is played by the Teacher’s Charter, referred to in Table 7.1. The Teacher’s Charter Act was first enacted by the Polish parliament in 1982. It defined the rights and obligations of teachers, including statutory working time, social benefits, and wages. At the time, it was an agreement between the teachers’ sole employer (the state) and their sole trade union (the Polish Teachers’ Union; ZNP). Following the collapse of the communist state in 1989, the Teacher’s Charter was criticised as a redundant relic of the past. However, after the decentralisation of schooling in the 1990s, it suddenly became an important institution, setting the nationwide standards for teachers’ employment in public schools, now operated mostly by local governments. Importantly, in the new reality, the Teacher’s Charter regulates the most sensitive aspects of teachers’ employment terms, such as minimum wages, statutory working time, or qualifications required to obtain employment, though many of these regulations apply solely to public education as provided by local governments and not to non-​state schools. In particular, external actors are not obliged to follow the regulations regarding teacher wages and working time, which allows for greater flexibility in operation but, at the same time, creates other risks. Despite bearing the incriminating label of a communist relic, the Teacher’s Charter remains the main regulatory mechanism for the teaching profession in Poland. The ZNP remains the largest countrywide teachers’ union. Although there are no official statistics on the union’s membership,

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The Rise of External Actors in Education Table 7.1: Division of roles within Poland’s education system in 2021 Function

Central government School managing institutions

Schools

Local External actors governments Curriculum

The curriculum is set by the Ministry of Education. All public and non-​public schools must follow this.

Funding

The Ministry of Education transfers educational subvention to local government. This is supposed to cover the recurring cost of schooling, although in reality most local governments must co-​fund these expenditures. The subvention is calculated on a per-​ student basis with a complex weighting mechanism. It covers all students, regardless of who runs their school.

Local governments (municipalities and counties) contribute to recurring spending on education, and they cover all investment spending.

Pedagogical standards

All standards, including the minimum class hours per subject, are set by the Ministry of Education.

Local governments, external actors, and individual schools may propose to extend the number of teaching hours, introduce innovative teaching methods, and organise extracurricular activities.

Hiring teachers

The Teacher’s Charter defines the minimum requirements for teachers, their statutory working time, social benefits, and employment protection rules.

Local governments and external agents are responsible for hiring teachers in their respective schools. Teachers’ qualifications must meet the minimum requirements set in the Teacher’s Charter.

136

External actors receive a subsidy from the local government (not less than the per-​student subvention received by local government from the ministry). Non-​public schools run by external actors collect fees (in addition to the subsidy). Public schools cannot collect fees.

Schools belonging to local governments are allowed to collect additional funds (for example, by renting classrooms for non-​ school activities), but these revenues enter municipal budgets, as schools do not have legal identity.

A short history of external agency involvement in Poland Table 7.1: Division of roles within Poland’s education system in 2021 (continued) Function

Central government School managing institutions

Schools

Local External actors governments Teachers’ Regulations are wages and included in the working time Teacher’s Charter, but they leave some autonomy to local authorities. The Teacher’s Charter focuses on setting a minimum wage for teachers at different stages of their career.

Local governments must obey the regulations in the Teacher’s Charter, but they may differentiate between teachers in terms of wages or increase their wages if they have enough financial resources.

External actors are excluded from the regulations of the Teacher’s Charter regarding wages and working time.

Examinations National examinations Local governments and other (Grade 8, high institutions managing schools school finals) are are allowed to send observers. designed, controlled, and graded by the Central Examination Committee.

Schools are responsible for administering national examinations.

Source: Based on Herczyński & Levitas (2002) and Herbst et al (2009)

the promotional material on its website puts this at between 200,000 and 350,000, meaning up to 50 per cent of all Polish teachers.

From homogeneity to diversity According to the Law on Education Act, schools in Poland may be run by either the local authority (typically at the municipal level), another legal entity, or a private person. This division is not identical to the distinction between public and non-​public schools. Although local governments are only allowed to run public education, all other individual or legal entities may establish both public and non-​public schools. According to the Law on Education Act, a school is public if: • • • • •

it follows the national curriculum; it is free of charge; its accessibility is not limited; it employs teachers meeting the minimum qualifications requirements; it follows the national rules with respect to grading and examinations. 137

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There exist three different types of schools (or preschools): • Public institutions run by local authorities or state agencies. These are free of charge, and no private agency is involved. • Public institutions run by NGOs, companies, or individuals. These receive subsidies from the local authorities and cannot charge parents tuition fees. • Non-​public institutions run by NGOs, companies, or individuals. These are partly subsidised by the local authorities, but they are also allowed to charge tuition fees. In this unofficial naming of schools in Poland, there is yet another category: ‘social schools’. Formally these are non-​public educational institutions, but they adopt the adjective ‘social’ (non-​existent in formal regulations) for easy distinction from private schools. Different to the latter, social schools are non-​profit organisations, although they still may charge tuition fees to cover the operating costs of schools. Overall, the changes introduced during the 1990s contributed to the opening up of Poland’s education system. Parents, educators, NGOs, and entrepreneurs interested in educational activities became more involved in schooling, either in advisory capacities or as alternative providers of school education. As shown in Figure 7.1, the number of schools run by organisations other than local government was still negligible in the mid-​1990s. The sudden increase at the beginning of the 2000s followed the introduction of the separate middle school tier in Poland’s education system, a reform launched in 1999, only to be cancelled in 2016 when the old K-​8 system was reinstated.

Figure 7.1: Number of public and non-​public schools run by entities other than local governments (1995–​2018)

1,000 800 600 400 200 0

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Number of organisations

1,200

Year Associations and foundations

Religious organisations

138

Other non-governmental organisations

A short history of external agency involvement in Poland

The introduction of the middle school tier led to the establishment of about 6,000 new educational institutions, including some non-​public schools, or those that are public but not administered by local governments. Another boom in external agency involvement in Polish education started around 2010. This came about due to demographic changes rather than structural reforms. In 2009, the government introduced a new law aimed at preventing mass closure of small rural schools in response to population decline in these areas. The new regulation allowed local governments to hand over a school that had less than 70 students to a local association or other organisation, instead of closing it. Most of these schools were taken over by associations established by local parents and teachers, as both groups had an interest in preserving small elementary schools. Importantly, this phenomenon took place mostly in remote rural areas, where the declining number of students caused the per-​student cost of schooling to rise very sharply, which in turn pushed many local governments to close the most inefficient institutions. Also around this time, another stimulus emerged for non-​public schooling, but this time in more affluent, urban environments. This was due to a reform that lowered the school starting age from seven to six years of age. Launched in 2009, this reform was very hotly debated and contested by many parents, who were unconvinced that schools were well prepared to manage the needs of six-​year-​old students. The lowering of the school starting age was also strongly opposed by the right wing. Thus, soon after the right-​wing Law and Justice’ party (Prawo I Sprawiedliwość) came to power in 2015, the school starting age was changed back to seven. Although the effect of these reforms on the increased demand for non-​ public education has not been subject to any systematic research, a common hypothesis is that the parents’ ‘escape’ from public institutions in the largest Polish cities was related to a lack of confidence that public schools would effectively deal with the consequences of such profound changes, at least in the transitional period after their implementation (Suchecka, 2018). In fact, data on the recruitment of students to the first grade of elementary school in Warsaw show a substantial increase in admission to independent schools in 2016 –​the year of the return to the K-​8 system (and the closure of all middle schools).

External actors as reformers of education Unlike preschool education or university-​level provision, where the initial involvement of external agents is often profit oriented, driven by insufficient resources from local or national governments, the first non-​public schools at the K-​12 level were established as joint teacher and parent non-​profit initiatives. These schools aimed to provide better education for students by 139

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overcoming the perceived rigid, unfriendly, and politicised structures of public schooling. This reform-​focused bottom-​up movement resulted in the emergence of social schools –​as already described, these are non-​profit institutions operated by NGOs and with an important role played by parents, a model which is very distinct from the private for-​profit institutions that were to emerge later in the 1990s. What distinguishes social schools from other non-​public institutions is that they are usually established as initiatives of educators and parents, and their approach appeals more to the formative role of education than to its role in securing students a prominent place on the social ladder. In terms of the three major goals of education as identified by Labaree (1997), Polish social schools focus on the first goal (preparing citizens), while private schools are strongly associated with the third goal (preparing individuals to compete for social positions). Many of these non-​profit schools were either established or inspired by the Civic Educational Association (Społeczne Towarzystwo Oświatowe –​ STO), founded in 1987 and officially registered in 1988. The STO was formed by a group of educational enthusiasts who postulated that education should be independent of the political persuasion of the government and that it should be more friendly and innovative than the very rigid and traditional standards of state-​operated institutions. The first non-​public schools using the label ‘social’ were registered in 1989, even before involvement of private organisations in schooling became possible due to the Act on the Educational System (1991). It is difficult to determine the total number of such schools operating now in Poland, as they are reported within the same category as other non-​public institutions. In 2019, the STO, being the largest countrywide association representing social schools, was running more than 130 schools with student numbers exceeding 13,000 (STO, nd). Another distinct type of non-​public actor involved in establishing alternative schooling in Poland in the early 1990s was connected to the Catholic Church. Although more than 90 per cent of Polish citizens declare that they belong to the Catholic Church, between 1946 and 1989 (Marody & Mandes, 2005), public schools in Poland were strictly secular, with no classes in religious education. Following the Concordat agreement between the Polish state and the Vatican, signed in 1993, Catholic catechism was reintroduced in all public primary and secondary schools as a voluntary subject, though not required for school completion. However, some parents wanted the school curriculum to be even more integrated with Church education. As a result, schools run by Catholic orders or Catholic secular associations began to emerge in the early 1990s. According to the Catholic Information Agency in 2016/​17 there were 567 Catholic schools in Poland (Cervinkova & Rudnicki, 2019). This number includes elementary schools, 140

A short history of external agency involvement in Poland

middle schools, and high schools. The total number of students in these schools exceeded 67,000. Other religious groups have established schools in Poland, but the numbers are much smaller compared to the scale of Catholic education. For example, there are at least 13 educational institutions run by Protestant or Evangelical organisations (Chyła, 2019), and four Jewish schools (in Warsaw and Wrocław). With regards to the financing of schools run by religious organisations, the rules that apply are the same as in the case of other non-​state actors providing education. As long as the schools follow the state-​approved curriculum and obey the regulations regarding teacher qualifications and standardised examinations, they receive subsidies from the local governments in which they sit, and they are allowed to charge tuition fees.

External agents and marketisation of schooling Since non-​public educational institutions were permitted from 1991, establishing private schools became a focus for for-​profit economic activity. Private education developed in particular within the non-​compulsory schooling sector –​ including preschool education, post-​secondary programmes, and university courses. However, it also emerged at the primary and secondary schooling levels. The emergence of private education provoked public debate on whether, and to what extent, it should be funded from the public budget, given that most schools of this kind charge parents a tuition fee. The policy of the state in this matter continued to change over the years. The pioneer private schools emerging at the very beginning of the 1990s were financed exclusively from tuition fees paid by parents. Over time, the state’s subsidising of private education has increased. The regulations regarding the transfer of public money to non-​public educational institutions referred separately to transfer from the central budget to local governments and transfer from local authorities to particular schools. Gradually, these rules became quite complex, but it is worth noting their chronology. In order to make this easier, major changes in the regulations between 1989 and 2020 are presented in Table 7.2. Under the current regulations, the state supports local governments to deliver on their educational responsibilities by transferring a general-​purpose grant (educational subvention) meant to co-​finance schools. The transfer is calculated on a per-​student basis, and it does not distinguish (in terms of per-​student amount) between students in public and non-​public institutions or those in schools run by different non-​state providers. Therefore, each non-​state school receives a subsidy from its respective local government, equal (in per-​student terms) to the amount of educational subvention received by 141

The Rise of External Actors in Education Table 7.2: Changing regulations on funding non-​public education with public money Transfer from the central budget to local budgets

Transfer from local budgets to non-​public schools

Prior to 1989

Private agencies are not allowed to provide education.

1989–​90

The first non-​public institutions emerge, but there is no regulation with respect to subsidising these from public sources.

1991–​95

Funds are included in educational subvention and local taxes without a specified way of calculating these for non-​public institutions.

The per-​student subsidy for schools should not be higher than 50% of the local recurrent expenditures per-​student in schools in the same tier.

1996–​2000

Funds are included in educational subvention. Subvention per-​ student in non-​public school is equal to 50% of funding for students in public education.

The per-​student subsidy for schools is equal to 50% of the local recurrent expenditures per-​student in schools in the same tier.

2000 to present

Funds are included in educational subvention. Per-​student transfer to local budgets is the same regardless of whether the student attends public or non-​public school.

The per-​student subsidy for schools is equal to the per-​student amount of educational subvention received by the local government for schools in the same tier.

the local government for schools in the same tier. Thus, local authorities are obliged to pass to independent schools the full respective share of the subvention which they have received from the state, but they are not obliged to provide these schools with any of the additional financial support they might provide to their ‘own’ public schools. Over the last 30 years, Poland’s schooling system has been visibly diversified. However, as shown in Figure 7.2, the role of private external actors is much larger in the non-​compulsory tiers of education (preschools and tertiary education) than in grades 1–​12. The main reason is that in the early 1990s both preschool care and university education were characterised by an excess of demand which could not be satisfied by public institutions. The vibrant development of private preschools in cities, and then the inflow of European Union assistance funds, contributed to changing this. In 2011, the preschool participation rate surpassed 70 per cent, and in 2017 it reached 90 per cent (Herbst, 2013; Eurydice, 2019). Similarly, participation in tertiary education in Poland increased from 9.8 per cent in 1990 to 40.6 per cent in 2008. The emergency of external actors played a central role in this growth (Herbst and Rok, 2014). According to the most recent data (for 2018/​19),2 more than 90 per cent of students in primary, middle, and high schools were enrolled in public institutions run by local governments. By contrast, in public universities and 142

A short history of external agency involvement in Poland Figure 7.2: Percentage of students in public and non-​public schools, by tier (2018) 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% 4.5%

5.2%

6.6%

29.4%

College and university 26.7%

95.5%

94.8%

93.4%

70.6%

73.3%

Elementary

Students in non-public schools Students in public schools

Middle

High

Preschools

public preschool institutions, the student share was only about 70 per cent. Take-​up of private schooling was most common at the high school level, with schools of this type attracting about 5 per cent of all students. Religious organisations, in turn, attracted 1–​2 per cent of students, depending on the tier of education.

Preserving rural schools or improving educational standards Private schools have, nonetheless, increased their share of the educational market, mostly in large Polish cities, where the middle class is large enough and has enough income to seek out such provision. However, in the 2010s, a different type of external actor became increasingly popular in remote rural areas of Poland. A massive population decline at the turn of the century caused a decrease of the school-​age population in Poland by roughly a third, and in many rural areas the decline was even larger. This led to the closure of more than 5,500 schools, of which many were small institutions in remote areas. Overall, the number of elementary schools in Poland decreased from 19,400 in 1990 to 12,800 in 2012 (Bajerski, 2014). Some parents and teachers started to organise themselves into local associations, seeking to take over the schools threatened with closure. They were supported by a country-​level association, Little School (Mała Szkoła), which provided advice and lobbied (successfully) for increased per-​student transfers from the central budget to the local authorities running these smaller schools. A local association taking over a municipal elementary school in order to protect it from closure was a dominant type of ‘proprietary’ change in Poland’s education system in the first decade of new millennium. As shown

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The Rise of External Actors in Education Table 7.3: Transfers of schools between agents in Poland (2008–​12) Direction of change

Number of schools involved

Local government → NGO

446

Local government → for-​profit organisation

38

NGO → local government

17

For-​profit organisation → NGO

8

NGO → for-​profit organisation

7

Other

15

Total

531

Source: Herczyński and Sobotka (2013)

by Herczyński and Sobotka (2013), out of the 531 changes to managing authorities of existing schools that took place between 2008 and 2012, as many as 446 involved an NGO taking over a formerly municipal school (see Table 7.3). This number accounts for about 4 per cent of the total number of existing elementary schools and about 50 per cent of the number of schools that were closed in the same period. The latter indicator shows how important the ‘small school’ movement was in preserving educational opportunities in the remote rural areas of Poland. Although the movement to save rural schools was undoubtedly driven by concern about children’s access to school, it was still controversial. Saving schools by having local associations take them over was only possible because such associations were excluded from the regulations on teachers’ statutory working time and wage, defined in the Teacher’s Charter. Although no hard data on this matter exists, some case studies show that to lower the per-​student cost of operation, such schools tend to pay teachers less and/​ or have them work more (Dziemianowicz-​Bąk & Dzierzgowski, 2014). For this reason, experts accuse the movement in support of small schools of compromising quality, and they suggest that preserving small rural schools is not necessarily to the benefit of students. Teachers in schools threatened with closure face a difficult dilemma: accept a lower wage and/​or extended working hours in order to save their workplace or oppose the proprietary change and increase the risk of closure. Although teachers’ unions could not formally stop the closure of a school or its transfer to an external agency,3 teachers were often building an informal coalition with parents to protect the future of these schools. As shown by Dziemianowicz-​Bąk and Dzierzgowski (2014), these actors, together or separately, frequently engaged in negotiations with local authorities. Surprisingly, a common outcome of such negotiations was the guarantee of employment and preservation of wages after the transfer of the school to the external actor. Quite often, therefore, such transfers did not result 144

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in monetary savings for the local government, but only lifted responsibility for provision off a mayor’s shoulders.

Homeschooling and quasi-​schooling: a new phenomenon in Polish education Similar to other countries, Poland is experiencing a growing wave of criticism with respect to traditional schooling and how it prepares students for future life challenges. This has resulted in the emergence of new forms of education –​homeschooling and quasi-​schooling. These may be considered a specific kind of external actor, and what is important is that in reality they are not easy to distinguish. The reason is that while homeschooling is permitted and regulated by Polish law (the Law on Education Act), quasi-​schooling is an informal activity (not regulated by the government) that relies on the joint organisation and institutionalisation of education for students who are formally classified as homeschooled. In 2018, the total number of homeschooled students in Poland was about 14,000, of which 10,000 were of elementary school age (Minczanowska, 2018). This accounted for about 0.3 per cent of all elementary school students in the country. As for quasi-​schooling, the label that is most recognised is ‘democratic schools’, but the terms ‘unschooling’ or ‘free school’ are also used. According to Uryga and Wiatr (2015), there are 20 quasi-​schools in Poland. Therefore, the impact of the movement on the whole system is marginal. Its popularity is nonetheless growing, and it is worth mentioning that the motives of parents involved in quasi-​schooling resemble those observed in the 1990s with respect to small schools. As found by Rybińska (2019), the concept of a democratic quasi-​school aligns with a strongly anti-​authoritative pedagogy, and its emphasis on self-​directed learning and community-​based learning.

Conclusion This short history of the involvement of external actors in Poland’s education system includes all the major characteristics of external agency observed in other countries. The motivations of external actors are diverse, and so are their organisational forms. Non-​state engagement in schooling may bring hope for better and more equitable education, but it can also raise concerns of quite the opposite nature, related to further social and economic polarisation or a reduction in academic standards. Unfortunately, little is known about the outcomes of schools run by different types of actor. School rankings using raw test scores are not helpful in assessing the quality of the educational process (beyond documenting the rather obvious phenomenon of ‘creaming’ by non-​public schools in large 145

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cities), and so far the true influence of external agencies on Poland’s education system has not been the subject of any serious evaluation. The emergence of external actors’ involvement in the Polish education system developed mostly in response to either the undersupply of public education provision (as in the case of preschool care and universities in the 1990s) or the falling demand for education (due to population decline hitting mainly primary schools in rural areas). The former case stimulated the emergence of private, for-​profit actors who aimed to supplement the existing public network of educational institutions. In the latter case, demographic changes led to the establishment of educational associations that involved teachers and parents working in partnership to provide schooling. Concerns have been raised about whether these schools can provide a high enough standard of education given the meagre financial resources they have to work with. A new external actor has also emerged in Polish cities since the 1990s in response to the legacy of staid state-​controlled educational institutions, both in terms of teaching methods and material status. Here, as in the rural small schools initiative, parents and teachers have sought to establish the social school –​institutions which combine non-​public status with an innovative approach to teaching, have strong parental engagement, and provide an alternative to the expanding private school sector in the main cities. Similar to social schools, purely private, profit-​oriented institutions are also responding to the demands made by parents and students, based on their perception of what is lacking in public education sector. Both types of school exist mostly in urban environments, and they recruit students from the middle class writ large. What differentiates ‘private’ and ‘social’ schools in Poland is therefore not geographical distribution, class orientation, or the collection of tuition fees (institutions of both types usually charge fees), but rather the general attitude towards education. This corresponds strongly to Lubienski’s (2006) considerations regarding the debate on privatisation of education in the US: it is not really ownership that matters, but the mechanisms and motivations behind parental choices. As Lubienski (2006) puts it, ‘The way education is provided can determine its nature as a public or private good’ (p 16). Polish research shows that parents who choose private schools tend to view education as a competitive process, one in which they try to secure a privileged position for their children. They act in line with a ‘maximizing strategy’ as defined by Zawistowska (2012) and Dziemianowicz-​Bąk and colleagues (2015), who noticed that middle-​class parents frequently apply strictly defined criteria when selecting a school in order to maximise the long-​term benefits to their children. In turn, social schools are, according to the founding principles of the movement from the early 1990s, more focused 146

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on the formative process and on innovation in education. By choosing them, parents therefore agree with this particular view of the educational process, one that cares more about who the children are than about what they are to achieve in the future. External actors are still a relatively new phenomena in Polish education. Their introduction into the field of education has changed the educational landscape by providing new opportunities for some students, but also by creating a challenge for the promotion of equity across the system. Notes The research in this chapter was performed within the project entitled: Education as a subject of public policy in the 21st century. Selected research issues in the context of upcoming revolutionary change. This was funded by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (PPN/​BEK/​2018/​1/​00018). 2 The school year 2018/​19 was the last in which middle schools operated in Poland. From 2019/​20, the system changed to compulsory K-​8 primary school followed by high school or secondary vocational school, depending on the track chosen by the student. 3 Since 2016, school closures need to be accepted by the Kuratorium. Prior to this date, the Kuratorium expressed a non-​binding opinion in this matter. 1

References Bajerski, A. (2014) ‘Lokalne konflikty wokół rejonizacji kształcenia na obszarach wiejskich w Polsce’ [Local conflicts around the regionalization of education in rural areas in Poland], Studia Regionalne i Lokalne, 58 (4): 125–​43. Chyła, A.M. (2019) Szkolnictwo ewangelickie i ewangelikalne w Polsce po 1989 roku [Evangelical and evangelical education in Poland after 1989], Wrocław: Instytut Pedagogiki Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego. Dziemianowicz-​Bąk, A. & Dzierzgowski, J. (2014) Likwidacja szkół podstawowych oraz przekazywanie stowarzyszeniom. Kontekst, proces i skutki przemian edukacyjnych w społecznościach lokalnych na podstawie analizy studiów przypadku [Liquidation of primary schools and transfer to associations. Context, process and effects of educational changes in local communities based on case study analysis] Warsaw: Instytut Badan Edukacyjnych. Dziemianowicz-​Bąk, A., Dzierzgowski, J. & Wojciuk, A. (2015) Autoselekcja na progu gimnazjum–​działania rodziców w kontekście działań szkół i polityki samorządu [Autoselection at the threshold of junior high school –​parents’ actions in the context of school activities and local government policy], Warsaw: Instytut Badań Edukacyjnych. Eurydice (2019) Key Data on Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Gauri, V. (1998) School Choice in Chile: Two Decades of Educational Reform, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

