José Contreras Domingo
Universidad de Barcelona
Translation and introduction by:
Jack Jelinski
Spanish
MSU-Bozeman
[Editors' Note: Professor Domingo's article was in Spanish only. At our request Professor Jelinski has translated it and graciously added an introduction. The European, class-oriented insight and willingness to call a spade a spade are traits we would all do well to cultivate. We are grateful to Jack for the splendid job he has done to present this important article to our readers in a very readable form.]
This article on the autonomy of the faculty is a translation of. "¿Autonomía por decreto? Paradojas en la redefinición del profesorado" by José Contreras Domingo, Universidad de Barcelona. Contreras Domingo is a Professor of Education at the University of Barcelona. He has published several articles and three books, including La Autonomía Profesional del Profesorado (Madrid: Morata, 1997). The current article is derived in part from sections of this book. It is a very long article and I have had to delete some sections and condense others while attempting to faithfully reproduce the full sense of the author's argument and rhetoric. The original is available in Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol. 7, No. 17 (April 1999). EPAA is a peer-reviewed scholarly electronic journal edited by Gene V. Glass at Arizona State University, Tempe. The journal can be accessed at <http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v7nl7.html>.
The reforms governing schools in Spain to which the author refers were passed in 1990. The legislation is known as the General Law on the Organization of the Education System (LOGSE). The legislation reforming the structure of university education was adopted in 1983. These reforms are part of a global transformation of Spanish institutions since the end of the Franco regime in the mid-1970s. Since that time, Spain has made the transition to a constitutional government, approved a new constitution, entered the European Common Market, reorganized the education system and has become a more open society. In 1996, I had an opportunity to discuss the legislation affecting education reform with Mercedes Quilez, who was then the Director of the Office of Education at the Spanish Consulate in Miami. Based upon those discussions, it is clear that the global effect of the reforms has been to make the Spanish system very similar to ours in terms of the articulation of course levels and degree certification. However, as recently reported by Geoffrey Maslen in The Chronicle of Higher Education, schools and universities still lack autonomy from the central control of the Ministry of Education, which plays a significant role in the determination of class size, curricular content and the exams which determine the placement of students in the system.
Spanish intellectuals are particularly sensitive to the issue of autonomy given the history of the Franco years, during which the government imposed repressive measures to censor and control free expression in all aspects of public life, including the press and the education system. Many Americans cannot imagine the pervasive lack of freedom in such a dictatorial regime I once heard described as McCarthyism on steroids.
The article by Contreras Domingo addresses the issue of autonomy within the historical context of social, political, and economic forces which have shaped educational reforms in our century. He does not limit himself to describing the situation in Spain; he addresses circumstances which are relevant to us all. He argues that the proper locus for the determination of the curriculum and educational philosophy of schools and universities should be the faculty and explains how it is that we have been disenfranchised. He also describes how educational reform has affected the autonomy of the classroom, the ability of the individual faculty member to determine what is taught based upon the insights gained from a life devoted to learning.
As you read the article, reflect upon the question of the role of the faculty in determining the principles guiding the philosophy of education and curricular reform here in Montana. In this regard, it would be useful to retrieve a copy of the Fall 1999 issue of The Montana Professor and read the State of Education address delivered last February to the Montana legislature by the Commissioner of Higher Education, Richard Crofts. It is a rather dramatic address that creates a sense of aroused expectancy through the use of the rhetorical device of anaphora. Each paragraph begins with the same key phrase, "We were told," underscoring the central theme, which is that higher education has obeyed the demands of the legislature: cost efficiency, output demands, increased research dollars, heavier teaching loads, articulation between units, more distance learning, and compliance with "the one simple measure" of fewer state dollars per FTE (19-20).
In his defense, the address is a well-crafted ("Crofted") response to the social, economic, and political forces transferred from consumers to legislators and from Regents to our unit administrators and finally to the faculty, which is far-removed from the center of academic decision-making. There is a dim ray of hope for us which resonates with Contreras Domingo's call to action at the end of his article. It can be found in the Critique of the Commissioner's address in the same issue of The Montana Professor, written by Richard E. Walton, the Chair of the University of Montana Faculty Senate. It is a short, eloquent statement of the principle of faculty autonomy which faculty governance groups on all our campuses might consider adopting. The first sentence is worth repeating as a prelude to reading this article: "In matters of the substance of academic programs, of the content and character of courses of study and the curriculum, generally, and in the requirements for degrees and the determination that the requirements have been met and an award is due, it is the faculty's judgment which must prevail (16).
