This presentation was given by Melanie Ehren from the London Institute of Education at the GCES Conference on Governing Education in a Complex World during the second Workshop B on the role of shared responsibility in developing accountability mechanisms that work in Brussels on 17 October 2016.

1. Shared responsibility in accountability
M. Ehren
m.ehren@ucl.ac.uk
16 October 2016
OECD, Brussels
www.ioe.ac.uk/lcll

2. Background to shared responsibility
Changing education systems:
- Decentralization
- Increased autonomy
- Increased network governance: linking different
stakeholder organizations around a public policy
purpose and a set of joint goals

3. Examples

4. The purpose of shared responsibility:
• Addressing failing ‘command and control’ types of
regulation
• Acknowledging that no singe actor can regulate
effectively
• Creating conditions for responsiveness

5. Shared responsibility and accountability
• Inherent contradiction?
• Regulation and accountability need to adapt to local
context and create the conditions in which schools
effectively steer themselves
Shifting from monocentric to polycentric approaches

6. Alkin and Christie’s evaluation tree

7. Methodology
• Collection and analysis of empirical data for the study
and judgment of particular aspects of social life.
• Theorists in this branch: Campbell, Scriven, Stake
(positivist, objectivist), Weiss, Pawson, Tilley (theory-
driven evaluations), etc.
Changes: from monocentric to polycentric:
• Who defines standards and criteria and methods for
evaluation?
• What is the object of evaluation?

8. Methodology
Monocentric Polycentric
Top down, standardized
approach to evaluate single
schools, aimed at predicting
and explaining school
quality
Bottom-up, context-specific
approach to evaluate (schools
in) networks, aimed at
validating, interpreting,
understanding quality of
context-specific approaches
and solutions

9. Examples methodology
• NI/West Belfast: area-based inspections informed by
network targets and self-evaluation
• England: formal consultations on inspection frameworks
• The Netherlands: round tables with (representatives of)
all stakeholders to discuss and develop inspection
frameworks, and pilot test frameworks
• Scotland: place-based scrutiny, scoping exercise to
inform data collection around one central question: what
is it like to live and learn in this community? Developing
questions for inquiry with local community
• England: soft intelligence of Regional Schools
Commissioners and local head teacher boards

10. Valuing/judgement
the making of value judgments about the quality of some
object, situation or process
Theorists in this branch: Levin, Lincoln and Guba, Eisner,
Scriven
Scriven describes different approaches: pass-fail
judgement, comparison of similar entities, goal-free (using
a qualitative approach to describe events, reactions and
interactions)

11. Valuing/judgement
Who decides evaluation criteria?
What is the object of evaluation?
Monocentric Polycentric
Prescriptive assessment
criteria to judge quality of
individual schools, pass-fail
judgment decided by
Inspectorate
Inspectorate facilitates
evaluation, goal-free, flexible
and specific to context and
information needs of
(network of) schools and
stakeholders

12. Examples valuing/judgement
• NI/West Belfast: reports highlight strengths and
weaknesses of the network and percentage of ALCs
targets met
• Scotland: map the attainment of strategic objectives for
the area against the different subgroups and sub-
communities
• Sharing responsibility in judgment is counterintuitive to
the position of many Inspectorates

13. Use (user involvement and consequences)
use of evaluation findings, recognizing the importance of
involving stakeholders when determining the evaluation
questions to gather useful information.
Theorists on this branch: Patton, Stufflebeam, Chelimskey,
Wholey and others
In an inspection context: also interventions to motivate
improvement/compliance (e.g. rewards, sanctions)

14. Use (user involvement and consequences)
What is the role of stakeholders in inspections and use of
inspection findings? Which phase of the inspection are they
involved in?
Who decides on consequences of inspection assessment?
Monocentric Polycentric
‘Distanced evaluation approaches’
Stakeholders (and schools) are end
users of inspection assessments
and object of evaluation. Only
primary ‘decision-makers’ are target
of consequences (e.g. head
teachers)
‘Collaborative/participatory
evaluation’
Stakeholders and schools
involved in all inspection phases
Intelligent intervention strategies
targeted at all
schools/stakeholders in a
network to improve performance
of entire network

15. Examples of user involvement
- Ireland: NI/West Belfast: reports indicate who needs to
address weaknesses within the ALC
- England: RSCs discuss consequences of monitoring
(rebrokering of academies to other Trusts) with local
head teacher board, CEO of the Trust and academy
involved (but decision ultimately is made by the RSC)

16. www.schoolinspections.eu