Leading Learning in the Age of League Tables: Disciplinary Power, Performativity and the Fight for the Ethical Self Introduction
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The schooling system in Australia has been exposed to myriad reforms and political agendas in the last decade, including the introduction of a national curriculum to mandate perceived requisite content knowledge and pedagogical approaches. Alongside this, the pressure for schools to perform on the National Assessment Program and Australia’s slide in the most recent PISA rankings (Thomson e al. 2019) have generated significant debate about the quality of both Australia’s education system and its educators and school leaders. The neoliberal policy discourses from which these changes and debates have emerged have given rise to an ‘identity crisis’, or, as Cohen (2013) contends, an ‘ontological insecurity’ for many educators, who have inevitably been shaped by the ‘surveillance’ (Sinclair 2011; Thomas 2011; Anderson & Grinberg 1998) doctrines and performativity agendas (Allix 2000; Ball 2003; Cohen 2013; Eacott 2010; Fitzgerald & Savage, 2013; Grace 2000; Wrigley 2011) set forth by top-down policy decisions. A dilemma for educational leadership in this context is management of the power relations that exist in schools and how they shape teacher identity and agency, both at the macro-level in terms of neoliberal policy pressure and performative culture, and through the micro-politics of schoolspecific reform initiatives, internal leadership styles and community expectations. As an educational leader, it is paramount to recognise the influence these power relations have on staff when adopting and embedding digital and pedagogical innovation. Furthermore,
the need to remain cognisant of the macro policy framework that governs the leadership of schools and dictates community perceptions of what is valued in education cannot be ignored in any changes that could be perceived as additional impositions on a sometimes change-fatigued and tyrannised teaching fraternity. It seems, all too often, that there is a tension between what is ‘right’ in terms of pedagogy and learning outcomes and what is ‘good’ for school testing results and league tables. At times, these two concepts seem completely incongruous. As someone trying to lead other educators, it is incumbent upon me to encourage staff to exist within these two concepts simultaneously, rather than continually seeing them in opposition to one another; this is crucial for change. The idea of developing and delivering rigorous, meaningful and innovative learning experiences when juxtaposed against a content-focused curriculum and the high stakes nature of current testing regimes means that they can feel overwhelmed with their roles, and it seems that more often than not, the tests, and the league tables and media attention that arise from them, become the focus of, and reason for, school reform. Specific to the Queensland context, we embarked upon an entirely new system for the senior phase of learning in 2019, and it has sometimes meant that staff are reluctant or unable to engage at a deeper level with innovative practice in order to expand their repertoire of pedagogical and digital skills. The ‘busyness’ of teachers is certainly not a
Alison Scott Head of Faculty – ELearning and Research Services