Perhaps never before have we experienced such an international environment of simultaneous academic reform. This does not merely mean that the majority of Western countries are concerned about their educational systems, but also that "reform" or "change" of the academic enterprise has become a universal theme and a justification for continuous intervention in the system of education. It has invaded the scholarly environment as a defining theme: reform has become the norm. In Spain, for example, after many years of experimentation, the current legislation reorganizing the system of education became law in 1990, and yet today, eight years later, we are still talking about reform as if it were something still going on, as a new idea yet to be accomplished. In this international environment of reform, even though the changes vary from one country to another, they all share common goals. They represent political approaches to change based upon the accommodations which systems of education must make to internal and external pressures.
Normally the majority of those changes have involved the curriculum, the organization and management of schools, and their relationships to the social environment as well as to the work of teachers. These changes have been especially profound because the do not merely affect pedagogical content. A new relationship has been established between the state, schools, and teachers in determining and controlling the curriculum and the competencies it should reflect. The transcendent importance of these changes resides in the fact that what is becoming transformed in each country are the relationships between the state, public services, and their users. These transformations are themselves a product of changes in governments as well as the changing nature of civil society.
Basically, we can characterize these general transformations by the shift from a system in which the state was the guarantor of public services, establishing goals and arranging financing through its professional bureaucracy and offering these services equally to all citizens, to a system in which the state tends to reduce its function to the establishment of objectives, leaving the providers of services greater freedom in determining how to reach them. This transfer of responsibility to the providers of services has been motivated by the notion that each provider of services will be motivated by being in competition with others.
These changes do not exist apart from the introduction of a general philosophic approach, which governs many areas of our productive and social life in general. They are based upon the new models of "post-Ford" production. [In a note, the author defines the essence of "post-Ford" production thus: Ensuring the loyalty and support of workers by making them creative participants in the improvement of the processes of production without their involvement in discussing the objectives of the business enterprise, the beneficiaries of corporate profits and, of course, without their involvement in personnel decisions or decisions about the disposition of the labor force.] It is the case, for example, that in many businesses they are introducing flexibility in production schedules based upon the relationship between the initiative of workers and consumer demand. The so-called "circles of quality" which recognize the capacity for worker initiative in modifying the process of production is one example of this. Homogenous systems, such as the assembly line, which were earlier considered as prototypical of a rational approach to productivity are now called into question in favor of the benefit of the capacity for decision-making of the workers. These same forms of management and production are now being imitated in areas of public services.
Such forms of flexible production and their reflection in the public sector derive precisely from the idea of social diversity, from the variety of demands and needs which systems of production and public services must meet. This recognition of social diversity has various consequences. On one hand, it can be seen as responding to the right of choice, the recognition of the need to adjust to new market demands. However, on the other hand, the very right of consumer choice has become an obligation. When consumer products become diversified, the clientele is obligated to review the various products being offered and choose from among them. Even in the case of the most common products of consumption, the purchase has become progressively more complicated. Now we can't simply choose the cheapest milk or our preferred brand, now we must decide if we want it more or less homogenized or if we prefer it with added calcium or vitamins and beyond this we can't choose milk without considering the invasion of ads and theories about the advantages or disadvantages of this product for one type or other of diet. If all this is true in the construction of our subjectivity as consumers of food products, it can become even more so in our choice of varied offers for services which have clear differences with respect to their effects on our status or social opportunities (Bowe, 1994).
An important consequence of these events is that they are beginning to transform the image of citizenship, emphasizing more and more the consumer function of making rational choices. Thus, just as workers appear to have obtained greater decision-making power over their work, citizens seem to have obtained greater power to determine what they want. As it relates to public services, this philosophy seems to reflect the diminution of the state's function as the regulator of services provided to citizens so that supply and demand reach their own balance or with fewer intermediaries.
Autonomy of public service agencies and citizens, decentralization, deregulation, and the return of power by the state to society seem to be the terms which most clearly describe all of these transformations. The rhetoric which accompanies these changes, by those who support them, clearly implies they confer social and personal freedom, a recovery of initiative and freedom of action. But is this really true? Or, posing the question in purely cynical terms: Is the state really relinquishing power?
Perhaps we ought to be more cautious and recognize at the outset that what occurs is that the mechanisms of control assume other forms, are redefined, mark out new territory and apply to new objectives. We need to view political changes as transformations in the way power is exercised (Popkewitz, 1994). Perhaps we should understand that these changes which appear to represent a transfer of power and decision-making really result in a new way of defining the relationship between those who exercise control and those who believe they have achieved it. The situation in schools is not immune to these paradoxes: what is changing, in what direction, what does it appear we are winning or losing? And what is troublesome is that we may find ourselves in a situation giving a greater appearance of freedom but which impedes our ability to be aware of it as well as of the new and more subtle controls to which we are subject. Change is not always what it promises. One of the issues to which one must pay attention is the wider implications of the rhetoric of change, the ideological framework governing professional and institutional autonomy, which are linked to new systems of production.
