Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The continuing politics of mistrust: performance management and the erosion of professional work

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 40; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00220620802210871

1478-7431

Tanya Fitzgerald,

Organizational Downsizing and Restructuring

Abstract For the past two decades schools and teachers in New Zealand and elsewhere have been the subject of and subjected to intense public scrutiny of their performance and professional activities. In effect, policy solutions have cast teacher and school performance as a 'problem' to be solved/resolved via the intervention of the State. Consequently, the policy remedy has been the introduction of audit mechanisms such as systems of performance management to define, regulate and control teaching and teachers. That is, the State has directly intervened in the professional work and activities of teachers based on the flawed assumption that teachers cannot be trusted and therefore require the intervention of the State and its agencies to ensure their performance is aligned with organisational objectives. And while one of the hallmarks of a profession and professional practice is adherence to a set of prescribed standards, performance management has rendered teachers accountable to the State, not professional peers. And, as this article outlines, this has served to de‐professionalise teaching and teachers' work. Keywords: performance managementaudit cultureteacher's workdeprofessionalisation Notes 1See Michael W. Apple, Educating the 'Right' Way: Markets, Standards, God and Inequality (New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2001) for a persuasive argument on the conservative right and the impact of the call for a return to a 'common' past and 'commonsense approaches'. 2The historical and contemporary underpinning of calls for quality, standards and the audit regime is well covered by Apple, Educating the 'Right' Way. 3Alex Moore, Gwyn Edwards, David Halpin, and Rosalyn George, 'Compliance, Resistance and Pragmatism: The (Re) Construction of Schoolteacher Identities in a Period of Intensive Education Reform', British Educational Research Journal 28, no. 4 (2002): 551–65. 4I have argued this point in considerable detail elsewhere. See Tanya Fitzgerald, 'Remodelling Schools and Schooling, Teachers and Teaching', in Modernising Schools: People, Learning and Organisations, ed. Graham Butt, Helen M. Gunter, and Hywel Thomas (London: Continuum, 2007), 163–75. 5See here Tanya Fitzgerald, Howard Youngs, and Peter Grootenboer, 'Bureaucratic Control or Professional Autonomy: Performance Management in NZ Schools', School Leadership and Management 23, no. 1 (2003): 91–105. 6Philip Capper and Rae Munro, 'Professionals or Workers?: Changing Teachers Conditions of Service', in New Zealand Education Policy Today, ed. Sue Middleton, John Codd, and Alison Jones (Wellington: Allen & Unwin, 1990); Edward Fiske and Helen Ladd, When Schools Compete: A Cautionary Tale (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000). 7These terms are used in New Zealand schools although there is a gradual shift away from 'manager' and 'management' to 'leader (for example middle leader) and leadership (for example the Senior Leadership team). 8This point has been well argued by John A. Codd, 'Educational Reform, Accountability and the Culture of Distrust', New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies 34, no. 1 (1999): 45–53. 9See here the work of Michael Power, The Audit Explosion (London: Demos, 1994). 10Codd, 'Educational Reform'; David Hartley, 'Marketing and the Re‐enactment of School Management', British Journal of Sociology of Education 20, no. 3 (1999): 309–23. 11Sally Tomlinson, Education in a Post‐welfare Society (Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, 2001), 36. 12Fitzgerald, 'Remodelling Schools'. 13Apple, Educating the 'Right' Way. 14Jill Blackmore and Pat Thomson, 'Just "Good and Bad News"? Disciplinary Imaginaries of Head Teachers in Australian and English Print Media', Journal of Education Policy 19, no. 3 (2004): 301–20. 15Tanya Fitzgerald, 'Potential Paradoxes in Performance Appraisal: Emerging Issues for New Zealand Schools', in Managing Teacher Appraisal and Performance: A Comparative Approach, ed. David Middlewood and Carol Cardno (London: RoutledgeFalmer Press, 2001), 112–24. 16Fiske and Ladd, When Schools Compete. 17The effect of business management practices in New Zealand schools is highlighted by John Codd, 'Teachers as "Managed Professionals" in the Global Education Industry: The New Zealand Experience', Educational Review 57, no. 2 (2005): 193–206; Marian Court, 'Talking Back to New Public Management Versions of Accountability in Education', Educational Management Administration & Leadership 32, no. 2 (2004): 171–94. For a discussion on new public management see Jonathon Boston, John Martin, June Pallot, and Pat Walsh, Public Management: The New Zealand Model (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1996). 