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Gonzalez, J. (2017) ‘Putting social rights at risk: assessing the impact of education market reforms in Chile’, in B.S. Ndimande & C. Lubienski (eds) Privatization and the Education of Marginalized Children: Policies, Impacts, and Global Lessons, New York: Routledge, pp 143–​60. Herbst, M. (2013) Finansowanie przedszkoli w Polsce –​stan obecny I wyzwania na przyszłość [Financing kindergartens in Poland –​the current state of affairs and challenges for the future]. Herbst, M. & Rok, J. (2014) ‘Equity in an educational boom: lessons from the expansion and marketization of tertiary schooling in Poland’, European Journal of Education, 49 (3): 435–​50. Herbst, M., Herczyński, J. & Levitas, A. (2009) Finansowanie oświaty w Polsce –​ diagnoza, dylematy, możliwości [Financing education in Poland –​diagnosis, dilemmas, possibilities], Warsaw: WN Scholar. Herczyński, J. & Levitas, T. (2002) ‘Decentralization, local governments and education reform in post-​communist Poland’, in Balancing National and Local Responsibilities: Education Management and Finance in Four Central European Countries. Budapest: Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative –​Open Society Institute. Herczyński, J. & Sobotka, A. (2013) Diagnoza zmian w sieci szkół podstawowych i gimnazjów 2007–​2 012 [Diagnosis of changes in the network of primary and lower secondary schools in 2007–​2012], Warsaw: Instytut Badań Edukacyjnych. Labaree, D.F. (1997) ‘public goods, private goods: the American struggle over educational goals’, American Educational Research Journal, 34 (1): 39–​81. Lubienski, C. (2003) ‘Innovation in education markets: theory and evidence on the impact of competition and choice in charter schools’, American Educational Research Journal, 40 (2): 395–​443. Lubienski, C. (2006) ‘School choice and privatization in education: an alternative analytical framework’, Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 4 (1): 1–​27. Lubienski, C. & Lubienski, S.T. (2014) The Public School Advantage: Why Public Schools Outperform Private Schools, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Marody, M. & Mandes, S. (2005). ‘On functions of religion in molding the national identity of Poles’, International Journal of Sociology, 35 (4): 49–​68. Minczanowska, A. (2018) ‘Homeschooling po polsku, czyli kilka refleksji o stanie edukacji domowej w Polsce’ [Homeschooling in Polish, a few reflections on the state of home education in Poland], Edukacja Elementarna w Teorii i Praktyce, 50 (4): 129–​40. Regulski, J. (2003) Local Government Reform in Poland: An Insider’s Story, Budapest: Open Society Institute. Rybińska, J. (2019) ‘Zarys koncepcji wolnych szkół demokratycznych’ [Outline of the concept of free democratic schools], Problemy Opiekuńczo-​ Wychowawcze, 5: 3–​16. 148

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STO (nd) ‘Kościół w Polsce. Raport’ [Church in Poland. Report], www. sto.org.pl/​historia Suchecka, J. (2018) ‘Ucieczka odobiliy edukacji. Rodzice zabierają dzieci z przepełnionych szkół publicznych do prywatnych’ [Escape from education reform. Parents take children from overcrowded public schools to private ones], Gazeta Wyborcza, https://​wyborcza.pl/​7,75398,23263829,ucieczka-​ od-​reformy-​edukacji-​rodzice-​zabieraja-​dzieci-​z-​przepelnionych.html Tooley, J. (2004) ‘Private education and “education for all”’, Economic Affairs, 24 (4): 4–​7. Uryga, D. & Wiatr, M. (2015) ‘Quasi-​szkoły –​nowe przedsięwzięcia rodzicielskie na obrzeżuobiliu oświaty’ [Quasi-​schools –​new parenting ventures on the edge of the education system], Pedagogika Społeczna, 57 (3): 217–​32. Zawistowska, A. (2012) Horyzontalne nierówności edukacyjne we współczesnej Polsce [Horizontal educational inequalities in contemporary Poland], Warsaw: WN Scholar.

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New philanthropy in the heterarchical governance of education in Brazil Marina Avelar Introduction New philanthropy is now actively engaged in all education contexts; from teaching in classrooms to policymaking, foundations are increasingly influential ‘external actors’. In some countries, as in Brazil, its work is now so intertwined with the state that boundaries between sectors are blurred and opaque. These new interactions are giving rise to a network governance or ‘heterarchical governance’ (Jessop, 2011) in which philanthropic actors have become fundamental to explanation of education policy changes in the past decade (Olmedo, 2016; Ball et al, 2017). At the same time, boundaries between the market and the third sector, or between profit and non-​profit activities, are also becoming blurred. Referred to as ‘new philanthropy’, large foundations are now characterised by the use of business sensibilities, searching for impact with measurable returns and aiming to disrupt and reform entire sectors (Ball et al, 2017). Furthermore, new philanthropy in Brazil is characterised by having moved away from service delivery to focus on advocacy and participate in education governance to shift education policies and practices (Adrião et al, 2012; Avelar, 2020). This chapter analyses how new philanthropy is enacting discursive, relational, and institutional activities within heterarchical structures of governance to change how education is conceived and done in Brazil. Here, the example of an advocacy group, the Mobilisation for the National Learning Standards (MNLS), is presented. This group brought together several foundations and individuals working in public and private organisations to advocate for a standardised curriculum for the country. The case illustrates how new philanthropy, traditionally an ‘external actor’, has executed different types of work to construct an influential network that cuts through boundaries between public and private, which enabled participation in the formulation of the Brazilian curriculum. The Brazilian case is particularly relevant as one of the largest middle-​income economies and a leading contributor to global philanthropic flows; its philanthropic sector is among the ten largest in the world (OECD, 2018). The case is also relevant given the dominance in Brazil of corporate actors and a focus on disrupting the entire education 150

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sector through participation in policymaking and governance. However, despite the empirical setting of Brazilian institutions, this chapter analyses networks, policies, and discourses that surpass national borders. In carrying out network ethnography (Ball & Junemann, 2012), this research has employed extensive online searches, document analysis (including institutional reports from the past ten years (2010–​20) and newspaper coverage of foundations’ education projects), and interviews with representatives from influential Brazilian foundations to identify the networks, actors, and relationships that connect public and philanthropic organisations. Well-​connected foundations were analysed in depth, tracing the types of services they offer to governments and the relationships and organisational arrangements created to maintain them.

New philanthropy in the heterarchical governance of education When analysing ‘external’ actors in education and education policy, researchers have traditionally paid attention to actors such as the World Bank, UNESCO, the Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development (OECD), and USAID (Ball et al, 2017, p 9). However, there is a growing need to also examine the work of new actors, such as foundations, edu-​businesses, think tanks, funding platforms, management service companies, and start-​ups, which have been establishing a growing relevance in the field of education. New philanthropy is both an outcome and a driver of a ‘neoliberal turn’ in public management and education policy, which creates new discourses, meanings, and practices that allow for new relationships in the field of education (Ball & Junemann, 2012; Lubienski, 2018). Amidst the rise of several organisation types, new philanthropy has been particularly effective in influencing education, especially in Brazil. Before analysing how new philanthropy is able to actively participate in the governance of education, I introduce the characteristics of new philanthropy and heterarchical governance. While the philanthropic work is not new, contemporary philanthropy differs from previous modes of giving in some aspects, and its forms of operating and its positioning of itself have changed considerably (Olmedo, 2016, p 47). On the one hand, philanthropy has an important role in the shifting process of governance; it ‘is currently a key device in the reconstitution of the state and of governance’ (Ball & Junemann, 2012, p 48). On the other hand, philanthropy is changing. Mirroring the complexity of the field, a series of terms are used to discuss and analyse these organisations, such as ‘new philanthropy’ (Ball & Junemann, 2011, 2012; Ball & Olmedo, 2011; Olmedo, 2016, 2017), ‘corporate philanthropy’ (Au & Ferrare, 2014), ‘venture philanthropy’ (Saltman, 2010), and ‘philanthrocapitalism’ (Bishop 151

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& Green, 2010). Nonetheless, there is an agreement that foundations now function like businesses, where ‘philanthropy is being reworked by the sensibilities of business and business methods’ (Ball & Junemann, 2011, p 657). In this new form of philanthropy, activities are no longer about ‘giving’, but rather ‘investing’. The latter must bring returns (in the case of philanthropy, this refers mostly to ‘social return’, but can increasingly involve financial return as well, with the blurring between for-​profit and non-​profit activities). It is understood that charity can be profitable or, at least, can propel a company’s reputation (Bishop & Green, 2010). Although the terms ‘new philanthropy’ and ‘venture philanthropy’ are used interchangeably at times, in venture philanthropy the principles of venture capital are applied, in which investors support initiatives with both financial capital and other forms of training and engagement. The benefited organisation can be a for-​profit organisation, and thus this type of endeavour is more closely connected to ‘impact investing’, where organisations ‘can pursue financial returns while also intentionally addressing social and environmental challenges’ (Bugg-​ Levine & Emerson, 2011, p 10). In Brazil, philanthropy has grown exponentially since a state reform implemented in 1995 changed how public services were managed, incentivising private engagement in public matters and entrusting public services to private providers (Peroni, 2013; Gohn, 2019). Since then, the so-​called third sector has grown, and in the past decade there has been a shift in foundations’ operation. Moving from work characterised by a local scope and aiming to achieve poor relief, large foundations now seek large-​scale impacts with measurable outcomes (Martins & Krawczyk, 2016; Gohn, 2019). Thus, changing policies is regarded as an effective and efficient investment, with the potential of shifting entire sectors. ‘Advocacy’ offers a better ‘return on investment’ than traditional philanthropy, because it can change whole systems (Avelar & Ball, 2019) and ‘influence government spending’ (Reckhow & Snyder, 2014, p 187). Education is the main ‘cause’ supported by new philanthropists. The aim of affecting education policy is indicated by the findings of the 2015 biannual member survey conducted by the Group of Institutes, Foundations and Enterprises: 89 per cent of respondents claimed their work was related to public policy in the education field and 58 per cent aimed at directly influencing or supporting education policymaking. Moreover, among the largest organisations, which invested more than US$21 million per year, 75 per cent aimed at influencing education policy. Aiming to steer the formulation of the national curriculum and use it as the ‘backbone’ for deeper changes in education (Avelar & Ball, 2019), the MNLS was created in 2013 by large foundations, with Lemann Foundation acting as the lead and executive director. Between 2013 and 2017, the 152

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MNLS was an influential actor in the national discussion around the new curriculum. This was achieved through a myriad of activities, such as organising a series of events and meetings, producing reports, providing advocacy material, hiring international consultants, and mobilising influential actors for its cause. The national learning standards, influenced by the MNLS, were approved at the end of 2017 and are now being adopted by states and municipalities. Many foundations, including some members of the MNLS, now offer consultancy services for planning, implementation, and evaluation (Adrião et al, 2012). The public-​private relationship illustrated by the MNLS is set amid much wider and deeper changes in public management. Public sector reforms initiated since the 1980s have brought about a shift towards neoliberal modes of governance, or a shift from government to governance (Rhodes, 1996, 2007). Despite theoretical and methodological debates, it is understood that government is done through hierarchical bureaucracies and governance is accomplished through diverse and flexible networks (Ball & Junemann, 2012). Centred on processes of deregulation, privatisation, and competition, these reforms have introduced new ways of organising and delivering services and policies. Such reforms have ‘contributed greatly to the broad shift from direct service provision by government to more complex patterns of governance incorporating markets, networks and private and voluntary sector actors’ (Bevir, 2011, p 9). Thus, hybrid patterns of management and a fragmentation of service delivery arose by incorporating private and voluntary providers in public management. This means that new actors are increasingly involved in policymaking and service delivery, connected in complex, ever-​changing, opaque, and polycentric networks. However, ‘governance’ and ‘networks’ have become ‘buzzwords’ that are used in different fields to reflect different situations, and thus they can mean different things. A somewhat more specific term, ‘heterarchy’ (Jessop, 2011), is used to discuss the organisational arrangements that allow for foundations, usually seen as external actors in education, to participate in the management of public education as ‘insiders’. A heterarchy is, first, an organisational form. The governance literature traditionally distinguishes three main organisational forms: market, hierarchy, and network. Nonetheless, heterarchies have been gaining prominence as a fourth organisational form. Ball & Junemann (2012) define heterarchy as ‘an organisational form somewhere between hierarchy and network that draws upon diverse horizontal and vertical links that permit different elements of the policy process to cooperate (and/​or compete)’ (p 138). In social network terms, heterarchies can be seen as a ‘connection between three or more hierarchies engaged in asymmetric, repetitive and sustained collaborations’ (Stephenson, 2016, p 141). Heterarchies are diverse, temporary, and ever-​changing organisational arrangements in which messiness, unevenness, and complexity are 153

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inherent characteristics, in contrast to the assumed order of hierarchies. They have characteristics of assemblages, such as being loosely coupled, temporary, and uneven (Jessop, 2011). They bring together different elements that may converge at points and which work differently according to local circumstances (Ball & Junemann, 2012). They are ‘to an extent imaginative and experimental and, to and extent, polyvalent, and often involve considerable stumbling and blundering’, and so ‘they are a policy device, a way of trying things out’ (Ball & Junemann, 2012, p 138). Complex heterarchies do not erase more traditional policy actors and sites. Instead, ‘new linkage devices and lead organisations are created over and against existing ones, excluding or circumventing but not always obliterating more traditional sites and voices’ (Ball & Junemann, 2012, p 138). Thus, in heterarchies, public sector organisations may adopt many roles, such as clients, contractors, managers, partners, and even competitors. This means that public services are not being ‘taken away’ from the public sector, but reorganised through diverse forms of collaboration between the public and the private sectors, in which the public sector now enacts a type of ‘meta governance’ in managing these new relationships. All of this also involves the creation and use of new policy spaces. In this new mix of markets, networks, and hierarchies, new personal and professional connections across different institutions and sectors –​public, for-​profit, and non-​profit –​are established. In this context, (new) philanthropy has grown and established itself as a relevant actor in the education arena, bringing about new meanings, practices, and discourses to education. Despite considerable variation, this phenomena is regarded as a global trend (Bevir, 2011) and in Brazil the state reform implemented in 1995 was a turning point in the country (Gohn, 2019). Public companies of mining, electricity, water provision, and others were sold to private owners, and public-​private partnerships have become common in many sectors, such as culture, health, and education. Private organisations now run early years education centres, produce teaching materials, offer municipal management services and consultancies, and enact ‘advocacy’ efforts to change policies at the national level (Adrião et al, 2012). New philanthropy organisations blur and cross boundaries between sectors –​government, market, and philanthropy –​in unique ways. They are able to mobilise large amounts of money, bring together for-​profit endeavours with non-​profit actors and public organisations, and, as a result, deeply affect public education. In practice, foundations enact some core activities to participate in the governance of education, involving discursive, relational, and institutional efforts. In what follows, the chapter analyses three main types of work that new philanthropy does to be actively engaged in education and change its meanings and practices. 154

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How new philanthropy works in the Brazilian heterarchical governance of education Discursive work: changing meanings in education New philanthropy shifts meanings and understandings in and of education while also positioning itself as an authoritative voice in the field. Acting as policy entrepreneurs, new philanthropists enact a discursive work to frame, defend. and disseminate education policy ideas, and assemble legitimacy. This is mainly done through producing and funding ‘research’ and propagating ideas, often by working with the press. This aspect of new philanthropy’s work is key to allow it to exert influence over education and schools, as it gives them a public perception of ‘expertise’ in education and of being legitimate voices and partners in the field. The advocacy group MNLS describes itself as an ‘advocacy movement’ with a diverse membership that sees a standard curriculum as ‘a crucial step to promote educational equity and align the elements of the educational system in Brazil’ (MNLS website). However, the concept of advocacy falls short in accounting for the efforts invested, and it does not capture the discursive aspects of framing problems and solutions in a way that demands action, making certain policies ‘thinkable’ and ‘unthinkable’ (Ball, 1993). Advocacy also implies that the advocates, in this case new philanthropists, are to some extent ‘outsiders’ to the policymaking process, who aim tirelessly to convince ‘insiders’, or members of the government, about ways of doing policy differently. However, this outside/​inside, or public/​private, division is not as clear as one would imagine. Thus, the concept of ‘policy entrepreneurs’ (Kingdon, 2013) can better describe the new philanthropists who aim to reform education policy. Policy entrepreneurs ‘are responsible not only for prompting important people to pay attention, but also for coupling solutions to problems and for coupling both problems and solutions to politics’ (Kingdon, 2013, p 20). While they frame issues in ways that ‘demand’ action from the government, at the same time, other solutions are debunked or excluded from consideration. Policy problems and solutions, then, are not understood to be a ‘given’, or a ‘fact’, but instead ‘policy discourses and technologies mobilise truth claims and constitute rather than reflect social reality’ (Ball, 2015, p 307). The MNLS is focused on reforming education and believes a systemic and wide reform can be started and promoted by a standard curriculum. The group framed the curriculum as a policy solution to social and educational inequality (Avelar & Ball, 2019). By coupling a standard curriculum with social equality, the MNLS formulated a powerful supporting idea, one that is hard to refute (Baumgartner et al, 2009). To foster its propositions, the MNLS invested considerable resources and effort to produce studies of various kinds. Over 50 reports and studies 155

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are available on its website. Most of this work was contracted out to other institutions. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) and The Curriculum Foundation (UK) prepared the majority of the reports, but some national organisations and members of the MNLS contributed to the ‘research portfolio’ as well. These include CENPEC (Center for Studies and Research in Education, Culture and Community Action), which produced a report comparing existing curricula in Brazilian states (Avelar, 2020). The research efforts of new philanthropists is key to constructing an authoritative voice (Ball, 1993). These research projects play several roles: they systematise policy ideas, provide the arguments or evidence for lobbying, allow for network creation, create the image of the expert, and grant legitimacy to foundations. While claiming to be objective work, introduced as evidence to decision makers and the general public, the research is permeated by political choices. The studies were carried out with the clear agenda of demonstrating the need for a policy solution. The evidence is used, cited, and corroborated by other foundations, creating an ‘echo chamber’ effect (Goldie et al, 2014), giving the perception of consensus. Furthermore, philanthropic studies tend to prioritise and reinforce certain policy ideas over substantial debate (Hogan et al, 2016). Foundations differ from more traditional research organisations, such as universities, in that they are more willing to blur boundaries between research and advocacy (DeBray-​Pelot et al, 2007), and they hire staff, consultants, or research organisations that hold similar epistemic and political positions as them. This practice produces a new policy genre (Hogan et al, 2016) that oversimplifies complicated policy issues. The selection and use of evidence in policymaking is also permeated by power relations, so not all evidence is perceived as equally valid (Verger et al, 2016). This work can be referred to as ‘knowledge mobilisation’, which concerns the ‘intentional efforts to increase the use of research evidence … in policy and practice at multiple levels of the education sector’ (Cooper, 2014, p 29). Beyond the production of evidence, knowledge mobilisation involves the sharing of the produced knowledge. Foundations thus turn to communication channels, including the press, to reach the general public and make the case for particular solutions –​making use of available evidence and framing stories in a tactical way (Goldie et al, 2014; Lubienski et al, 2016). There are three main types of interaction between new philanthropies and the press in Brazil, all of which have been used by the MNLS to disseminate its perspective around the national learning standards. First, new philanthropists and their coalitions have a growing presence in the press as columnists in newspapers and magazines or through invitations to comment on policy issues. With a growing status of ‘experts’, they occupy a central role in public debates about education. Similarly, the foundations’ research efforts are often released in the press as well. Foundations even count 156

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‘media hits’ in their annual reports as part of their ‘impact’. Arguably, this is beneficial for these organisations not only for the construction of the ‘expert’ image but also for marketing purposes. A second interaction built with the press concerns the instructing and training of journalists to ‘properly cover education issues’ (Martins, 2013, 2016). Finally, a third interaction concerns the ownership of communication vehicles. The Lemann Foundation and the Ayrton Senna Institute are owners and publishers of education magazines. The first became the proprietor of two ‘non-​profit’ magazines in education, Nova Escola and Gestão Escolar. These are the two largest magazines for teachers and educators in the country, with more than 120,000 magazines sold per issue, 45,000 subscribers, and 2.5 million website hits per month (Nova Escola, nd). Using the ‘evidence’ and ‘legitimacy’ created, new philanthropists share new policy ideas in many venues, channels, and spaces, including by introducing bills; holding congressional hearings; giving speeches; issuing studies, reports and other papers; holding personal conversations; and arranging public events and informal meetings. Time, money, effort, and prestige are invested in pushing their agenda forward. These foundations seem to be everywhere –​in every seminar, meeting, public gatherings, bill vote, and press release. Relational work: connecting business, philanthropy, and education New philanthropy is part of the vast networks that connect public and private actors from education and other sectors (such as business and development) and which promote changes in education with flows of ideas, people, and resources and the coordination of efforts, via both formal and informal means. Networks depend on ‘forms of group exchange involving people, materials, resources, histories, and struggles’ (McFarlane, 2009, p 566). The creation and maintenance of policy networks also demand the establishment of common understandings on policy issues (Enroth, 2011) so that organisations and individuals are brought together by their interests and agendas, creating moral and epistemic communities (Junemann et al, 2018). Some kind of ‘network coordination’ is needed to sustain understandings, which ‘occurs whenever two or more policy actors pursue a common outcome and work together to produce it’ (Bevir, 2011, p 56). Thus, foundations create groups to bring together strategically valuable actors, people with similar interests and valuable personal and professional connections. Examples include networks of researchers, educators, teachers, and scholarship fellows. Formal and more stable partnerships, such as large coalitions like the MNLS, can be created to gather strength in the political arena. The MNLS currently brings together 14 organisations and more than a hundred individual supporters, who hold prestigious positions in 157