One of the paradoxical aspects about the discussions and proposals about autonomy is that they appear to be new systems of regulating work and institutions and at the same time the means of creating freer and more creative work environments. Another paradox we need to consider is the fact that the source of the discourse about the autonomy of the professorate and educational centers is state administrators and academic officials rather than the academics, researchers, and teachers who are most affected by these issues, as well as by the issue of the professional status of the faculty.
The social division in the task of education normalizes something we should find shocking: the independence and self-direction (autonomy) of teachers is discussed from a place which seems beyond the teachers themselves. It is spoken of as something they should possess, but it does not originate with them. From what perspective do we academics speak in defense of the autonomy of the professorate or our schools? From what perspective do I speak?
The discourse in universities distracting our attention from the real issues and giving the appearance of projecting noble sounding aspirations may be hiding the academic value of a real discussion of these issues. Various authors (Labaree, 1992; Popkewitz, 1994; Hargreaves and Goodson, 1996) have pointed to the value for the academic world of pedagogy that is based upon a preoccupation for professionalizing teaching, since it presumes to "elevate the status of those who need to increase it" (Popkewitz, 206). But in the defense of professionalism, the new plans for training teachers are not disassociated from other phenomena to which we ought to pay more attention than we do. Such is the case, for example, with the appearance of the self-interested defense of the new "education professionals" or with the progressive technicalization of pedagogical practice. This process doesn't just have to do with the application of new technologies but also with a growing number of programs dealing with different aspects of the practice of education: social abilities, values education, tutorial programs, and so forth. This is a process that removes certain aspects of classroom teaching from the control of the teacher and places them under the control of programs developed by separate professionals. The result is that teachers are now seen as deficient unless they are first trained by the new experts in various areas of psychopedagogy. Paradoxically, the autonomy of the teachers and their schools (and in general the whole defense of professionalism and the new educational reforms) is giving way to the development of new "experts," who are creating new dependencies for teachers relative to their academic knowledge, thus conserving a superior status for those who are in charge of "developing" the autonomy of teachers.
This state of affairs is not distinct from the conditions under which universities must function, subject to the same new forms of production and organization of their work. Productivity, evaluation by objectives, business management practices, competition, and self-interest, in short, commercialization of intellectual work, are aspects of conditions in universities where one must reinterpret the real sense of "intellectual autonomy." It is increasingly clear that the funding of academic work depends upon the direction it takes. Public universities only acquire funds if they are directed towards the objectives of the funding sources whether they are private or public. As Lundgren (1989) has shown, the development of educational research is clearly determined by the political objectives of the administration which is the principal source of financing.
In that context, it is necessary to understand that intellectuals, from their ideological or class perspectives, are acting as vehicles of political expression and legitimization as well as technical experts. Academic language dressed up in the ideologies of progress (Popkewitz, 1994) tends to speak of grand concepts such as change, innovation, quality, and autonomy, as terms which yield positive and homogenous meanings that never become clear and are lacking that which would give them clear meaning: What change? What innovation? What autonomy? When professionalism and autonomy are presented as values in themselves, they become ideas easily converted into instruments for the expression of other interests since the semantics, the ideology, the political rhetoric they serve and the proposals they support are never analyzed.
This is precisely why I understand that the fundamental intellectual function of the academic enterprise, if one wishes to avoid the temptation and deceit of self-interested rhetoric directed toward ends which are not those that appear to be expressed in their language, is being attentive to the deeper meaning of the discourse in which academic proposals are imbedded. One must see the official rhetoric in relation to the rest of the ideological network and the operative meanings and practical consequences of the general political context in which they appear. One must "denature" or distill these proposals to illustrate how the politics, the actions they support and the discourse which sustains them are never definitive solutions to problems.
Therefore, part of our work is to denounce contradictions wherever they exist, disentangle them wherever we are forced to live with them, discover where they have taken us or where they keep us from thinking clearly. For us as university professors, this is the authentic work of education. We should be trying to awaken the consciousness of all people to think critically about their conception of life. In a deep sense, we need to recognize the tension and contradictions which derive from the social divisions that drive the work of educators in order to deal with them. We need to use our positions as working intellectuals to create new possibilities for action so that the professorate does not continue to be more and more disenfranchised to the point of becoming intellectually dependent upon the initiative of forces outside the academy. Coming face to face with my own experience as an educator, I find that as a teacher I am subjected to the same rhetoric about the autonomy and independence of schools in the context of an increasing commercialization of the meaning of a university education. In my role as a teacher, I do not always have to look to others in order to try and understand the complexity of a calling in which one aspires to have greater personal and professional autonomy as well as human dignity.
