The Law of Unintended Consequences: The `Real' Cost of Top-Down Reform

Author: Fink D.

Source: Journal of Educational Change, Volume 4, Number 2, June 2003 , pp. 105-128(24)

Publisher: Springer

Abstract:

In most jurisdictions around the world, governments, in the name of economic competitiveness, have imposed comprehensive and quite dramatic changes on state schools. Most changes require a more centralized and rigorous curriculum for pupils, a plethora of accountability measures and mandatory in-service for teachers, and carefully defined and more onerous responsibilities for school leaders. The province of Ontario is no different. Since 1995, its educational system has experienced quite revolutionary changes – all instituted with `break-neck' speed. At the same time most schools in Ontario are employing internal change strategies to address these outside pressures. These change forces have coalesced to redefine the work and lives of teachers and school leaders in many intended and unintended ways. There is a substantial literature on both external and internal change forces, but very little has been written about the conjunction of these change forces with the personal side of change for teachers and leaders. Based on two studies undertaken by the International Centre for Educational Change at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto, this paper examines the `unintended consequences' of these change forces on the teachers and principals of one secondary school in Ontario, Canada. The teachers and leaders of Lord Byron High School are not averse to change and are generally quite content to do whatever is in the best interests of their students. The school has a long history of innovation and change and a reputation for attending to a wide diversity of student needs. Through the use of multiple conceptual lenses, this paper addresses the `unintended consequences' of systemic change to the school and its teachers and principals. At a time when teacher shortages and teacher morale are growing problems for many educational jurisdictions, this investigation will point to an urgent need to build better bridges of understanding between policy makers and policy implementers, and for researchers to provide research that is more sensitive to the work and lives of `real' people in `real' schools.

Language: English

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: 142 Marigold Court, Ancaster, Ontario L9G 3M3, Canada. E-mail: dfink@interlynx.net

Publication date: 2003-06-01

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