18Although 'successful' attestation means an increase to the next salary level, there is not at present an overt system whereby teachers receive bonus payments for their work. However, what is less known is that principals in New Zealand schools received salary increments based on their implementation of performance management systems. As performance management was not optional, the payment of this additional money appears to be incongruous. 19See Fitzgerald, 'Potential Paradoxes' and Fitzgerald, Youngs, and Grootenboer, 'Bureaucratic Control'. The impossibility of meshing performance management and performance‐related pay in the New Zealand context is also the subject of John O'Neill, ed., Teacher Appraisal in New Zealand: Beyond the Impossible Triangle (Palmerston North: ERDC Press, 1997). 20Ministry of Education, Performance Management Systems (Wellington: Learning Media, 1997). 21Ibid., 1. 22Pat Mahony and Ian Hextall, 'Performing and Conforming', in The Performing School, ed. Dennis Gleeson and Chris Husbands (London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2000), 177. 23This point is also well argues by Andy Hargreaves, Changing Teachers, Changing Times: Teachers' Work and Culture in the Post Modern Age (London: Cassell, 1994); Mike Bottery, 'The Challenge to Professionals from the New Public Management', Oxford Review of Education 22 (1996): 179–97. 24Fitzgerald, Youngs, and Grootenboer, 'Bureaucratic Control'; Fitzgerald, 'Remodelling Schools'. 25Ministry of Education, Professional Standards: Criteria for Quality Teaching (Wellington: Government Printer, 1999), 5. 26Ibid., 4. 27The formalisation of line management structures and practices in schools is commented on by Horace Bennett, 'One Drop of Blood: Teacher Appraisal Mark 2', Teacher Development 3, no. 3 (1999): 411–28. 28Codd, 'Teachers as "Managed Professionals"'; Fitzgerald, Youngs, and Grootenboer, 'Bureaucratic Control'. 29On this point see Apple, Educating the 'Right' Way; Michael W. Apple, Official Knowledge (New York: Routledge, 1993). 30See Government of New Zealand, Tomorrow's Schools: The Reform of Education Administration in New Zealand (Wellington: Government Printer, 1988). This was the policy document that underpinned the reform agenda. 31See here Fitzgerald, Youngs, and Grootenboer, 'Bureaucratic Control'. 32Nikolas Rose, Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self (London: Routledge, 1989). 33Michael Fielding, 'Leadership, Personalisation and High Performance Schooling: Naming the New Totalitarianism', School Leadership and Management 26, no. 4 (2002): 347–69. 34John Clarke and Janet Newman, The Managerial State (London: Sage, 1997) argue the connection between private market principles as an efficient way to raise and improve standards. 35Links between teachers' professional standards and narratives of quality assurance and improvement are outlined by Judith Sachs, 'Teacher Professional Standards: Controlling or Developing Teaching?', Teachers and Teaching 9, no. 2 (2002): 175–86. 36Ministry of Education, Professional Standards. 37Helen M. Gunter, Leaders and Leadership in Education (London: Paul Chapman, 2001). 38The work of John Smyth and Stephen Ball is instructive here. See John Smyth, 'Teacher Development Against the Policy Reform Grain: An Argument for Recapturing Relationships in Teaching and Learning', Teacher Development 11, no. 2 (2007): 221–36; Stephen Ball, 'The Teacher's Soul and the Terror of Performativity', Journal of Education Policy 18, no. 2 (2002): 215–28. 39Helen M. Gunter and Tanya Fitzgerald, 'Leading Learning and Leading Teachers: Challenges for Schools in the 21st Century', Leading and Managing 13, no. 1 (2007): 1–15. 40The politics of reform and the apparent public dissatisfaction with the teaching profession has been the subject of intense debate. See, for example, Martin Thrupp, 'Exploring the Politics of Blame: School Inspection and its Contestation in England and New Zealand', Comparative Education 34, no. 2 (1998): 195–208. See also John Smyth, 'Undamaging 'Damaged' Teachers: An Antidote to the Self‐managing School', Delta: Policy and Practice in Education 55, nos. 1–2 (2003): 3–30. 41Annette Hemmings, 'Fighting for Respect in Urban High Schools', Teachers College Record 105, no. 3 (2003): 416–37. 42The damaging effects of educational policy that is founded on misinformation and marginalised teachers is well argued in John Smyth, 'Policy Research and "Damaged Teachers": Towards an Epistemologically Respectful Paradigm', Waikato Journal of Education 10 (2004): 263–81. 