From whence does this preoccupation with the independence and autonomy proceed? What is the context within which general changes in the academic world are being introduced? Where are the contradictions, the ambivalence, the ambiguities, as well as the pitfalls and creative possibilities? A particularly important element to consider is that many of these contradictions derive from the fact that the notion of autonomy has become a common point of reference in theories and innovation and change in education. The last several years have produced an abundance of studies in this area of inquiry, a surprising evaluation of theories and perspectives. This whole process is the result of social and political changes which fuel the perceived need for educational reform.
One specialist in educational change, Rudduck (1994), has discussed the various types of educational innovation which have been attempted in England. According to her, a similar sequence of reform can be recognized in the majority of countries: a first phase, fittingly called "curricular reform," generated grand curricular projects. The problem with these types of innovative experiences was that, even if they could have been conceived as coherent projects, they left the professorate in a passive position as practitioners without taking into account the specific conditions within which they realized their work as educators. In addition, the projects normally affected specific areas and curricular materials which were relevant to few teachers in the school. This often provoked conflicts in which, on occasion, one could find different innovative experiments obeying different philosophies being developed simultaneously. A second phase, which attempted to avoid these sorts of problems was that of "school-based" curricular reform. In this effort, projects pretended to obtain local relevance and were envisioned as internal processes which attended to local needs. However, they were processes which required the investment of enormous energy without sufficient resources to provide internal coherence and deal with the conflicts which might be generated. The third phase Rudduck characterizes is "whole school development." In this case, the concern is centered on the construction of a collective sense of reform in the school based upon a shared goal, which becomes the focal point for the development of learning strategies in the school. In short, the consideration of the faculty and schools as mediators of change, of schools as total cultures, and of change as a continuous learning process in which teachers direct their energies as active agents, have all become important arguments in supporting reforms in which the autonomy of schools and teachers appears to be recognized. But it would be illusory and reductionist to think that these conceptual changes concerning academic institutions and the role of teachers are only based upon the conclusions of specialists in educational reform. To suppose that the surge of interest in the concern about autonomy depends upon factors related to the success or failure of these experiments in innovation is to believe that transformations in education depend exclusively upon the conclusions of specialists who develop plans for educational reform. If we want to expand our understanding of the phenomenon of autonomy, we must direct our attention toward political and sociological factors.
Dubet and Marucelli (1998) have analyzed recent changes in France where the academic institution has changed from an elitist, stratified and regulated system to one which is deregulated and now serves the masses. In the past, education was non-utilitarian and separate from non-scholarly culture. Whatever divisions existed derived from social stratification in which various groups were separated into hierarchies, each one with distinct academic approaches and objectives (private and public schools, baccalaureate and professional schools, and so forth). An important initial consequence of the democratization of the educational system has been the modification of systems of selection. Now one's social status is no longer a sufficient determining factor, schools themselves have developed internal processes of selection based upon test scores, qualifying exams and scholarly achievement. Before, society was unjust because it impeded access to academic education for some. Now, it is the school which has come to be perceived as unjust as it accumulates internal mechanisms for selection. A second important consequence of the extension of education to all members of society is the now continuous diversification within the system which gives rise to an internal system-wide competitiveness between degrees of different value, which provide varied opportunities based upon career expectations and future success. Students no longer seek academic institutions with the expectation of participating in a process of intellectual development and accepting the mission promised by the school, they now seek the best profit for their investment.
The educational system has itself submitted to the double demand of opening schools to children and to the economy because of the criticism of schools as institutions isolated from the needs of the children and adolescents it serves and also because of the criticism that they don't provide utility and value for job training. There are those in the opposing camp who would maintain the traditional system. The coincidence of diverse goals for education has given rise to new conflicts as well as to the existence of incompatible goals. For example, the attention to increasing the diversity of students conflicts with the goal of having equal academic preparation for all. Consideration for the varied personalities among students also gives rise to new conflicts generated by diversity itself as well as by discrepancies between professional cultures. In the same way, the diversification of offerings and emphasis to meet the demands of social efficacy and value collides with resistance from academic scholarly culture which is removed from the idea of utility. The result of all these changes is that the school has ceased being an institution of consensus to become a diversified institution of diffused conflict arising from irreconcilable demands where "The unity of decision-making has broken down. Teachers, the administration, and parents act upon a dramatic stage where each is perceived as hostile to the rest. Precarious equilibriums replace the 'natural' order of academic life" (Dubet, Matuccelli, 58).
The pedagogical organization has become destabilized with the toppling of the traditional approaches to teaching, the "falling" of grade level achievement, the loss of the prestige of teachers, the competition between academic culture and the powerful and attractive culture of the masses, and the presence of conflictive students in the classroom. The school is no longer a well defined institutional structure with stable norms and curricular content, with regulations emanating from a central administration that can be met in a homogenous way in all the schools. There are no longer any general solutions. Now each school and each teacher must develop their own political strategies. As Dubet and Martucelli observe: "The educational establishment is no longer a link in a bureaucratic chain; it is obligated to construct a 'political approach,' modifying the training of teachers and students and giving them some control over their environment. The school is an organization of changing boundaries, of increasingly redefined objectives; it is no longer reducible to the general bureaucratic structure which encompasses it" (60).