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the field of education and have open access to vast networks through their own connections. In 2016, during the formulation of the national learning standards, 19 members of the MNLS held positions within the Ministry of Education, building direct an opaque channels for exchange between public and private spheres. Thus, these groups create new spaces for collaboration and exchange, and they become new spaces of policymaking in their own right. Temporary or informal partnerships and relationships are also created in the process, and these too are fundamental for the maintenance of networks. A myriad of tasks are done to activate relationships in a network. These groups have email lists, annual meetings, seminars and workshops, online platforms and virtual seminars, and so on. Meetings and events are a are fundamental part of the creation and maintenance of networks. These are spaces crafted as opportunities for policy conversations that involve the articulation and reiteration of carefully selected values. Seminars, for example, are planned to gather specifically chosen people from all sectors –​ philanthropic, market, and government. The selected speakers are presented as ‘specialists’, and they will articulate and reinforce the funder’s beliefs and provide a value-​added legitimacy to the entire network. Meetings and events also have a relational aspect and purpose, combining social and discursive aspects in the coordination of networks. They are spaces to talk and touch, fostering trust in the policy network (Santori et al, 2015). Events reinforce relationships that are fundamental for the maintenance of networks of governance. These are the spaces of ‘meetingness’ (Urry, 2003), or ‘moments of meetingness when network members from a range of backgrounds come together, where stories are told, visions are shared, arguments are reiterated, new relations and commitments are made, partnerships are forged’ (Ball et al, 2017, p 63). The MNLS has frequently promoted meetings, seminars, and events since its creation. The meetings created a privileged access to spaces of policymaking, although these efforts and engagement with policy remain mainly opaque and informal. Three seminars (in a long series of events organised by the Lemann Foundation) are notable in the creation of MNLS. The first was held in April 2013 at Yale University in New Haven, US. In October 2013, there was a ‘follow-​up’ event in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil. In March 2015, another seminar was held at Yale. This series of events brought together a set of representatives from new philanthropy and academia with public servants and politicians from federal, state, and municipal levels. The MNLS aimed to ‘teach’ decision makers about the importance of a standard curriculum and pointed clearly to the US Common Core as a model. This series of events was aimed at gathering support from different actors in different spaces, creating a shared belief in and commitment to the need for a national curriculum, and fostering informal and personal 158

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connections between these network members. The events were sites that supported the creation, evolution, and maintenance of an unstable and expanding policy network, within and through which new philanthropy and the state could interact. New philanthropy, thus, is well situated to construct and use network relationships among foundations, non-​profit organisations, for-​profit organisations, and government representatives. They can leverage considerable amounts of funding and have access to spaces of decision-​making (or even create parallel ones). These relationships, the interactions that take place among them, and the spaces of policy in which they are enacted are part of a reconstruction of the mix between bureaucracy, markets, and networks that constitutes educational governance and concomitantly the reform of education. Institutional work: formalising discourses and relationships in heterarchies New philanthropy directly offers services to teachers, schools, and public education authorities in Brazil. Foundations operate pedagogical projects that may aim to affect classroom practices (like teacher training programmes or teaching materials) or public management practices (by ‘training’ policymakers or working as ‘consultants’ in policymaking). They are often implemented through public-​private partnerships, but other arrangements exist. This work allows for the institutionalisation of the policy ideas and relationships created and developed through other types of work and in other contexts and spaces. Therefore, public-​private partnerships and reforms in education often depend on a series of efforts that take place away from schools. The participation of philanthropy in education governance and heterarchies can happen through a series of different relationships that vary in format and intensity. These heterarchical relationships are negotiated and enacted in asymmetrical networks in which there are varying and shifting degrees of autonomy and interdependence between public and private actors. This means the public-​private relations include an array from one-​off or short-​ term connections –​such as a one-​day seminar for teacher training –​to deeply interdependent and relatively permanent connections –​such as co-​ formulation of a policy engendered by a foundation and a secretariat, held together by weekly meetings. In these complex relationships, the work done by foundations can be regarded as ‘bypassing’ the state or disrupting the state. First, some services bypass formal and official structures of decision-​making that aim to directly steer pedagogical aspects of schooling and learning. These revolve mainly around the provision of teaching and learning materials (books, online content, long-​distance learning courses, apps, and so on) 159

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and teacher training courses. These products and services do not depend on official partnerships with public education authorities, but are instead aimed toward and adopted by teachers and/​or students directly. Despite not involving formal relationships with the governments, these initiatives are operated in the shadow of the state (Börzel & Risse, 2005). The materials respond to and fit within national plans, bills, and policies, and claim to aim at fulfilling policy goals. At the same time, they change practices and meanings of education. For example, the Lemann Foundation, MNLS’s executive director, is especially interested in blended learning, the use of technology in education, and how technology can make learning ‘teacher-​proof ’ (or ensure students learning rights regardless of their school context). The foundation has put considerable effort into creating digital teaching/​learning content and tools that can be autonomously adopted by teachers or implemented within a partnership in a public education system. Khan Academy is an example, taken from the US to Brazil by the Lemann Foundation with support of the Natura Institute. The Lemann Foundation translated the educational videos to Portuguese so that they can be watched by students at home, in schools, and employed by teachers as an aid. YouTube EDU is a similar example; organised in partnership with Google, this has video classes that can be viewed by students and used by teachers. The focus on edtech has also been intensified during the COVID-​19 pandemic, with more solutions being created and promoted by new philanthropic organisations. Many of these teaching materials have complementary teacher training courses. Some courses simply aim to instruct teachers on how to use the material effectively. Lemann Foundation programmes are offered in individual and partnership formats. In the first case, schools and teachers can go through distance learning courses and then use the free teaching material available on the foundation’s website. In the second, the foundation has created a package, Innovation in Schools (Inovação nas Escolas), in which teachers are trained to incorporate technology in their teaching practice, especially the tools promoted by the foundation such as Khan Academy and YouTube Edu. However, there are also teacher training courses that aim at more profound pedagogical changes. Although not directly aimed towards policymaking and management of education systems, these programmes are examples of a new format of sharing activities and responsibilities, as well as the creation of new discourses, sensibilities, and subjectivities in education. They represent a diversity of heterarchical relationships, with production of pedagogical content and teacher training being shared between public and private actors. At the same time, they interfere in and influence how education is done and thought about, creating new discourses and sensibilities (Ball & Olmedo, 2011). 160

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Second, foundations invest in being ‘policy collaborators’ (as the chief executive officer [CEO] of the Lemann Foundation puts it) or taking part in planning and enacting policies to disrupt governance structures. Large foundations aiming to achieve large-​scale impact have shifted from the delivery of local school projects to large-​scale projects that aim to change the logics of management employed by municipal or state secretariats of education. They aim to participate directly in the policymaking process and to make governance and management more ‘efficient’, based on businesslike management. In this case, governments sign agreements or contracts with private institutions to: elaborate general guidelines for the functioning of the educational system (a municipal education plan, systems and tools of managing and evaluating schools, among others); train school principals and municipal administration staff; and work on the definition of educational strategies and guidelines (Adrião et al, 2012). Through these arrangements, foundations work as consultants who disseminate the principles of corporate management, with a focus on improving school achievements and introducing centralised assessment procedures and forms of rewarding achieved goals. In practice, programmes aim at a ‘management reform’ that is done with ready-​made solutions that can be customised to secretariats. Foundations create the ‘policy solutions’ and secretariats of education are encouraged/​ persuaded to incorporate them. This process, however, is not linear. It requires continuous negotiation and customisation. This logic operates within the heterarchical rationality ‘that is concerned with solving specific coordination problems, on the basis of a commitment to a continuing dialogue to establish the grounds for negotiating consent, resource sharing, and concerted action’ (Jessop, 2011, p 113). In this scenario, besides the relatively stable ready-​made solution, foundations have also been offering different services which resemble on-​demand and bespoke logics. In this case, government representatives might need specific types of support and solutions, such as a programme to address low rates of literacy or high dropout rates, and foundations might start a cooperation to develop or adapt a new programme to that location. All of this can include a vast diversity of types of relationships that can be involved in such heterarchies, such as hiring new staff for the government, contracting out external consultants, maintaining regular advisory meetings, creating projects from scratch, continued communication, and training sessions. Heterarchies are complex, ever-​changing, ephemeral, and certainly ‘uneven’ (Ball & Junemann, 2012). During the formulation of the national learning standards, the MNLS was part of a series of institutional heterarchical arrangements. First, as mentioned, many of its institutional members were operating as service providers to secretariats of education, and they leveraged their positions to advocate for the learning standards at subnational levels. Second, the MNLS mobilised 161

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public servants, individuals within the federal government, to support the national learning standards (Avelar & Ball, 2019). Through the MNLS, representatives of foundations and the federal government collaborated to advance the learning standards (Avelar & Ball, 2019; Tarlau & Moeller, 2020). Third, the MNLS operated as the mediator between the Brazilian Ministry of Education and the ACARA (Avelar & Ball, 2019). Through the Lemann Foundation, the improbable contracting out of ACARA to offer consultancy services to the Brazilian Ministry of Education on curriculum making and assessment planning became possible (Avelar, 2020). Together, ACARA and the MNLS, especially through the Lemann Foundation, offered a series of services to the Ministry of Education, namely conducting studies, writing background papers, creating guides for the curriculum writing team, and overseeing training sessions. The diverse institutional work of the MNLS exemplifies how heterarchies can involve new arrangements with individuals (not only organisations), which now operate with new scales. The MNLS’s heterarchical arrangements cut through subnational, national, and international spheres and allowed for the international mobilisation of policies. The institutional work carried out by new philanthropy aims at policy change at a large scale and has the goal of bringing about structural change in entire systems of education, implementing results-​based management with policy solutions that can be customised to suit public partners. They show the longer reach of philanthropy and a deeper, multilayered development of heterarchies.

Final remarks: new philanthropy and the blurring of lines between external and internal actors In the last years, new philanthropy has become a powerful and influential external actor in education. Despite not being officially part of governments or traditionally active in education and schools, new philanthropy has assembled large amounts of resources that allow for the enactment of a series of activities that, put together, grant them a considerable influence in education governance. The processes and activities described in this chapter challenge our understanding of how new philanthropy participates in education. First, the types of work new philanthropy does in and around education illustrate the blurring between public and private, and profit and non-​profit. They connect people and organisations from government, market, and philanthropy, as well as their financing and network connections. Second, the activities described here also depict how new philanthropy is now active in all policy contexts in Brazil (and likely other places). Foundations have moved from the context of practice (school-​focused programmes) to the context of influence 162

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(knowledge mobilisation/​networking) and to the context of policy writing (partnerships/​consultancies), and then again to the context of practice (municipal-​and state-​focused reforms) (Bowe et al, 1992). Relatedly, new philanthropy influences education by participating in many spaces, including educational ones (such as schools) but also unexpected spaces such as meetings in foundations offices, conferences in hotels, interviews for the press, and international spaces. New philanthropy’s long series of activities are part of the messy, uneven, and shifting structures of governance. Making sense of this complexity supports new ways of thinking about external education actors, how they emerged, and how they construct alliances to enact changes in education. Although the heterarchisation of governance includes a series of external actors in education, new philanthropy seems to benefit from some unique characteristics. Their privileged position is constructed through a combination of discursive, relational, and institutional elements. Part of its efficacy in changing education comes from the sheer amount of strategies adopted, which clearly depend on large amounts of money. Foundations assemble a position of legitimacy that distances them from their funding that is dependent on business, reinforcing the image generosity as well as expertise and giving them more authority in the education arena than for-​ profit organisations. Their creation of the expert image also mobilises a better position than the one held by some small non-​profits and social movements. With large amounts of resources, especially financial capital, but also other types such as network capital, foundations have advantage over grassroots and popular organisations, such as social movements and education actors with low financing. Making use of their created legitimacy and different kinds of capital, new philanthropy obtains access to policymaking in a privileged position. In contrast to traditional actors in education, such as teachers, students, and parents, who must resort to social movements and mobilisation, new philanthropy can directly participate in the governance of education and enact profound changes in how education is thought and practiced. References Adrião, T., Garcia, T., Borghi, R. & Arelaro, L. (2012) ‘As parcerias entre prefeituras paulistas e o setor privado na política educacional: expressão de simbiose?’ [Partnerships between São Paulo city halls and the private sector in educational policy: an expression of symbiosis], Educação and Sociedade, 33 (119): 533–​49. Au, W. & Ferrare, J.J. (2014) ‘Sponsors of policy: a network analysis of wealthy elites, their affiliated philanthropies, and charter school reform in Washington State’, Teachers College Record, 116 (8): 1–​24. Avelar, M. (2020) Disrupting Education Policy: How New Philanthropy Works to Change Education, Oxford: Peter Lang. 163

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Avelar, M. & Ball, S.J. (2019) ‘Mapping new philanthropy and the heterarchical state: the Mobilization for the National Learning Standards in Brazil’, International Journal of Educational Development, 64: 65–​73. Ball, S.J. (1993) ‘What is policy? Texts, trajectories and toolboxes’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 13 (2): 10–​17. Ball, S.J. (2015) ‘What is policy? 21 years later: reflections on the possibilities of policy research’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 36 (3): 306–​13. Ball, S.J. & Junemann, C. (2011) ‘Education policy and philanthropy –​the changing landscape of English educational governance’, International Journal of Public Administration, 34 (10): 646–​61. Ball, S.J. & Junemann, C. (2012) Networks, New Governance and Education, Bristol: Policy Press. Ball, S.J. & Olmedo, A. (2011) ‘Global social capitalism: using enterprise to solve the problems of the world’, Citizenship, Social and Economics Education, 10 (2–​3): 83–​90. Ball, S.J, Junemann, C. & Santori, D. (2017) Edu. Net: Globalisation and Education Policy Mobility, London: Routledge. Baumgartner, F.R., Breunig, C., Green-​Pedersen, C., Jones, B.D., Mortensen, P.B., Nuytemans, M. & Walgrave, S. (2009) ‘Punctuated equilibrium in comparative perspective’, American Journal of Political Science, 53 (3): 603–​20. Bevir, M. (2011) ‘Governance as theory, practice, and dilemma’, in The Sage Handbook of Governance, London: Sage, 1–​16. Bishop, M. & Green, M. (2010) Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. Börzel, T.A. & Risse, T. (2005) ‘Public-​private partnerships: effective and legitimate tools of international governance’, in E. Grande & L.W. Pauly (eds) Complex Sovereignty: Reconstructing Political Authority in the Twenty First Century, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp 195–​216. Bowe, R., Ball, S.J. & Gold, A. (1992) Reforming Education and Changing Schools: Case Studies in Policy Sociology, London: Routledge. Bugg-​Levine, A. & Emerson, J. (2011) ‘Impact investing: transforming how we make money while making a difference’, Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, 6 (3): 9–​18. Cooper, A. (2014) ‘Knowledge mobilisation in education across Canada: a cross-​case analysis of 44 research brokering organisations’, Evidence and Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice, 10 (1): 29–​59. DeBray-​Pelot, E.H., Lubienski, C.A. & Scott, J.T. (2007) ‘The institutional landscape of interest group politics and school choice’, Peabody Journal of Education, 82 (2–​3): 204–​30. Enroth, H. (2011) ‘Policy network theory’, in M. Bevir (ed) The Sage Handbook of Governance, London: Sage, pp 19–​35.

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Gohn, M.G. (2019) Participação e democracia no Brasil: da década de 1960 aos impactos pós-​junho de 2013 [Participation and democracy in Brazil: from the 1960s to post-​June 2013 impacts], Petrópolis: Vozes. Goldie, D., Linick, M., Jabbar, H. & Lubienski, C. (2014) ‘Using bibliometric and social media analyses to explore the “echo chamber” hypothesis’, Educational Policy, 28 (2): 281–​305. Hogan, A., Sellar, S. & Lingard, B. (2016) ‘Commercialising comparison: Pearson puts the TLC in soft capitalism’, Journal of Education Policy, 31 (3): 243–​58. Jessop, B. (2011) ‘Metagovernance’, in M. Bevir (ed) The Sage Handbook of Governance, London: Sage, pp 106–​23. Junemann, C., Ball, S.J. & Santori, D. (2018) ‘On network(ed) ethnography in the global education policyscape’, in D. Beach, C. Bagley & S. Marques da Silva (eds) The Wiley Handbook on Ethnography of Education, New York: Wiley, pp 455–​78. Kingdon, J.W. (2013) Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, Update Edition, with an Epilogue on Health Care: Pearson New International Edition (2nd edn), Harlow: Pearson. Lubienski, C. (2018) ‘The critical challenge: policy networks and market models for education’, Policy Futures in Education, 16 (2): 156–​68. Lubienski, C., Brewer, T.J. & Goel La Londe, P. (2016) ‘Orchestrating policy ideas’, Australian Education Researcher, 43 (1): 55–​73. Martins, E.M. (2013) Movimento” todos pela educação”: um projeto de nação para a educação brasileira [‘All for education’ movement: a national project for Brazilian education], Master’s dissertation, Faculdade de Educação. Unicamp, Campinas. Martins, E.M. (2016) Todos pela educação?–​C omo os empresários estão determinando a política educacional brasileira [Everyone for education? How are entrepreneurs determining Brazilian educational policy?], Rio de Janeiro: Lamparina. Martins, E.M. & Krawczyk, N.R. (2016) ‘Entrepreneurial influence in Brazilian education policies: the case of Todos Pela Educacao’, in A. Verger, C. Lubienski & G. Steiner-​Khamsi (eds) World Yearbook of Education: The Global Education Industry, London: Routledge, pp 78–​89. McFarlane, C. (2009) ‘Translocal assemblages: space, power and social movements’, Geoforum, 40 (4): 561–​7. Nova Escola (nd) Home page, https://​novaescola.org.br OECD (2018) Private Philanthropy for Development, The Development Dimension, Paris: OECD Publishing. Olmedo, A. (2016) ‘Philanthropic governance: charitable companies, the commercialization of education and that thing called “democracy”’, in A. Verger, C. Lubienski & G. Steiner-​Khamsi (eds) World Yearbook of Education 2016: The Global Education Industry, New York: Routledge, pp 44–​63. 165

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Olmedo, A. (2017) ‘Something old, not much new, and a lot borrowed: philanthropy, business, and the changing roles of government in global education policy networks’, Oxford Review of Education, 43 (1): 69–​87. Peroni, V.M.V. (ed) (2013) Redefinições das fronteiras entre o público e o privado: implicações para a democratização da educação [Redefining the boundaries between public and private: implications for the democratization of education], Brasilia: Liber Livro. Reckhow, S. & Snyder, J.W. (2014) ‘The expanding role of philanthropy in education politics’, Educational Researcher, 43 (4): 186–​95. Rhodes, R.A.W. (1996) ‘The new governance: governing without government’, Political Studies, 44 (4): 652–​67. Rhodes, R.A.W. (2007) ‘Understanding governance: ten years on’, Organization Studies, 28 (8): 1243–​64. Saltman, K. (2010) The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy, New York: Palgrave McMillan. Santori, D., Ball, S.J. & Junemann, C. (2015) ‘mEducation as a site of network governance’, in W. Au & J. Ferrare (eds) Mapping Corporate Education Reform: Power and Policy Networks in the Neoliberal State, New York: Routledge, pp 23–​42. Stephenson, K. (2016) ‘Heterarchy’, in C. Ansell & J. Torfing (eds) Handbook on Theories of Governance, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp 139–​48. Tarlau, R. & Moeller, K. (2020) ‘ “Philanthropizing” consent: how a private foundation pushed through national learning standards in Brazil’, Journal of Education Policy, 35 (3): 337–​66. Urry, J. (2003) ‘Social networks, travel and talk’, British Journal of Sociology, 54 (2): 155–​75. Verger, A., Lubienski, C. & Steiner-​Khamsi, G. (eds) (2016) World Yearbook of Education 2016: The Global Education Industry, New York: Routledge.

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Venture philanthropy and the rise of external actors in Australian education Emma Rowe

Introduction External actors in education are increasingly proactive, organised, and sophisticated in their engagement in policy reform. This chapter explores the rise of external actors in policy reform in Australia by focusing on a major review initiated by the Australian Government in 2010. The Review of Funding for Schooling –​Final Report (Australian Government, 2011), colloquially referred to as the ‘Gonski Review’, was critical for illuminating but also consolidating the power and durability of external actors. As influenced by Ball et al’s (2017) network ethnography, the chapter pays attention to policy actors and policy reform by following people, things, metaphors, plots, and money. Similar to their following of individual policy actors, such as James Tooley or Irene Pritzker, I use major nodal actor David Gonski as a sociological and methodological device, as positioned within a network, to study how policy ‘moves’, the power of wealthy networks, and their influence on education reform, highlighting how major policy changes –​which alter foundational architecture, funding, and governance of public education at the highest level –​can be orchestrated via powerful networks (Ball et al, 2017). These networks constitute a new form of power cartography in Australian public education, remapping traditional nation-​state boundaries. These networks demarcate relatively fluid and open spaces that change and evolve in the making of relations, while simultaneously establishing relational boundaries which directly connect to powerful grids of policymaking. As government shifts to polycentric governance, this has a flow-​on effect to the reconfiguration of traditional nation-​state roles of power, such as government officials and bureaucrats, principals, and teachers. However, it achieves more than simply reconfiguring roles; it recreates modernised ‘power-​geometries’ and reproduces policy networks and spaces (Massey, 2005). The chapter endeavours to show how policy is mobilised in the nation-​state, as patterned by a broader global policy network; that is, ‘how 167

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nation states borrow, adopt and adapt policies from other parts of the world’ (Yemini & Maxwell, 2020, p 1). The chapter is structured as follows: the next section discusses privatisation and marketisation in Australian education before exploring the Gonski Review and the introduction of philanthropy in Australian schooling. The introduction of government-​mandated philanthropy sets a historical precedent in Australia, and –​as it is relatively new –​the discussion focuses on tracing legislative changes and following key nodal actor David Gonski, exploring how this actor and his related networks were instrumental and pivotal for producing and articulating major education reform. This reform culminated in historical firsts for Australia: the introduction of a government-​mandated charity which would enable individuals, corporations, and businesses to leverage deductible gift recipient (DGR1) status by granting money to disadvantaged schools. Public schools would now have a national online platform to crowdfund for their school. Despite this, the introduction of the national charity has been little explored in academic literature or research. The social networks in this chapter have been designed by the author and researched through multiple resources, such as books, policy documents, online searches, social media accounts, and reports. This includes speeches by David Gonski (Centre for Social Impact, 2014; Gonski, 2015), books written by associates (Margo, 2015), media reports (Collins, 2011; ABC News, 2012, 2015; Boston, 2013; Guilliatt, 2015; Gonski, 2020), the Gonski Review (Australian Government, 2011), and peer-​reviewed studies (Windle, 2014; Gerrard et al, 2017; Enright et al, 2020).