43John Smyth, 'Unmasking Teachers' Subjectivities in Local School Management', Journal of Education Policy 17, no. 4 (2002): 463–82. 44See, from example, Pat Mahony and Ian Hextall, Reconstructing Teaching (London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2000). 45This is more fully explored by Bob Lingard, Debra Hayes, Martin Mills, and Pam Christie, Leading Learning: Making Hope Practical in Schools (Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press, 2003). 46Charles Fishman, The Wal‐Mart Effect: How an Out‐of‐Town Superstore Became a Superpower (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Books, 2006). 47Jane Perryman, 'Panoptic Performativity and School Inspection Regimes: Disciplinary Mechanisms and Life under Special Measures', Journal of Education Policy 21, no. 2 (2006): 147–61. 48Codd, 'Teachers as "Managed Professionals"'. 49Ball, 'Teacher's Soul'. This term is attributed to Jean Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, vol. 10 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984). 50Gleeson and Husbands, Performing School. 51Mitchell Dean, Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society (London: Sage, 1999), 169. 52See John Smyth, Alistair Dow, Robert Hattam, Alan Reid, and Geoffrey Shacklock, Teachers' Work in a Globalizing Economy (London: Falmer, 2000), which outlines the impact of educational reform on teaching and teachers' professional work and identity. 53See, for example, the work of Pam Sammons, Josh Hillman, and Peter Mortimore, Key Characteristics of Effective Schools: A Review of School Effectiveness Research (London: Institute of Education, 1995). The work of researchers in this area has gained ascendancy in recent times as schools search for eternal solutions in the quest for improved performance by students, teachers and the organisation. 54See Codd, 'Teachers as "Managed Professionals"', on this point. 55Fitzgerald, 'Remodelling Schools'. 56Codd, 'Teachers as "Managed Professionals"'. 57Jenny Ozga, 'Education: New Labour, New Teachers', in New Managerialism, New Welfare?, ed. John Clark, Sharon Gewirtz, and Eugene McLaughlin (London: Sage, 2000). 58Ministry of Education, Professional Standards, 1. 59Apple, Educating the 'Right' Way. 60This point is also well argued by John Smyth, 'The Politics of Teachers' Work and the Consequences for Schools: Some Implications for Teacher Education', Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher Education 34, no. 3 (2006): 301–19. 61Apple, Official Knowledge, well documents these arguments. 62Fitzgerald, 'Remodelling Schools'. 63Ministry of Education, Professional Standards. 64Fitzgerald, 'Remodelling Schools'. 65John Furlong, Len Barton, Sheila Miles, and Geoff Whitty, Teacher Education in Transition (Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, 2000). 66Clarke and Newman suggest that a new managerialism that calls for teachers to be more accountable and efficient and engage in change strategies has emerged. See Clarke and Newman, The Managerial State. 67Government of New Zealand, Tomorrow's Schools, 10. 68Jill Blackmore, Troubling Women: Feminism, Leadership and Educational Change (Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, 1999). 69Blackmore and Thomson, '"Good and Bad News"?'. 70Apple, Official Knowledge. 74Ministry of Education, Education Priorities for New Zealand (Wellington: Ministry of Education, 1993). 75Fitzgerald, Youngs, and Grootenboer, 'Bureaucratic Control'. 76Apple, Official Knowledge. 71Smyth et al., Teachers' Work, 26. 72Smyth et al., Teachers' Work. 73An earlier version of this analysis appears in Fitzgerald, 'Remodelling Schools'. 77Fitzgerald, Youngs, and Grootenboer, 'Bureaucratic Control'. 78John Berger, The Shape of a Pocket (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2002), 214. 79See from example Smyth, 'Unmasking Teachers' Subjectivities'; Sharon Gewirtz and Stephen Ball, 'From Welfarism to New Managerialism: Shifting Discourses of School Leadership in the Education Marketplace', Discourse 21, no. 3 (2000): 253–67. 80Michael Fielding, 'Putting the Hands around the Flame: Reclaiming the Radical Tradition of State Education', Forum 47, nos. 2–3 (2005): 61–9. 81Smyth, 'Teacher Development'. 82Lingard et al., Leading Learning. 83See, for example, Gunter and Fitzgerald, 'Leading Learning'. 84Fitzgerald, 'Remodelling Schools'. 85These terms 'makeover' and 'takeover' draw on the analogy used in reality television that assumes that any intervention results in improved performance or appearance. 86Wilfred Carr and Anthony Harnett, Education and the Struggle for Democracy (Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, 1996), 195.