As we can see, if autonomy can truly be the recognition that the motivating forces of change originate in the capacity of the schools themselves, we also need to understand it implies something more which is the consequence of profound changes in the meaning of schooling and the problems associated with it. States and bureaucratic and administrative organizations have lost the legitimacy and capacity to centrally manage conflicts and transfer the responsibility for them to the specific educational establishments (Weiler, 1990).
This is the situation in which the educational system finds itself. In addition, the new conception of understanding public services and the management of work, based upon "post-Ford" production models which are supported by the intellectual trappings of "new strategies" for change in education, has given rise to a complex set of political forces with which all centers of learning must contend in seeking to preserve their own sense of independence. To summarize, we can highlight the following elements of this new political reality.
A. The idea of a shared curriculum and a school with a sense of community has disappeared. Schools are no longer places governed by meritocracy. This diversity of the student body has become converted into a political principle: the curriculum and the school must adapt themselves to the students. This adaptation of the curriculum recognizes that we live in a pluralistic society of diverse characteristics and needs represented by the consumers of education. The emphasis in schools is no longer on the idea of a common curriculum for all, but on the idea of a curriculum designed for diversity.
B. This imperative of a diverse curriculum does not only bear upon the work of teachers, but also affects society in general. The message that the curriculum is adapted to social diversity is not just directed toward teachers, but toward society in general. The public no longer merely selects schools which meet its needs, it believes that all schools are now obligated to meet them.
C. The idea of a decentralized curriculum which meets all needs does not, however, mean that the state abandons control of a national curriculum or management of how educational reforms are implemented locally. One of the characteristics of the new politics of managing public services is the establishment by the state of productivity goals. The power of the state is reinforced as the idea of curriculum reform gains general acceptance and the responsibility for managing any social conflicts associated with reform is transferred to the schools themselves following the new imperative of the "devolution" of decision-making to the public sector. Nevertheless, the state still maintains central control over fundamental aspects of curriculum and management.
D. In these circumstances, the independence of educational centers appears to essentially mean that they assume the responsibility of making the changes necessary to meet the social and personal needs of the students they will teach. It is expected that schools be not merely places where instruction takes place, but that they become places where specific and harmonious organic plans for managing the encounter between a national curriculum and concrete social realities are "independently" developed. At the same time, in keeping with the happy logic of the new tendencies in curricular reform, it is expected that schools function as entities with their own identities, and develop a sense of belonging among teachers. Thus they will feel more involved and assume individual responsibility for solidifying reform and accepting its principles and practices.
E. The rationalization for independently assuming responsibility for these educational reform plans is that schools assume this responsibility as a social imperative- they are responsible to the families who send their children to them. Society, particularized in the specific families with school-age children, assumes the responsibilities"developed" by the state and thus acquires the obligation to require from schools a quality education (that is, the education which best matches their values and expectations). Thus, as I indicated earlier, the devolution of responsibility can be seen as transferring the responsibility for dealing with decisions made elsewhere to specific schools and families.
F. This new role acquired by educational centers in the context of these new reforms has placed special emphasis on how they are run, on the way in which this new form of management is carried out. So now there are new models, new ways of organizing the way in which schools work in developing their institutional improvements. They are models which are related to the concept of team-work and to how to involve teachers in the process. One of the basic features one discovers in this effort to make educational centers more dynamic and more focused on collective professional development is that of leadership, that is, the importance of concrete institutional figureheads who assume the role of making the core of teachers more dynamic and productive. One of the concerns of administrative plans for the organizational and pedagogical development of education centers is the strengthening and even the professionalization of this leadership. This is done by creating specific positions or enhancing existing responsibilities or by giving more authority to directors, to department heads, or to the heads of study programs.
G. Experts and administrators insist that it is important for schools to consider themselves to be entities which manage themselves and are sensitive to public demand and involved in a continual process of professional and institutional development. Teachers will feel empowered to assume responsibility for change if they assume ownership of the curriculum and commit themselves to their school and its singular identity. The quality of education depends upon the quality of the school, and this, in turn, depends upon the degree to which teachers are committed to constantly working with their colleagues for improvement. The professional work of teachers is no longer circumscribed by the classroom and the concrete group of students being taught. It now embraces a concern for the school as an educational entity.
The responsibility for the evolution, quality, and future of public educational centers is no longer just the state's responsibility, but also that of the teachers in them. Now the evaluation made of the quality of a school cannot be disassociated from the quality of the faculty.
From this perspective, does it truly appear that teachers have become autonomous within the definition of educational change and that they have become the ones who generate new directions in education in the schools? In what ways? In what directions?