Setting the context for the rise of external actors: Australia as a useful case study The privatisation of schooling in Australia and the blurred lines between public and private schools significantly increases the scope and capacity of external actors to influence and orientate policy and structure. It is important, therefore, to consider the movement and power of external actors not as part of the periphery, but more so a corollary of network travels and systemic transfers. Policy agents and policy actors, who may traditionally have been peripheral to major education reform, have shifted and mobilised as centre stage policy actors. But this happens in concert with the systemic transfers of power and the re-​routing of networks as private and public are increasingly hybridised. The following section seeks to demonstrate this by discussing both school autonomy, enrolment share, and school funding. The Australian education system consists of the government and non-​state system, otherwise referred to as the public and private system, although both public and private schools receive government funding. The federal 168

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government mainly funds the private system, consisting of the separate Independent and Catholic sectors, whereas the individual states or territories provide the majority of funding to the state schools. Thereby, the states and territories retain constitutional ownership and responsibility for ‘state’ schools (also referred to as government or public schools). The public funding of private schools was first initiated in the 1960s in Australia; prior to this, private schools did not receive public funding. The federal government first initiated one-​off grants to struggling Catholic private schools (States Grants Act 1964) in the aftermath of World War II. This signalled the constitutionally significant involvement of the federal government in schooling, an involvement that has rapidly increased and expanded over the decades (Marginson, 1996; Lingard, 2000). Funding for private schools was extended again under the 1973 States Grant Act, when the left-​of-​centre federal government at the time (Whitlam) initiated recurrent and ongoing grants for private schools. The Prime Minister at the time claimed that due to ‘vertical fiscal imbalance’, the federal government needed to intervene into the funding of private schools to ensure the provision and delivery of accessible, equitable, and high-​quality education (Lingard, 2000). Public funding for public schools was framed as more equitable and ‘a citizenship right for parents’ (Windle, 2009, p 232). However, over time, recurrent funding for private schools has grown increasingly contentious in the public eye (Kenway, 1987; Angus, 2007; Campbell et al, 2009). While the growth of federal government funding for private schools under the auspices of equity marked the 1970s to the 1990s, it was the growth of school choice mandates, marketisation, and competition which characterised the period from the 1990s onwards and continued to blur the lines between public and private schools. Although, notably, this occurred alongside increased funding for private schools, and many researchers pointed to a system characterised as ‘unhelpfully complex and exceedingly opaque’ (Dowling, 2008, p 129). The federal government ensured that funding for private schools not only matched public school funding by the states, but amplified it. This was clearly exacerbated by the divisions between government, as described by Koshland: Australia’s combination of two levels of government involved in the funding and oversight of three distinct school sectors has, over time, created a situation of confusion and poor accountability. … The result is that a country which prides itself on fairness now operates under a framework which mitigates against fairness and equal schooling opportunity. (in Keating, 2009, p ii) The high funding of Independent schools in Australia sets it apart from many Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development (OECD) 169

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countries. Lamb (2007) notes the ‘real shift in expenditure in favour of private schools’ in the 1990s and Australia’s method ‘of supporting private provision in schools through public funding is quite rare internationally because the funding from governments is provided without any regulations or conditions governing use and without any accountability requirements’ (p 7). In a system of overfunding and little regulation for private schools, there was a continual decline of public school enrolment. This was particularly evident in the upper years of schooling –​the secondary school sector, which tends to hold stronger ties with university, careers, and social mobility. Major government reports or public reporting of the data often points to the enrolment share by school sector –​government, Catholic, and Independent –​ stipulating quite stable and simplified enrolment figures; 65 per cent of students enrolled in government schools in Australia (ABS, 2019). But these simplified statistics neglect to consider enrolment divisions between primary and secondary (the lower years and the upper years) of schooling. This is important since there is a significant difference in enrolment between the lower and upper years of schooling. While the public school educates 70 per cent of the population in the lower years, at the secondary level this shrinks significantly to only 59 per cent (Rowe, 2019). Thus, the secondary school sector in Australia is one of the most privatised in comparison to other OECD countries when considering the size of enrolment but also the levels of funding that is attributed to the private sector (see OECD, 2019). Certainly, Australia stands out as a country with a well-​developed private school sector; in addition, it relies on higher proportions of private expenditure in comparison to the OECD average (OECD, 2019, 2020). While Australia spends more on schooling than the OECD average, there is an over-​reliance on private sources of funding. The private expenditure is from parents and households, but also a range of private entities (Thompson et al, 2019; Rowe & Perry, 2020a, 2020b). Furthermore, the 1990s emphasised decentralisation of schooling and the rise of bespoke models of public and private schools. This led to a variety of public schools emerging in Australia –​such as the select-​entry public school, or self-​managing public schools in Victoria. Schools were encouraged to retain a self-​management ‘charter’, acting autonomously from the state and retaining decision-​making powers, including on staffing and budgeting (Spaull, 1999). The public school must effectively compete with other schools (private or public) to attract and retain ‘customers’ and raise revenue. With the emergence of the Independent Public School in 2009, public schools were increasingly entering into commercial partnerships, to fund sporting teams, for example (Enright et al, 2020), or producing YouTube videos for profit (Holloway & Keddie, 2018). From 2010 onwards, federal governments introduced a number of externalised technologies and arms of governance, effectively increasing 170

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the mandate of these actors (Savage, 2016). These reforms included the introduction of regulation bodies, including the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority and the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, for the governance and mandate of a national curriculum or standardised national testing. In 2010, the introduction of the My School website would purportedly enable parents to make informed school choice by publishing and comparing schools’ standardised test results (Rowe & Windle, 2012). The reforms increased the scope, range, and influence of external actors acting outside of schools but also acting on schools in imposing forms of accountability and marketisation. Schools are expected to comply and perform within the designated parameters of the market. These reforms but also the exigence for private expenditure points to a retreating role of the state and the rise of non-​state actors. The retreating role of the state requires a variety of non-​state actors to compensate for the gap. But, distinguishing between private and public sources of income is inherently difficult, and so too is identifying actors or schools which are clearly public or clearly private. Privatisation involves the intertwined flows of resources and money between private and public, and a gradual blurring of divisions between the state and the market, or private and public schools (Lubienski, 2003). Thus, the rise of external actors occurs in the context of privatisation and the policy movements which circulate, such as competition, school choice, and marketisation. Actors move from the periphery to centre stage in policy reform, as highlighted in federal government reviews and associated policy reform. The market acquires centrality, but it is important to note the actors are systemically assembled within a network –​and this network bridges nodes from a variety of sectors, including government and non-​state, charity sectors, and public advocacy groups in addition to corporate sectors. The network consists of actors, but so too it consists of policy documents, institutional authorities, and material objects via which it achieves durability. The following section seeks to illuminate this by focusing on the federal Review of Funding for Schooling (Australian Government, 2011).

Following policy: philanthropy in schooling The Review of Funding for Schooling (Australian Government, 2011) was initiated in 2010 by a left-​of-​centre federal government, and, as noted already, it became known colloquially as the ‘Gonski Review’ in respect of the review’s chairperson, David Gonski. The Gonski Review led to the introduction of philanthropy in education, namely through creating a crucial systemic connector: Australian Schools Plus, a charity aimed at bridging the gap between big business and schools. David Gonski has long been an active and outspoken lobbyist regarding philanthropy, and one of the major recommendations in 171

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the Gonski Review was that disadvantaged schools should receive philanthropic support. The review described philanthropy in schools as ‘underdeveloped’: ‘Recommendation 41: The Australian Government should create a fund to provide national leadership in philanthropy in schooling, and to support schools in need of assistance to develop philanthropic partnerships’ (Australian Government, 2011, p xxviii). The Gonski Review cited models from England and the United States, where academy schools and charter schools partner with philanthropists to lead systemic improvements, and called on the federal government to bolster pathways and opportunities for philanthropy in disadvantaged schools (Australian Government, 2011). This recommendation was supported by major philanthropic organisations (including The Ian Potter Foundation, the Origin Foundation (linked to Origin Energy), and the Australian Council for Educational Research). It was a relatively short time later, in policy years, that policy ‘moved’: one year after the recommendation, representatives from government, philanthropy, and corporate sectors met to discuss how to implement the Gonski recommendation (see Table 9.1). The representatives formed a diverse mix, including those from public education advocacy groups, education research organisations, and charities serving underprivileged children. The representatives also included business interests, such as the Australian Business and Community Network, and much larger philanthropic lobby groups, such as Philanthropy Australia. Traditional boundaries and factions continued to be discarded, a hallmark characteristic of the ‘boundary spanner’. In 2013, two years after the Gonski recommendation, the Australian Government provided five million dollars in seed funding for the establishment of a charity called Australian Schools Plus, which would be registered as a large charity through the Australian Charities and Not-​for-​ profits Commission. In 2014, Australian Schools Plus appointed a CEO, a former corporate and management consultant with Deloitte. In 2014 and 2015, the Australian federal parliament passed legislation granting Australian Schools Plus Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR1) status (Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment [2014 Measures No. 5] Bill 2014). For the first time in Australia, organisations can now give to public schools in order to receive a tax deduction, and public schools can utilise online crowdfunding. In 2016, Schools Plus launched an online nationwide crowdfunding platform for public schools, called Fundraise Yourself. This is a first for Australia, and a technology aligned with Gonski’s previous visions and hopes for philanthropic gift giving in schools (Gonski, 2013). With the change of legislation, it was argued that public schools would now be able to compete with their private school counterparts, who already had deductible gift recipient status under law. The changes are summarised in the Table 9.1. 172

Venture philanthropy and the rise of external actors Table 9.1: A timeline of key events Time

Description

2010

Gonski is on holiday with his family on the Gold Coast when he receives a phone call from Julia Gillard, then minister for education. Gillard asks Gonski to chair the federal government’s Review of Funding for Schooling, which later came known as the ‘Gonski Review’.

2011

The Gonski Review is published. A major recommendation of the report is to create a fund to promote philanthropy in disadvantaged schools.

2012

Eight leading non-​profit organisations meet to discuss the foundation of a national charity to promote philanthropy in education. These non-​profit organisations include representatives from government, individuals from the corporate sector, philanthropists, and public education advocates.

2013

The Australian Government provides $5 million seed funding (of public money) for the establishment of Australian Schools Plus.

July 2013

Australian Schools Plus is registered as a charity via the Australian Charities and Not-​for-​profits Commission.

2014

Australian Schools Plus appoints a CEO.

2014/​15

Federal parliament passes legislation granting Australian Schools Plus Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR1) status. This is the Tax and Superannuation Laws Amendment (2014 Measures No. 5) Bill 2014. For the first time in Australia, organisations can now give to public schools in order to receive a tax deduction, and public schools can undertake organised crowdfunding.

2016

Schools Plus launch an online crowdfunding platform for public schools, called Fundraise Yourself. This is another first for Australia.

2016

Pioneers in Philanthropy is launched. This is not a registered charity. It partners with the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation and the Commonwealth Bank. This group acquires funding that can be channelled into Schools Plus.

This was a significant change –​an architectural foundational change in which policy moved. Despite this, there was very little media coverage and certainly none that was disparaging or even critical (for example, Cook, 2015). It was widely regarded –​from both left and right-​of-​centre media outlets –​as an undeniably positive change for public education. The lack of public reporting or critique of the significant legislative changes needs to be considered in light of the policy actors and networks that the report mobilised. The following sections endeavour to illuminate these networks in more detail and depth.

Following the person: the corporate lawyer and mobilising education reform David Gonski, a man colloquially known in Australian corporate circles as ‘chairman of everything’. (Guilliatt, 2015) 173

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David Gonski is a well-​known business person and corporate lawyer in Australia. After his family emigrated to Australia from South Africa, he attended an elite all-​boys’ private school in Sydney. There he would meet a future prime minister who would become part of his network. Indeed, his chairing of the Review of Funding was not his first role on federal government committees; in 1998, he was part of initial meetings with then Prime Minister John Howard to develop legislative changes to promote philanthropy (Gonski, 2015). He was appointed to the Prime Minister’s Business Community Partnership committee and chaired the Taxation subcommittee to examine what legislative changes were required at the federal level to make it easier for corporations or the super-​r ich to donate their wealth and evade taxes. Gonski was instrumental in establishing the Prescribed Private Fund (PPF) in 2001 (now known as Private Ancillary Funds, or PAFs), which would lay important legislative groundwork enabling deductible gift recipient status. Gonski (2015) explains this in a speech, titled ‘Philanthropy’: A DGR [deductible gift recipient] is an organisation which can receive gifts for which the donor may claim a tax deduction. There was no need to announce every gift –​in fact, publicity was to be minimal … PPF’s were exempt from income tax on their own earnings. This was clearly a big step in the right direction, and PPF’s became very popular. … As at November 2014 there [are now] 1204 PAFs [Private Ancillary Funds] operating in Australia. Their overall corpus is estimated to be about $4 billion. (p 183) This is a mutually beneficial exchange, argue ‘philanthrocapitalists’ (Green & Bishop, 2006), who practice a type of ‘creative capitalism’ (Gates in Kinsley, 2010), for it arguably enables both parties to benefit from philanthropic giving. The recipient receives a donation of money, whereas the donor receives tax exemption. This is a critical reshaping and moving of money away from the government to what Reckhow (2013) describes as a ‘shadow bureaucracy’ –​ the assemblage of a shadow state. It supplants traditional government power. This is reflected in a summary of Gonski’s speech about philanthropy at the Centre for Social Impact: ‘Philanthropy, [Gonski] said, is very personal but can be seen in two parts: firstly, it is about giving money, and secondly it is about demonstrating that you are a person –​or a corporation –​that is to be followed’ (Centre for Social Impact, 2014; my emphasis). The shadow state drives social change, bypassing conventional modes of ‘big government’, in order to recreate an influential third sector. This power is fundamentally highlighted through relational systems of networking, but it is also based on skills and expertise. For example, Gonski brings considerable expertise as a corporate lawyer to his relational network, but this role is 174

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complemented by his capacity to negotiate, network, and problem-​solve (indeed, he is referred to as ‘the fixer’); the network becomes exceedingly important as a tool or instrument to capitalise on. For instance, Gonski’s connection with Prime Minister Howard would be valuable; in 2008, when Gonski spearheaded the establishment of a thought centre at the University of New South Wales, where he has been chancellor since 2005, he connected with a range of donors to request financial gifts; one of these donors was Prime Minister Howard, who granted public money for the establishment of the Centre for Social Impact. Gonski’s critical involvement in federal government committees includes the school funding review. This came later through Julia Gillard, then federal minister for education for a left-​of-​centre political party (she would subsequently be elected prime minister). Gillard was an outspoken advocate for corporate philanthropy in schools, as styled on the United States (Gordon, 2008). Gonski has previously stipulated that he was on holiday with his family when he received a phone call from Gillard, presumably on his mobile phone since he was on holidays (Gonski, 2015). This is a network who are familiar and personal to one another, a ‘proximate social structure’ (Urry, 2002, p 256) with consistent patterns and repetitions between nodes. There was clearly no need for a formal process of recruitment. Gillard invited Gonski to chair the federal government’s review of funding; an invitation that Gonski states he was initially ‘taken aback by’, considering his lack of involvement or prior experience with school education (Gonski, 2015). While previous review committees included academics or schoolteachers, the Gonski committee was overwhelmingly made up of what Windle (2014) refers to as ‘corporate consultants’: The most striking development in the composition and working of the new buffer organization represented by Gonski is the rise of corporate consultants. This change reflects the discrediting of public service monopolism and glorification of the corporate sector and its processes under New Public Management ideals (Connell et al, 2009). By 2010, the ideal candidate to chair a review was a successful businessman famous for being well connected. (p 314) Gonski’s credibility was contingent on his skill set as a corporate lawyer, being a bipartisan figure and networked in the right networks –​an ally of the right-​wing political faction as well as the left –​and a previous associate of prime ministers. Gonski’s appointment to the panel reflects his considerable relational network capital, with the ability to connect to influential nodes –​ essentially, his appointment could be conceptualised within a far-​reaching 175

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network, one that is interconnected and shows multiplicity in scope, forming important flows between philanthropy, government, and corporate sectors (see Figure 9.1). Gonski is ‘chairman of everything’ (Guilliatt, 2015), and connected to Australia’s largest banks, corporations, media organisations, research organisations, government, and arts organisations. His connection is fashioned in a range of roles, such as chair or director of the board. Gonski is also connected to the richest men in Australia, and overseas, who dominate and own the media conglomerate –​Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer, in addition to Kerry Stokes and Izzy Asper –​each of these individuals feature on the Forbes rich list. These also include some of the biggest philanthropists: the Packer family, Paul Ramsay, and Frank Lowry (Centre for Social Impact, 2014). He is connected, too, to the most powerful actors in Australian society, including Prime Ministers, past and present, and chairmen of the leading banks, superannuation funds, charities, art councils and telecommunication corporations. As journalist Malcolm Knox (2012) writes, ‘it’s a story that illustrates the unique nexus of commerce, power and art embodied by David Gonski for almost three decades’. Although, press coverage about his networks is relatively scarce. He epitomises a highly ‘competent boundary spanner’ –​the ‘networker, broker, collaborator … sparkplug’ (Williams, 2002, p 107). Gonski as a policy actor connects and spans to institutional forms of power, assembling a tangible web of consistent, durable ties; for example, the Lowy Institute in Australia, modelled on the Brookings Institution in the US, was funded and initiated by Gonski’s good friend and business associate Frank Lowy, also one of Australia’s richest men; Gonski previously worked with Lowy as part of the Westfield Group as director of the board. Gonski is chair of Australia’s stock exchange, Singapore Airlines, Singapore Telecommunications Limited, Sydney Airport Corporation, but also Australia’s elite art institutions such as the National Institute of Dramatic Art or Sydney Theatre Company –​ it is here he met famous actors including Cate Blanchett, who speaks warmly of Gonski, and they are often pictured together in the press. But these are not simply business ‘connections’; they are networks, in that they form capital value and are reproductive as a mode of currency. Whether this be via employment and career roles, legislative or policy change, they are valuable trade commodities. While Gonski and Blanchett may be often pictured together in the press, these are far from neutral placements. This network would later become replicated in a charity, named Australian Schools Plus. The ties and patterns are consistent, ongoing, and durable. An example of this is Gonski’s chairing of Coca-​Cola Amatil; this position connects him to the former CEO of AMP Bank (Australia’s largest wealth manager), Catherine Brenner,1 who now sits on the philanthropic board funding Australian Schools Plus. 176

newgenrtpdf

Figure 9.1: A snapshot of Gonski’s evolving network capital: connected to Australia’s richest men, corporations, and institutions Gonski Report Centre for Social Impact

Howard UNSW Federal Government Izzy Asper

Chancellor Philanthropy Australia

177

Kerry Packer Sydney Airport Corp Sydney Theatre Company Council of the Arts Future Fund

Lowry Institute David Gonski Singapore Telecommunications Ltd Frank Lowry

Coca-Cola Amatil ANZ Bank

Catherine Brenner

Singapore Airlines

Rupert Murdoch

Aus & NZ Banking Group Ltd

Commonwealth Bank

Director

Chairman Westfield Group

Investec Bank

NIDA

President

Australian Securities Exchange

Art Gallery NSW

NSW State Library

AMP Bank

Notes: NIDA stands for National Institute of Dramatic Art. UNSW stands for University of New South Wales. Aus & NZ Banking Group stands for Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited. Gillard stands for Julia Gillard, former prime minister of Australia. Howard stands for John Howard, former prime minister of Australia.

Venture philanthropy and the rise of external actors

Gillard

The Rise of External Actors in Education

Theorising external actors and networks as currency The third sector moves from the periphery to the centre in rearticulating major government legislation. There is an active network that spans major universities, federal government, media oligarchs, and corporate giants, including banks and the arts. There is a two-​way relationship at work here; the networks aim to reproduce their investment while influencing policy and acquiring power. Thereby, the network is an example of the circulation of commodities. As Marx proposes in Capital, the general formula of capital is the ‘circulation of commodities’, whether of ‘commodities, labour, or money’ (Marx, 2012, p 98). The circulation of commodities exists as commodities–​money–​commodities, but as Marx argues, the antithesis of this circuit is money–​commodities –​money, in which the money is not spent –​‘it is merely advanced’ (Marx, 2012, p 100). The network is an example of this exchange and circuit of commodities. While at various points money is not directly exchanged (although, sometimes it is), it revolves around money –​planning to donate money, or connecting to those with money, and planning how to give less money to the government –​and is principally contingent on an exchange of valuable commodities. This exchange of commodities is notable for how it suggests a potential shift of capital theory; this exchange is based on relational commodities and networked commodities as a valuable item of trade, negotiation, and supply. This is both labour and professional expertise, but it also rests on the network as an item of currency. This item of currency enables the node to connect to multiple other nodes, which then leads to the exchange of money. This commodity is not land value, but rather network value. In this circuit of exchange, the commodity represents ‘different modes of existence of value’, and the commodity in particular is ‘disguised’: [The commodity] is constantly changing from one form to the other without thereby becoming lost, and thus assumes an automatically active character. … Value is here the active factor in a process, in which, whilst constantly assuming the form in turn of money and commodities, it at the same time changes in magnitude, differentiates itself by throwing off surplus-​value from itself; the original value, in other words, expands spontaneously. For the movement in the course of which it adds surplus-​ value, is its own movement, its expansion, therefore, is automatic expansion. It … lays golden eggs. (Marx, 2012, p 103) It is important then, to view the network as more than business connections or colleagues we sustain in the course of our professional life; the network in the education reform space is a form of currency which ‘expands spontaneously’ while simultaneously differentiating itself in the course of 178

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‘its own movement’. And while the network is incomplete, expanding, and evolving, it is far from open and accessible. Rather, the network only connects to nodes that encompass and embody surplus value; that is, the potential to profit from the node and the network in which they proffer.

Concluding discussion This chapter has traced educational policy outcome and policy reform that has been significantly influenced and mobilised by a key nodal actor. By tracing Gonski’s institutional networks, it is evident that he retained considerable relational and network capital to jettison traditional boundaries –​between left and right political factions, corporate and arts sectors, government and market –​in order to build important and powerful roles in education reform. These roles work in concert with other forms of power in order to establish hybrid structures and configurations of authority, positioned both inside and outside traditional forms of state power, in simultaneous fashion. The blurred lines between private and public has facilitated the introduction of philanthropic networks and corporate entities in public schools. While the government may initiate these reports and pass necessary legislative changes, it is primarily utilised as a hub which connects to the spokes (Scott & Jabbar, 2014). The spokes, including charities such as Schools Plus, enable generous donations to schools, but they are also held together by a string of corporate actors, committed to lobbying for policy reform in schools to arguably meet vested business interests. External actors in Australia have acquired significant power to mobilise policy changes at the highest level of government, and this chapter has focused on legislative changes as initiated by an important and influential boundary spanner. This boundary spanner garners influence through institutional connections, including the government, but also market-​ based institutions, such as banks, big tech, investment, or energy providers. These systemic connectors work together to produce consequential reform at the national level, for schools, educators, students, and teachers. Arguably, it is clear that external actors have increased their positionality, power, and level of capacity to direct and steer education reform, particularly in public schools, which will hold long-​term consequences for Australian education. Appendix The networks in this chapter have been ascertained through a variety of sources, but David Gonski himself was not interviewed. This retains certain limitations, but each connection (edge) has been checked in several sources to confirm accuracy. Any errors are my own. The sources used are: David Gonski’s self-​authored book of speeches (Gonski, 2015); numerous internet 179

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sources including websites and profiles of team members –​this proved to be very fruitful (Schools Plus, 2019a); newspaper sources (Sydney Morning Herald, 2012; Milburn, 2012; Boston, 2013; ABC News, 2015); and newsletters and policy briefs (Schools Plus, 2019b; Gonski Institute for Education, 2020). Note Brenner resigned from her position as CEO at the AMP Bank after the banking scandal and Royal Commission inquiry (Durkin, 2020).

