Tasmanian Education - a better future

Early next year Tasmania is likely to have a new Minister for Education. The Minister will promise a better future for Tasmanian education. If this is to be achieved, the new Minister will need to avoid the traps into which the current and recent Minsters and senior bureaucrats have fallen. So the key question is...

“By what method?” (Deming)

Core Method:

• Operate consistently on the basis of (explicit, agreed) principles (Covey,... Webb)

Some principles for consideration

     Core goals: Success & well-being for all now and in the future

Use low cost, low risk (safe-fail), potentially high return initiatives (Snowden)
Maximise improvement while minimising change 

Provide principle-based authority and responsibility - shared accountability
Address the current constraint (Goldratt)
Make things easier first

Adopt a common “job description” for all involved; staff, students, families… e.g., 

o       Know what's happening

o       Work with others to improve what is happening

o       Make it easier for the next person to do well  (Webb)

Rationale

Our knowledge, actions, arrangements, relationships and organisation emerge from (everyday) interactions (complexity theory)

"If you understand the principles... you can choose your own method" (Gaping Void)

A principle-based approach is sustainable

Consistent sharing of authority and responsibility

Sound principles are widely applicable (DoE, other schools and services...)

Sound principles change only slowly co-evolving with the context
A well understood set of principles provides coherence

Moves the focus from driving to enabling

Attracts minimal tampering and disruption

Promotes initiative and commitment

Minimises cost

- Enables and promotes local and system-wide initiatives

- Promotes action learning and continuous improvement

- Builds and attracts social capital

- Flexible and adaptive - provides basis for customisation

- Achieves consistency without requiring uniformity

- Responsive to opportunities

- More with less

It works

I know the above works - I have lived it at Riverside Primary School (1988-2000). And current technology makes the above manageable and scalable at a system level.
Big Picture schools and the Coalition of Essential Schools are other  great examples of very successful principle based  school systems

Common recent traps that can be avoided using a principle-based approach

Confusing drivers and enablers (eg, Naplan with delayed results)

Confusing plans, policies and standards with actual performance
Confusing change with improvement

Confusing additional resources with improvement

Confusing structural change with improvement

Relying on command and control management (compliance)

Ignoring the real starting point – the individual student in his/her current context

[Note: There is nothing wrong with programs, plans, policies, standards, resources... Indeed they can be very useful, if implemented in the right context using sound principles. They should not be assumed to be drivers (causal) despite their successful use elsewhere. At best, they may be useful interim enablers in some contexts.]