My view is that "autonomy by decree" is no more than a reflection of more subtle forms of control combined with strategies to make teachers responsible for the development of services adapted to their clients. It is a rhetorical approach based upon the presumption, on many occasions sincere, that one can apply a business approach which has lost its transformative ability to create universal models for change in education. Authentic professional autonomy does not exist outside the political rhetoric about education.
We should always attempt to distinguish between proposals for changes in education which favor autonomy, that allow us greater freedom to direct our own destiny and those which disguise mechanisms for control. A careful analysis of current political rhetoric about educational change reveals the following motivating concerns.
A. Competition and supply-demand:
Neither of these invite social dialogue. Increasingly, schools are thought of as consumer goods for the public. Education is more democratic, the argument goes, if the public has more freedom of choice, if there are more differences between schools. This encourages schools to compete in an environment where supply and demand determine what they do.
It is clear that this market-driven approach is perverse. In the first place, the supply side is not fair to everyone nor does everyone have the same freedom of choice, given the economic, social and cultural differences among consumers. In the second place, competition is not a neutral concept. The criterion which determines competition is not freely determined by "society," since it is determined by the capacity for "profit" in whatever terms this is defined by the official curriculum (Hatcher, 1994). In effect, the curriculum not only functions as a means of controlling the objectives of the school, it also allows distinctions to be made between schools, thus encouraging them to elevate and even exaggerate the "profit" they offer as defined by their educational objectives. This, of course, invites the public to assimilate the notion that the quality of a school is determined by the monetary value of its program. Another consequence is that this competitive model eliminates any discussion of other educational philosophies or goals which might originate with the intellectual community within the institution.
What all this reflects is a model of supply and demand rather than intellectual dialogue. Schools and consumers alike end up making constant adjustments to demands beyond their control because they are not involved in any process of collective decision-making, but are isolated entities who are forced to make decisions guided by individual interests, rather than social interests. They do not participate in a collective definition of education and how it should relate to society. They merely make choices and adjustments to decisions from which they are excluded because these are decisions made by the Administration.
B. Decentralization: A leap into the void.
Decentralization is viewed as a leap into the void when the central administration of schools is transferred to specific schools in such a way as to transform them into islands (Brennan, 1993). The discussions about the autonomous administration of schools really implies their isolation. This means they then lack intermediate social structures for the creation of political influence as well as for carrying out proper management objectives (Angulo, 1992). Another consequence is that this isolation increases the possibility that any curricular development they might engage in is reduced to whatever can be supported by the isolated resources of each school. These isolated centers can scarcely generate the political influence and resources to do any more than just organize the sequence of the curriculum, they can't transform the conditions for teaching in any transformative way. The best they can manage is to develop the curriculum by describing it on paper: the Goals of the School. This isolation, which gives the appearance of independence, encourages the faculty to focus exclusively on their school rather than develop a professional perspective which includes the consideration of how teaching or the educational system in general is related to the political and social factors influencing their work (Angus, 1994).
C. The paradox of control-neglect and flexibility regulation: self-administration and depoliticization.
One of the paradoxes of the current politics of reform is that it simultaneously embraces state control of education and its abandonment to market forces. Because of this, the rhetoric of supposed autonomy reflects the contradiction between greater flexibility and increasing regulation. But this contradiction is more apparent than real if we understand that what the state really means by autonomy is self-administration and not political self-management. This sense of autonomy is clearly reflected in one of the principle symbolic tasks of the reform: writing the Goals Statement for the school. This is how we can understand that autonomy of the schools has come to mean bureaucratic complexity and sophisticated forms of self-management rather than an educational-political movement involving students and the public. It is, as Lima and Alfonso (1995) have described in the case of Portugal, a non-democratic concept of autonomy which is instead instrumental, an implementation process. It is understood as a management technique to better articulate the center to the periphery, designed to better accomplish the execution of centralized policies.
As the relationship between school and community is replaced by the dynamics of choice, schools and teachers become completely involved in defining the educational product they offer to the market and in attempting to manage programs to obey the administrative requirements for meeting market demands. Thus they come to identify their autonomy with self-administration for success. Under these circumstances teaching is reduced to basically a technical matter rather than a process which should involve deliberation, participation and decision-making in the widest social context by everyone involved. It is, in this sense, a political process. This depoliticization is encouraged by the complexities of the development and management of the current requirements for schools since it acts in favor of the exclusion of students and the community from discussions which have become extraordinarily technical. At the same time, it has led to the belief that the only real education issue is efficiency; only now efficiency doesn't just refer to teaching as it did a few years ago, but also to the general working of the school itself. The increase in technocratic mentality caused by this management concept of autonomy is, moreover, based upon an illusory sense of what autonomy means because it leads teachers to believe they have control over their work when it really hides from them the political keystones which sustain the rhetoric. It also disguises their incapacity to deal with one of the fundamental characteristics of the educational mission: its ambiguity, the conflicts of values, and the constant process of reinterpretation necessary for understanding what is morally correct in every situation rather than just what is efficient. The maintenance of this illusion assists in creating yet another which is the product of the rhetoric of professionalism. The identification of control with technification which leads to the belief that autonomy means a kind of exclusivity deriving from the notion that each area of teaching is so specialized that it exists apart from all others.