1

References ABC News (2012, 2 September) ‘Gonski response will take several years: Garrett’, www.abc.net.au/​news/​2012-0​ 9-0​ 2/g​ onski-r​ esponse-w ​ ill-​ take-​several-​years-​garrett/​4238564 ABC News (2015) ‘David Gonski: Australia’s ‘chairman of everything’ talks life, big business and education’, www.abc.net.au/​news/​2015-​06-​26/​ david-​gonski-​talks-​life-​big-​business-​and-​education/​6573400 ABS (2019) ‘4221.0-​Schools, Australia’, Australian Bureau of Statistics, www.abs.gov.au/​ AUSSTATS/​ a [email protected]/ ​ L ookup/ ​ 4 221.0Main+​ Features12017?OpenDocument Angus, M. (2007) ‘Commonwealth–​state relations and the funding of Australia’s schools’, in L. Connors (ed) Making Federalism Work for Schools: Due Process, Transparency, Informed Consent, Sydney: NSW Public Education Alliance, pp 112–​16. Australian Government (2011) Review of Funding for Schooling –​Final Report December 2011, Canberra: Department of Education, Employment, and Workplace Relations. Ball, S.J., Junemann, C. & Santori, D. (2017) Edu.net: Globalisation and Education Policy Mobility, London: Routledge. Boston, K. (2013, 31 October) ‘Pyne must re-​engage with Gonski to assist schools’, News Limited, www.theaustralian.com.au/​nation/​politics/​pyne-​ must-​reengage-​with-​gonski-​to-​assist-​schools/​news-​story/​02d70dcfa45ff e43e57bd651c6607a0c Campbell, C., Proctor, H. & Sherington, G. (2009) School Choice: How Parents Negotiate the School Market in Australia, Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Centre for Social Impact (2014, 7 August) ‘David Gonski on creating social change: from innovation to impact’, www.csi.edu.au/​news/​ david-​gonski-​on-​creating-​social-​change-​from-​innovation-​to-​impact/​ Collins, S.J. (2011, 31 August) ‘Fund students, not system, Gonski review told’, The Age, www.theage.com.au/​national/​education/​fund-​students-​ not-​system-​gonski-​review-​told-​20110831-​1jl19.html

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Connell, R., Fawcett, B. & Meagher, G. (2009) ‘Neoliberalism, new public management and the human service professions: Introduction to the special issue’, Journal of Sociology, 45 (4): 331–​8. Cook, H. (2015, 9 March) ‘Australian Schools Plus charity opens doors to high-​flyers’ donations under new tax status’, The Age Newspaper, www. theage.com.au/​national/​victoria/​australian-​schools-​plus-​charity-​opens-​ doors-​to-​highflyers-​donations-​under-​new-​tax-​status-​20150309-​13zan1. html Dowling, A. (2008) ‘“Unhelpfully complex and exceedingly opaque”: Australia’s school funding system’, Australian Council for Educational Research, 52 (2): 129–​50. Durkin, P. (2020, 31 January) ‘“The truth was lost”: Catherine Brenner speaks out’, Financial Review, www.afr.com/​companies/​financial-​services/​ the-​truth-​was-​lost-​catherine-​brenner-​speaks-​out-​20200131-​p53wg7 Enright, E., Hogan, A. & Rossi, T. (2020) ‘The commercial school heterarchy’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, https://​ doi.org/​10.1080/​01596306.2020.1722423 Gerrard, J., Savage, G.C. & O’Connor, K. (2017) ‘Searching for the public: school funding and shifting meanings of “the public” in Australian education’, Journal of Education Policy, https://​ d oi.org/​ 1 0.1080/​ 02680939.2016.1274787 Gonski, D. (2013, 7 August) ‘Creating social change: David Gonski speech at the Centre for Social Impact’, Centre for Social Impact, www.csi.edu.au/n ​ ews/​ david-​gonski-​on-​creating-​social-​change-​from-​innovation-​to-​impact/​ Gonski, D. (2015) I Gave a Gonski: Selected Speeches by David Gonski, London: Penguin Books. Gonski, D. (2020, 28 August) ‘David Gonski on Lowy, Murdoch and Packer’, Australian Financial Review, www.afr.com/​chanticleer/​ david-​gonski-​on-​lowy-​murdoch-​and-​packer-​20200827-​p55pvg Gonski Institute for Education (2020) Achieving a Bright Future for All Young Australians, Policy Brief #1, www.gie.unsw.edu.au/​sites/​default/​ files/​documents/​Equity%20Paper%20-​%20Long%20Version%20Final%20 V13.pdf Gordon, J. (2008, 27 July) ‘Gillard wants business in school’, The Sydney Morning Herald, www.smh.com.au/​national/​g illard-​wants-​business-​in-​ schools-​20080726-​3ley.html Green, M. & Bishop, M. (2006, 25 Febr uar y) ‘The bir th of philanthrocapitalism’, The Economist, www.economist.com/​special-​report/​ 2006/​02/​25/​the-​birth-​of-​philanthrocapitalism

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Guilliatt, R. (2015, 23 May) ‘David Gonski, the Centre for Social Impact and the art of giving back’, The Australian, www.theaustralian.com.au/​ weekend-a​ ustralian-m ​ agazine/d​ avid-g​ onski-t​ he-c​ entre-f​ or-s​ ocial-i​ mpact-​ and-​the-​art-​of-​g iving-​back/​news-​story/​e82eedaf9dbfd8a69d1e70f2c16 1a63d Holloway, J. & Keddie, A. (2018) ‘“Make money, get money”: how two autonomous schools have commercialised their services’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, https://​doi.org/​ 10.1080/​01596306.2018.1451305 Keating, J. (2009) A New Federalism in Australian Education: A Proposal for a National Reform Agenda, Melbourne: Education Foundation. Kenway, J. (1987) ‘Left right out: Australian education and the politics of signification’, Journal of Education Policy, 2 (3): 189–​203. Kinsley, M. (2010) Creative Capitalism: Conversations with Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Others, London: Pocket Books. Knox, M. (2012, 13 March) ‘David Gonski –​the man behind the power’, The Sydney Morning Herald, www.smh.com.au/b​ usiness/d​ avid-g​ onski-t​ he-​ man-​behind-​the-​power-​20120313-​1uxw3.html Lamb, S. (2007) ‘School reform and inequality in urban Australia: a case of residualizing the poor’, in S. Daru-​Bellat, S. Lamb & R. Teese (eds) International Studies in Educational Inequality, Theory and Policy (Vol 3), Dordrecht: Springer, pp 672–​709. Lingard, B. (2000) ‘Federalism in schooling since the Karmel Report (1973), Schools in Australia: From modernist hope to postmodernist performativity’, Australian Educational Researcher, 27 (2): 25–​61. Lubienski, C. (2003) ‘Instrumentalist perspectives on the “public” in public education: incentives and purposes’, Educational Policy, 17 (4): 478–​502. Marginson, S. (1996) ‘Marketisation in Australian schooling’, Oxford Studies in Comparative Education, 6 (1): 111–​27. Margo, J. (2015) Frank Lowy: A Second Life, Sydney: Harper Collins. Marx, K. (2012) Capital: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, Ware: Wordsworth Classics. Massey, D. (2005) For Space, London: Sage. Milburn, C. (2012, 25 June) ‘Is Gonski a goer? The $5bn question’, The Age, www.theage.com.au/​national/​education/i​ s-g​ onski-a​ -g​ oer-t​ he-5​ bn-​ question-​20120622-​20ta8.html OECD (2019) Balancing School Choice and Equity: An International Perspective Based on PISA, Paris: OECD. OECD (2020) Education at a Glance 2020: OECD Indicators, Paris: OECD. Reckhow, S. (2013) Follow the Money: How Foundation Dollars Change Public School Politics, New York: Oxford University Press.

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Rowe, E. (2019) ‘Counting national school enrolment shares in Australia: the political arithmetic of declining public school enrolment’, The Australian Educational Researcher, 47: 517–​35. Rowe, E. & Perry, L.B. (2020a) ‘Inequalities in the private funding of public schools: parent financial contributions and school socioeconomic status’, Journal of Educational Administration & History, 52 (1): 42–​59. Rowe, E. & Perry, L.B. (2020b) ‘Private financing in urban public schools: inequalities in a stratified education marketplace’, The Australian Educational Researcher, 47 (1): 19–​37. Rowe, E. & Windle, J. (2012) ‘The Australian middle class and education: a small-​scale study of the school choice experience as framed by “My School” within inner city families’, Critical Studies in Education, 53 (2): 137–​51. Savage, G.C. (2016) ‘Who’s steering the ship? National curriculum reform and the re-​shaping of Australian federalism’, Journal of Education Policy, 31 (6): 833–​50. Schools Plus (2019a) Home page, www.schoolsplus.org.au/​ Schools Plus (2019b) ‘Schools Plus: 2019 Annual Review’, https://​mailchi. mp/​schoolsplus/​the-​plus-​december-​2019?e=​e6b6419e53 Scott, J. & Jabbar, H. (2014) ‘The hub and the spokes: foundations, intermediary organizations, incentivist reforms, and the politics of research evidence’, Educational Policy, 28 (2): 233–​57. Spaull, A. (1999) ‘The end of the state school system? Education and the Kennett government’, in B. Costar & N. Economou (eds) The Kennett Revolution: Victorian Politics in the 1990s, Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, pp 214–​24. The Sydney Morning Herald (2012, 3 September) ‘D-​day arrives for Gonski report’, www.smh.com.au/​national/​dday-​arrives-​for-​gonski-​report-​ 20120902-​2586a.html Thompson, G., Hogan, A. & Rahimi, M. (2019) ‘Private funding in Australian public schools: a problem of equity’, The Australian Educational Researcher, 46: 839–​910. Urry, J. (2002) ‘Mobility and proximity’, Sociology, 36 (2): 255–​74. Williams, P. (2002) ‘The competent boundary spanner’, Public Administration, 80 (1): 103–​24. Windle, J. (2009) ‘The limits of school choice: some implications for accountability of selective practices and positional competition in Australian education’, Critical Studies in Education, 50 (3): 231–​46. Windle, J. (2014) ‘The rise of school choice in education funding reform: an analysis of two policy moments’, Educational Policy, 28 (2): 306–​24. Yemini, M. & Maxwell, C. (2020) ‘Mobilities of policy and mobile parents –​ creating a new dynamic in policy borrowing within state schooling’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​ 14767724.2020.1764337 183

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Power struggle in education policy change: the role of knowledge actors in structural reforms in Chile Dante Castillo-​Canales and Javier González Díaz

Introduction The design of education policies is currently being stressed by actors beyond the state, at the global level.1 For instance, transnational for-​profit corporations, philanthropic institutions, international and multilateral organisations (Stone, 2004b; Mundy & Ghali, 2009; Ball & Junemann, 2012; Verger et al, 2018), social movements, non-​governmental organisations (NGOs), grassroots organisations (Cortina & Lafuente, 2018), and private providers, think tanks, universities, research institutes all seek to shape and impact the definitions and characteristics of education reforms. External actors can be understood as those that traditionally were not involved in the design of education policies. As the editors of this book posit, the boundaries between the various internal and external players in education, such as non-​profit organisations, foundations, NGOs, philanthropies, parent organisations, non-​institutionalised interest groups, universities, and think tanks, have become more blurred due to the multiple strategies, interventions, and networks that those actors put in place to directly and indirectly influence the shape of education policies and provision. The influence of external actors may have negative or positive effects on educational quality and equality. On the one hand, evidence shows that unregulated privatisation of education has led to negative effects on learning outcomes and social segregation (González, 2017; Verger et al, 2020). This movement seems to be a consequence of the increasing hostility and crusade promoted by private and for-​profit organisations to delegitimise the capacity of the state to deliver quality education. On the other hand, external actors such as universities and policy research institutes may play a positive role providing evidence to support public policy making processes to improve the quality and efficacy of the state and government (Nelson & Campbell, 2017, 2019). Indeed, strengthening knowledge ecosystems that consolidate knowledge actors capable of generating new knowledge, synthesising evidence, and assessing the impact of policy innovations may 184

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provide valuable inputs to governments promoting structural reforms. This narrative has emerged from a renewed interest in evidence and scientific knowledge as key components of quality policymaking processes where knowledge actors play a substantive role in the design and implementation of education policies (OECD, 2003; Burns & Schuller, 2007). In this context, this chapter explores the role that knowledge actors play in education policy debates on key reforms. Using a broad definition, knowledge actors can be defined as those organisations that conduct traditional functions of producing scientific research and also those organisations that are ‘directly concerned with translating science, evidence and research for policymaking and governance’ (Stone, 2013, p 3). For this purpose, first, we analyse the sharp increase in research and development (R&D) public funding occurring in Chile between 2005 and 2015, which notably expanded the number and quality of researchers, the availability of research grants in the country, and, as a result, the amount of research-​ related outputs capable of potentially informing policymaking. Second, we select a key education reform proposed and discussed in the initial years of the R&D funding expansion (2005–​08) and another one after the abrupt increase in the number and capacity of knowledge actors (2014–​15), and we analyse the differentiated participation and relevance of knowledge actors in each of the legislative discussions of the reforms. Our hypothesis is that strengthening the Chilean R&D ecosystem during this period allowed the emergence of new knowledge actors with the capacity to influence the design of education policies. To accomplish this objective, we empirically analyse the role of Chilean knowledge actors in the legislative debate of the Preferential Student Subsidy Law (SEP),2 enacted in 2008, and the Inclusion Law, enacted in 2015.3 Methodologically, we analyse the National Congress records that register the actors participating in public hearings; that is, those invited by parliament to provide their professional expertise and opinions about the different aspects of each reform. The outline of this chapter is as follows: in the next section we briefly introduce the theoretical framework of this study, which relies on the use of institutional analysis to conceptually examine the potential contribution of scientific evidence to institutional change. Then we present the methodological strategy to explore the role of knowledge actors in Chile. In the following section, we describe the Chilean context in relation to: (1) the changes experienced by the education research, development, and innovation (R&D&I) ecosystem; and (2) the background of the reforms to be studied. In the next section, we empirically analyse the National Congress records to examine the participation and relevance of knowledge actors in the discussion of both reforms, as a proxy of their policy influence. Finally, we briefly provide concluding remarks and research implications. 185

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Theoretical framework Education systems are key institutions in modern society to foster social equality, economic development, and democracy. Nevertheless, in many countries across the world, these systems fail to deliver equitable and inclusive quality education to all (UNESCO, 2020). Although the underlying causes are diverse, an important factor relates to failing institutions; that is, inadequate formal institutions (laws, regulations, and so on), and informal institutions (social norms and practices). In this sense, structural educational reforms can be understood as changes in formal institutions. These may occur as a result of power struggles between different global and local sociopolitical actors that seek to shape educational policies. Using this theoretical approach, in the next section we frame the role of knowledge actors in the process of institutional change. Institutional change Karl Polanyi (2001, p 418) view institutions as ‘embodiments of human meaning and purpose’ that comprise the political, economic, cultural and social spheres of a community. Douglas North (1990, p 3) argues that institutions, understood as ‘the rules of the game in a society’, play a critical role in shaping development paths. In fact, these institutions, both formal and informal, not only restrict or enable human behaviours and interactions, and mould individuals’ preferences and identities (Akerlof & Kranton, 2010), they also have an important effect on the distribution of social outcomes and property rights (Knight, 1992). Not all institutions are equally desirable. In fact, fairness and justice should be the key principles and virtues of any social institution. As John Rawls’ (2009, p 3) argues: ‘Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise, laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-​arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.’ Despite a certain level of consensus in most democratic modern societies regarding the importance of designing fair and socially effective institutions, most educational systems, to a certain degree, tend to be devices of social reproduction (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). Why is it, then, that so many institutions, such as education systems, do not respond to basic principles of fairness and effectiveness to achieve socially desirable goals? Although there is no single consensual theory of institutional emergence and change among researchers, most of them may be classified by three approaches: (1) utilitarian-​functionalist; (2) cultural-​sociological; and (3) power-​distributional. These frameworks offer differing accounts of why and how institutional change is achieved. 186

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The utilitarian-​functionalist approach explains the emergence and change of institutions in terms of their functionality and capacity to solve collective action problems (Thelen, 2003). Their relevance rests on their capacity to reduce uncertainty and transaction costs, and promote exchange. As a result, the main driver for change is efficiency gains; that is, maximisation of aggregate welfare. The cultural-​sociological approach perceives institutions as embodying shared cultural scripts and beliefs about how the world works (Thelen, 2003). As Scott and Meyer (1994, p 234) argue, institutions correspond to the ‘construction over time of a social definition of reality such that certain ways of action are taken for granted as the “right” if not the only way to do things’. Despite its importance, the cultural-​sociological approach seems to be more relevant to explaining persistence than institutional change in the short and medium terms. Finally, and more convincingly, the power-​distributional approach (based on the extensive historical evidence that supports it) shows that institutions emerge and change as a result of conflict, asymmetric power relations, and imbalances between different social groups, each one struggling for their own benefits (Thelen, 2003). As Knight (1992, p 20) puts it, ‘institutional development is a contest among actors to establish rules which structure outcomes to those equilibria most favorable for them’. In fact, under this lens, economic and political elites have the power not only of shaping institutions but also of obstructing their reform, increasing the ‘transition costs’ involved in the process (Khan, 1997). In this broad institutional framework, what then is the role of knowledge and its creators and mobilisers? How important are knowledge regimes and external actors in the design of more fair and socially effective institutions? The role of knowledge actors in institutional change From a utilitarian-​functionalist approach, knowledge and evidence play a key role in providing policy alternatives that better address social problems. Thus, academics, scientists, and researchers, in general, constitute important actors of policy change. This approach may risk being over-​simplistic in its understanding of the political processes, as it assumes that policymakers will be easily persuaded to use and adopt policy recommendations that are technically superior to others, and it tends to assume a linear and unidirectional approach, going from knowledge production to institutional change. In a way, from this perspective, the relationship between scientific knowledge and policy might be understood as a form of ‘scientism’ where scientific ideas and methods are expected to decide social and political issues, resembling a notion of technocracy. This approach also seems to view knowledge creation as a neutral field and knowledge creators as disinterested 187

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players in the policymaking process. It tends to overlook the power struggles and rivalries in academia, related to what Foucault called the ‘regime of truth’ (1976), where powerful knowledge actors tend to define what discourses are valid, legitimate, respectable, and worth disseminating, and which should be rejected and excluded. From a cultural-​sociological perspective, knowledge creators and disseminators may also play a relevant role in the creation and modification of world views and cultural scripts of what is socially acceptable and legitimate. This may occur when knowledge actors produce new frameworks and understanding to make sense of social issues (in a function of enlightenment), providing information, ideas, narratives, and arguments for policymaking (Weiss, 1979, 1991). However, the change of cultural scripts tends to occur over long periods of time; thus, from this perspective, knowledge creators should not be expected to play a critical role in policymaking and institutional changes in the short term. Alternatively, from a power-​distributional approach, knowledge and its creators may have a critical influence in consolidating power asymmetries or levelling the field between actors in distributional conflicts, especially in democratic contexts. On the one hand, scientific claims may work at the service of actors in their struggles to alter the balance of power in a society; for example, by revealing the unequal or unjust effects of concrete institutional arrangements or by providing arguments to justify ideological positions. On the other hand, researchers themselves may become political actors that, based on their academic identity, advocate specific discourses and strategies to influence policies and institutional change. In this sense, it is important to recognise that power struggles between knowledge creators is also a phenomenon occurring at the backstage of social conflict over the specific theories that explain the functions and characteristics of social institutions, such as education. Modes of knowledge utilisation The relationship between scientific knowledge and public policy is a traditional field of research in social sciences. This scholarship is useful for the purposes of this paper because it is focused on understanding the conditions, modes, and specific mechanisms through which scientific knowledge is used for public policy decision-​making (Lasswell, 1970; Weiss, 1979; Wagner et al, 1991; Stone, 2002; Boswell & Smith, 2017). Traditional frameworks have highlighted not only communication factors to ‘bridge’ the worlds of academia and policy, but also the intertwined and co-​productive nature of science and policy, which reveals the difficulty of understanding them as autonomous fields of action (Jasanoff, 2004). During the last two decades, the idea that evidence obtained from scientific research should inform the decision-​making processes of policy 188

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and practice has regained support (Burns & Schuller, 2007; Gorard & Cook, 2007; Nutley et al, 2007; Boaz et al, 2019). This trend has become known as ‘evidence-​informed policy research’ (Burns & Schuller, 2007). The movement seems to be related to factors such as the belief that education and knowledge are increasingly important drivers for innovation and economic growth, the idea that society needs to keep the state accountable on educational expenditures, and the desire to improve the quality of education by making the activities and solutions offered by policymakers more rational (OECD, 1995). This line of research has also recognised the barriers that prevent policymakers and practitioners in education from making a more intensive use of evidence. It has been acknowledged that it is not a matter of simply improving the supply of research or increasing the demand for it (Nelson & Beirne, 2014), nor just of making research more communicable to policymakers. Putting scientific knowledge into play implies recognising that policymaking entails a complex process where professional, individual, and group values, beliefs, and interests, as well as political, socio-​economic, and educational contexts, play a role in shaping education policy outcomes (Boaz et al, 2019; Nelson & Campbell, 2019). According to Boaz et al (2019), from a historical point of view, the first generation of research highlighted a linear model of research utilisation; that is, a one-​way process from production to use. In this model, dissemination is identified as the main mechanism to reach policy and practice. The second generation of research puts emphasis on the relational aspect of the process. Under this approach, the importance of fostering interactions between people creating and using evidence is highlighted. Thus, the main mechanism to increase knowledge utilisation should be to create more permanent and cooperative relationships between academics and policymakers. The third generation of research on knowledge use adopts a system-​ wide perspective where explanatory models take into account the fact that relationships between producers and users of knowledge are shaped, embedded, and organised in systems that mediate the types of interactions that occur among multiple agents (Boaz et al, 2019). Under this third approach, knowledge mobilisation introduces the idea that knowledge is a component within social and technical assemblages of interlocking networks. In these models, different actors and players become relevant in producing and using knowledge in a collaborative manner (Cooper et al, 2009). This dynamic creates a renewed interaction between policymakers, researchers, and practitioners, and thus researchers, political leaders, practitioners, and the media become key players to mobilise knowledge (Burns & Schuller, 2007). Therefore, what the knowledge mobilisation approach suggests is the existence of a relational and multilayered process in which the relationship 189

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between scientific knowledge and policymaking needs to be contextually assessed and investigated. The type of produced knowledge depends on the institutions that structure the type of relationships, incentives, and interactions between knowledge producers, brokers, and users. The characteristics of such institutions and the resulting dynamics configure different knowledge regimes. According to Campbell and Pedersen (2015, p 680) these knowledge regimes can be defined as a group of policy research organisations (for example, government research units, think tanks) structured as an organisational field that produces information and policy ideas ‘to make sense of the policy problems they confront, especially during periods of crisis, because problems are unfamiliar and conventional policy prescriptions may no longer work’. To better understand the Latin American context, Brunner et al (2014) have used the notion of knowledge regimes to explain how scientific knowledge and policies are related. They elaborate a model where the field of knowledge production is linked to: (1) the political-​bureaucratic field of the state; (2) the field of civil society organisations (NGOs and non-​state organisations); and (3) the field of mass and social media. All these links are necessary to analyse how knowledge interacts with other fields to shape and influence policies. Under this conceptual framework, the underlying hypothesis of this chapter is that knowledge actors have played an important role in shaping education policies in Chile. Who are these key knowledge actors? How have they emerged? And to what extent have they participated in the policy debate to influence the new educational policies and system regulation? These questions are addressed in the empirical sections of this chapter.

