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operating in a diligent supervisory role over those who have been well trained.\u00a0 We don’t want a person with limited hands-on experience to make critical decisions on how the engine ought to operate.<\/p>\nWhen one wants the family car to run smoothly, the skill and attention of a good servicing automobile mechanic is crucial.\u00a0 We don’t take the car to a plumber.\u00a0 We want the most experienced car mechanic to be working on the car or operating in a diligent supervisory role over those who have been well trained.\u00a0 We don’t want a person with limited hands-on experience to make critical decisions on how the engine ought to operate.<\/p>\n
So ?\u00a0 As Bruce L Jones cites,\u00a0 “The one thing that we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.”<\/p>\n
We used to have schooling\u00a0garages run by schooling mechanics until the plumbers took over.<\/p>\n
The history of the school inspectorate in Queensland, Australia tells its own story when the maintenance of high school standards used to be of crucial importance.\u00a0 Those who knew what the operations of a school were like were supervising the activities\u00a0at the chalk-face.\u00a0 These people had been at the chalk-face themselves for some time and had run schools in different parts of the state.\u00a0 Expert teachers, they were the outstanding mechanics of the system.\u00a0 It was once true of all states.\u00a0 They were called Inspectors, a much-derided term in early years, but turning into one of respect and appreciation towards the end of the 20th Century.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paladins of the service, they knew what was going on within a classroom; they had been there and done that as teachers and principals; they had a close connection with curriculum development and ensured that Principals and teachers were able to contribute to it;\u00a0 they flew with pollen on the wings for they could recognise a good idea and were able to spread its use; \u00a0they shared their evaluation of classroom performance with teachers in the same way that teachers were enjoined to share with their pupils.\u00a0 They expected results and their experience and seniority carried their own forms of clout. \u00a0Clout is necessary in some circumstances and a\u00a0network for curriculum excellence\u00a0was developing in some Australian states that was efficient and effective.\u00a0 No question.<\/p>\n
Based on the opinion of the Inspectorate, people were promoted through positions of authority to higher levels. From the classroom levels, applicants for positions as Deputy-Principal and for Principals of one-teacher schools were judged as to suitability for the position advertised.\u00a0 Principals of larger schools shared the opinion.\u00a0 Neophyte school administrators were chosen on merit, carefully.\u00a0 Occupants were expected to remain at an assigned level for a mandated minimum period of time before eligibility for the next promotion. \u00a0The system was experience-based, similar to promotions in the armed forces.\u00a0 Occupants learned on the job at one level before feeling confident about the next.\u00a0 The whole Inspectorate gathered each year for an intense week or so to arrange all applicants in an order of merit for each position available.\u00a0 The system did not need bio-graphs or interviews because the capacity and potential of all applicants were well known.<\/p>\n
Then about 1990, managerial egg-heads, whose knowledge of business and corporate structures was regarded as profound, moved in.\u00a0 They were everywhere and one of them in Queensland later became Prime Minister.\u00a0 They thought that the world of schooling was a clone of the world of business.\u00a0 They were in positions of influence and were persuasive in their use of managerial new-talk.\u00a0 Possessed by down-sizing and out-sourcing away went concern for the pupilling processes, and, with it, the control of quality and the press for high achievements.\u00a0 Corporate language took the place of school talk. Without reflection on our PM, he and his colleagues, sometimes called in to review government operations, just didn’t know what happens in schools; and thought that changes happened best from the top-down.\u00a0 In schooling circles it became an unadulterated debacle.<\/p>\n
The general state of affairs has remained drastic and is likely to deteriorate further.\u00a0 The power folk think that the problem lies with the schools,\u00a0 instead of what they have done to them.\u00a0 Again,\u00a0 they are starting at the wrong end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When one wants the family car to run smoothly, the skill and attention of a good servicing automobile mechanic is crucial.\u00a0 We don’t take the car to a plumber.\u00a0 We want the most experienced car mechanic to be working on the car or operating in a diligent supervisory role over those who have been well … Continue reading Quality Control<\/span>