D. Devolution without political participation: pseudoparticipation.
It is striking and also very revealing that the definition of how autonomy is conceded to teachers within the framework of the current educational reforms has gone forward without the participation of teachers in the decision-making process. Paradoxically, the kind of autonomy restored to teachers has not been requested by them and they haven't even participated in the politics of devolution (Gimeno, 1994). Autonomy is conceded to schools, but the political parameters have already been established (Robertson, 1993).
This apparent autonomy provides teachers with no influence in the process since the capacity for decision-making is given only to the school and teachers are excluded from the process. In most every case, everything has been decided outside the gates of the institution, and teachers do what they can but without the ability to influence the political dynamics which determine their degree of autonomy or "independence." They are merely obedient civil servants responsible for solving the problems they encounter with whatever resources they are given. Their independence is not political, they have no power, it is managerial. As Angus (1994) has said, the new educational bureaucracy is now disguised as participation. It is what Bottery (1992) has called pseudoparticipation, that is, teachers are encouraged to participate in carrying out specific institutional tasks, but their influence diminishes as one ascends to the level where the tasks are defined and is even further diminished at the level where the politics of the institution itself are defined.
E. Implications of the new ideology: competition, self-interest, and the pacification of the professorate.
The success of education reform depends upon teachers "feeling" that their independence has increased because it is necessary to create a proprietary interest in a game they have not chosen to play. The business model also requires that teachers assume the ideology of competition, that they accept the new rules of the game at the same time they respect the limits of the official curriculum. As Hatcher (1994) has emphasized, market dynamics require the socialization of teachers so they accept the new values which demand abandoning an ethic of service for one of competitive self-interest. And, in his opinion, this change is associated with a transformation in the ideology of professionalism, where the emphasis is placed upon technical competence and market competition.The success of this type of political transformation depends upon how institutions of learning and professional culture are transformed, adopting systems of self-regulation. This is what Smyth (1993) has called participatory control. Ball has referred to this situation as distance management where "coercion is replaced by self-regulation giving the appearance of independence" (1993, p. 66). What this means is that since institutions need to run smoothly to carry out a coherent educational program and to continue to receive resources from the development and management structures can become a form of more strict and immediate control and impede any dissent among state, curriculum teachers (Ball, 1997). Giving the appearance of independence and providing a sense of pseudoparticipation in decision-making may stimulate teachers to work in the system, but it also makes them more docile.
F. More responsibility without power: the meritocracy of schools.
There is yet another political gain associated with educational reform: teachers have increased responsibility without augmenting their power, without gaining any control over the environment in which they work (Ball, 1993). This increased responsibility leads to a loss of prestige for the profession and greater criticism by society since teachers are blamed for their failure to assume the multiple social missions which the educational system has been given. Another result of their assumption of responsibility without power is the redefinition of meritocracy. As responsibility is passed on to schools, the principle of meritocracy becomes reconstituted in terms of the capacity of the schools themselves to accommodate the new needs of students and society. As the political system fails to remedy social problems, the responsibility is transferred to schools. In its classic definition, meritocracy was justified in terms of the assumption that differences between students were based upon the merit of the individual and not social differences. Now the success of students no longer depends just on individual merit but on the quality of the schools as well. It is our schools which will fail or be successful; they will be responsible for the ills of society, not state or national economic and social policies.
The panorama I have presented of the status of educational reform, which pretends to allow schools to function with independence is not very flattering, but this should not diminish the importance of what teachers are doing collectively to understand and meet the needs of students. The problem is not how individual schools carry out their projects and plans, but the context within which their work is defined and the dominant philosophy which guides education.
Ultimately, what this means is that current reforms in education continue to reveal internal paradoxes. For example, in principle, one can accept the fact that educational institutions have been conceded the right and obligation to think of themselves cooperatively in determining their educational goals and how to achieve them as a potential victory. In like manner, the recognition and legitimization of some measure of independence in defining teaching workloads must be interpreted as beneficial and as a source of greater professional satisfaction. Nevertheless, these supposed victories may merely be apparent victories if all they do is generate a process of discussion concerning the "hows" of teaching without the capacity of making decisions about "what" is taught or the ultimate goals of the process which have to be accepted. The political success of educational reform depends precisely upon teachers' acceptance of these limitations as victories. This is clearly the fundamental nucleus of post-Ford management: gain the support and loyalty of the workers by making them participants and contributors to the improvement of production methods without including them in the discussion of the objectives of the company, personnel policies, the allocation of resources, or the changes in labor force.