Methodological strategy For the purposes of this study, knowledge actors are defined as: (1) universities; (2) independent research centres, such as think tanks oriented to policy influence, foundations, and other NGOs oriented to produce knowledge; and (3) government research units that aim to generate data and analysis (Stone, 2004a, 2004b; Campbell & Pedersen, 2014). In Latin America, the first two types of knowledge actors (universities and independent research centres) are the most important players in the organisational field of knowledge production (Brunner et al, 2014, p 809).4 From an empirical point of view, different metrics are usually employed in order to estimate the contribution of scientific knowledge to policy design; the main one is the number of academic articles in peer-​reviewed journals (Brunner & Salazar-​Muñiz, 2012; Fischman, 2016). However, this is an inadequate measure to assess the impact of research on policymaking. In order to tackle this problem, in this study we conducted documentary 190

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analysis with official records produced during the proceedings of the legislative process for the two laws described in more detail in a later section (‘Two public policies: the SEP Law and the Inclusion Law’). This source of information has been used in the analysis of political viewpoints, political discourse, and the role of evidence in the decision-​making process (Freeman & Maybin, 2011; Kaal et al, 2014; Geddes, 2020). Thus, using this source allows a better understanding of the role played by knowledge-​producing actors in the legislative processes. For this study, we used information recorded in parliamentary hearings in Chile, contained in the ‘history’ of each law (PNUD-​CHILE, 2017; Hernández, 2019). These documents are a comprehensive compendium describing the entire legislative process and discussions carried out in parliament, from origin as a proposed bill to enactment as an official law of the republic. The analysis of these documents entailed examining more than 3,000 pages of official transcripts. These parliamentary hearings offer the possibility of identifying the most relevant actors participating in the parliament education committee. As the senate committee states, ‘on the occasion of the general discussion of this initiative, and before the vote on the idea of legislating, the main social actors related to the issue were given a hearing in order to hear their opinions and particular approaches in relation to this proposal’ (Ley No 20.845 De Inclusion Esolar, 2015; second constitutional procedure p 4). Consequently, according to the United Nations Development Programme, ‘public hearings in the committees of both chambers are the main forum for dialogue in the legislative process’ (PNUD-​CHILE, 2017, p 3).5 Using a quantitative approach, we created a unique and novel data set with more than 200 actors that participated in the public hearings of both bills. This data set contains information of all participants in the hearings in the permanent committees of education of both high and low chambers. Table 10.1 shows that more people were invited to the proceedings of the Inclusion Law (138 participants) than the SEP (74 participants). The objective of the analysis presented here is to generate a characterisation of the actors involved in the legislative process, which includes information on the individuals, institutions, and organisations. We do not analyse the discourses and opinions the participants provided in their speeches. A number of key variables were identified for each participant. First, the official category attached to each person: (1) government authority, official, mayor, and councillor; and (2) academic and representative of social, professional, teaching, and student organisations. Then, due to the broad category used by official records, we extracted additional information on gender, profession, role the participant plays in his/​her organisation, name of the organisation the participant represents, and whether the person works as a knowledge producer (for example, as a researcher in a university). 191

The Rise of External Actors in Education Table 10.1: Number of participants in legislative public hearings

Number of participants (N)

Preferential Student Subsidy Law

Inclusion Law

74

138

This process ensures reliable data about each participant, as the participants themselves provide personal information when they are invited to the public hearings.6 This data collection process aimed at producing systematic information about the actors participating in each legislative process is quite innovative, although it has been previously used in some studies in Chile (PNUD-​ CHILE, 2017).

Chilean context: the national ecosystem of research, development, and innovation Chile’s ecosystem of R&D&I can probably be said to have begun with the creation of two main universities –​the University of Chile (Universidad de Chile) and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) –​in the 19th century; the creation of CORFO (the equivalent of a national economic development agency) in the first half of the 20th century; and the creation of CONICYT7 (a national commission for scientific and technological research) and several public research institutes and centres during the second half of the 20th century (with the exception of the Military Geographical Institute [IGM] created in 1922). Nevertheless, until the mid-​2000s, Chile’s R&D&I ecosystem was particularly under-​resourced and fragmented, and it did not have an adequate governance structure to develop a national strategy capable of steering the different actors, resources, and institutions towards the resolution of national problems and priorities. However, in 2005, President Ricardo Lagos created the National Council for Innovation (CNIC, 2006), a state advisory council comprised of academics, university chancellors, ministers, the heads of CORFO and CONICYT, and representatives from the private sector and NGOs. Its mandate was to develop a national strategy for R&D&I, taking advantage of the availability of a considerable amount of public resources coming from a new mining tax (royalty) enacted in 2005. In this context, starting in 2006, the knowledge regime in Chile saw a massive transformation and expansion, comparable to no other period in its history. Indeed, the country acquired a clearer governance structure (although still weak), a national R&D&I strategy, and new resources to implement several public programmes targeted to foster knowledge creation and innovation. Among the latter, it is possible to mention the creation and/​ 192

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or expansion of regional research centres, the Fund for Research Centers in Prioritary Areas (FONDAP) (CONICYT, nd-​b), Millennium research excellence centres (Millennium Science Initiative, nd), and InnovaChile (Ministerio de Economía, 2005). Becas Chile (World Bank & OECD, 2010), and a tax reform that created strong incentives for the private sector to invest in R&D activities. To justify this explosive development, a new public narrative associated with the growing importance of scientific knowledge and the necessity to become a knowledge society was widely supported by a range of national stakeholders (Benavente, 2005; Eyzaguirre et al, 2005; Benavente & Price, 2014; Balbontín et al, 2018; CNID, 2021) As a result, the data show a considerable increase and improvement on several dimensions (González et al, 2021). Indeed, while in 2005 the country devoted 0.22 per cent of its GDP to R&D, a decade later, in 2015, it spent 0.39 per cent (CNID, 2017). Additionally, while in 2007 Chile had a total of 5,550 full-​time equivalent researchers, in 2015 the number increased by 47 per cent (8,175). Also, in 2005 it published 4,035 papers in journals included in the SCOPUS database, and a decade later its scientific production increased by 178 per cent with 11,235 papers in SCOPUS in 2015. Finally, the number of patents requested in the national intellectual property offices grew by 90 per cent, from 1,717 in 2009 to 3,274 in 2015 (RICYT, 2018). Although Chile has rapidly improved and increased its national capacity to create knowledge and innovation, most indicators still show a lag in comparison with other countries. For example, in relation to the relative size of its scientific community, Chile ranks almost last with 1.1 researchers per thousand employees, just over Mexico (1.02), but below Argentina (2.88) and all other developed OECD countries, such as Denmark (15.48), South Korea (14.43), New Zealand (7.94), and the UK (9.04) (OECD, 2019). Therefore, there is still a long way to go in terms of knowledge creation capacity. Despite the challenges ahead, it seems safe to argue that the state has, since 2005, played a central role in the articulation and expansion of the national capacity to create knowledge and innovation. Moreover, as a result of the national strategy, a new and diverse array of knowledge actors has emerged over the last 15 years. These actors have created a critical mass of scientists and researchers who have slowly increased their capacity to influence and inform policymaking processes in several sectors, including education. National ecosystem of research, development, and innovation in education Several studies have shown the importance, magnitude, and characteristics of educational knowledge production in Chile over the last two decades (Brunner & Salazar-​Muñiz, 2012; Nussbaum & González, 2015; Villalobos 193

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et al, 2016). They have done so by evaluating the theoretical approaches and orientations of the educational research, the objects of study, the privileged themes, or the actors who produce such knowledge. However, neither the institutional and organisational field that has structured and contributed to increased knowledge production in education nor its impact on the design of public policies have been systematically investigated. The field of education is particularly interesting for the study of the relationship between scientific production, the actors involved in it, and public policy, as it has experienced an important growth since the mid-​2000s. This trend is manifest in a substantial expansion of the topics and approaches of educational research, in the development of several interdisciplinary conferences on education between 2010 and 2017, in the articulation of national and international networks of researchers, and in the promotion of academic journals and various doctoral training programmes in Chilean universities (Fraser et al, 2015; Nussbaum & González, 2015; Villalobos & Parcerisa, 2020). Indeed, the fundamental objective of most initiatives promoting scientific research in education has been to target the attention of knowledge creators and their efforts towards informing the design of education policies. That is, most new funds have been provided to those focusing on the country’s education priorities. Since the mid-​2000s, the state has promoted several programmes to foster applied research aiming to inform education policy. For example, from 2004 onwards, CONICYT has been providing resources to support development of information and communication technology innovations in education (FONDEF TIC EDU). Similarly, since 2006, the Ministry of Education implemented the Fund for Research and Development in Education (FONIDE) –​with the aim of ‘providing timely, effective and efficient information for decision-​making on public policy in education, strengthening and substantially improving the Ministry of Education’s capacity for foresight and planning’. In 2007, through the collaborative research initiatives in social sciences programme (Anillos de Investigación en Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades), additional funding was provided by CONICYT to 2 education projects out of a total of 11 projects across all disciplines. In addition, new institutional capacities were developed with the creation within top national universities of two advanced research centres in education: the Centre for the Study of Policies and Practices in Education (CEPPE) at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in 2007 and the Centre for Advanced Research in Education (CIAE) at the University of Chile in 2008. The state required these research centres to have a special focus on knowledge transfer and outreach to the policy environment. In fact, in the 2007 competitive call for the creation for both centres, the terms of reference stated: 194

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the objective of the centers is to transfer the knowledge generated to the environment, in order to contribute to improving access, quality and/​or equity in pre-​school, basic, secondary and higher education in Chile. In this sense, it could be desirable to establish cooperation mechanisms and/​or agreements with institutions related to Chilean educational activities (support institutions, municipalities, corporations, universities, Ministry of Education, among others). (CONICYT, nd-​a)8 By explicitly establishing these requirements, the state hoped to benefit from the knowledge and innovation these centres would create. In fact, the terms of reference explicitly established that the advanced research centres in education ‘shall develop research of excellence, train advanced human capital, generate innovation in education and support the development of public policies in education’ (CONICYT, 2007, p 2). Finally, in 2008, the government created Becas Chile –​a bold international postgraduate scholarship programme that aimed, in a ten-​year period, to send 30,000 postgraduates to study abroad. Due to its size and ambition, it became the largest programme of its kind in the world, in relation to the country’s population size (World Bank & OECD, 2010). This programme was the key to rapidly increasing the number of Chilean master’s and doctoral researchers studying in the best universities and research centres in the world. Within this cohort of students, a considerable number studied a topic related to education. As a result, starting in 2012, the country began to benefit from the return of a new cohort of young researchers. They brought not only new knowledge and techniques, but also new mindsets, visions, and lessons regarding novel policies to increase the quality, equality, and inclusion of educational systems. The new policies and instruments supported the emergence of new actors offering new narratives, explanations, and solutions to the educational problems in Chile. As a result, the country witnessed the emergence of a specific knowledge regime oriented towards making sense of ‘Chile’s educational crisis’. Additionally, during this same period, other civil society actors (for example, think tanks and NGOs) emerged as a result of new social movements mobilising and advocating for specific education agendas, using comparative and contextualised local knowledge and a bottom-​up perspective (for example, Educación2020, NodoXXI, Accíon Educar, and so on) to influence policymaking processes in education. Based on the sharp growth of R&D&I, institutional capacities, and knowledge actors, it is paramount to study the influence and impact of knowledge and scientific evidence on the policymaking process. Are the public resources targeted to education research actors and institutions having an impact on legislative processes? Are new knowledge creators 195

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consulted by incumbent policymakers? Is evidence having any impact on new regulatory frameworks? In order to answer these questions, in the following section we compare two key education reforms which introduced fundamental changes in the educational system. The first one, the SEP Law, was designed and discussed in congress during 2005–​08, in the context of a weak and fragmented education R&D&I ecosystem. The second one, the Inclusion Law, was enacted in 2015, and thus, hypothetically, its legislative process could have benefited from the existence of a stronger education research community. If so, we would expect to find a greater presence of, and more influence by, knowledge creators in the second legislative process compared to the first.

Two public policies: the Preferential Student Subsidy Law and the Inclusion Law Chile enacted several educational reforms since the 1990s. These reforms were based on the principles of improving the quality and equity of education, especially for the poorest members of the student population and schoolteachers (Cox, 2012; Bellei & Vanni, 2015). Moreover, these efforts to reform the education system were pushed forward by two important social movements –​the Penguin Revolution and the Chilean Winter, led by high school students and university students, respectively. These movements took over the public agenda in 2006 and 2011, demanding transformation of the highly marketised education system in Chile. The movements heavily impacted the debate and policies in education during the first administration of Michelle Bachelet (2006–​10) and the first administration of Sebastiín Piñera (2010–​14). The Penguin Revolution focused on demands for free travel passes on transportation and elimination of the fee to take the university admissions test (PSU) along with more structural demands such as the abolition of the Organic Constitutional Law of Education (LOCE), the end to municipalisation of subsidised education, a reform to the full-​day school policy (JEC), and a quality education for all. In turn, the Chilean Winter focused on three main demands: increased state support for public universities, reduction of the importance of tuition fees, lessening of the emphasis on the standardised PSU, and improvement of free public education in order to avoid access to higher education depending on families’ economic situations. These demands were oriented to transform the neoliberal structure of the educational system in order to advance to a better-​quality and more equitable education system (Fleet, 2011; Donoso, 2013; Bellei et al, 2018). In the context of the continuous waves of education reforms, there were two main laws that can be highlighted due to their importance and impact on the structure of the educational system: the SEP Law in 2008 and the Inclusion Law in 2015 (see Table 10.2). Both bills had different objectives and 196

Power struggle in education policy change Table 10.2: Features of the Preferential Student Subsidy Law and the Inclusion Law Preferential Student Subsidy Law

Inclusion Law

Government

Ricardo Lagos –​Michelle Bachelet

Michelle Bachelet

Law number

Law No 20.248

Law No 20.845

Starting date of the legislative process of the law

November 2005

May 2014

January 2008

June 2015

Ministry of Education

Ministries of education and finance and Secretary of the Presidency

Official date of enactment of the law Ministry that presents the law proposal Type of law proposal

Initiative of the president Initiative of the president

Legislative hearings: number of participants

74

138

Men

70

68

Women

30

32

Sex of participant (%)

Type of participant in the legislative hearings, according to the official classification (%) Academic and representative of social, professional, teaching, and student organisation

46

89

Government authority and official, mayor, and councillor

54

11

Type of participant actor (%) Researcher

15

34

Civil society actor

0

25

Local authority

7

1

Municipal administrative

5

0

34

13

0

1

Union/​professional association

22

20

Student

18

5

Law

8

12

Economics

11

25

Engineering

15

1

Education/​pedagogy

14

9

4

7

Governmental civil servant International cooperation organisation

Disciplinary background of participants (%)

Sociology

(continued)

197

The Rise of External Actors in Education Table 10.2: Features of the Preferential Student Subsidy Law and the Inclusion Law (continued) Preferential Student Subsidy Law

Inclusion Law

Students (secondary and tertiary)

18

5

Other background

15

22

No information

15

19

Independent research centre

3

15

Foundation

3

10

16

20

0

4

Executive power

31

9

Municipality/​local authority

18

2

International cooperation organisation

1

4

University

8

24

Student representative/​student movement

18

5

Other civil society organisation

0

6

Yes (%)

18%

40%

Yes (N)

13

55

No (%)

82%

60%

No (N)

61

83

Type of institution (%)

Unions and professional association (gremio) Church

Knowledge producers (% and number)

Disciplinary background of knowledge producers (%) Law

8

22

Economics

38

33

Engineering

15

2

Education/​pedagogy

15

9

Sociology

15

15

Other backgrounds

9

14

No information

0

5

University/​academic research centre

46

53

Independent research centre (think tank)

31

38

Other

23

9

Type of knowledge actor (%)

198

Power struggle in education policy change

reach; while the SEP, as it was described by the president in his message to present the bill, was mostly oriented to introduce an element of equity and justice to the system together with a high-​stakes accountability mechanism, providing more resources to poor low-​performing schools in exchange for academic achievement goals (Ley No 20.248: Establece Ley de Subvención Escolar Preferencial, 2008); the Inclusion Law was much more oriented to changing the fundamental nature of the education system, which up to that date was heavily based on free-​market logics. The SEP was presented in October 2005 in a presidential message that emphasised the sharp inequalities in academic results and the lack of quality and equitable opportunities for socio-​economically vulnerable children. This law was enacted in January 2008 after three years of political debate. The SEP also implied a change in the relationship between the state and schools, because the resources provided by the state were required to be associated with the results that schools obtained in standardised national assessments. The idea was to ensure that ‘public resources were effectively applied to learning, conditioning them on objective educational results, based on national learning standards, and rewarding schools that adequately develop the talents of their students’ (Ley No 20.248: Establece Ley de Subvención Escolar Preferencial, 2008). In turn, the Inclusion Law was focused on regulating the admission of students, eliminating cost sharing (fees), and prohibiting profit-​making in schools that receive state subsidies. This policy was presented to the National Congress in March 2014, under the second government of Michelle Bachelet, and was enacted in June 2015. This new regulation of the system was intended to introduce a paradigmatic change by restoring the idea that education is a fundamental social right. This meant eliminating the marketised conception of education in Chile. Thus, the Inclusion Law sought to progressively eliminate the deep structural inequalities in the education system in order to guarantee the right to quality education and the effective freedom of parents and guardians to choose their children’s education. In this sense, as stated in the bill presidential message, ‘the new educational model seeks to eliminate profit-​making, co-​payment and selection processes, in order to establish a socially, economically, ethnically and religiously inclusive educational system that can cement values such as pluralism, respect for others, responsibility and extend notions of equality, freedom and tolerance’ (Ley No 20.845 De Inclusion Esolar, 2015). It is not the aim of this chapter to discuss the effects these laws have had in terms of the goals and results they sought to produce, but to identify changes in the role that knowledge actors had in the legislative process to design these policies. What we want to highlight is that the Inclusion Law relied more on scientific research and evidence (those researchers who investigated the problem of segregation in education were invited to 199

The Rise of External Actors in Education

participate in the legislative process) and that more scientific evidence was available after eight years of public promotion of knowledge production and this new evidence was effectively used in the legislative process. As an example, in 2006 FONIDE made its first call to finance research projects. In this call, the researchers Juan Pablo Valenzuela, Cristian Bellei, and Danae de los Ríos obtained funding for the School Segregation in Chile project, which, after eight years, served as evidence to justify the Inclusion Law (as stated in the presidential message). To reach this point of policy influence, we acknowledge that different sociopolitical and cultural elements needed to change, in the short term and the long term, to favour the emergence of a particular conjuncture, where knowledge creators played a substantive role in creating an evidence-​based narrative about the need to transform the education system. As we have noted, the field of knowledge production needs to connect with the political arena of the state, the civil society organisations and social movements, and also the media, to convert a scientific claim in a socially legitimate proposal for policy reform. The hypothesis suggested in this chapter is that the public investment between 2006 and 2015 to produce knowledge to inform public policies ended up having a significant impact on the Inclusion Law in 2015. This contrasts with the reality of the SEP Law, which was discussed in congress between 2006 and 2008, when most public investments in R&D had just started and thus had not accumulated enough scientific evidence to drive the policy discussion.

Results and findings The main empirical results of this study shed light on, first, the relationship between public efforts to strengthen the ecosystem of R&D&I in education and the resulting increase of new knowledge creators and, second, their increasing capacity to participate and influence policy design. Table 10.3 shows types of participants in the process for each law, according to their official classification. It shows that the participation of academics and representatives of social, professional, teaching, and student organisations increased from 46 per cent in the SEP Law to 89 per cent in the Inclusion Law. On the other hand, there was a lower level of participation of governmental and local authorities during the Inclusion Law legislative hearings. Additionally, as shown in Table 10.4, the composition of the public invited to the hearings in each law varies significantly in terms of the type of role those actors play. While the SEP Law had a great proportion of participants coming from the government and state bureaucracy (34 per cent) and students (18 per cent), the Inclusion Law was mainly characterised 200

Power struggle in education policy change Table 10.3: Participants by type of official classification (%) Type of participant

SEP Law

Inclusion Law

Academic and representative of social, professional, teaching and student organisations

46

89

Government authority and official, mayor, and councillor

54

11

Table 10.4: Participants by type of role (%) Role Researcher

SEP Law

Inclusion Law

15

34

Civil society actor

0

25

Local authority

7

1

Municipal/​administrative role

5

0

34

13

0

1

Union/​professional association representative

22

20

Student

18

5

Civil servant International cooperation organisation

by the participation of researchers (34 per cent) and civil society actors (25 per cent). The increase in the presence of researchers is consistent with the strengthening process of the education R&D&I ecosystem that occurred between the enactment of both laws. Indeed, the presence of researchers more than doubled by the enactment of the second law (34 per cent versus 15 per cent in the enactment of the first law). This shows a marked rise in the share of researchers involved in the policy debate in 2015 as a result of the R&D&I support policies promoted since 2005. Consequently, the type of institutions participating in the legislative discussions also varied greatly for the two laws. While the SEP Law had a great deal of participants coming from government, municipalities, and local authorities (together, these three actors represented more than 49 per cent of total participants), the Inclusion Law had a high share of university researchers (24 per cent), independent research centres (15 per cent), and representatives of professional associations and unions (20 per cent). Moreover, the relative weight of university and independent research centre representatives increased by 16 and 12 percentage points, respectively, from the first to the second reform (Table 10.5). Additionally, distinguishing participants according to the role they play internally in their organisation and looking specifically at those identified as knowledge producers, it is clear that for the SEP Law, only 18 per cent 201

The Rise of External Actors in Education Table 10.5: Participants by type of institution (%) Type of institution

SEP Law

Inclusion Law

Independent research centre

3

15

Foundation

3

10

16

20

0

4

Executive power

31

9

Municipality/​local authority

18

2

International cooperation organisation

1

4

University

8

24

Union/​professional association (gremio) Church

Student representative/​student movement Other civil society organisation

18

5

0

6

Table 10.6: Participants by whether they are a knowledge producer (% and number) Knowledge producer Yes (%)

SEP Law

Inclusion Law

18%

40%

Yes (N)

13

55

No (%)

82%

60%

No (N)

61

83

of participants were working as researchers in their organisations, but this reached 40 per cent in the case of participants in the Inclusion Law (Table 10.6). This implies that for the second reform, more individuals taking part in the legislative process had professional backgrounds in academia or worked with data, evidence, and research methodologies. Finally, when we examine the institutional affiliation of knowledge producers, most were from universities and independent research think tanks, and the share of both of these knowledge creators increased for the second reform. Researchers working in the state or international agencies were less well represented in the legislative debate (Table 10.7). The Inclusion Law saw a higher proportion of researchers and civil society actors taking part in the legislative process. In fact, 34 per cent and 40 per cent of total participants were identified as researchers and knowledge producers, respectively. These figures provide a sense of the changing nature of the policy discussion in Chile and the potential role of scientific knowledge in the legislative debate.

