This unique book explores school improvement policy - from its translation into national contexts and school networks to its implementation in leader and teacher practices in individual schools and classrooms within this network of schools and its impact on students' learning. It draws on multiple conceptual and theoretical resources to explore the complexities attached to a school improvement process in a network of schools in Australia. These conceptual and theoretical resources include discourse, practice, representation and network, concepts common to both policy research as well as studies of leadership and classroom practice. They lead to a more detailed understanding of the intersections between educational policy and intervention processes, and the complex reality of school processes and teaching practices. In the book we trace the implementation of school improvement policies through its multiple phases, levels and contexts. Our data-collection and analysis methods draw on a variety of perspectives in the way different players perceive their roles and the nature of the initiative and the ways in which these intersect. The research findings are used to seek productive approaches to school improvement that combine policy integrity with local flexibility. The book contributes to the school improvement literature through its exploration of tensions between global and systemic settings and local practices and histories.

Most developed nations measure the performance of teachers in audit evaluations of school productivity. Accountability metrics such as "teacher effectiveness" and "teacher quality" dominate evaluations of student outcomes and shape education policy. The Metrics of Teacher Effectiveness and Teacher Quality Research explores how these metrics distort analyses of student achievement, sideline broader contextual and systemic influences on learning, reinforce input-output analysis of schooling, and skew the educational debate. Focusing on recent phases of school education policy reform, this book utilizes qualitative data from classroom teacher participants to examine how and why issues of teacher effectiveness and teacher quality figure so prominently in policy reform and why pressing matters of social class, school funding, and broader contextual influences are downplayed. The authors use this information to suggest how teachers can develop their role as pedagogic experts in a highly scrutinized environment. This book will be of great interest to education academics and postgraduate students specializing in teacher performance, accountability and governance.

Most developed nations measure the performance of teachers in audit evaluations of school productivity. Accountability metrics such as "teacher effectiveness" and "teacher quality" dominate evaluations of student outcomes and shape education policy. The Metrics of Teacher Effectiveness and Teacher Quality Research explores how these metrics distort analyses of student achievement, sideline broader contextual and systemic influences on learning, reinforce input-output analysis of schooling, and skew the educational debate. Focusing on recent phases of school education policy reform, this book utilizes qualitative data from classroom teacher participants to examine how and why issues of teacher effectiveness and teacher quality figure so prominently in policy reform and why pressing matters of social class, school funding, and broader contextual influences are downplayed. The authors use this information to suggest how teachers can develop their role as pedagogic experts in a highly scrutinized environment. This book will be of great interest to education academics and postgraduate students specializing in teacher performance, accountability and governance.

This unique book explores school improvement policy - from its translation into national contexts and school networks to its implementation in leader and teacher practices in individual schools and classrooms within this network of schools and its impact on students' learning. It draws on multiple conceptual and theoretical resources to explore the complexities attached to a school improvement process in a network of schools in Australia. These conceptual and theoretical resources include discourse, practice, representation and network, concepts common to both policy research as well as studies of leadership and classroom practice. They lead to a more detailed understanding of the intersections between educational policy and intervention processes, and the complex reality of school processes and teaching practices. In the book we trace the implementation of school improvement policies through its multiple phases, levels and contexts. Our data-collection and analysis methods draw on a variety of perspectives in the way different players perceive their roles and the nature of the initiative and the ways in which these intersect. The research findings are used to seek productive approaches to school improvement that combine policy integrity with local flexibility. The book contributes to the school improvement literature through its exploration of tensions between global and systemic settings and local practices and histories.