What is important to understand here is that autonomy does not mean more room to maneuver, but rather a greater capacity to intervene in the political decisions which define the responsibilities of schools as well as a greater role in determining how these new responsibilities are linked to social strategies leading to the common good of society.
One cannot talk about autonomy without a clear awareness of the social and political function of schools. This means not only a sociological understanding of how schools may contribute to the development of social equality, but also the understanding of how instructional programs should provide students with cultural and intellectual abilities which are equal and available to all.
In this sense, I don't believe one can defend a definition of autonomy, if, instead of being defined in terms of institutional, social and political terms, it becomes instead a way of ensuring a school's "identity" or a pedagogical "assembly-line" which is used to justify new forms of control by one sector of teachers over the thinking and teaching of others, or a new way of limiting opportunities for students and suppressing the voices of teachers. The dangers of this type of autonomy are not only those of privatization and consumerism, but also include all of those related to the pressure exerted by the groups in power inside the institution who attempt to impose a "consensus" which would exclude intellectual positions and approaches which are different, something which is more likely to limit liberal, progressive ideas in conservative faculties than the opposite.
Apple (1988) has observed that the flight of families toward models of free market choice is largely a product of the "professionalism" of teaching approaches that are excluded from understanding, of secretiveness, and the exclusion of community participation. But it is also true in our current context, where the definition of autonomy and the politics of choice are determined from above: the reaction of teachers may lead to conflict between personal and group interest, rather than to careful reflection about educational responsibilities and the reaffirmation of commitment to educational ideals. Autonomy can become an excuse for reactionary politics in schools, if, in the absence of collective action and political participation beyond those in isolated schools, one adds the conservative reaction of the professorate (justified by their own sense of autonomy which gives them the first right to make their own decisions) as a response to political forces which take away their authority while at the same time forcing them to assume risks and making them responsible for consequences over which they have no control.
I don't believe these consequences can be separated from the fact that theoretical debates about the definition of autonomy, as well as academic research on educational change, have concentrated their energies on formal procedures: how change is implemented, the capacity for individual and institutional development, and the processes by which the organizational structure may be changed (Hargreaves and Hopkins, 1991; Holly and Southworth, 1989). The price for all this has been the abandonment of pedagogical content, the examination of teaching practices and the ends to which they should be directed (Mitter, 1997). This has led to the legitimization of a concept of professorial autonomy as procedures without content and without a socio-political framework. As Elliot (1998) has been saying all along, in practice, research has become disengaged from the curriculum and from pedagogy, from a vision of an extended curriculum viewed as an open process of pedagogical experimentation, motivated by the aspiration of making the cultural resources of society accessible to all students. Once it has been dismissed as a mere formality, autonomy becomes a concept that excludes the authentic "autonomies," the contributions the professorate has the capacity to make, its intellectual capital, and the practical experience of those who [should] direct academic discourse. This shallow view of autonomy which converts a series of social and political compromises into mere procedural questions probably has much to do with the very tendency of academia to search for "a theory of change," of universal perspectives which go beyond ideological differences.
But here is where the error lies: we lose sight of the fact that reforms, innovations, and strategies for change are processes governed by political tension between diverse interests and groups, each with its own strategy and ideology for action. The idea of a school as an organic system for educational action and change can be understood only if, at the same time, we remember that it means that schools are not isolated from social, ideological, and political differences which are present in the schools themselves. And, further, an institution such as a school is itself a space of contradiction and social conflict. A school is a permanent space of conflict and it is absurd to hope to know how it should be changed. It is in this permanent conflictive space where the ideas about the pedagogical and social value of its mission should be determined through argument and discussion.
If we are to have an open and on-going debate about social and educational goals that transcends the academy, and if we aspire to a truly professional debate on those issues, then it is necessary to recognize the right of teachers to take an active role in the establishment and development of educational strategies, in the defense of educational ideas, in the analysis, and, if need be, in the denunciation of teaching conditions and their consequences. Perhaps the most urgent and necessary call for action is to support the development of a means of having a voice in the public and political discussions about education, lest they be directed by outside interests. But this will only be possible in a context where teachers become political activists and become involved as a social force representing ideas and educational programs. Our work as educators cannot be that of again developing the technology for another approach, but of articulating a movement for change. I hope that at this point my intent is clear. Social movements are born of concrete commitments, through the discussion of ideas by groups who seek to give meaning to their work and the practice of their profession by publicly expressing how their educational aspirations are ignored. They are ignored because they are trapped by conflicts which appear to be about education but seldom are.
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