202

Power struggle in education policy change Table 10.7: Participants by type of knowledge actor (%) Type of knowledge actor

SEP Law

Inclusion Law

University/​academic research centre

46

53

Independent research centre (think tank)

31

38

Other

23

9

Final remarks and research implications Education, understood as a social institution, has become a site of political struggle among a diverse array of international/​local and private/​public actors. The aim of this chapter has been to study the rising influence of external actors –​in this case, knowledge creators –​on policymaking processes around education reforms in Chile. In order to achieve this goal, this case study focuses on the Chilean experience, taking advantage of two bodies of scholarship: the first aims to understand and reveal the mechanisms of institutional change, and the second, on research utilisation, focuses on explaining the ways in which research and knowledge influence the decision-​ making process. Along with that, the chapter gives special attention to two interesting events happening in Chile between 2005 and 2015: first, the sharp increase in R&D&I public expenditure and the creation of a diverse set of public programmes to foster knowledge creation and innovation from 2005 onwards; and, second, the enactment of two major education reforms during the same period in which R&D&I became a national priority, especially in education –​the SEP (2008) and the Inclusion Law (2015). As, at the time of the SEP reform, R&D&I support programmes had just been launched, the discussion about and design of that law benefited considerably less from evidence produced by different knowledge actors than the process around the 2015 Inclusion reform. When the 2015 Inclusion reform was being debated, the national ecosystem was rapidly producing new insights and findings about the characteristics and effects of the education system –​ in terms of learning outcomes and social segregation –​and consequently was better able to inform policymaking. In sum, our hypothesis is that for the 2015 reform, there was a more developed organisational field of educational research with new and stronger knowledge actors in position to influence the struggles over institutional change. Based on an innovative methodological approach examining the type and number of external participants in the congress public hearings during the legislative debates, we find a sharp increase of academics and knowledge actors involved in the legislative debate and policymaking processes for the 203

The Rise of External Actors in Education

2015 reform. This is probably due to the strengthening of the R&D&I ecosystem, which increased the funds, research capacity, and trained researchers in Chile. These preliminary findings connect debates on the role of external actors in education policy with questions of institutional change and knowledge mobilisation. Using some of the analytical tools provided by these bodies of research, we observe at least three tendencies: (1) Knowledge actors play a critical role in policy debates. This was especially evident for the Inclusion Law (2015), which aimed to reshape the education system –​its functions and effects –​by rebalancing the importance of the state as the main provider of equitable education and limiting the pernicious consequences of segregation and inequality produced by a highly marketised education system. (2) The power of knowledge actors is rising, especially those researchers from top traditional universities and their policy research institutes, due to increasing public investments to develop and strengthen the organisational field of research (educational knowledge regime). This was the case during the years between the two reforms examined here, and this provided new narratives and hypotheses to make sense of traditional and emerging challenges faced by the education system. (3) There are short-​and long-​term consequences of state action when introducing specific public instruments to intentionally impact the institutional setting by regulating and constraining the expectations and goals of research activities and knowledge production. From an institutionalist point of view, actors play a fundamental role in explaining how institutions evolve, because they are purposeful agents that contest prevailing institutional arrangements. From a distributional power perspective, and considering the current educational landscape, non-​state actors seem to be having a growing influence in the struggles of policy change at the local, national, and international levels. From a sociocultural perspective, we observe that knowledge actors provide new ‘scripts’ to contest dominant ideas about the importance of market and individual choices, as the main mechanisms to organise the provision of education. In this sense, there is an entangled process between a cultural change, via the production of new narratives and discourses, and the political role that knowledge actors, armed with new ideas and arguments, could use to drive a policy change. Further research is needed to fully understand the relationship between how scientific knowledge is used by policymakers and social actors, and the mechanisms by which this evidence effectively impacts on decision-​making processes and sociopolitical processes of institutional change. This causal power should be studied in more depth in order to understand not only the effect of dissemination strategies of research findings, and the impact of stronger and wider bridges between knowledge producers and policymakers, but also, more importantly, the effects specific knowledge regimes have in their interactions with the political-​bureaucratic field of the state, the 204

Power struggle in education policy change

civil society organisations (NGOs and non-​state organisations), and the mass media and social media. Looking at the structure and practices of the organisational field of knowledge production, and how this is institutionally constrained in terms of the products and activities its actors pursue, we will be in a better position to give account of the role that knowledge actors have on the dynamics of institutional change. Notes We would like to thank the following: Christopher Lubienski, Miri Yemini, and Claire Maxwell for their comments on the draft manuscript; Cristal Leon and Francisca Pinoleo for helping us to collect the data used in this chapter. Javier González would also like to thank the Ministry of Economy for support received through the Millennium Science Initiative and its Nucleus on Higher Education in Chile, hosted at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, where he contributes as researcher. Likewise, Javier González is grateful for the support provided by the Centro de Estudios de Conflicto y Cohesión Social (COES) at University of Chile –​‘ANID/​FONDAP/​15130009’. 2 Ley SEP (Ley No 20.248: Establece Ley de Subvención Escolar Preferencial, 2008). 3 Ley de Inclusión (Ley No 20.845: De Inclusión Escolar Que Regula La Admisión de Los y Las Estudiantes, Elimina El Financiamiento Compartido y Prohíbe El Lucro En Establecimientos Educacionales Que Reciben Aportes Del Estado, 2015). 4 Among the non-​knowledge producers that seek to influence educational policy design, we can find philanthropic foundations, NGOs focused on implementation and intervention, political parties, representatives of social movements, students, unions, professional associations, and so on. This is a broad and operative distinction to orient the search and codification of data. 5 Despite the importance of public hearings, it is evident that this space of participation to influence policy design is limited not only in terms of the number and diversity of actors invited to be part of the hearing, but also in terms of the content of the law they can discuss. 6 We have not, at this point, investigated the criteria that is used to decide which particular researchers or representatives are invited to the public hearings. 7 Recently, with creation of the Ministry for Science, Technology and Innovation in 2018 (Law No 21.105), CONICYT was converted into the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID). 8 The terms of reference for both calls were organised under similar objectives (CONICYT, 2007, 2016). 1

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Fischman, G. (2016) ¿Para qué y para quién investigamos? Estrategias de producción y de movilización del conocimiento de las facultades de educación en Norteamérica [For what and for whom do we investigate? Knowledge production and mobilization strategies for North American education faculties], Working Document No 55, Buenos Aires: Universidad de San Andrés. Fleet, N. (2011) ‘Movimiento estudiantil y transformaciones sociales en Chile: una perspectiva sociológica’ [Student movement and social transformations in Chile: a sociological perspective], Polis (Santiago), 10 (30): 99–​116. https://​doi.org/​10.4067/​S0718-​65682011000300005 Foucault, M. (1976) ‘The political function of the intellectual’, Radical Philosophy Archive, www.radicalphilosophyarchive.com/​article/​ the-​political-​function-​of-​the-​intellectual Fraser, P., Queupil, J.P. & Muñoz, D. (2015) ‘Evaluación de redes de colaboración en investigación’ [Evaluation of research collaboration networks], Informes Para La Política Educativa, No 8, https://​cpce.udp.cl/​wp-​content/​uploads/​ 2016/​08/​IPE8.pdf Freeman, R. & Maybin, J. (2011) ‘Documents, practices and policy’, Evidence and Policy, 7 (2): 155–​170. Geddes, M. (2020) ‘The webs of belief around “evidence” in legislatures: the case of select committees in the UK House of Commons’, Public Administration, https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​padm.12687 González, J. (2017) ‘Putting social rights at risk: assessing the impact of education market reforms in Chile’, in B.S. Ndimand & C. Lubienski (eds) Privatization and the Education of Marginalized Children, New York: Routledge, pp 143–​60. González, J., Bernasconi, A. & Puyol, F. (2021) ‘Internationalization of Chilean higher education’, in J. Thondhlana, E. Chiyevo Garwe, H. de Wit, J. Gacel-​Ávila, F. Huang & W. Tamrat (eds) The Bloomsbury Handbook of the Internationalization of Higher Education in the Global South, London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp 220–​43. Gorard, S. & Cook, T. (2007) ‘Where does good evidence come from?’, International Journal of Research and Method in Education, 30 (3): 307–​23. Hernández A., R. (2019) ‘Audiencias públicas en los congresos de América Latina’ [Public hearings in the congresses of Latin America], https://​ obtienearchivo.bcn.cl/​obtienearchivo?id=​repositorio/​10221/​27046/​1/​ Audiencias_​publicas_​en_​los_​congresos_​de_​America_​Latina.pdf Jasanoff, S. (2004) ‘States of knowledge: the co-​production of science and the social order’, in S. Jasanoff (ed) States of Knowledge: The Co-​Production of Science and the Social Order, London: Routledge. Kaal, B., Maks, I. & Van Elfrinkhof, A. (eds) (2014) From Text to Political Positions, Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 55, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

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Khan, M. (1997) ‘State failure in weak states: a critique of the new institutionalist explanations’, in J. Harriss, J. Hunter & C.M. Lewis (eds) The New Institutional Economics and Third World Development, London: Routledge, pp 71–​86. Knight, J. (1992) Institutions and Social Conflict, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lasswell, H.D. (1970) ‘The emerging conception of the policy science’, in Policy Sciences, 1: 3–​14. Millennium Science Initiative (nd) Home page, www.iniciativamilenio.cl/​ en/​home_​en/​Ministerio de Economía (2005) Innovar en Chile: Programa de dearrollo e innovacion tecnológica 2001–​2 006 [Innovate in Chile: Program of Development and Technological Innovation 2001–​ 2006], Santiago: Subsecretaría de Economía, Fomento y Reconstrucción, Ministerio de Economía, www.economia.gob.cl/​2005/​03/​10/​innovar-​en-​ chile-​programa-​de-​desarrollo-​e-​innovacion-​tecnologica-​2001-​2006.htm Mundy, K. & Ghali, M. (2009) ‘International and transnational policy actors in education’, in G. Sykes, B. Schneider & D.N. Plank (eds) Handbook of Education Policy Research, New York: Routledge, pp 717–​34. Nelson, J. & Beirne, C.O. (2014) Using Evidence in the Classroom: What Works and Why? Slough: National Foundation for Educational Research. Nelson, J. & Campbell, C. (2017) ‘Evidence-​informed practice in education: meanings and applications’, Educational Research, 59 (2): 127–​35. Nelson, J. & Campbell, C. (2019) ‘Using evidence in education’, in A. Boaz, H. Davies, A. Fraser & S.M. Nutley (eds) What Works Now? Evidence-​ informed Policy and Practice, Bristol: Policy Press, pp 131–​45. North, D.C. (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nussbaum, M. & González, C. (2015) ‘Desarrollo de la investigación en el área de la educación’ [Development of research in the area of education], in I. Sanchez (ed) Ideas en educación. Reflexiones y propuestas desde la UC, Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile, pp 491–​518. Nutley, S.M., Walter, I. & Davies, H.T.O. (2007) Using Evidence: How Research can Inform Public Services, Bristol: Policy Press. OECD (1995) Educational Research and Development: Trends, Issues and Challenges, Paris: OECD Publishing. OECD (2003) New Challenges for Educational Research, Paris: OECD Publishing. OECD (2019) Main science and technology indicators, Volume 2019 Issue 2, https://​read.oecd-​ilibrary.org/​science-​and-​technology/​main-​science-​ and-​technology-​indicators/​volume-​2019/​issue-​2_​g2g9ff07-​en#page18 PNUD-​CHILE (2017) La participación de la sociedad civil en el proceso legislativo chileno [The participation of civil society in the Chilean legislative process], Chile: PNUD.

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Wagner, P., Weiss, C.H., Wittrock, B. & Wollmann, H. (1991) ‘The policy orientation: legacy and promise’, in P. Wagner, C.H. Weiss, B. Wittrock & H. Wollmann (eds) Social Sciences and Modern States, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 2–​27. Weiss, C.H. (1979) ‘The many meanings of research utilization’, Public Administration Review, 39 (5): 426–​31. Weiss, C.H. (1991) ‘Policy research: data, ideas, or arguments?’, in P. Wagner, C.H. Weiss, B. Wittrock & H. Wollmann (eds) Social Sciences and Modern States: National Experiences and Theoretical Crossroads, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 307–​32. World Bank & OECD (2010) ‘Revisión de Políticas Nacionales de Educación -​Programa Becas Chile’ [Review of National Education Policies -​ Chile Scholarship Program], www.oecd.org/ ​ c hile/​ revisiondepoliticasnacionalesdeeducacion-​programabecaschile.htm

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Conclusion: Complexity and intentionality of external actors in education Christopher Lubienski, Claire Maxwell and Miri Yemini

Education policy has witnessed a series of trends in recent decades at the global level, including: efforts to expand education for all; the rise of low-​ cost options, often facilitated by technological innovation; and the growing influence of private corporations, NGOs, and the ‘effective philanthropy’ movement. But an overriding shift that ties many of these disparate trends together is the elevation of forces external to established education systems. Across the globe, external actors, many of which are analysed in this volume, have enjoyed growing influence in education at different levels and in vastly different contexts. Certainly, there are reasons that policymakers have become enamoured with the idea of creating the conditions in which these external forces have seen their ascendancy. Since the late 1970s, policymakers around the globe and of different ideological stripes have embraced the neoliberal critique of state-​administered enterprises. Based largely on popular perceptions of inefficient, ineffective, and even corrupt government bureaucracies, theorists shaped a ‘climate of opinion’ privileging policy agendas that sought to roll back the state whenever possible in favour of non-​state actors (Cohen & Garet, 1975). The question quite often was not if this should be done, but instead revolved around how much was possible as far as turning state enterprises, functions, and responsibilities over to actors external to traditional modes of governance. More strident voices such as market fundamentalists and public choice theorists found common cause with more equity-​minded reformers, community organisers, well-​meaning philanthropists, and liberals and leftists in noting the failures of the state to deliver high-​quality education for all. Theorists in particular diagnosed examples of ‘state failure’ as being due to inefficiencies and perverse incentives inherent in bureaucratic control (West, 1970, 1982; Allen, 1997; Tullock et al, 2002). Of course, external actors represent an obvious remedy to these diagnoses. Unencumbered by state bureaucracies and regulations, and often free of collective bargaining constraints, private actors from for-​profit and non-​profit sectors present state and non-​state investors with appealing opportunities to improve education services. Of course, such efforts often reconfigure traditional boundaries between state and non-​state sectors, as private interests 212

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take a larger or even a leading role in governance and provision of education services traditionally offered by the state. But such reconfigurations are welcomed in (or even the point of) such schemes, because it is believed that non-​state actors can often bring more entrepreneurial sensibilities, a user-​ focused orientation, a disposition for social and technical innovation, and their own resources to bear on the problems facing education. Moreover, unleashing actors external to the state apparatus can empower additional constituencies, many of which were underserved or excluded from more traditional arrangements. Parents (especially those in marginalised communities), potential employers, and experts with alternative skill sets may benefit from the expanded role that external actors are enjoying in education governance and provision. And because of this, policymakers may expect to see more responsiveness to consumer preferences, more representation of diverse constituencies, more innovation, greater efficiency and effectiveness, and higher levels of user satisfaction around schooling than had been evident in more traditional arrangements. However, our main takeaway from the research represented in this volume is that traditional typologies –​such as state and non-​state actors –​are simplistic and not particularly helpful for understanding the trends that are reshaping education across the globe. Dichotomies like internal/​external or for-​profit/​non-​profit miss the nuance of what is currently happening in so many different contexts. Even the useful concept of a third sector, as typically understood, does not account for the diversity and complexity increasingly evident in education policy, provision, and governance. Certainly, we are seeing a ‘blurring’ of boundaries between established categories and sectors, sometimes by design (Lubienski, 2001), as non-​state actors provide schools or take over governance of state schools. But we are also seeing new power relations forming, new structures of governance, and new players participating in education. That is, while we are seeing some supplanting of government in terms of functions traditionally manged by the state, such as teacher training or assessment, we are also witnessing new governance structures emerging in education –​non-​profit boards and trusts, charter management companies, philanthropic organisations –​to manage the rise of new institutional alternatives that can co-​opt, compete with, or collude with state-​governed efforts. Thus, common notions of ‘privatisation’, while not inaccurate, often fail to convey the gist of these trends. For instance, as we have seen, internal actors can also be external, as when teachers from within the Cambodian system also work in private spaces outside the state system, such as within the tutoring industry. Likewise, social responsibility models are being used to ascribe public purposes to what have previously been seen as private, exclusively self-​interested actors; at the same time we increasingly see profit-​seeking organisational behaviours associated with the business sector 213

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being adopted by the non-​profit sector, as well as external forces gaining influence (Hogan et al, 2016; Olmedo, 2016), as documented in this volume in relation to the boards of charter schools. Moreover, these trends are not simply ‘restructuring’ governance relationships to create a new stasis. Instead, fluidity and informality appear to be some of the hallmarks of this trend, as evidenced in the chapters covering teachers in Cambodia or parents in Israel. And rather than simply ‘privatising’ in the classic sense of transfer of ownership or control (Lubienski, 2016; Whitty & Power, 2000), we see myriad routes by which external actors are asserting greater influence in established systems, as with PISA for schools in the US, expertise in Chilean legislation, or new philanthropy initiatives and networks in Brazil and Australia. Again, these processes are complex. With that complexity in mind, it is worthwhile revisiting –​with the necessary retrospective humility –​some of the initial questions that guided this project. First, we were motivated to determine how new types of actors were exerting influence on education from beyond traditional structures, and especially across different contexts. As already noted, we then recognised the need to understand how the new arrangements evidenced by the rise of these external actors are impacting power relations and governance. Next, we wanted to advance toward a better comprehension of the forces that are shaping new power relations and institutional arrangements. Finally, we sought a deeper understanding of the role that external actors themselves are forging through new relationships and arrangements. In light of our overall finding on the complexity of this issue, we now turn to some of the themes and considerations we have drawn from the contributions to this volume. First, the complexification of control and provision of education is both a matter of larger global trends that are a part of the zeitgeist and due to intentional policy agendas. As we have noted, the external/​internal distinction is actually quite complex, but the blurring of those boundaries represents both larger forces, such as the retreat of the state and the (inexorable?) growth of the market (Kuttner, 1999), and the specific policies that create opportunities and rationales for actors outside of established systems to assert greater influence in those systems. Policies have explicitly allowed external actors to penetrate into the education apparatus over time –​witness the advocacy for testing in Denmark or the state-​initiated and incentivised but privately funded charity in Australia. The chapter on Poland presents a classic case of policies that intentionally welcome new associations to govern different types of schools. While that trend emerged with the rise of liberalism that followed the fall of the communist state, in other cases such as in the US, we see how neoliberal policies have sought to erase a legally established ‘wall’ between public and private provision of education, blurring those boundaries so that external, non-​state actors could run and govern publicly funded schools (Lubienski, 2001). 214

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Furthermore, this ‘blurring’ is happening in both provision and policymaking. Researchers often discuss such trends around schooling in terms of ‘privatisation’ or ‘marketisation’ –​both true yet incomplete characterisations of the trends we are seeing. It is fair to say that external forces are symptomatic of, and even contributing to, a shift of the control of schooling traditionally governed and administered by the state to non-​ state actors, including parents, NGOs, and businesses. But it is at least as important to note that the emergence of external actors is also both a result and a cause of the influence that private actors are exerting on education policymaking –​the ‘privatisation’ of public policy making, if you will. This trend is perhaps most evident in the increasingly prominent role that private philanthropists in places like Brazil and the US are playing on a global scale. In testing, for instance, external actors have clearly leveraged greater influence over policymaking, with groups like the Organisation for Economic Co-​ operation and Development (OECD) exerting pressure –​sometimes direct –​ on both national and local policy through PISA for Schools and through the scandalisation, or ability to leverage potentially negative comparisons for one’s country, that encourages policymakers to adopt particular remedies (Steiner-​Khamsi & Waldow, 2018; Verger et al, 2019) (see also chapters in this volume on Denmark and on PISA for Schools). It is just that large international organisations like the OECD ‘enter’ the school sector, but rather that the ‘need’ for testing brings on an industry of many other smaller actors that work in the testing machinery. In fact, such processes of penetration by external actors are a useful reminder of how previous reforms oftentimes created alternatives to established education systems before colonising those systems. That is, education reforms that last often emerge outside of the established school system but then become institutionalised within the system (Cuban, 1992). Certainly, the elevation of external actors can also shape organisational behaviour in the public sector –​thus further blurring traditional boundaries between state and non-​state actors, as well as between profit-​and social-​ maximising entities (Weisbrod, 1998). In light of the popular diagnosis of state failure in public provision, the rise of the business sector is not only seen as an alternative to established education system actors, but is often intended as a model to be emulated, thus shaping organisational behaviour in the public sector. Policymakers –​both public and private –​have torn down institutional barriers in order to allow new actors to offer education under the logic than these actors can do a better job than established systems and that those systems might then learn new things from their more entrepreneurial rivals. For instance, the chapter on US charter schools demonstrates how boards are constituted with people who bring skills and dispositions from outside the traditional American public education system in order to offer better options. And Emma Rowe’s piece demonstrates how internal actors 215

