Schooling - symptoms and causes

Creating a linear view

When faced with something challenging and complex, our natural inclination is to treat it as if it was linear. And under certain conditions this can be useful. The danger is that we may begin to confuse our "linear models" reality. 

Schooling is a complex endeavour - one that is often complicated and uncertain, especially in relation to the processes, participants and the contexts in which it occurs.

 Consider the following simple linear model of schooling:

The model is a reasonable summary of the commonly held view of how the school system works. Because of its general nature the model "works" despite the variations that that may apply. For example, government policy and funding varies considerably from school to school and government to government.

Cause and effect

In terms of time and activity the general flow of cause and effect is from left to right. Since most students are children they tend to have little or no responsibility for the effectiveness of the system. This "justifies" the widespread use of of student achievement (effect = learning outcomes) as an measure of school performance as cause.

Also cause and effect can be remote in both time and place - a cause may not be directly related to a effect (see 5 Whys). For example, the model does not indicate the extent to which government policies and funding enable/constrain the capacity of schools to provide teaching matched to the needs of their students in real-time.

Too simplistic

The model is too simplistic in that it does not show any feedback loops nor does it give any indication of strength of flows between its elements. 

Nor does the model show all key participants many of which play an important role in the effectiveness or otherwise of the system.

A useful starting point
The model is quite inadequate to properly explain how schooling happen. On the other hand it does represent the general discourse quite well and hence could be provide a useful starting point for the development of a systems approach to school improvement. And a systems approach is needed to better inform decision making at all levels.

Caveat:  "All models are wrong but some are useful (George Box)"