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52 stories

Week 48: The devolution revolution

ACER research is finding that local decision making in schools supports improved student outcomes.

The Empowering Local Schools (ELS) initiative, funded through the Commonwealth Government, aims to help participating schools to make decisions at a local level that respond to the needs of students, and the school community, to improve learning outcomes for students.

As Dr Rob Simons explains, ACER is playing a key evaluation role in the ELS initiative, being implemented in 2012 and 2013 in 926 government, Catholic and independent schools, about half of them in regional areas.

‘The purpose of the ACER evaluation is to establish baseline knowledge about local decision making in schools in terms of governance processes, funding and infrastructure arrangements, and workforce management.

‘This is a huge baseline sampling of schools in Australia,’ says Rob, a Principal Research Fellow in ACER’s Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation research program. ‘Beyond establishing a baseline, though, we’re evaluating the impact of engaging parents and community stakeholders on students’ learning; the impact of local decision making on addressing areas of greatest need; the impact of professional development for teaching and non-teaching staff; the impact of evidence-based teaching practices; and the impact of data-driven decision making when it comes to managing resources.

‘We’re also capturing the progress of schools in making more decisions at the local level, evaluating how these contribute directly and indirectly, and in a sustained way, to improved learning outcomes, and capturing examples of good practice and flagging issues that might obstruct progress and showing how they could be addressed.’

Rob’s role is to liaise with Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and project manage the evaluation, manage consultations with representatives from the government, Catholic, and independent jurisdictions, and liaise with consultants Brian Caldwell, Jim Spinks and Adam Rorris.

Rob works closely with Research Fellow Jenny Wilkinson on the development of case studies; Research Fellow Dr Paul Weldon and Principal Research Fellow Dr Sam Rothman on the development of an online survey; and the Director of Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation, Adrian Beavis, on the cross-sectoral analysis of survey data.

While the first phase of the evaluation continues, are there any preliminary findings? ‘Schools and systems with a tradition of devolution tend to develop a greater capacity for local decision-making,’ Rob says. ‘That’s also the case where large, well-resourced schools work closely with smaller schools, and in regional and remote settings where regional councils are building the capacity for local decision-making in schools that can lead to improved student outcomes.

‘We’re finding that when schools engage with parents, community stakeholders and other schools they’re able to tap into local community resources to expand learning opportunities, and that improves learning outcomes for students.’

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Week 52: State of the art psychometric and statistical analysis

Week 51: Assessing civics and citizenship

Week 50: International research into teaching and learning

Week 49: Supporting high-quality education across the world

Week 47: Team effort: The International Schools’ Assessment