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see the potential of external actors bringing additional resources and ‘business’ and ‘efficiency’ mindsets into Australian education. But analyses of non-​ profit economics suggests that these new rivals emerging from outside the system can also create competition that induces internal actors to adopt more competitive (and perhaps exclusionary) practices associated with the business sector (Weisbrod, 1998). As we have seen in this volume, different actors are adopting a diversity of strategies and practices in forging new relationships and thus reshaping institutional arrangements in education in complex ways. For instance, parents in Israel benefit from, but are also limited by, their liminal position yet ultimately draw on their voter power to insist on changes. On the other hand, charter school advocates in the US support parent participation through the choice-​making process but generally avoid wider voter input on their agenda. Most charter policies in the US have resulted from legislative, not voter, action, and indeed charters often look to elites –​such as philanthropists, business people, and even celebrities –​to sponsor their schools. One of our original questions focused on the ways in which different contexts may shape the strategies that external actors adopt in forging new institutional power arrangements and maximising their influence. Certainly, much of what we are seeing are universal trends –​universal because they often draw from a theoretical perspective on human nature and human organisations that views universal tendencies of self-​interestedness –​that need to be harnessed for public policy regardless of context. Venture philanthropy and philanthrocapitalism often reflect such universalistic assumptions about how individuals and organisations can be incentivised. But at the same time, the contributions in this volume demonstrate that contexts matter, a fact that many a policymaker and philanthropist recognise too late. While many of the contributions in this volume highlight the connection between specific policy contexts and the actions of external actors, this book also highlights the importance of accounting for contextual factors. For instance, Oplatka’s chapter highlights the necessity of working with actors who are local and intimately familiar with the context –​whether they be external or internal to the system. The chapter on Chile illustrates the importance of the national policy context –​in this case, investment in R&D –​in shaping the role of research expertise; and Poland shows that this country has made a concerted policy effort to change institutions. The Australian government has made a specific policy push to elevate philanthropy in education, and Denmark shows how a country may interact with specific external and internal developments in particular ways to change how testing is nested within the education system. Likewise, Israeli parents, as well as parents elsewhere, often lack specific roles in school governance; and the changing sociopolitical context in Poland presents some unique challenges in that largely Catholic country. 216

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Questions, significance, and future directions Even as we have garnered important insights into our questions from the contributions in this book, the analyses also point to a couple of additional questions that researchers in the field will have to grapple with in future work. One of those questions has to do with impact. Specifically, we know little at this point about the overall impacts of emerging strategies and power arrangements on different constituencies. In particular, research needs to determine how these emerging power relations affect those who are most vulnerable and who are thus expected –​at least in theory –​to benefit most from the creative disruptions wrought by the rise of external actors. But to even approach that issue, a prior question researchers will have to consider concerns the theoretical resources and/​or methodological approaches best used to study this changing landscape. Along with the proliferation of external actors over the past half-​century, research on such topics in education has also seen an explosion of methodologies that can be leveraged in investigating such issues. Researchers are utilising quantitative social network analyses, qualitative network ethnography, political science perspectives on policy coalitions, sociological understandings of markets, geospatial analyses and critical geography, and so much more to discern how power relationships are formed and reformed. But at the same time, there has been a relative paucity of developments in the theoretical perspectives that can be used in exploring the dynamic space of education governance. While the methodological tools have changed, the theoretical lenses quite often still reflect the thinking of a half-​century ago, with (over-​)reliance on, for instance, Foucauldian, neo-​Marxist, post-​structuralist, and post-​colonial theories popular in the 1970s. Thus, even as the emergence of external actors in education across the globe reflects the ascendancy of neoliberal, market-​ based thinking, critical understandings of these trends have been largely left behind. Said another way, while researchers have continued to theorise the rise of external actors using older and established critiques and frameworks, policy entrepreneurs have increasingly promoted –​quite successfully –​ neoliberal and other agendas advancing the influence of external actors with little concern about those worn-​out academic perspectives (Lubienski, 2016). The way the contemporary criticisms of external involvements are structured misses part of the phenomenon and part of the point: it lacks full acknowledgment of the array of possible external actors like teachers, parents, and school boards, but also neglects the possibility to leverage this new phenomenon in ways that might bring positive change into education and to people’s lives. This collection of analyses across contexts highlights the problems and potential of research on external actors. As we have noted, the phenomenon is complex, and many aspects of these trends raise significant concerns. But 217

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this book also points to the need for a new agenda, informed by new ways of conceptualising and theorising the momentous changes evident in the field. References Allen, W. (1997, 23 February) ‘Do schools need a new framework with more choice? It’s time for public ownership of the classrooms; government has failed the challenge’, The Detroit News, www.edreform.com/​forum/​ 022397wa.htm Cohen, D.K. & Garet, M.S. (1975) ‘Reforming educational policy with applied social research’, Harvard Educational Review, 45 (1): 17–​43. Cuban, L. (1992) Why some reforms last: the case of the kindergarten’, American Journal of Education, 100 (2): 166–​94. Hogan, A., Sellar, S. & Lingard, B. (2016) ‘Corporate social responsibility and neo-​social accountability in education: the case of Pearson plc’, in A. Verger, C. Lubienski & G. Steiner-​Khamsi (eds) World Yearbook of Education 2016: The Global Education Industry, New York: Routledge, pp 107–​24. Kuttner, R. (1999) Everything For Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lubienski, C. (2001) ‘Redefining “public” education: charter schools, common schools, and the rhetoric of reform’, Teachers College Record, 103 (4): 634–​66. Lubienski, C. (2016) ‘Privatising form or function? Equity, outcomes and influence in American charter schools’, in G. Walford (ed) Privatisation, Education and Social Justice, London: Routledge, pp 78–​93. Olmedo, A. (2016) ‘Philanthropic governance: charitable companies, the commercialisation of education and that thing called ‘democracy’, in A. Verger, C. Lubienski & G. Steiner-​Khamsi (eds) The Global Education Industry, London: Routledge, pp 44–​62. Steiner-​Khamsi, G. & Waldow, F. (2018) ‘PISA for scandalisation, PISA for projection: the use of international large-​scale assessments in education policy making –​an introduction’, Globalisation, Societies and Education, 16 (5): 557–​65. Tullock, G., Seldon, A. & Brady, G.L. (2002) Government Failure: A Primer in Public Choice, Washington, DC: Cato Institute. Verger, A., Fontdevila, C. & Parcerisa, L. (2019) ‘Constructing school autonomy with accountability as a global policy model: a focus on OECD’s governance mechanisms’, in C. Ydsen (ed) The OECD’s Historical Rise in Education: The Formation of a Global Governing Complex, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 219–​43. Weisbrod, B.A. (1998) ‘Institutional form and organizational behaviour’, in W.W. Powell & E.S. Clemens (eds) Private Action and the Public Good, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp 69–​84.

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West, E.G. (1970) Education and the State: A Study in Political Economy (2nd edn), London: The Institute of Economic Affairs. West, E.G. (1982) ‘The public monopoly and the seeds of self-​destruction’, in M.E. Manley-​Casimir (ed) Family Choice in Schooling: Issues and Dilemmas, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, pp 185–​98. Whitty, G. & Power, S. (2000) ‘Marketization and privatization in mass education systems’, International Journal of Educational Development, 20: 93–​107.

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Index References to figures appear in italic type; those in bold type refer to tables. References to endnotes show both the page number and the note number (108n3).

A

C

academic performance index  68 ACARA (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority)  156, 162, 171 actors in education, reconfigurations of  128 advocacy  152 Africa, non-​governmental organisations (NGOs) in  85, 86–​7 agency theory  57 Aspire network of charter schools, Cambodia  56 Australia  6, 214 external actors in education in  rise of  168–​71 venture philanthropy and  167–​83 government-​mandated philanthropy in  168 philanthropy in education in  216 private schools in  169 public schools in  7, 169, 170 Review of Funding for Schooling –​Final Report  see Gonski Review, Australia Australian Business and Community Network  172 Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA)  156, 162, 171 Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership  171 Australian Schools Plus  171, 172, 176 Ayrton Senna Institute, Brazil  157

Cambodia  5 government expenditure on education in  35 private tutoring in (rien kuo)  5, 31–​49, 213 Catholic Church, and schools in, Poland  140–​1 CENPEC (Center for Studies and Research in Education, Culture and Community Action)  156 Center for Community Health Education Research and Service, Boston  55 Centre for Advanced Research in Education (CIAE), Chile  194 Centre for the Study of Policies and Practices in Education (CEPPE), Chile  194 Charity Navigator  59 charter schools  50–​79, 214 60  academic outcomes of  68–​9, 71 board of directors  6, 51 agency role of  71 characteristics of  60–​3 cross-​sectoral alliances formed though  59 from the Education sector  67 industry representation of  61, 62–​3 from non-​profit and for-​profit sectors  60, 61, 63–​5 role in creating cross-​sectoral affiliations  60–​9 sectoral affiliations and charter school characteristics  65–​8 cross-​sectoral alliances in  53 education needs of students in  65–​6 English proficiency of students at  66 funding and management of  51 grassroots community  56 for-​profit and non-​profit sectors  cross-​sectoral alliances with  69 involvement in  53–​9 role of  52 students in  65, 66 teacher characteristics  66–​7 Chile  7, 216 Becas Chile  195

B Ball, S.J.  4, 12, 33, 43, 153, 167 Binet–​Simon intelligence test, standardisation of the, Denmark  121 blended learning  160 Brazil  6 national learning standards  153, 156, 158, 161–​2 philanthropy in the heterarchical governance of education in  150–​66 shift from government to governance  153 Brazilian Ministry of Education  162

220

Index Centre for Advanced Research in Education (CIAE)  194 Centre for the Study of Policies and Practices in Education (CEPPE)  194 Chilean Winter  196 CONICYT (government agency)  192, 194 CORFO (national economic development agency)  192 education research, development, and innovation (R&D&I) ecosystem  185, 192–​6 Fund for Research and Development in Education (FONIDE)  194, 200 Inclusion Law  185, 191, 196–​200, 201, 203, 204 participants in  202, 203 institutional change  186–​7 knowledge actors  in institutional change in  186–​90 in structural reforms in  184–​211 National Council for Innovation  192 Penguin Revolution  196 Pontifical Catholic University of Chile  194 Preferential Student Subsidy Law (SEP)  185, 191, 196–​200, 201, 203 participants in  202, 203 research and development (R&D) public funding in  185 School Segregation in Chile project  200 Choosing Education (CE), Israel  19–​20 activities  20–​1 influence of parents in  22–​3 relations with external actors  22 Civic Educational Association, Poland  140 Cold War period  122–​5, 127 education research during  122–​3 collective parental involvement  10–​30 examples of  12 in Israel  14–​15 at a local level  19–​23 parent representative (PR) bodies  16–​19 within schools  12–​13, 16–​19 communitarianism  6, 80 communities  importance of  81–​2 involvement in education reform and provision  83–​4 Composite Performance Index  68 Concordat agreement between the Vatican and Poland  140 CONICYT (government agency), Chile  192 consultocracies  4 CORFO (national economic development agency), Chile  192 corporate consultants  175 Curriculum Foundation, UK  156

D Danish Pedagogical Institute (DPI)  116, 123–​4, 127 Danish Society for Experimental Pedagogy  121 Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR1) status  168, 178 Denmark  Binet–​Simon intelligence test, standardisation of the  121 Danish Pedagogical Institute (DPI)  116, 123–​4, 127 Danish Society for Experimental Pedagogy  121 Education Act 1937  125 Education Psychology Study Commission  116, 121, 126 education system  115 actors shaping educational testing practices  126 archival material and analysis of  116 during the Cold War period  116, 122–​5 during the interwar period  116, 117–​22 educational psychologist training course  120 educational testing in  6, 113–​32, 214, 216 history of  114–​15 folk high school movement  117–​18 The Free School  116 New Education Fellowship  126 progressive education movement  118, 120 reconfiguration of the education field in  120–​1 Royal Danish School of Education  120, 125, 127 teachers’ unions  121–​2 University of Copenhagen  127 District Management Group  57–​8 DPI (Danish Pedagogical Institute)  116, 123–​4, 127

E edu-​businesses  92 education, complexification of control and provision of  214 Education Act 1937, Denmark  125 education agendas  128 Education for All agenda  84 education governance  217 education heterarchies  see heterarchies education magazines  157 education policies  13, 113 historical perspective on the shifting configurations of actors in  114

221

The Rise of External Actors in Education outcomes of  179 trends in  212 Education Psychology Study Commission, Denmark  121, 123, 126 Educational System Act 1991, Poland  140 educational psychological testing  121 educational psychologists  125 educational psychology  118, 119 courses  126–​7 educational testing  in Denmark  113–​32 promotion of  115 England, 11 Plus test  115 English language arts (ELA) test scores  55 eugenics  119 evidence-​informed policy research  189 external actors  complexity and intentionality of  212–​19 as currency  178–​9 definition of  2, 10 influence of  184

F folk high school movement, Denmark  117–​18 foundations  157, 161, 162, 163 advantages of  163 in Brazil  159 Curriculum Foundation, UK  156 difference between traditional research organisations and  156 Lemann Foundation  152, 157, 160, 162 The Free School, Denmark  116 Fund for Research and Development in Education (FONIDE), Chile  194

G Global Education for All  33 Global Education Reform Movement  127 Global South  82–​3 perception of education in  82 privatisation in  33 role of NGOs in providing education in  87 Gonski, David  6, 168, 171, 173–​6 networks  176, 177, 179 Gonski Review, Australia  167, 168, 171–​2 grassroots community-​based organisations  55–​6

H heterarchical governance  see heterarchies heterarchies  6, 7, 96, 150, 153–​4 definition of  153 in education governance  4 formalising discourses and relationships in  159–​62 homeschooling, in Poland  145

human service organisations (social services)  55 hybrid public-​private systems  43

I Inclusion Law, Chile  185, 191, 196–​200, 201, 203, 204 participants in  202, 203 India  83 Innovation in Schools (package)  160 institutional change, role of knowledge actors in  187–​8 institutional theory  54, 70 cultural-​sociological  187 utilitarian-​functionalist  187 intelligence testing  117, 119, 121, 124 11 Plus test  115 Binet–​Simon intelligence test  124 IQ testing  116, 117, 118, 119, 125, 127 international large-​scale assessment (ILSA)  94 International Platform Provider (IPP)  99 investment, in research and development (R&D)  216 Israel  5, 11 Choosing Education (CE)  19–​23 activities  20–​2 influence of parents in  22–​3 relations with external actors  22 collective parental involvement in schools in  14–​15, 16 liminal position of parents in  216 parent representation body collaborations outside of school  18–​19 parents collectively organising within a school  16–​19 roles for parents in school governance, lack of  216

K Khan Academy  160 knowledge actors  7 definition of  185, 190 in institutional change  in Chile  186–​90 role of  187–​8 in Latin America  190 power of  204 role in policy debates  204 in structural reforms, in Chile  186–​90 knowledge mobilisation  156, 189 knowledge utilisation  188–​90

L Latin America, knowledge actors in  190 Lemann Foundation  152, 157, 160, 162 local educational authorities (LEAs)  18, 20, 22, 24

222

Index

M magazines, education  157 Malawi  Ministry of Education  85 role of community in education provision in  85 Marx, Karl  178 Massachusetts  charter schools  53, 55 Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Office of Charter Schools and School Redesign  59 Martin Luther King, Jr Charter School of Excellence  55 MLK Family Services, Springfield  55 social service agencies  55 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS)  74n1 Math test scores  68 microeconomic theory  56–​7 Ministry of Education (Kuratoria), Poland  135 MLK Family Services, Springfield, Massachusetts  55 Mobilisation for the National Learning Standards (MNLS), Brazil  150, 152–​3, 155–​6, 157–​8, 160, 161–​2 My School website, Australia  171 Myanmar, private tutoring in  44

N NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) codes  59, 60 National Council for Innovation, Chile  192 National Service Providers (NSPs)  99, 101, 103 National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) classification  59 codes  60 Neighborhood House Charter School, Dorchester, Boston  56 neoliberal governmentality, in private tutoring  34 neoliberalism  3, 10, 33–​4, 42, 45 network ethnography  167 network governance  150 networks  157–​8 as currency  178–​9 transnational private policy networks  91 New Education Fellowship, Denmark  116, 120, 121, 122, 126 new philanthropy  6, 7, 150, 159 business, philanthropy, and education networks  157–​9 characteristics of  151 discursive work, changing meanings in education  155–​7

and external and internal actors  162–​3 in the heterarchical governance of education  151–​4 influence in education  163 organisations  154 and the press in Brazil, types of interaction between  156–​7 non-​governmental organisations (NGOs)  133 in African countries  85 promotion of communitarian approach  86–​7 community involvement in  84–​6 differentiation between global and local spheres of influence  82–​3 education delivery by NGOs in sub-​ Saharan Africa  83 effectiveness of  87 relations between schools and  80–​90 communitarian view  82–​6 non-​state actors  213, 215 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes  59, 60

O OECD  see Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development Organisation for Economic Co-​operation and Development  215 ‘Baby PISA’  94 Directorate of Education  93 Directorate of Education and Skills  93 engagement with stakeholders  99–​103 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)  14 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Schools  6, 91–​112 education agenda  93–​5 policy networks and power-​topologies  96–​9 Skills Strategy  93–​4 outsourcing provision in education  2

P parent representative (PR) bodies  16–​19, 23 parents  community-​based organisations for low-​ income Latino parents  13 influence of  22–​3 involvement at the locality level  19–​23 involvement in education  collective  5, 11 individual  11 PR body within schools  16–​19 in public education  11 liminal position of  15–​16, 21, 23, 24, 25 relations with external actors  22

223

The Rise of External Actors in Education role in local education system and schools, definition of  21 parent-​teacher associations (PTAs)  12 parent-​teacher organisations (PTOs)  12 Penguin Revolution, Chile  196 performance data, in education  91 philanthrocapitalism  216 philanthropy  in education in Australia  216 government-​mandated philanthropy in Australia  168 in the heterarchical governance of education in Brazil  150–​66 in schooling  171–​3 venture philanthropy  152, 216 and external actors in Australian education  167–​83 Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School  56 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment)  122 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) for Development  94, 102, 103, 107, 108 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) for schools  6, 91–​112, 122 capacity building activities  102 countries participating in  102 education agenda  93–​5 incorporation into the main PISA scale of measurement  107 jurisdictions available in  108n3 policy networks and power-​topologies  96–​9 proficiency scale  108n2 scores  92 support activities  105 and third-​party actors, findings of  99–​107 voluntary contributions  103–​7 OECD needs assessment  105 payment by National Service Providers to the OECD  104 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) Governing Board  107 PISA4U  102 PISA-​based Test for Schools (PBTS)  101 Poland  214, 216 Catholic Church, and schools in  140–​1 Civic Educational Association  140 Concordat agreement between the Vatican and  140 education  decentralisation of  134–​7 since the fall of communism  6 education policies, between 1945 and 1990  134

education system, state-​run  133 Educational System Act 1991  140 external agents  involvement in education in  133–​49 and marketisation of schooling in  141–​3 as reformers of education  139–​41 homeschooling and quasi-​schooling in  145 independent schooling in  133 Law on Education Act  137 Little School (association)  143 local authorities  135 Ministry of Education (Kuratoria)  135 population decline  139, 143, 146 preschool care in  142 preservation of rural schools and improving educational standards in  139, 143–​5 private, profit-​oriented institutions  146 private education in  141 regulations on funding non-​public education with public money  141, 142 religious groups and schools in  141 schools run by organisations other than local government  138 ‘small school’ movement  144 social schools  138, 140, 146 students in public and non-​public schools  142, 143 Teacher’s Charter  135, 136–​7, 144 transfers of schools between agents in  144 types of schools/​preschools in  138 university education in  142 ZNP (Polish Teachers’ Union)  135–​7 policy collaborators  161 policy entrepreneurs  155, 217 policy reforms, in Australia  179 Polish United Workers’ Party  134 Pontifical Catholic University of Chile  194 power, topological conception of  98 Preferential Student Subsidy Law (SEP), Chile  185, 191, 196–​200, 201, 203 participants in  202, 203 Prescribed Private Fund (PPF), Australia  174 principals, views on which aspects of decision-​making parents should participate in  14 private education, in Poland  141 private institutions, government agreements with  161 private tutoring  31, 34, 42 in Cambodia  5 cost of  35 global growth of  33 impact on curriculum and pedagogy  37–​9 motivations to participate in  36–​7, 43

224

Index in Myanmar  44 neoliberal governmentality in  34 students, self-​responsibilisation of  41–​2 teachers  moral dilemma to offer  43–​4 self-​entrepreneurship of  40–​1 teacher–​student relations  39–​40 privatisation  2, 45, 213, 215 in education (endogenous)  32 of education (exogenous)  32 profit-​and social maximising entities, blurred boundaries between  215 Programme for International Student Assessment  see PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies  94 progressive education movement  118, 120, 121, 125, 126 public schools  168 participation of external actors in  3 public services, reorganisation of  154 public-​private partnerships  6, 45, 159

Q quality, of the educational process  145 quasi-​schooling, in Poland  145

R reform pedagogy movement  118 research and development (R&D) public funding, in Chile  185, 192–​6 resource dependence theory  53, 70 Review of Funding for Schooling –​Final Report  see Gonski Review rien kuo  see private tutoring Royal Danish School of Education  120, 125, 127

S school adoption programs  84 school effectiveness movement  123 school experiments  125 School Segregation in Chile project  200 schooling, non-​state engagement in  145 scientific knowledge  contribution to policy design  190 relationship between public policy and  188–​90 self-​responsibility  for one’s education and life  34 of students and private tutoring  41–​2

shadow bureaucracy  174 ‘shadow education’  33 ‘small school’ movement, Poland  144 social engineering  119, 126 social networks  153, 168 sphere of influence, model of  11–​12 state and non-​state actors  213 blurred boundaries between  215 sub-​Saharan Africa  85, 86 education delivery by NGOs in  83 role of school principals in  86 supplementary education  33 system actors  10

T Tanzania, research on school choice in  86 teacher training courses  160 Teacher’s Charter, Poland  135, 136–​7, 144 teachers  effect of neoliberalism and performativity on  43 as external actors  31–​49 inauthenticity between students and  43 operating in internal and external capacities  45 testing sector  4 testing technology  125 third sector  82, 152, 174, 178, 213 transnational private policy networks  91

U Uganda, financial management in schools  86 UNESCO  General Conference 1949  122 written exchange with DPI (Danish Pedagogical Institute)  124 United Kingdom  12 United Nations Development Programme  191 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (2015–​30)  94 University of Copenhagen  127

V venture philanthropy  152, 216 and external actors in Australian education  167–​83

Z ZNP (Polish Teachers’ Union)  135–​7

225

“Changing boundaries, shifting alliances, expansionary business models, and new political arrangements are transforming the DNA of modern education systems and altering its place and promise in the social contract. This book puts a powerful case for why a fresh analysis of the rise of external actors in education is important.” Susan L. Robertson, University of Cambridge Increasingly, it is not just the state that determines the content, delivery, and governance of education. The influence of external actors has been growing, but the boundaries between internal and external have become blurred and their partnerships have become more complex. This book considers how schooling systems are being influenced by the rise of external actors, including private companies, non-governmental organisations, parent organisations, philanthropies, and international assessment frameworks. It explores how the public, private, and third sectors are becoming increasingly intertwined. Introducing new theoretical frameworks, it examines diverse sites – including Cambodia, Israel, Poland, Chile, Australia, Brazil, and the United States – to study the role of policies, institutions, and contextual factors shaping the changing relationships between those seeking to influence schooling. Christopher Lubienski is Professor of Education Policy at Indiana University. Miri Yemini is Associate Professor of Education at Tel Aviv University. Claire Maxwell is Professor of Sociology at the University of Copenhagen.

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