Effective Schools: Key Principles and Quality Assurance
How Can We Help Disadvantaged Children Achieve High School Success?
The answers are within reach. Schools have demonstrated the ability to overcome environmental challenges and provide students with access to a quality education that fosters meaningful learning.
Effective Schools: A Qualitative Study
A comprehensive qualitative study examined a sample of schools that serve students living in poverty. These schools, in the latter half of the 1990s, achieved exceptional SIMCE scores, comparable to the best schools in the country. These are what we call “effective schools.”
What Defines an Effective School?
An effective school fosters the sustainable and holistic development of each and every student, exceeding expectations based on their initial performance and socio-economic background.
Three Key Principles of Effective Schools:
- Equity: Promoting the development of every student.
- Value-Added: Achieving results that surpass those of other schools serving similar student populations.
- Holistic Student Development: Fostering strong learning outcomes, personal growth, values formation, and social skills.
Institutional and Pedagogical Management
- Organization and Management Policy
- Characteristics of the educational project and its influence on educational delivery
- Teaching Decisions: Curriculum, teacher training, materials and resources, student and teacher selection and retention, teacher collaboration, planning and institutional assessment criteria, teacher assignments, etc.
- School Values and Mission
- Expectations of administrators and teachers regarding student learning and post-secondary education
- Professionalism and work ethic
Effective schools also prioritize:
- Planning and evaluation at all levels
- Intentional professional development for teachers
- Effective utilization of human and material resources
- Building symbolic capital: commitment, institutional pride, and a positive internal culture
- Open communication, trust, and a positive school climate
- Constructive conflict resolution
School-Family Partnerships
Effective schools recognize the importance of family involvement. While approaches may vary, these schools understand that building strong partnerships takes time and effort. Collaboration between families and schools manifests in various ways.
The School as the Unit of Intervention and Decision-Making
Interventions that are fragmented or narrowly focused (e.g., distribution of texts and resources, teacher training, extended school days, remedial courses, new curricula) may create a potentially favorable environment for student learning, but they are not sufficient on their own.
Realizing this potential requires collaborative efforts involving principals, teachers, students, and parents, activating many of the key factors identified in this study.
What is a Quality Assurance System for School Management?
It is a coordinated set of processes, phases, and result-oriented mechanisms that establish conditions for continuous improvement in both processes and outcomes within schools. It enables ongoing monitoring and evaluation. The primary focus of a Quality Assurance System is continuous improvement, which involves a systematic and ongoing review of school processes, leading to improvement actions that enhance learning outcomes for all students.
Quality Models and Their Role
Quality Models provide a framework for reflection and improvement within an organization. They raise important questions that prompt critical examination of internal practices. They do not offer ready-made answers or solutions. These questions arise from the identification of common factors found in successful educational organizations and institutional learning.
Framework for Good Teaching:
Key domains include preparation for teaching, creating a supportive learning environment, and professional responsibility.
System-Wide Quality Assurance
A Quality Assurance System emphasizes the school’s capacity for continuous improvement of processes and results. However, it also requires a framework that encompasses the entire system:
- Performance standards and areas of accountability for principals and teachers, as well as a framework for supervision, are established by the Ministry of Education.
- Local administrators are tasked with providing technical support to schools and managing educational quality at the community level.
- Universities and educational institutions play a role in establishing quality standards for initial teacher training, postgraduate training, research, and teaching.
Self-Evaluation: A Tool for Improvement
Self-evaluation involves a series of phases, mechanisms, and tools designed to diagnose the quality of management practices within a school. It helps identify areas for potential improvement in school management.
Characteristics of the Self-Evaluation Process:
- It is an internal process conducted by the educational institution itself.
- It is a process of critical and collaborative reflection on various school practices. It enables the prioritization of improvement actions based on processes and their interrelationships.
- The self-evaluation process, applicable to all types and forms of educational establishments, serves to diagnose the state of internal practices and assess outcomes. It requires the active participation of all members of the school community.
Management vs. Leadership
Management:
- Sets measurable goals
- Ensures predictable performance
- Controls through procedures
- Focuses on efficiency
- Addresses current challenges
- Emphasizes cost-effectiveness
- “Doing things right”
Leadership:
- Communicates high expectations
- Develops potential
- Guides based on principles
- Seeks opportunities for improvement
- Anticipates future needs
- Focuses on effectiveness
- “Doing the right things”
Future leaders need:
- Time for reflection
- Opportunities to monitor and analyze their own performance
- A commitment to expanding their knowledge base through research and reading, drawing inspiration from the most prestigious professions
- Opportunities for secondments and exchanges to foster innovation and rejuvenation, and to continuously redefine their role and its significance
Key Takeaways:
Quality Assurance System for School Management: A coordinated set of processes, phases, and result-oriented mechanisms that establish conditions for continuous improvement in school processes and outcomes, enabling ongoing monitoring and evaluation.
School Management Model: Quality Models provide a framework for reflection and improvement within an organization. They raise important questions that prompt critical examination of internal practices and facilitate the analysis of institutional management and associated results in a coherent and systemic manner.
Self-Assessment Guide: A tool designed to support the self-evaluation process within educational institutions, enabling them to assess their practices and establish standards. The Guide is based on the structure of the School Management Quality Model.
Characteristics of Effective Schools:
- Professional leadership, shared vision, and goals
- A conducive learning environment with a focus on teaching and learning
- Positive reinforcement and explicitly high expectations
- Monitoring of progress and a clear understanding of student rights and responsibilities
- Purposeful teaching
- A learning organization (embracing continuous improvement)
- Strong home-school collaboration